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This province has the following sea-ports in it, viz., Kimanis, Benome, Papal, and Pangalat, each governed by Orang Kayas, which still continue to send their produce to Borneo Proper, consisting of ten piculs of birds'-nests annually, two hundred piculs of wax, two piculs of camphor, and cassia, sago, betel-nut, and pepper, as much as required; tripan, camphor-oil, and rice; with fruit, fish, and provisions, of sorts which are cheap and plentiful.
The whole produce of the gold mines of Sukadana is said to be annually about twenty piculs, or a million of dollars, at twenty-five dollars a bunkal; but no calculation of this sort can possibly be correct.
The fire, when I heaped it, was as hot as any could be. By dawn I had persuaded myself that it was a dream. No footprints in the path, though I mentioned a shower before. At sunrise, the kapala's men came down the path, little chaps in black mediæval armor made of petroleum tins, and coolies carrying piculs of stuff that I wanted.
Here much grain is produced, one hundred piculs of black birds'-nests, two hundred piculs of wax, some gold, pepper, camphor, &c., but the tin-mines, before mentioned, are utterly neglected. There are several other towns upon each of the rivers along this coast; the principal ones are Salat, Bacalo, Pasir, and Baram.
Opium came from all parts of the province and went in all directions, that portion sent to the Opium Regie at Tonkin sometimes being close to three thousand piculs, and the quantity going by land into China being very much greater. Yün-nan opium was known at Canton and Chin-kiang in 1863.
Alert and curious, these Yankee traders explored the narrow streets of Nagasaki, visited temples, were handsomely entertained by officers and merchants, and exchanged their wares in the marketplace. They were as much at home, no doubt, as when buying piculs of pepper from a rajah of Qualah Battoo, or dining with an elderly mandarin of Cochin China.
In regard to terms, these were made to depend upon the exertions of the savages in our absence. They were to receive a stipulated quantity of blue beads, knives, red cloth, and so forth, for every certain number of piculs of the biche de mer which should be ready on our return.
It produces in one year two hundred piculs of wax, fifty piculs of tortoise-shell, ten piculs of best camphor, and as much inferior; ten piculs of birds'-nests, at ten dollars the catty; 1st camphor, twenty-five; rattans, one dollar per picul; tortoise-shell, one dollar the catty; wax, twenty the picul. Articles required are the same as at Borneo Proper.
The quantity of gold that finds its way to Pontiana is annually from three to four piculs. The imports there consist of opium, iron, steel, salt, rice, hardware, cutlery, blue and white gurras, salampories, Java cloths, gunpowder, beside China produce of all possible descriptions.
The articles mentioned were, on examination, found to consist of: "Thirty big deer; five thousand musk deer; fifty roebuck deer; twenty Siamese pigs; twenty boiled pigs; twenty 'dragon' pigs; twenty wild pigs; twenty home-salted pigs; twenty wild sheep; twenty grey sheep; twenty home-boiled sheep; twenty home-dried sheep; two hundred sturgeon; two hundred catties of mixed fish; live chickens, ducks and geese, two hundred of each; two hundred dried chickens, ducks and geese; two hundred pair of pheasants and hares; two hundred pair of bears' paws; twenty catties of deer tendons; fifty catties of beche-de-mer; fifty deer tongues; fifty ox tongues; twenty catties of dried clams; filberts, fir-cones, peaches, apricots and squash, two hundred bags of each; fifty pair of salt prawns; two hundred catties of dried shrimps; a thousand catties of superfine, picked charcoal; two thousand catties of medium charcoal; twenty thousand catties of common charcoal; two piculs of red rice, grown in the imperial grounds; fifty bushels of greenish, glutinous rice; fifty bushels of white glutinous rice; fifty bushels of pounded non-glutinous rice; fifty bushels of various kinds of corn and millet; a thousand piculs of ordinary common rice.
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