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About three days' journey up the Pongole river lies the district of Songo, with a population of twenty-five thousand souls, Dayers, and a few Chinese, under a Malay and an independent prince.
Matan belongs to the rajah of that name: he had the title of Rajah of Sukadana, until driven out of the latter place by the Dutch, seventeen years ago. There are ten thousand Dayers in this district, and a few Chinese and Malays.
There is a walk up to the town about eight miles from the mouth of the river; here the fishing-stakes nearly extend across the river, beside two miserable forts, mounting each five or six pounders, to defend the river. The population is seven thousand men, Malays, Buguese, and Dayers, and about two thousand Chinese. Formerly the territory of Mompava extended as far as 1° north latitude.
About Pontiana and Sambas they are called Dayers; at Benjarmasing, Biajus; at Borneo Proper, Moruts; farther northward, Orang Idan. Their original history is as much enveloped in obscurity as that of the Monocaboes of Malaya, the Rejangs and Battas of Sumatra, or the Togals of the Philippines.
The population amounts to twelve thousand Dayers and Malays, and thirty thousand Chinese. Under the head mineralogy we have given a detailed account of the principal sources of its industry. The trade here is much the same as at Pontiana, and susceptible of a tenfold increase: it is every way superior to the latter for the capital of a large mart.
Iron, gold, tin, and diamonds abound here; also much wax, pepper, rattans, garu, and about two piculs of the finest birds'-nests, which sell at twenty-eight dollars the catty at Pontiana. Most of the trade finds its way to Pontiana, Benjar, or Java, in prows. The population is about ten thousand Dayers, &c.
Some accounts make the population of this district great, near fifty thousand Dayers, Malays, and Chinese; but perhaps half the number may be nearer the truth; these are chiefly employed on the gold mines, and in producing food for the miners; these mines, however, do not produce that quantity which they might under Chinese management.
From the slovenly manner in which the diamonds are sought for by the Dayers, they seldom collect them of a size exceeding three or four carats weight each. When rough, the Landa diamond has a white or yellow hue; but none are found of that inky and flinty tinge, so valuable in some of the Golconda diamonds.
There are at least thirty thousand people, principally Dayers, employed on the mines and agriculture; it belongs to a Malay prince, raised to that musnud twenty-five years ago by the Dutch, through the agency of the present Sultan of Pontiana: here also much gold is produced; and much more might be had under proper management.
There are thirty thousand Chinese in the Sambas districts, and they feel themselves strong enough to oppose or evade this tax; it hence becomes a perpetual contest between greedy extortion on the one side, and avaricious chicane on the other; there are beside about twelve thousand Malays and Dayers.
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