Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof192018871889roya).pdf/276

 eleven years after the Hudson's Bay Charter, and twelve. years after the date of Mr. article, Queen granted a Charter of Incorporation to the British North Borneo Company, which, by confirming the grants and concesssions acquired from the Sultans of Brunai and Sulu, constitutes the Company the sovereign ruler over a territory of 31,000 square miles, and, as the permission to trade, included in the Charter, has not been taken advantage of, the British North Borneo Company now does actually exist "as a Territorial Power" and not "as a Trading Company."

Not only this, but the example has been followed by Prince , and German Companies, on similar lines, have been incorporated by their Government on both coasts of Africa and in the Pacific; and another British Company, to operate on the Niger River Districts, came into existence by Royal Charter in July, 1886.

It used to be by no means an unusual thing to find an educated person ignorant not only of Borneo's position on the map, but almost of the very existence of the island which, regarding Australia as a continent, and yielding to the claims recently set up by New Guinea, is the second largest island in the world, within whose limits could be comfortably pack- ed England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, with a sea of dense jungle around them, as bas pointed out. Every school-board child now, however, knows better than this.

Though Friar is said to have visited it about 1322, and, of Bologna, between 1503 and 1507, the existence of this great island, variously estimated to be from 263,000 to 300,000 square miles in extent, did not become generally known to Europeans until, in 1518, the Portuguese touched at the city of Brunai. He was followed in 1521 by the Spanish expedition, which under the leadership of the celebrated Portuguese circum- navigator, had discovered the Philippines, where, on the island of Mactan, their leader was killed in April, 1520. An account of the voyage was written by, an Italian volunteer in the expedition, who accompanied the fleet to Brunai after death, and published a glowing