Borneo Herald unc Official Gazette, @ copy of which has been sent us by' Messrs. Alfred Dent & Ca., opens with the commencement of an account by Mr. S. B. J. Skertehly of his mineral explorations in the country. There is little that is new in this instalment, though it is interesting to be told that the country is blest, among other things, with lizards some fifteen feet long. The general notes are nearly all of very local interest, and we notice that there seems to be still a gued deal of feeling in the colony as to Rajah Brooke's annexation of the Limbang. It involves, we are told, the question as to the rights of protected states, and their legal powers or otherwise to annex each other's territory, without reference to their imperial suzerain. The building of houses and hotels goes on in Sandakan, as though the colonists believed in the certainty of more prosperity than is indicated by the current prices of the shares of the various Hongkong companies connected with North Borneo. Nev Stores are continually being opened, too, in Sandakan, H.M.S, Wanderer, Captain Gifford, has been doing good work, surveying the principal harbours in the colony. To those wko thought that the story we printed recently of Sergeant Bungin was a fiction, we commend the following extract from the Echoes of the Month":—Tam sure that all the readers of the Herald who knew Sergeant Bungin will be sorry indeed tu hear that he has joined the great majority." This gallant' Dyak non-commissioned officer was in charge of the interior station of Penungah, near which place he was lately surprised' and killed together with two Dyak police and some Brunei traders, by one of the inland tribe which tribe is'at present not quite ascertained. Captain BE. A. Barnett, Commandant, left for Penungah in the steam launch Osprey on June 18th and we hope soon to hear news of his expedition, He will doubtless give a good account of the murderers on his return. The Constabulary have lost in Sergeant Bungin a most valuable non-commissioned officer.
The following extract from the Sandakan report for May from the Principal Medical Obicer is not very cheering:—The health of the town during the month was decidedly below the average, dysentery, diarrhoea and den-beri being particularly prevalent. The deaths registered during the month—57, as compared with 36 and 39 in the two previous months—included 31 Chinese, 21 Mala; 4 Indians, 1 Japanese and 1 Portugues The cases of death registered were: Fever 8, dysentery 11, beri-beri 11, dropsy then-beri) 6, phthisis 4: diseases of the digestive system, anemia, heart disease, and developmental diseases each old age, puerperal disease and poisoning each one: cause unknown, 2.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.