Besides being very intelligent, the Sea-Dayaks are wonderfully energetic and hard-working. They are thrifty, eager to become well-off, are honest, and have few vices; but they lack channels for their energy. Regular employment in their own country by the establishment of industries, such as plantations and mines, would do more for their redemption from savagery than years of labour among them by officials and missionaries. At present, their energies are almost entirely confined to working jungle-produce; though to seek this, they have now to go into the far interior, and this is often the cause of their getting into trouble with remote and wild tribes; they go also to North Borneo, Dutch Borneo, Sumatra, the Malay peninsula, and even as far as Mindanau, in the Philippines. These countries they visit in large numbers, and abroad their honesty and energy have gained them a good character. Many Dayaks place the money they have saved with the Chinese on interest; some have erected shops, which they let for rent; but with most the prevailing idea of riches is an accumulation of old jars and brassware. There is no man keener on the dollar than the Dayak, or keener upon retaining it when gained; and there is no better labourer, but the employer of Dayak labour must be tactful and just. As they become more prosperous they discover for themselves that it is more conducive to their welfare not only to be on good terms with the Government, but at peace with their neighbours. [Illustration: SARAWAK RANGERS IN MUFTI.] The Dutch in the Kapuas have experienced considerable difficulty in dealing with the many tribes of different races, especially with the Sea-Dayaks, who inhabit that vast river, which runs past the heads of the Batang Lupar and the principal left-hand branches of the Rejang river, but they have made some advance in the pacification of these people, though their methods are very different, far less energetic and much slower, than those of the Rajah. The highlands, the spine of Borneo, along which runs the frontier, is no mountain ridge, but a broken upland district, that forms the watershed of the great rivers of Sarawak on one side, and the still greater rivers of Dutch Borneo on the other. It is a region difficult of access from the coast on both sides, and long after the Dayaks living lower down had become peaceful, turbulence and internecine warfare remained chronic in the interior. And this was the more difficult to suppress because the aggressors had but to step across the boundary, where they could not be pursued by the forces of the Rajah. This was perfectly well understood by these savages, and was taken advantage of repeatedly, and the efforts of the Rajah were in consequence continually thwarted.