Borneo, next in size to New Guinea, is a noble island, divided into two nearly equal parts by the equator, and traversed through its whole length by magnificent chains of mountains, which end in three branches at the Java Sea. Beautiful rivers flow from them to the plains, and several of these spring from a spacious lake on the table-land in the interior, among the peaks of Keni-Balu, the highest point of the island. Diamonds, gold, and antimony are among its minerals; gums, gutta percha, precious woods, and all kinds of spices and tropical fruits are among its vegetable productions. Situate in the centre of a vast archipelago, and in the direct line of an extensive and valuable commerce, it will in the course of time become the seat of a great nation, whose civilization and prosperity will hand down to posterity the name of the enterprising, philanthropic Sir James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, with the highest honour to which man can aspire. The climate is healthy, tempered by sea-breezes, and in some parts even European; and its appendage, the small island of Labuan, rich in coal, is happily situate in the route of steam-vessels between India and China. A volume might be written on the beauty and riches of the Indian Archipelago. Many of the islands are hardly known; the interior of the greater number has never been explored, so that they offer a wide field of discovery to the enterprising traveller, and they are now of easier access since the seas have been cleared of pirates by the exertions of the Honourable Captain Keppel, and other officers of Her Majesty’s Navy. They have become of much importance since our relations with China have been extended, on which account surveys of their coasts have been already made, and are going on, under the able direction of the Hydrographer of the Navy, Sir F. Beaufort. The great intertropical islands of the Pacific, likewise other large islands, as Ceylon and Madagascar, in the Indian Seas, which by the way do not differ in character from the preceding, are really continents in miniature, with their mountains and plains, their lakes and rivers; and in climate they vary, like the main land, with the latitude, only that continental climates are more extreme both as to heat and cold. It is a singular circumstance, arising from the instability of the crust of the earth, that all the smaller tropical pelasgic islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans are either volcanic or coralline, except New Caledonia and the Seychelles; and it is a startling fact, that in most cases where there are volcanos the land is rising by slow and almost imperceptible degrees above the ocean, whereas there is every reason to believe that those vast spaces, studded with coral islands or atolls, are actually sinking below it, and have been for ages.[76]