It is calculated that, one year with another, at least five hundred Chinese return in the junks to their native country with a competency. Several have been known to take away one thousand _bengkals_ of gold, many from three to five hundred, but very few return before they have cleared a competency of two thousand dollars, or from one hundred to one hundred and twenty _tahil_ of gold. This goes partly in gold; though they prefer investing a part of it in tin from Banka, opium, and other articles. Say, however, that they remit one half in gold, five hundred men, at one thousand dollars each, will give five hundred thousand dollars, which added to the small family remittances, accounts for an amount exceeding one million of dollars, or 250,000_l._ This calculation, however, seems to be far within the mark, and gives less by one half than what is usually stated to be remitted to China from the Bornean mines, which has been estimated at a loose guess at two millions of dollars, or 500,000_l._ A further amount of not less than the value of a million of dollars (250,000_l._) is supposed to find its way annually to Western India, and principally to Bengal, _viâ_ Batavia, Malacca, and Pinang, for the purchase of opium and piece goods. The surplus enriches Java and some of the other islands, in exchange for salt, tobacco, coarse cloths, &c. As the mines are worked with so little expence of machinery, the funds necessary for commencing an undertaking of the kind are small; and as the property of the soil belongs to the first occupant, almost every Chinese would become a proprietor, but from the mode by which their services are, in the first instance, secured by the council of proprietors or kongsis. A parcel of half-starved Chinese, enchanted with the prospect of wealth on the golden shores of Borneo, readily find a passage in the annual junks that sail from the mother-country to Borneo, at ten dollars a head. On their arrival, being unable to pay the passage money, and the tax of a dollar per head, established by the native authority, while their immediate wants of food, clothing, and habitation, are urgent and imperious, the proprietors of the mines find it easy to engage their services for three or four years. In some other cases, agents are employed to obtain men from China, on stipulated agreements, to work for a number of years; the usual rate of payment to the miners so engaged is not considered to average less than five Spanish dollars a month. No sooner, however, are these engagements concluded with their masters, than a number of them club together with the funds they have been able to save, and commence a new mine upon their joint account, in a few years acquiring a competency to return to their native country.