The Gardens of the Sun

The Gardens of the Sun - A naturalist's journal on the mountains and in the forests and swamps of Borneo and the Sulu Archipelago

This record of a time spent among the less well-known portions of Malaysia may be interesting to those whom the goddess of travel has wooed in vain, as perchance to some of those birds of passage to whom the islands and continents of the world are as well known as the church-spires and mile-stones of their own land. In the islands of the Malay archipelagothe Gardens of the SunNature is ever beautiful, and man, although often strikingly primitive, is hospitable to the stranger, and not often vile. A voyage of a few weeks brings us to these beauty-spots of the Eastern Seasto an always-afternoon kind of climatesince they are blessed with the heat and glory of eternal summerto a place where winter is unknownmonsoon-swept islands oasis-like basking in a warm and shallow desert of sea. Warmed by perpetual sunshine, deluged by copious rains, and thrilled by electricity, they are really enormous conservatories of beautiful vegetationgreat Zoological Gardens inhabited by rare birds and curious animals. In these sunny garden scenes man is the Adam of a [viii]modern Eden, primitive in habits and numerically insignificant; he has scarcely begun his battle with things inanimate, or his struggle for existence as it is known to us. At home we have man as in some sort the master of Nature, but in the Bornean forests Nature still reigns supreme. Here with us man wrests his sustenance from herthere she is lavish in the bestowal of gifts unsought. The immediate future of an island larger in area than Great Britain cannot fail to be of interest to political thinkers, especially to those who belong to the scientific frontier school. Malay Government is weaker now than it was even at the time Sir James Brooke received Sarawak, and the aid of our own Government is now being sought in favour of the cession of the whole of Northern Borneofrom Gaya Bay to Sabucoto a public company! Unaided by England, Borneo seems likely to suffer in two wayseither to be annexed by the Government of Manilla, or else to fall into the hands of the promoters of public companies. The Sulu Archipelago has already thus lost its independence; and the question which now suggests itself is, What will England do with her foster-colony, Borneo the Beautiful? ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 61599
Author: Burbidge, F. W. (Frederick William)
Release Date: Mar 11, 2020
Format: eBook
Language: English