Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1893 — An Unpleasant Country to Live In. [ARTICLE]

An Unpleasant Country to Live In.

The northern half of the Island of Borneo is the queerest and most unsatisfactory place to live in that one can imagine. It is a land of constant recurring phenomena, where cyclones are frequent and deluges of water very common. The vegetation in that half is very fine, but in all probability the wildest and most tangled on earth—not even excepting that of Africa. The cause of all the trouble is the shallow condition of the sea north of It, great shoals of sand existing a few miles out which extend along its entire northern length. Thq,se shoals are covered by a depth of water not over five feet deep. The constantly recurring winds that blow in that climate change to hurricanes and sweep the

smaller islands of all visible life. When such a storm strikes the sand shoals north of Borneo it sweeps up the shallow salt water in its course and drenches the island with it. Often it gathers up sand, great masses of it,, from the clear-swept shoal and whirls it for high over the island, carrying it into the island and scattering it everywhere. The work of these storms does not always end with that. Entire shoals of fish, of all sizes, have been swept up time and again by the fierce wind with the water and sand and scattered about Borneo. In some places the ground would be literally covered with fish, enough to supply a heavy population for weeks. But such luck is no reparation for the evil the winds do, and consequently the northern half will never be inhabited by those who value their lives.—St. Louis GlobeDemocrat.