Its natural wealth is simply enormous.

It is covered throughout the greater part of its extent with virgin forest containing magnificent stands of the best timber.

Damar, a very valuable varnish gum, is abundant in its mountains.

Much of the so-called "Singapore cane," so highly prized by makers of rattan and wicker furniture, comes from its west coast.

It is a well-watered island, and its level plains, which receive the wash from its heavily forested mountains, have a soil of unsurpassed fertility in which cocoanuts come to bearing in five years or even less.