A descriptive dictionary of the Indian islands & adjacent countries

Preface

It was my first intention to publish a second edition of a work which I gave to the public six-and-thirty years ago, but, on mature consideration, I have come to the conclusion that a subject so multifarious as a general description of the Indian and Philippine Archipelagos would be most conveniently and compendiously treated by an alphabetic ^ arrangement. The result is the present work ; the fruit of seven years' additional local experience of India, and of a study of the subject con- ^ tinued with little interruption from the publication of the History of the Indian Archipelago, in 1820. Some of the articles are meagre from want ^ of materials, and others, without doubt, imperfect and unsatisfactory ^ from defective knowledge or skill in the writer ; but, upon the whole, the book will probably be found the most comprehensive and accessible which ^ has yet been published on the extensive region of which it treats, while it *| will, at all events, lay the foundation for a more perfect superstructure by those who may follow the Author in the same direction.

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A DESCRIPTIVE DICTIONARY,

ETC. ETC.

ABACA ABAlTO-ABANGr

ABACA. This is the Musa textilis of Botanists, a species of banana, a native of the Philippine and of some of the more northerly of the Molucca Islands. On account of its filaments it is extensively cultivated in the first of these, particularly in the provinces of Camarines, and Albay in the great island of Luzon, and in several of the Bisaya Islands, or range lying south and east of it. The name abaca belongs to the Tagala and Bisaya tongues, but is not the generic name of the banana in either of them. By the Spaniards of the Philippines the plant is known under the name of arbol de canamo, or the hemp tree, from which, no doubt, is derived our own commercial one for the filament " Manilla hemp." The abaca, like other bananas, is propagated easily by the suckers which spring up at the roots of the old plant when it dies. A measure of 5000 square yards of land will grow 1000 abaca plants. It grows to the height of 13 or 14 feet exclusive of the leaves. The fruit is small, of a disagreeable taste, and not edible. When it is about to form, the plant is cut down, and the stem being cut open longitudinally, is found to contain a great quantity of filaments of various thickness, and usually a couple of yards in length. These are extracted, hackled after the manner of flax, and then sorted. Some of the finest are as slender as a hair of the head, and these are reserved for the manufacture of cloth, while the coarser are appropriated for cordage, from the smallest rope to a ship's cable. In the husbandry of the Philippines, the abaca is of more importance than cotton. "When or how its culture came to be first introduced is not known. In his enumeration of the plants of the Philippines on their first discovery in 1521, Pigafetta does not include the abaca, although he mentions cotton and the esculent banana; but it is possible enough that so peculiar a production may have escaped his notice. Dampier, in his account of Mindano, where he resided for six months in 1686, not only mentions the textile banana, but gives an ample and accurate description of the mode of extracting the thread from the trunk. " As the fruit of this tree," says he, " is of great use for food, so is the body no less serviceable to make clothes, but this I never knew till I came to this island. The ordinary people of Mindano do wear no other cloth." After this follows the account of the process of extracting the fibres, which is well worth perusal. The Dutch have of late years introduced the culture of the abaca into the northern or volcanic peninsula of Celebes, where it seems to be indigenous, and with a fair prospect of success. There is a large exportation of abaca in the forms of raw hemp and cloth, but especially of cordage, from Manilla.

ABANGr. Pulo-abang, the name of two islets of the vast group, of various sizes, extending from the coast of the Malay peninsula to that of Sumatra at the eastern entrance of the Straits of Malacca. They lie about 30 miles to the north of the equator.

ABANGr- ABANGr . The name of a mountain of Sumatra towards its western side, within the territory of Achin, and in north latitude 4° 20', computed to be 10,200 feet high above the level of the sea. — The word abang signifies " elder brother," but also from the Javanese "red."

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ABRA

ABRA ; or, at full length, Centro del Abra, one of the thirty-four provinces into which the government of the Philippines is divided, and one of the twenty of these contained in the main island of Luson. The name is taken from the river which runs through it. It extends between north latitude 16° 6' and 17° 50', and is divided from the neighbouring provinces by high ranges of mountains, to the north from Ilocos-norte ; to the east from Cagayan and Nueva Viscaya ; to the south from Pangasinan, and to the west from Ilocos-sur. The whole province is mountainous and rugged, a branch of the great Cordillera of Caraballos passing through the centre of it. It has, however, a few fertile valleys. In the mountains, metallic ores, gypsum, and coal are said to exist. Deep forests of tall trees cover most of the province, some of which yield strong and durable timber. Game abounds, the most remarkable of which are the buffalo, the hog, deer, and the common fowl. In 1849, the total population subject to the Spanish rule was 28,971, of which 42 only were Spanish, and 122 mestizo Chinese. Of these no more than 3763 were assessed to the poll-tax, which yielded only 37,633 reals of plate. The mountains of Abra are inhabited by the following wild and generally unconverted and unsubdued tribes — the Ibalaos, the Guimanes, the Busaos, the Igorrotes, and the Tinguianes. These are all distinct from each other in language and manners, and are supposed by some Spanish writers, although doubtless erroneously, to be various crosses of the brown and negro races.

The first Catholic mission was established in Abra in 1698, twenty-eight years after the arrival of the Spaniards in Luzon, but it was not until 1720, or a century and a half after that event, that the conversion and subjugation of the inhabitants began in earnest ; and, as elsewhere in the Philippines, the merit of both works belongs chiefly to the priesthood. It was only in 1846 that Abra was erected into a distinct and independent province, previous to which it had formed a part of Ilocos-sur.

ABRA. The river which gives name to the province just described. It has its source in the highest part of the western branch of the Cordillera of Caraballos, which terminates on the west coast in the promontory of Namagpacan. After passing through the province of Abra, it enters that of Ilocos-sur, receiving in its passage through both, several affluents. In the last-named province it divides into three branches, and thus disembogues on the western coast. In its course it irrigates much land, and is navigable for the light boats of the natives up to the elevated tracts.

ACHIN. The name of an independent state, occupying a small part of the north-western end of Sumatra, being the nearest portion of the Archipelago to continental India and Western Asia. The native name is correctly Acheh, but this word, which means " a wood-leech," does not, although naturalised, belong to any of the Malayan languages, but to the Telinga or Telugu of the Coromandel coast. The Portuguese, to whom the country was first known, corrupted the native term into Achem, and hence the Dutch Atsjin, and our own Achen, Acheen, and Achin, Europeans invariably laying the accent on the last instead of the first syllable. The town of Achin, which, with the valley in which it is situated, is the chief seat of the Achinese population, lies in north latitude 5° 56', and east longitude 95° 26'. The boundaries of the state have oscillated with its power, but its nominal ones are Barus on the western coast, and Batubara on the eastern. Its real dominion is at present confined to the narrow valley just mentioned. When the most extensive, indeed, it never comprised more than a small portion of the great island in which it is situated. The valley of Achin is bounded by mountainous land ; and one mountain, called by Europeans " Golden Mount,'' but by the natives Ya Murah (the generous or bountiful), rises to the height of 5000 feet, being visibJe at sea in clear weather at the distance of 92 miles. It bounds the valley to the north-east, its base reaching to within five or six miles of the town. The valley itself is narrow, and so low as to be partially inundated in the season of the rains. A small river runs through it, which falls into the sea by several mouths. The mountains are as usual in these latitudes covered with forests of tall trees, in which are found the usual wild animals of Sumatra.

The roadstead of Achin, formed by the main land and several islands, is safe for shipping at all seasons, by changing their berths according to the winds. The town, now a poor place, is situated on both banks of the river, about two miles from the sea, and is accessible by the main branch for small native vessels. The Achinese are distinguished from the other Sumatrans by their taller persons and darker com-

ACHIJST plexions, ascribed to a large intermixture with the natives of continental India. Although generally speaking the Malay language, their own is a peculiar tongue. The animals domesticated by them are the elepuant, the buffalo, the ox, and goat, with a few sheep brought from India, as their Sanscrit name, " bin," implies. Their poultry are contined to the common fowl and duck. All the fruits common to the western Malayan countries are cultivated in abundance.

That the soil, however, is not fertile, in so far as concerns the most important part of human food — corn — is sufficiently testified by the fact that it has at all times been an article of importation. The celebrated Dampier, who visited Achin in 1688, and whose account of it continues even now to be the most full and accurate we possess, observes that the Achinese had of late, encouraged by the example of the Indians, who in consequence of a great famine on the Coromandel coast had been largely imported as slaves, commenced the cultivation of rice, but that the consumption was chiefly furnished by importation. He quotes the prices of this grain as fluctuating between 12s. and 70s. a quarter, a range of prices affording sure evidence of a sterile soil and a rude agriculture and commerce.

The population of Achin, confining this to the proper Achinese race, can only be guessed at. Mr. Logan, in his excellent account of Sumatra, makes the rate of population to the square mile no more than twenty, and estimating the area of the territory at 2260 miles, the whole population in round numbers not more than 45,200, which is probably its utmost amount.

Achm being the nearest part of the Malayan Islands to the continent of Western- India, the distance from shore to shore at the narrowest point not exceeding 750 miles, and possessing a safe harbour, the probability is that it farmed for many ages one of the chief marts at which the maritime nations of Hindustan obtained pepper, fine spices, gold, tin, and other commodities, in exchange for their cotton fabrics and salt. Such a commerce existed on the first appearance of the Portuguese in the waters of the Archipelago, and still exists, although in greatly diminished amount. In their own annals the Achinese are stated to have been converted to the Mahommedan religion in the year of the Hegit a 601, corresponding to the year 1204 of our time, and this seems to have been the earliest conversion of any of the Malayan nations. There can be little doubt but that the Arabs and Persians with the Mahommedans of Hindustan who had been settled in that country for two centuries before this event, must have traded with the Achinese and other people of the Archipelago much earlier. On the arrival of the Portuguese, Achin was tributary to the conterminous Malay state of Pedir, and De Barros (decade 3, bk. v. c. 1), enumerates it only as one of the twenty -nine little kingdoms of the coast of Sumatra, exclusive of those of the interior of the island. Its rise to commercial importance is curious, and worth describing as an illustration of the manners and state of civilisation of the Malayan race.

The King of Pedir had appointed a favourite slave to the government of Achin, and in succession to him his son. The last was a man of talent and ambition, and the founder of the state as it existed in the 16th and 17th centuries. The slave's son assumed the title of Saleh Udin, the same which is familiar to us as Saladin in the history of the Crusades. His reign began in 1521, ten years subsequent to the conquest of Malacca by the Portuguese, and in the course of eighteen years he conquered Pedir and all the neighbouring states, and made Achin the chief emporium of the commerce of the western portion of the Archipelago, the country speedily attaining an amount of prosperity and power remarkable for so small a country and so rude a people. This seems to have lasted for at least a century and a half, but to have attained its greatest height in the reign of a prince w 7 ho took the name of Sekander muda, a title half-Arabic and half-Malay, which may be translated " Alexander the Younger." This person ascended the throne in 1606, and after a reign of thirty -five years died in 1641, having in that year assisted the Dutch in the conquest of Malacca, against which he himself and his predecessors had fitted out many costly but fruitless expeditions. One of these, as described by Faria-y-Souza, may be quoted as an example of the resources of the state of Achin at the time. The fleet consisted of five hundred sail, a hundred of which were of greater size than any then constructed in Europe, and the warriors or mariners which it bore amounted to 60,000, commanded in person by the king. This great expedition, destined for the conquest of Malacca, was encountered and defeated by a Portuguese squadron, losing 50 vessels and 20,000 men in a combat which lasted from morning to midnight. But the Portuguese themselves were greatly disabled in this action with a native armament which a single stout steam sloop-ofwar would, in our times, have more effectually defeated.

B 2

The Achinese prince in question was the correspondent of our King James the First, and his letter in reply to the peace-loving monarch's epistle is to be found in Purchas. Here is a sample: "This great king sendeth this letter of salutation to James, King of Great Britain, viz. England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, to signify the great content he hath received from his Highness' letter, delivered by the hands of Arancaya puto, Thomas Best, his Majesty's embassadour, at the receipt whereof his eyes were surprised with a celestial brightness and his spirits ravished with a divine ray, — the opening whereof rendered a savour more fragrant than the most odoriferous flowers or sweetest perfumes in the world. For which cause I the great King of Sumatra do profess myself to be of one heart, of one mind, and of one flesh, with the most potent King James of England, and do earnestly desire the league begun may be continued to all posterity." The style of this letter shows that it was not Malay, and in fact, it was written in Arabic, as was the letter of King James to his brother of Achin. Capt. Best, the ambassador of King James, was honoured by the Achinese king with a title of nobility, viz. " Orang-kaya-putih," which means " white nobleman," and this is the title contained in the letter as Arancaya puto.

In one of the narratives of Best's voyage and mission, the following description is given of the King of Achin in 1613 : "The King of Achin is a proper gallant man of war re, of thirty-two years, of middle size, full of spirit, strong by sea and land, his country populous ; his elephants many, whereof we saw one hundred sixty, or one hundred eighty at a time. His gallies and frigates carry in them very good brasse ordnance, demi-cannon, culverine, sakar, minion, &c. &c. His building is stately and spacious, though not strong ; his court at Achen pleasant, having a goodly branch of the main river about and through his palace, which branch he cut and brought, six or eight miles off, in twenty days, while we continued at Achen. . . He (the king) desired the general (Captain Best) to commend him to the King of England, and to entreat him to send him two white women. For," said he, " if I beget one of them with child, and it prove a sonne, I will make him King of Priaman, Passaman, and of the coast from whence you fetch your pepper; so that you shall not need to come any more to me, but to your own English king for these commodities." The pious and moral English monarch would hardly have approved of the project of bigamy contained in the last sentence of this extract, and more especially when coming from a confirmed tobacco-smoker, which the Indian prince was, even in this early period of the Asiatic history of the plant ; for the narrative tells us that " hee all this while " (during a festival of six hours' continuance) " drinkes tobacco in a silver pipe, given by his women, which are in a close roome behind him."

The English made their first appearance at Achin in 1602, with a squadron of four merchant-ships, under the command of Sir James Lancaster, who was furnished with a letter from Queen Elizabeth to the king. The reigning monarch had been a fisherman, and by his talents and skill had raised himself to the command of the forces. On the demise of his sovereign and the accession to the throne of his grandson, he became his guardian, — put his ward to death, and ascended the vacant throne. The common enmity of the Queen of England and King of Achin to the Portuguese assured to Lancaster a most favourable reception. The Queen's letter is given, and is highly complimentary to her royal brother, the fisherman, while it is full of excellent sense. " We for them " (the East India Company) " do promise, that in no time hereafter you shall have cause to repent thereof, but rather to rejoice much, for their dealing shall be true, and their conversation sure, and we hope that they will give such good proofe thereof that this beginning shall be a perpetual confirmation of love betwixt our subjects on both parts, by carrying from us such things and merchandise, as you have need of there. So that your Highness shall be very well served, and better contented than you have heretofore been with the Portugals and Spaniards our enemies, who only and none else of these regions have frequented those your and the other kingdoms of the East ; not suffering that the other nations should do it, pretending themselves to be monarchs, and absolute lords of, all those kingdoms and provinces, as their own conquest and inheritance, as appeareth by their lofty titles in their writings. The contrary whereof hath very lately appeared unto us, and that your Highness and your royal family, fathers and grandfathers, have, by the grace of God and their valour, known, not only to defend your own kingdoms, but also to give war unto the Portugals in the lands which they possess, as namely, in Malacca, in the year of the human redemption 1575, under the conduct of your valiant captain, Ragamacota" (Raja Makuta, two Sanscrit words, long naturalised in Malay, meaning "prince' 1 and "tiara") "with their great loss and the perpetual honour of your Highness' crown and kingdom. And now, if your Highness shall be pleased to accept into your

ACEOT favour and grace, and under your royal protection and defence, those our subjects, that they may freely do their business now and continue yearly hereafter, this bearer who goeth chief of the fleet of four ships, hath order, with your Highness' license, to leave certain factors with a settled house of factory in your kingdom, until the going thither of another fleet which shall go thither on the return of this,- — which left factors shall learn the language and customs of your subjects, whereby the better and more lovingly to converse with them."

A curious scene is enacted at the ambassador's audience of leave, which is thus related : "And when the general took his leave, the king saith unto him, 'Have you the Psalms of David among youV The general answered, 'Yea, and we sing them daily.' 'Then,' said the king, 'I and the rest of these nobles about me will sing a psalm to God for your prosperity/ and so they did very solemnly. And after it was ended, the king said, 'I would have you sing another psalm, although in your own language.' So, there being in the company some twelve of us, we sang another psalm. And after the psalm ended, the general took his leave of the king, the king shewing him much kindness at his departure, desiring God to bless us in our journey, and to guide us safely into our own country, saying, that if hereafter your ships return to this port, you shall find as good usage as you have done." It is to be noticed that not only the intercourse of the English mission, but the correspondence of the two sovereigns, was carried on in the Arabic language by means of a Jew interpreter brought by Sir James Lancaster with him from England.

Such was the first humble appearance of our nation in India, and such the condition of the kingdom of Achin in the first years of the seventeenth century. Two hundred and fifty years have wrought a wonderful change. The successor of Queen Elizabeth is mistress of India with its hundred and fifty millions of people, and the successors of the merchants for whom she besought protection are her delegates in its administration, while the reigning King of Achin is the son of a mestizo Arab, a subject of Queen Victoria, and called to the throne on account of the wealth acquired by his father under British protection in the small out-settlement, Penang.

The rapid rise and fall of Achin deserve a few observations. Its territory was small, and its soil more sterile than fertile, so that it must have owed its prosperity almost wholly to commerce. Its published laws are liberal, but these, judging by the results, must also have been administered in a manner to insure a tolerable amount of security to life and property, and it seems certain that the Achinese government abstained from the common practice of Malayan states, that of monopolising in its own hands all foreign trade. The probability is, that the large number of Arabs and Indians settled among the Achinese contributed in some degree to liberalise their commercial policy. The whole foreign trade of the subdued neighbouring states came to centre in Achin, which must also have benefited largely by the violence of the Portuguese, which drove trade from Malacca. That the trade was large for the times, is at all events certain. In 1603, Sir James 'Lancaster informs us that he found in the roads from sixteen to eighteen ships of divers nations, some from Gujrat, some from Bengal, some from Calicut and other ports of Malabar, and some from Pegu and the eastern coast of the Malay peninsula. Eighty-five years later Dampier says, that the roads are "seldom without ten or fifteen sail of ships of several nations," and that from ten to twelve Chinese junks came yearly to Achin. " This town," says he, "consists of 7000 or 8000 houses, and in it there are a great many merchant strangers, viz., English, Dutch, Danes, Portuguese, Chinese, Gusrats, &c. &c. The houses of this city are generally larger than those I saw at Mindano and better furnished with household goods. The city has no w r alls, nor so much as a ditch about it. It has a great number of mosques, generally square-built and covered with pantile, but neither high nor large. The queen has a large palace here, built handsomely with stone, but I could not get into the inside of it." According to Dam pier's statement the town of Achin must have contained in 1688 forty-five or fifty thousand inhabitants, a number at least equal to the whole of the present population of the principality.

Nearly all this has disappeared. No doubt the violence and injustice of the paramount European governments, the Dutch and English, in their efforts to establish their respective monopolies, contributed largely to the decay of Achin; but the main cause has been the disorder and anarchy inherent in the government of an essentially barbarous people, whose fits of prosperity must be always inconstant and ephemeral. For a century and a half, the country was exhausted by wars and expeditions wholly disproportioned to the resources of so small a state. The extent of anarchy which prevailed is shown in a few words by the short duration of the reigns of its princes.

ADANG

AGILA

From the year 1621 to the present time no fewer than four-and- twenty princes have reigned, which gives an average duration for each reign of less than ten years. Of these, one half were either deposed or assassinated. Four of the Achinese sovereigns in succession, over a period of sixty years, were women, the puppets of an oligarchy of the nobles.

ADANGr. A wild tribe of the island of Luzon, of the brown- complexioned race, with peculiar manners and a peculiar language, inhabiting the craggy recesses of the Cordillera of Caraballos, in about the latitude of 18° 30' north, and within the province of IlocoE-norte. The tribe is also known to the Spaniards under the different names of Adangino, Adane, Adanite, and Adangta. "The blind love of all the Philippine islanders," say the authors of the Geographical Dictionary, "for their savage independence, aided by the nature of the country in which the Adantas hold their miserable abode, has prevented religious zeal, the civiliser of the Philippines, from reaching them, and kept them long in their stupid ignorance, and physical and moral destitution."

ADENARA. The name of one of the five small islands lying between Floris and Timur, and the nearest to the first of these. Its area is computed at 144 square geographical miles.

AETA, and also ITA. This is the name by which the negro race of the Philippine Islands is most commonly known. They are a short, small, but well-made and active people, with the nose a little flattened, soft frizzled hair, a complexion less dark, and features more regular than those of the African negro. The Spanish expression is, "less black and less ugly." From their diminutive stature, their average height not exceeding four feet eight inches, and resemblance to the Africans, the Spaniards call them negritos, or " little negroes." The Aetas are described as being in the rudest state of social existence ; without other covering than a strip of bark to hide their nakedness; and without fixed dwellings, but wandering over the forest in quest of the wild roots, fruits, and game, on which they subsist. The bow is their only weapon, but they use it with much dexterity. With the brown-coinplexioned race they live in a state of constant hostility. They are usually seen only in the sequestered recesses of the mountains, and have been found by the Spaniards far less amenable to civilisation than the wildest of the brown-complexioned race. According to the Spanish statements, the negritos are found only in the five islands of Luzon, Negros, Panay, Mindoro, and Miudano ; and in these, those subjected to the Spanish rule, or to some extent tamed, amount, for Luzon to 8309; for Negros to 3475 ; and for Panay to 4903, making the total number, in the three islands, 16,887 ; no account existing of those of Mindoro and Mindano. Throughout the whole Philippines, the total number of the negritos has been estimated not to exceed 25,000. No adequate specimens of the languages of the Philippine negroes has been published, but each tribe is supposed to have its own peculiar idiom, and ail of them to be different from, although in many cases mixed with, the languages of the brown-complexioned race.

AGAR- AGAR. The Malay name for a species of marine alga, the Fucus saccharinus of botanists ; growing on the rocky shores of many of the Malayan islands, and forming a considerable article of export to China by junks. It is esculent when boiled to a jelly, and is also used by the Chinese as a vegetable glue.

AGILA, the Eagle- wood of commerce. Its name in Malay and Javanese is kalambak or kaiambah, but it is also known in these languages by that of gahru, or kayu-gahru, gahru-wood, a corruption of the Sanscrit Agharu. The perfumed wood thus named has been immemorially used as an incense throughout all the civilised countries of the East ; and at least from the first appearance of the Portuguese in India, by the nations of Europe. In 1516, Barbosa (Ramusio, vol. i. p. 317) mentions it under the two names, of Aloe-wood and Agila; quoting the price of the first, which he characterises as " fine black," at 1000 fanams the farasuola, and the last at 300 only. There can be no doubt but that the perfumed wood is the result of disease in the tree that yklds it, produced by the thickening of its sap into a gum or resin. In the mission to Siam and Cochin China in 1821 and 1822, I saw myself the wood in both states as it was freshly brought from the forest, and preparing for the market in the island of Kodud, on the coast of Camboja, between the latitudes of nine and ten degrees north. The tree yielding the genuine agila has not been ascertained by botanists, but it probably belongs to the natural order of Legumino^ae, in which it has been placed by the celebrated botanist Decandolle.