Chapter CHILAW to CHINA of C by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

CHILLY, s. The popular Anglo-Indian name of the pod of red pepper (Capsicum fruticosum and C. annuum, Nat. Ord. Solanaceae). There can be little doubt that the name, as stated by Bontius in the quotation, was taken from Chili in S. America, whence the plant was carried to the Indian Archipelago, and thence to India.

[1604.—“Indian pepper.…In the language of Cusco, it is called Vchu, and in that of Mexico, chili.”—Grimston, tr. D’Acosta, H. W. Indies, I. Bk. iv. 239 (Stanf. Dict.)]

1631.—“…eos addere fructum Ricini Americani, quod lada Chili Malaii vocant, quasi dicas Piper e Chile, Brasiliae conter-mina regione.”—Jac. Bontii, Dial. V. p. 10.

Again (lib. vi. cap. 40, p. 131) Bontius calls it ‘piper Chilensis,’ and also ‘Ricinus Braziliensis.’ But his commentator, Piso, observes that Ricinus is quite improper ; “vera Piperis sive Capsici Braziliensis species apparet.” Bontius says it was a common custom of natives, and even of certain Dutchmen, to keep a piece of chilly continually chewed, but he found it intolerable.

1848.—“‘Try a chili with it, Miss Sharp,’ said Joseph, really interested. ‘A chili?’ said Rebecca, gasping. ‘Oh yes !’…‘How fresh and green they look,’ she said, and put one into her mouth. It was hotter than the curry ; flesh and blood could bear it no longer.”—Vanity Fair, ch. iii.

CHIMNEY-GLASS, s. Gardener’s name, on the Bombay side of India, for the flower and plant Allamanda cathartica (Sir G. Birdwood).

CHINA, n.p. The European knowledge of this name in the forms Thinae and Sinae goes back nearly to the Christian era. The famous mention of the Sinim by the prophet Isaiah would carry us much further back, but we fear the possibility of that referring to the Chinese must be abandoned, as must be likewise, perhaps, the similar application of the name Chinas in ancient Sanskrit works. The most probable origin of the name—which is essentially a name applied by foreigners to the country—as yet suggested, is that put forward by Baron F. von Richthofen, that it comes from Jih-nan, an old name of Tongking, seeing that in Jih-nan lay the only port which was open for foreign trade with China at the beginning of our era, and that that province was then included administratively within the limits of China Proper (see Richthofen, China, i. 504-510 ; the same author’s papers in the Trans. of the Berlin Geog. Soc. for 1876 ; and a paper by one of the present writers in Proc. R. Geog. Soc., November 1882.)

Another theory has been suggested by our friend M. Terrien de la Couperie in an elaborate note, of which we can but state the general gist. Whilst he quite accepts the suggestion that Kiao-chi or Tongking, anciently called Kiao-ti, was the Kattigara of Ptolemy’s authority, he denies that Jih-nan can have been the origin of Sinae. This he does on two chief grounds : (1) That Jih-nan was not Kiao-chi, but a province a good deal further south, corresponding to the modern province of An (Nghé Ane, in the map of M. Dutreuil de Rhins, the capital of which is about 2° 17’ in lat. S. of Hanoi). This is distinctly stated in the Official Geography of Annam. An was one of the twelve provinces of Cochin China proper till 1820-41, when, with two others, it was transferred to Tongking. Also, in the Chinese Historical Atlas, Jih-nan lies in Chen- Ching, i.e. Cochin-China. (2) That the ancient pronunciation of Jih-nan, as indicated by the Chinese authorities of the Han period, was Nit-nam. It is still pronounced in Sinico-Annamite (the most archaic of the Chinese dialects) Nhut-nam, and in Cantonese Yat-nam. M. Terrien further points out that the export of Chinese goods, and the traffic with the south and west, was for several centuries B.C. monopolised by the State of Tsen (now pronounced in Sinico-Annamite Chen, and in Mandarin Tien), which corresponded to the centre and west of modern Yun-nan. The She-ki of Szema Tsien (B.C. 91), and the Annals of the Han Dynasty afford interesting information on this subject. When the Emperor Wu-ti, in consequence of Chang-Kien’s information brought back from Bactria, sent envoys to find the route followed by the traders of Shuh (i.e. Sze-chuen) to India, these envoys were detained by Tang-Kiang, King of Tsen, who objected to their exploring trade-routes through his territory, saying haughtily : “Has the Han a greater dominion than ours ?”

M. Terrien conceives that as the only communication of this Tsen State with the Sea would be by the Song-Koi R., the emporium of sea-trade with that State would be at its mouth, viz. at Kiaoti or Kattigara. Thus, he considers, the name of Tsen, this powerful and arrogant State, the monopoliser of trade-routes, is in all probability that which spread far and wide the name of Chin,