Chapter CHINA-BEER to CHIN-CHIN of C by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

CHINA-BEER to CHIN-CHIN

[CHINA-BEER, s. Some kind of liquor used in China, perhaps a variety of saké.

[1615.—“I carid a jarr of China Beare.”—Cocks’s Diary, i. 34.]

CHINA-BUCKEER, n.p. One of the chief Delta-mouths of the Irawadi is so called in marine charts. We have not been able to ascertain the origin of the name, further than that Prof. Forchhammer, in his Notes on the Early Hist. and Geog. of Br. Burma (p. 16), states that the country between Rangoon and Bassein, i.e. on the west of the Rangoon River, bore the name of Pokhara, of which Buckeer is a corruption. This does not explain the China.

CHINA-ROOT, s. A once famous drug, known as Radix Chinae and Tuber Chinae, being the tuber of various species of Smilax (N. O. Smilaceae, the same to which sarsaparilla belongs). It was said to have been used with good effect on Charles V. when suffering from gout, and acquired a great repute. It was also much used in the same way as sarsaparilla. It is now quite obsolete in England, but is still held in esteem in the native pharmacopœias of China and India.

1563.—“R. I wish to take to Portugal some of the Root or Wood of China, since it is not a contraband drug.…

“O. This wood or root grows in China, an immense country, presumed to be on the confines of Muscovy…and because in all these regions, both in China and in Japan, there exists the morbo napolitano, the merciful God hath willed to give them this root for remedy, and with it the good physicians there know well the treatment.”—Garcia, f. 177.

c. 1590.—“Sircar Silhet is very mountainous.…China-Root (chob- chini) is produced here in great plenty, which was but lately discovered by some Turks.”—Ayeen Akb., by Gladwin, ii. 10 ; [ed. Jarrett, ii. 124].

1598.—“The roote of China is commonlie vsed among the Egyptians…specially for a consumption, for the which they seeth the roote China in broth of a henne or cocke, whereby they become whole and faire of face.”—Dr. Paludanus, in Linschoten, 124, [Hak. Soc. ii. 112].

c. 1610—“Quant à la verole.…Ils la guerissent sans suer avec du bois d’Eschine.…”—Pyrard de Laval, ii. 9 (ed. 1679) ; [Hak. Soc. ii. 13 ; also see i. 182].

[c. 1690.—“The caravans returned with musk, China-wood (bois de Chine).”—Bernier, ed. Constable, p. 425.]

CHINAPATAM, n.p. A name sometimes given by the natives to Madras. The name is now written Shennai- Shenna-ppatanam, Tam., in Tel. Chennapattanamu, and the following is the origin of that name according to the statement given in W. Hamilton’s Hindostan.

On “this part of the Coast of Coromandel…the English…possessed no fixed establishment until A.D. 1639, in which year, on the 1st of March, a grant was received from the descendants of the Hindoo dynasty of Bijanagur, then reigning at Chandergherry, for the erection of a fort. This document from Sree Rung Rayeel expressly enjoins, that the town and fort to be erected at Madras shall be called after his own name, Sree Runga Rayapatam ; but the local governor or Naik, Damerla Vencatadri, who first invited Mr. Francis Day, the chief of Armagon, to remove to Madras, had previously intimated to him that he would have the new English establishment founded in the name of his father Chennappa, and the name of Chenappapatam continues to be universally applied to the town of Madras by the natives of that division of the south of India named Dravida.”—(Vol. ii. p. 413).

Dr. Burnell doubted this origin of the name, and considered that the actual name could hardly have been formed from that of Chenappa. It is possible that some name similar to Chinapatan was borne by the place previously. It will be seen under MADRAS that Barros curiously connects the Chinese with St. Thomé. To this may be added this passage from the English translation of Mendoza’s China, the original of which was published in 1585, the translation by R. Parke in 1588:—

“… it is plainely seene that they did come with the shipping vnto the Indies…so that at this day there is great memory of them in the Ilands Philippinas and on the cost of Coromande, which is the cost against the Kingdome of Norsinga towards the sea of Bengala (misprinted Cengala); whereas is a town called vnto this day the Soile of the Chinos for that they did reedifie and make the same”—(i. 94).

I strongly suspect that this was Chinapatam, or Madras. [On the other hand, the popular derivation is accepted in the Madras Gloss., p. 163. The gold plate containi