Chapter GAMBIER to GARDEE of G by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

GAMBIER to GARDEE

GAMBIER, s. The extract of a climbing shrub (Uncaria Gambier, Roxb.? Nauclea Gambier, Hunter; N.O. Rubiaceae) which is a native of the regions about the Straits of Malacca, and is much grown in plantations in Singapore and the neighbouring islands. The substance in chemical composition and qualities strongly resembles cutch (q.v.), and the names Catechu and Terra Japonica are applied to both. The plant is mentioned in Debry, 1601 (iii. 99), and by Rumphius, c. 1690 (v. 63), who describes its use in mastication with betel-nut; but there is no account of the catechu made from it, known to the authors of the Pharmacographia, before 1780. Crawfurd gives the name as Javanese, but Hanbury and Flückiger point out the resemblance to the Tamil name for catechu, Katta Kambu (Pharmacographia, 298 seqq.). [Mr. Skeat points out that the standard Malay name is gambir, of which the origin is uncertain, but that the English word is clearly derived from it.]

GANDA, s. This is the H. name for a rhinoceros, gainda, genda from Skt. ganda (giving also gandaka, gandanga, gajendra). The note on the passage in Barbosa by his Hak. Soc. editor is a marvel in the way of error. The following is from a story of Correa about a battle between “Bober Mirza” (i.e. Sultan Baber) and a certain King “Cacandar” (Sikandar ?), in which I have been unable to trace even what events it misrepresents. But it keeps Fernan Mendez Pinto in countenance, as regards the latter’s statement about the advance of the King of the Tartars against Peking with four score thousand rhinoceroses!

“The King Cacandar divided his army into five battles well arrayed, consisting of 140,000 horse and 280,000 foot, and in front of them a battle of 800 elephants, which fought with swords upon their tusks, and on their backs castles with archers and musketeers. And in front of the elephants 80 rhinoceroses (gandas), like that which went to Portugal, and which they call bichá (?); these on the horn which they have over the snout carried three-pronged iron weapons with which they fought very stoutly … and the Mogors with their arrows made a great discharge, wounding many of the elephants and the gandas, which as they felt the arrows, turned and fled, breaking up the battles.…”—Correa, iii. 573–574.

1516.—“The King (of Guzerat) sent a Ganda to the King of Portugal, because they told him that he would be pleased to see her.”—Barbosa, 58.

1553.—“And in return for many rich presents which this Diogo Fernandez carried to the King, and besides others which the King sent to Affonso Alboquerque, there was an animal, the biggest which Nature has created after the elephant, and the great enemy of the latter … which the natives of the land of Cambaya, whence this one came, call Ganda, and the Greeks and Latins Rhinoceros. And Affonso d’Alboquerque sent this to the King Don Manuel, and it came to this Kingdom, and it was afterwards lost on its way to Rome, when the King sent is as a present to the Pope.”— Barros, Dec. II. liv. x. cap. 1. [Also see d’Alboquerque, Hak. Soc. iv. 104 seq.].

GANTON, s. This is mentioned by some old voyagers as a weight or measure by which pepper was sold in the Malay Archipelago. It is presumably Malay gantang, defined by Crawfurd as “a dry measure, equal to about a gallon.” [Klinkert has: “gantang, a measure of capacity 5 katis among the Malays; also a gold weight, formerly 6 suku, but later 1 bongkal, or 8 suku.” Gantang-gantang is ‘cartridge-case.’]

1554.—“Also a candy of Goa, answers to 140 gamtas, equivalent to 15 paraas, 30 medidas at 42 medidas to the paraa.”—A. Nunes, 39.

[1615.—“… 1000 gantans of pepper.” —Foster, Letters, iii. 168.]

„ “I sent to borow 4 or five gantas of oyle of Yasemon Dono.… But he returned answer he had non, when I know, to the contrary, he bought a parcell out of my bandes the other day.”—Cock’s Diary, i. 6.

GANZA, s. The name given by old travellers to the metal which in former days constituted the inferior currency of Pegu. According to some it was lead; others call it a mixt metal. Lead in rude lumps is still used in the bazars of Burma for small purchases. (Yule, Mission to Ava, 259.) The word is evidently Skt. kansa, ‘bell-metal,’ whence Malay gangsa, which last is probably the word which travellers picked up.

1554.—“In this Kingdom of Pegu there is no coined money, and what they use commonly consists of dishes, pans, and other utensils of service, made of a metal like frosyleyra (?), broken in pieces; and this is called gamça.…”—A. Nunes, 38.

„ “… vn altra statua cosi fatta di Ganza; che è vn metallo di che fanno le lor monete, fatte di rame e di piombo mescolati insieme.”—Cesare Federici, in Ramusio,