Chapter LAXIMANA to LEWCHEW of L by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

parts of India, yields Rusa Oil, alias O. of Ginger-grass or of Geranium, which is exported from Bombay to Arabia and Turkey, where it is extensively used in the adulteration of “Otto of Roses.”

LEOPARD, s. We insert this in order to remark that there has been a great deal of controversy among Indian sportsmen, and also among naturalists, as to whether there are or are not two species of this Cat, distinguished by those who maintain the affirmative, as panther (F. pardus) and leopard (Felis leopardus), the latter being the smaller, though by some these names are reversed. Even those who support this distinction of species appear to admit that the markings, habits, and general appearance (except size) of the two animals are almost identical. Jerdon describes the two varieties, but (with Blyth) classes both as one species (Felis pardus). [Mr. Blanford takes the same view: “I cannot help suspecting that the difference is very often due to age.… I have for years endeavoured to distinguish the two forms, but without success.” (Mammalia of India, 68 seq.)]

LEWCHEW, LIU KIU, LOO-CHOO, &c., n.p. The name of a group of islands to the south of Japan, a name much more familiar than in later years during the 16th century, when their people habitually navigated the China seas, and visited the ports of the Archipelago. In the earliest notices they are perhaps mixt up with the Japanese. [Mr. Chamberlain writes the name Luchu, and says that it is pronounced Duchu by the natives and Ryukyu by the Japanese (Things Japanese, 3rd ed. p. 267). Mr. Pringle traces the name in the “Gold flowered loes” which appear in a Madras list of 1684, and which he supposes to be “a name invented for the occasion to describe some silk stuff brought from the Liu Kiu islands.” (Diary Ft. St. Geo. 1st ser. iii. 174).]

1516.—“Opposite this country of China there are many islands in the sea, and beyond them at 175 leagues to the east there is one very large, which they say is the mainland, from whence there come in each year to Malaca 3 or 4 ships like those of the Chinese, of white people whom they describe as great and wealthy merchants. … These islands are called Lequeos, the people of Malaca say they are better men, and greater and wealthier merchants, and better dressed and adorned, and more honourable than the Chinese.”—Barbosa, 207.

1540.—“And they, demanding of him whence he came, and what he would have, he answered them that he was of the Kingdom of Siam [of the settlement of the Tanaucarim foreigners, and that he came from Veniaga] and as a merchant was going to traffique in the Isle of Lequios.”—Pinto (orig. cap. x. xli), in Cogan, 49.

1553.—“Fernao Peres … whilst he remained at that island of Beniaga, saw there certain junks of the people called Lequios, of whom he had already got a good deal of information at Malaca, as that they inhabited certain islands adjoining that coast of China; and he observed that the most part of the merchandize that they brought was a great quantity of gold … and they appeared to him a better disposed people than the Chinese. …”—Barros, III. ii. 8. See also II. vi. 6.

1556.—(In this year) “a Portugal arrived at Malaca, named Pero Gomez d’Almeyda, servant to the Grand Master of Santiago, with a rich Present, and letters from the Nautaquim, Prince of the Island of Tanixumaa, directed to King John the third … to have five hundred Portugals granted to him, to the end that with them, and his own Forces, he might conquer the Island of Lequio, for which he would remain tributary to him at 5000 Kintals of Copper and 1000 of Lattin, yearly. …”—Pinto, in Cogan, p. 188.

1615.—“The King of Mashona (qu. Shashma?) … who is King of the wester-most islands of Japan … has conquered the Leques Islands, which not long since were under the Government of China.”—Sainsbury, i. 447.

„ “The King of Shashma … a man of greate power, and hath conquered the islandes called the Leques, which not long since were under the government of China. Leque Grande yeeldeth greate store of amber greece of the best sorte, and will vent 1,000 or 15,000 (sic) ps. of coarse cloth, as dutties and such like, per annum.”—Letter of Raphe Coppindall, in Cocks, ii. 272.

[„ “They being put from Liquea. …”—Ibid. i. 1.]

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