Chapter MA-BAP to MACAREO of M by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

Cathedral Church. …”—Pinto, in Cogan, p. 315.

1584.—“There was in Machao a religious man of the order of the barefoote friars of S. Francis, who vnderstanding the great and good desire of this king, did sende him by certaine Portugal merchants … a cloth whereon was painted the day of iudgement and hell, and that by an excellent workman.”—Mendoza, ii. 394.

1585.—“They came to Amacao, in Iuly, 1585. At the same time it seasonably hapned that Linsilan was commanded from the court to procure of the Strangers at Amacao, certaine goodly feathers for the King.”—From the Jesuit Accounts, in Purchas, iii. 330.

1599 … —“Amacao.” See under MONSOON.

1602.—“Being come, as heretofore I wrote your Worship, to Macao a city of the Portugals, adjoyning to the firme Land of China, where there is a Colledge of our Company.”—Letter from Diego de Pantoia, in Purchas, iii. 350.

[1611.—“There came a Jesuit from a place called Langasack (see LANGASAQUE), which place the Carrack of Amakau yearly was wont to come.”—Danvers, Letters, i. 146.]

1615.—“He adviseth me that 4 juncks are arrived at Langasaque from Chanchew, which with this ship from Amacau, will cause all matters to be sould chepe.”—Cocks’s Diary, i. 35.

[„ “… carried them prisoners aboard the great ship of Amacan.”—Foster, Letters, iv. 46.]

1625.—“That course continued divers yeeres till the Chinois growing lesse fearefull, granted them in the greater Iland a little Peninsula to dwell in. In that place was an Idoll, which still remained to be seene, called Ama, whence the Peninsula was called Amacao, that is Amas Bay.”—Purchas, iii. 319.

b. MACAO, MACCAO, was also the name of a place on the Pegu River which was the port of the city so called in the day of its greatness. A village of the name still exists at the spot.

1554.—“The baar (see BAHAR) of Macao contains 120 biças, each biça 100 ticals (q.v.) …”—A. Nunes, p. 39.

1568.—“Si fa commodamente il viaggio sino a Maccao distante da Pegu dodeci miglia, e qui si sbarca.”—Ces. Federici, in Ramusio, iii. 395.

1587.—“From Cirion we went to Macao, &c.”—R. Fitch, in Hakl. ii. 391. (See DELING).

1599.—“The King of Arracan is now ending his business at the Town of Macao, carrying thence the Silver which the King of Tangu had left, exceeding three millions.”—N. Pimenta, in Purchas, iii. 1748.

MACAREO, s. A term applied by old voyagers to the phenomenon of the bore, or great tidal wave as seen especially in the Gulf of Cambay, and in the Sitang Estuary in Pegu. The word is used by them as if it were an Oriental word. At one time we were disposed to think it might be the Skt. word makara, which is applied to a mythological sea-monster, and to the Zodiacal sign Capricorn. This might easily have had a mythological association with the furious phenomenon in question, and several of the names given to it in various parts of the world seem due to associations of a similar kind. Thus the old English word Oegir or Eagre for the bore on the Severn, which occurs in Drayton, “seems to be a reminiscence of the old Scandinavian deity Oegir, the god of the stormy sea.”¹ [This theory is rejected by N.E.D. s.v. Eagre.] One of the Hindi names for the phenomenon is Mendha, ‘The Ram’; whilst in modern Guzerat, according to R. Drummond, the natives call it ghora, “likening it to the war horse, or a squadron of them.”² But nothing could illustrate the naturalness of such a figure as makara, applied to the bore, better than the following paragraph in the review-article just quoted (p. 401), which was evidently penned without any allusion to or suggestion of such an origin of the name, and which indeed makes no reference to the Indian name, but only to the French names of which we shall presently speak:

“Compared with what it used to be, if old descriptions may be trusted, the Mascaret is now stripped of its terrors. It resembles the great nature-force which used to ravage the valley of the Seine, like one of the mythical dragons which, as legends tell, laid whole districts waste, about as much as a lion confined in a cage resembles the free monarch of the African wilderness.”


Take also the following: 1885.—“Here at his mouth Father Meghna is 20 miles broad, with islands on his breast as large as English counties, and a great tidal bore which made a daily and ever-varying excitement. … In deep water, it passed merely as a large rolling billow; but in the shallows it rushed along, roaring like a crested and devouring monster, before which no small craft could live.”—Lt.-Col. T. Lewin, A Fly on the Wheel, 161–162.

But unfortunately we can find no evidence of the designation of the phenomenon in India by the name of makara or the like; whilst both mascaret (as indicated in the quotation just made) and macrée are found in French as terms for the bore. Both terms appear to belong properly to the Garonne, though mascaret has of late