LEPROSY 216 LEYDEN, JOHN
an event which greatly facilitated the subjugation of the Philippines. Legaspi was
a man of talent, firmness, and prudence, equal to the great enterprise entrusted to
him. He possessed, moreover, all the zeal and enterprise which distinguished the
discoverers and conquerors of new regions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Like several of them he had sold his patrimony in order to supply funds for fitting
out the expedition. After an administration of seven short years he died in Luzon
on the 20th of August, 1572, having virtually achieved the conquest of the large
islands Qebu, Panay, Leyte, Mindoro, and Luzon, and also discovered all of them,
except the first. “ To his disinterestedness, prudence, constancy, and loyalty,” say
the Spanish writers of the Geographical Dictionary, “ Spain is indebted for the rich
jewel of the Philippines.” The conquest of these islands was effected with more
facility and less bloodshed than that of any part of America, and no doubt this is in
some measure ascribable to the merits of the conqueror. Still it must not be forgotten
that there were peculiar circumstances which greatly contributed to his success.
The Philippines contained no one considerable nation, united by language and
institutions. They possessed no religion with a powerful priesthood to resist the
new faith that was offered to them, and that this was a material element in the
success of the conquerors is made evident from the total want of success of the same
people in those parts, even of the Philippines themselves, where such a religion
existed, as in the examples of Mindanao and the Suluk group, to say nothing of the
neighbouring island of Borneo. The Philippine islanders, too, it may be added, were
equally ignorant with the nations of America of the use of fire-arms, although by the
possession of the useful metals, and of one of the larger animals for labour, they
were, in some respects, superior to them in civilisation, as evinced by their possession
of alphabetic writing.
LEPROSY, or ELEPHANTIASIS. In Malay, untal and kudal; in Javanese, kudig,
and in both languages from Sanscrit, kusta, is a disease not unfrequent in all parts of
the Archipelago. In Java, especially, the only beggars to be seen are the unfortunate
persons labouring under this incurable malady.
LEYDEN, JOHN. This remarkable man, who was born of peasant parents,
whom I had the pleasure of seeing long after the death of their distinguished son,
was born in the parish of Cavens and county of Roxburgh in 1775, and is mentioned
in this work on account of his researches into the history and languages of the Malay
nations. In 1803, after distinguishing himself at the University of Edinburgh, and
enjoying the friendship and intimacy of his great cotemporary Sir Walter Scott, he
proceeded to Madras in the Indian Medical Service, and there received the liberal
patronage of the Governor-General the Earl of Minto, near whose estate he was
born. In 1811 he accompanied this nobleman on the expedition which effected the
conquest of Java and of most of its dependent islands, and was eventually destined to
proceed on a mission to Japan. Unhappily, however, he had exposed himself in his
literary pursuits to the malaria of Batavia, and caught the fever which on the 27th
of August carried him off in the 36th year of his age. I had seen and conversed
with him the day before his death, labouring under the complaint, but without any
appearance of eminent danger. Leyden’s oriental erudition, more particularly
as relating to Malayan literature, was more multifarious and surprising than
accurate, as might reasonably be expected from the number and rapidity of his
acquisitions. He published at Calcutta a copious vocabulary of the Malay, Burmese,
and Siamese languages, and after his death appeared a small work entitled “ Malay
Annals; ” but the most remarkable of his publications was an essay in the tenth
volume of the Asiatic Researches on the languages and literature of the Hindu-
Chinese nations (he was the first that made use of this designation) in which he gave
a rapid sketch of the chief languages, continental and insular, of all the nations
between Hindustan and China. His political views were wild, speculative, and
scholastic, as is sufficiently attested by a published letter of his to his friend Sir
Stamford Raffles, at the time about to undertake the administration of the Indian
Dutch possessions. “ We must,” says he, “ have a general Malay league in which all
the rajahs must be united, like the old ban of Burgundy or the later one of
Germany, and these must all be represented in a general parliament of the Malay
States like the Amphyctyonic Council of the Greeks, and this council should meet in
the island of Madura, or some celebrated ancient place, and under the protection of
the Governor of Java. In short we must make a great and mighty noise, for we will
compel his lordship (the Earl of Minto) to be a greater man than he would wish to
be if left alone.” Memoirs of Sir Stamford Raffles, page 25.
LEYTE 217 LINAO
LEYTE. The eame of on. of t h . . . K o S S
the Bimy«. I t l i « ™ t ‘¡ I >*” “ ■ J , . m4 loJ gitua „ 124“ V, »»dMU’ 3
between north lafc^ d® |S d it8 greatest breadth 46-8 geographical miles. Its
Its extreme lenf J \ ;® 10/ eo6i raaphical square miles, and it has a coast lme with many
computed area is 3641 o42 Geographical miles. Its surface is generally
bays, creeks and f notwithstanding, several large and fruitful valleys,
mountainous, but it contains, no and several of the The prevailing geological formation is volcvmic and severaio mountains a^re the
extinct craters of volcanos in which are f j i d sulphu^ bnlliant hues. As,
volcanic action, with, it is state , q , , . ^ isiaild, it seems probable that a
s & i i » S i p of - h i *
of the Spaniards, forrthe Pr°d"<-dl°n d Q larger wild animals of the other
whole Philippines. All the kinds of game and all tne larg climate
large islands-the buffalo excepted-are found in a^d unfifc for
although hot and liable to hurricanes is h e aU ^ two consi(ierable lakes,
navigation, but extensively applied '• 10° 50' and that of Jaro
tmhe progress of popumlation has been vermy remarkable. In 1r735, alntnougn tne
province then included the large island of Samar, the "hole P °P ^ tio n was no
than 1 239 and in 1798, still including Samar, it had decreased to 52,955.
■ H H H H V P Q H p f t r ? ' * p,r*S‘ 1 gM— H » d Suluk, b , which the tro p e * ,
. . ,i put roved and themselves carried into captivity. In 1798.however Bamar was
parted from Leyte, and erected into a separate province, and the population which
then remained to Leyte was 35,433. In 1818 this number had
• i st*; tn 8Q 322 and in 1850 to 112,937, making an increase of better than zuu per
t afeenby thifepaniah government
for the suppression of Moorish piracy, and the scope which a fertile soil and
a b u n d a n t ^and afforded for a rapid development of population The province
consists of 14 townships, and has 24,916 persons contributing to the poll-tax which
in 1850 amounted to 249,160 reals of plate. The seat of the local administration is
Tacloban a town of 2494 inhabitants, situated at the north-eastern- angle of the
main island and on the shore of the very narrow strait which divides it from the
island of Samar. The best harbour of Leyte goes under its own name, and is at
its northern extremity, between it and the island of Panamao.
LIGNUM ALOES, ob EAGLE-WOOD. See Ag ila ,
LIGOR, is the Malay name of a Siamese province, called by the Siamese LAkon.
It is the portion of the Siamese territory which lies nearest the country of the Ma ys
on the western side of the Peninsula, bordering there on the principality of Queda.
Geographically, indeed, it forms a portion of the peninsula, as does Sungora, another
Siamese province, on its eastern side. The population is scanty and poor, the majority
consisting of Siamese, with a considerable number of Malays, and a mixed race of
these two called in Malay Samsam, with a few Chinese.
LIMASAGHA, the name of an islet lying in the' Btajuto °fTtd
channel which lies between the islands of Leyte and Mmdano. Th s is the M^sana
of Pigafetta, and the first place in the Philippines, at which Magellan touched and
where he was hospitably received. Although cultivated and peopled a .
the discovery, it is now an uninhabited desert. From its position, So_fai s®nt , it is
evident that Magellan must have passed through the greater number of the Philippine
islands, without seeing them, or being aware of their existence.
TjINAO. The name of a considerable lake in the interior of the island of Mindano,
which discharges itself by a large river, the Butuan, which falls by two mouths into