MANÁ 264 MANDHAR
of the first commercial emporia of the Indies. For this fact we have the unvarying testimony
of the Portuguese, previously acquainted with Calicut and the other emporia
of Western India. The progress made by the petty Moluccas was equally striking.
They consisted of fine islets of barren land, incapable of producing corn, and without
a neighbourhood to yield any. Notwithstanding, from the mere accident of their
producing, and almost exclusively, the article of cloves, a spice in demand by remote
nations, their inhabitants became numerous and had attained a considerable amount
of civilisation. Although their own islands were but mere specks on the coast of
Gilolo, they had conquered and were masters of that large island. They were even
lords of a portion of Celebes, and of part of New Guinea, and its adjacent islands.
Both in the Moluccas and Philippines, it should not be forgotten that on the first
arrival of Europeans the Malay language had obtained, in the course of a long
commercial intercourse, such a footing that it was the common medium of communication,
being preferred for this to any of the native tongues.
From the facts now stated, it will appear that the causes which have contributed
to the advancement or retardment of civilisation in the Indian islands, have been
mainly the same as in other parts of the world. Wherever the conditions have been
propitious, indigenous civilisations have spontaneously sprung up, in a degree proportioned
to their favourableness. An indigenous civilisation sprang up in the
rich valleys and plains of Java, just as it had done in the valleys of the Nile, the
Assyrian rivers, the Ganges, and the great rivers of China. What then, it may be
asked, hindered civilisation in Java from attaining the same maturity as in these
localities—for that it never did so is unquestionable 1 The solution will probably be
found in the inferior intellectual capacity of the races occupying the Malayan Archipelago,
for it is difficult to find any other. Even among the insular races themselves,
there exists the greatest disparity in the progress they have made. Not one of the
tribes belonging to any of the woolly-haired races have gone beyond the condition of
naked savages, and whatever of civilisation is found is confined to the lank-haired or^
Malayan race. Even the highest degree of this is far below that of the ancient Egyp-
tians or Assyrians, of the Hindus or of the Chinese, all of them people who had
been over-ran, subdued, and domineered over by foreign conquerors, a disadvantage
to which neither Malays nor Javanese had ever been subjected. The close resemblance
in physical geography between the Malay Archipelago and Greece and
Italy, will probably occur to the reader. The soil is equally fertile; the climate,
for those bom to it, alike temperate and healthy; and the seas even more tranquil
and easy of navigation. Neither is there the smallest ground for imagining that the
one country was more early occupied than the other. To what cause, then, but
difference of race, can it be ascribed that Greeks and Italians had attained to a
far higher civilisation five hundred years before the Christian era, than the most
advanced of the Malayan nations had done two thousand years later, when they were
first observed by Europeans 1
MANA, or MANNA, correctly Manak. This is the name of a district on the
south-western side of Sumatra, the town of the same name lying in south latitude
5° 30'. The district is described as the best cultivated and most populous of the
western side of Sumatra, which Mr. Marsden ascribes to the pressure of necessity,
arising from the exhaustion of the pepper-lands. Its superiority, however, is more
likely to proceed from the fertility of its soil, or, which is nearly the same thing,
facility of irrigation. The mountains Patak and Dompo, respectively 5250 and
10 000 feet high, lie in its neighbourhood inland, and the volcanic soil and abundant
water, which cause its fertility, are most probably derived from these.
MANCHANAGARA. A name given by the princes of Java to the provinces of
their dominions lying at a distance from their capitals. The name taken from the
Sanscrit signifies literally "far lands,” that is, districts remote from the capital.
MANDANG-EAMOLAN. The name of an ancient kingdom of Java, in the
present province of Mataram. Tradition states that four princes reigned in this
country, and the most probable account assigns its foundation to the year of
Salivana 658, or of Christ 736.
MANDHAR. The name of a country of Celebes, forming the most southern
portion of the main body or nucleus of the island, and terminating in a Cape bearing
the same name, which is in south latitude 3° 35' and east longitude 119°. To the
north Mandhar is bounded by Kaili, to the east by the Bugis countries of Masenreng
and Pulu, and to the west by the broad channel which divides Celebes from Borneo.
MANDUR 265 MANG08TIN
The country is hilly, without, however, any mountain of considerable elevation. The
soil, judging by its productions, is sterile. I t produces no rice, its principal products
being maiz, the coco-palm, and cotton. Its exports are coco-nuts and their oil,
with cotton cloths, but no gold, which is exported from the neighbouring country
of Kaili. The inhabitants of Mandhar are a distinct nation, speaking a language
peculiar to themselves. Those of the sea-board have been converted to the Mahom-
medan religion, but many of those of the interior are still pagans. The chief food is
maiz and the banana, the last eaten fresh after being roasted.
MANDUR, or correctly Tumandur, is the name of a district on the western side
of Borneo, and situated on an affluent of the Kapuwas, or river which falls into the
sea below Pontianak. The town or village lies about 15 miles north of the equator,
and in east longitude 109° 20'. Mandur is a principal station of the Chinese gold-
diggers, and forms part of the Dutch “ Residency of the western coast ” of Borneo.
MANGARAI. This is the name of a place of trade on the northern side of Floris,
and that by which the whole island is generally designated by the Malays and Bugis.
MANGO, the Mangifera Indica of botanists, is a t present cultivated by all the
civilised inhabitants of the Indian Islands, and is of as many varieties as in Europe,
the pear or apple. As is the case with most other fruits, the mangostin and durian
excepted, the fruit varies in quality as widely as a crab-apple from a New Jersey
pippin. The finest sorts are an excellent fruit, and the ordinary kinds a very indifferent
one. The name mango, or correctly mangga, is not Malay, but Sunda, and in this language,
only that of a wild species of the same genus. Our early traders took the w ord.
from Bantam, which is in the country of the Sunda nation. Although several species
of Mangifera are found in the Indian Islands, the cultivated mango cannot be traced
to any of them, and is, most probably, an exotic introduced from the continent of
India. This is to be inferred from its names, which are generally corruptions or
abbreviations of the Sanscrit, maha-pahala, or, according to the Telingas, maha-
pahalam, that is, “ the great fruit.” Thus, in Malay, it is mampalam, in Javanese,
p&l&m, and in Lampung, kap&lam. Into many of the islands it was certainly introduced
by Europeans. Thus, Rumphius tells us, that it was unknown in the Moluccas,
until introduced by the Dutch in 1655. Pigafetta makes no mention of its existence
in the Philippines in 1521, but it is now abundant, and known only by the
adopted name of Europeans, manga. The same may be said of the remote island of
Madagascar, where its name is the same.
MANGOSTIN. This famed fruit is the first in rank of all tropical fruits, in
the opinion of Europeans, but second only to the durian in that of the natives of the
Archipelago. The plant which produces it is about the size of a cherry-tree, very
handsome, and one of a score of the genus Garcinia of botanists, that which yields
gamboge being one of the number. To none of these, however, is the cultivated
mangostin traced as the parent stock. In Malay, the name of the tree and fruit is
manggusta, from whence the European name. In Javanese it is manggis, and in the
languages of all the other countries of the Archipelago in which it is found, it has
either this name or a modification of it. Thus in Bali it is manggis, in Sunda,
mangu, in Lampung, manggos, and in Bugis, manggisi. Even in Siamese, the
name is the Malay one. The mangostin, in suitable situations, grows in perfection,
as far as 14° north of the equator, and 7° south of it. On the shores of the
Bay of Bengal, the tree will not bear fruit further north than the 14° of latitude,
but in the inland country of Siam, I was assured that it bore as far north as between
the 16° and 17° degrees. At Bangkok, in Siam, in 13° north latitude, I found the
fruit equally good and abundant as in Batavia in 6° south latitude. All attempts
to propagate it on the continent of India have failed : it has partially succeeded
in Ceylon, but not in any of the West India Islands. The only one of the
Philippines in which it will produce fruit is the most southerly, Mindano, where
also its constant companion, the durian, is grown. Even here, however, the
mangostin must have been of comparatively very recent introduction, for Dampier,
who visited the island in 1685, in giving an account of its cultivated plants, although
he names and describes the durian, takes no notice of the mangostin which he so
full and accurately describes in his account of Achin. A congenial proportion
of heat and moisture throughout the year, seems much more requisite for the successful
growth of this fruit, than soil or latitude, since we see it thrive equally well
in the volcanic soil of Java, the stiff clays of Malacca, and the deep rich alluvion of
the valley of the Menam in Siam, and over a range of, at least, fourteen degrees from