“ bring many arm3 for sale, such as lances, bucklers, and swords (krises), having hilts
wrought in marqueterie, and blades of the finest steel.”—Ramusio, vol. i.
But besides the arms thus enumerated, the Portuguese and Spaniards, when they
first arrived, found the most advanced of the Malayan nations in possession of firearms.
This is De Barros’ account of the artillery captured by Alboquerque in Malacca.
“ And of artillery,” says he, “ we found no more than 3000 out of 8000 pieces, which
Ruy de'Arajo (a prisoner of Sequiera’s fleet) had stated to be in the city. Among
those taken were many of great size (muy grossas),and one very beautiful piece which
the King of Calicut had lately sent.”—Book vi. c. 2. De Barros incidentally mentions
the existence of match-locks in the defence of Malacca. The Portuguese had manned
a captured junk with cannon, and sent her forward to batter the defences of a bridge,
and this is his account of the aotion which took place: “ As soon as the junk had
passed the sand-bank and had come to .an anchor, a short way from the bridge, the
Moorish artillery opened a fire on her. Some guns discharged leaden balls at intervals,
which passed through both sides of the vessel, doing much execution among the crew.
In the heat of the action Antonio d’Abreu, the commander, was struck in the cheek
from a fusil (espingard&o), carrying off the greater number of his teeth.” The son
of Alboquerque, in his Commentaries, is still fuller on the subject of the captured
artillery and the weapons of defence used by the Malays. “ Tnere were captured,”
says he, “ 3000 pieces, of which 2000 were of brass, and the rest of iron. Among
them there was one large piece sent by the King of Calicut to the King of Malacca.
All the artillery with its appurtenances was of such workmanship that it could not be
excelled, even in Portugal. There were found also match locks (espingardao), blowpipes
for shooting poisoned arrows, bows and arrows, lances of Java, and divers other
arms, all which ^ created surprise in those that captured them.”—Commentaries do
grande Afonso d Alboquerque; Lisboa, 1576. The greater number most likely consisted
of the small pieces called by the natives rantaka or hand-guns. Castanheda
also mentions match-locks (espingardao), and while he reduces the captured cannon to
2000, he says that they tbrew balls, some of stone, and some of irpn covered with
lead. The cannon (bombardia) were some of them of brass and some of iron. By
his account the bridge, the chief scene of combat in the storm of Malacca, was defended
by seventy-two pieces of ordnance. In Borneo, the companions of Magellan found
cannon, and Pigafetta thus alludes to them : “ In front of the king’s residence there
is a rampart built of large brick, having barbicans in the manner of a fortress, and
on it were planted sixty-two pieces of cannon (bombarde), fifty-six of brass, and six of
iron. During the two days we passed in the city they were often discharged.”__
Primo viaggio intorno al mondo. Cannon had reached even as far as the Philippines.
Magellan, indeed, did not find them in Cebu ,• on the contrary, the natives were
astonished and terrified at the sound of those discharged from the admiral’s ship in
compliment to them. When, however, Legaspi discovered the main island of Luson,
he not only found cannon, but a foundry of them at Manilla and Tondo in that
isla,nd, the knowledge of fire-arms having been introduced by the Mahommedan
Malayan nations of the west, along with their religion.
The name by which fire-arms are usually called is bAdil, a general one for any
missile, and mariam, which is Arabic and in that language signifies “ the Virgin Mary,”
which would seem to imply that the knowledge of artillery was derived by the Arabs
themselves from the Christians, as without doubt it was. Smaller ordnance are called
by various names, such as rantaka, lela, &c. &c. See. The native term bkdil extends '
to the languages of all the more cultivated nations, although sometimes corrupted,
as in the example of the Philippine tongues, in which it is pronounced baril. The
Arabic name, mariam, is also of general acceptance. The name of the match-lock is
satingar, a corruption of the Portuguese espingardao, and the fire-lock is called
sAnapang, a corruption of the Dutch snappaan.
A knowledge of gunpowder must have been, at least, as early in the Indian islands
as that of cannon. I t is not improbable that it may haye been even earlier known
through the Chinese, for the manufacture of fire-works, known to the Malays under
the name of marchun, a word of which the origin is not traceable. The principal
ingredients of gunpowder are sufficiently abundant over many parts of the Archipelago,
and known by native names, sAndawa being the name of saltpetre, and
bahrang, or walirang, of sulphur. The names for gunpowder itself are a little
singular. In Malay it is called ubat-bAdil, which literally means “ missile-charm: ”
in Javanese it is ubat, or “ char in ” alone.
The parties who introduced the knowledge of fire-arms among the Malayan nations
cannot be mistaken. They were certainly the Mahommedan nations of Western Asia,
and most probably the Arabs. Cannon were in full use by European nations for
military purposes in the middle of the 14-th century/and nearly at the same time by
the Arabs of Spain, who had a frequent intercourse with their eastern countrymen
„ i xu..- the time with the Oriental nations as far as China. Between the time
when cannon were in general use in Europe and the first appearance of the Portuguese
s in the Archipelago, a century and a half had elapsed, ample time for the transmission
I of the new invention to the Malayan nations, and even to China, where also it was,
I most probably, first made known by the Arabs. The earhest reliable date which we
I possess of the use of artillery in continental India is the year 1482, when Mahommed
1 Shah King of Gujrat, employed cannon in a fleet during a war with pirates. In such
i e a s e s ’ the cannoniers are stated to have been Turks and Europeans. This seems to
! have been the case even after the arrival of Europeans; for in the great battle which
• secured to Babar the possession of Northern India, it is represented by the historian
Farishta, that “ he ordered his park of artillery to be linked together with leathern
ropes made of raw hides, according to the practice of the armies of Asia Minor. On
the arrival of the Portuguese on the western coast of India, they found all the
[ maritime nations, whether under Mahommedan or Hindu rule, in possession of fire-
- arms, and employing them both on land and sea, and they found the same to be the
i case from the Arabian to the Persian Gulf. The handsomest piece of ordnance
I captured by them at Malacca, as has been already stated, had been a gift to the Malay
I prince from the King of Calicut, the Hindu prince called by the Portuguese the
I Zamorin. Of the actual year in which fire-arms were first made known to the
I inhabitants of the Archipelago there is no record, but, considering the frequent inter-
| course which subsisted .between them and the maritime parts of Western India, we
1 may safely conclude that the event did not take place earlier than fifty years before
I the arrival of the Portuguese, that is, about the middle of the fifteenth century, or
| about a century after they had been in common use in Europe.
On the first arrival of the Portuguese in the Archipelago, the Javanese appear to
have been the great manufacturers of arms of all descriptions. De Barros, in ren-
: dering an account of an expedition of 12,000 men, which the Javanese sent against
Malacca after its possession by the Portuguese, says that it was provided “ with much
artillery made in Java; for the Javanese are skilled in founding or casting, and in all
works in iron, over and above what they have from India.” At present a regular
manufacture of cutting weapons, match-locks and cannon, is carried on by the Malays
of Banjarmassin in Borneo, and this with a skill surprising for their state of society.
As this part of Borneo was long subject to the Javanese, it seems probable that it was
this people that introduced the art. For many generations the Malays of Menangkabo
have been the manufacturers of all kinds of arms for Sumatra. But the skilful
manufacture of arms is by no means confined to these places, and I have myself seen
match-locks in Bali, with twisted barrels, inlaid all over in very good taste with gold
and silver.
AROE. The correct name is Pulo-Arau, th a t is “ the islands of the Cassuarina
trees.” These form a chain of islets 100 miles in length and 50 in breadth,
lying off the south-western coast of New Guinea, and having a computed area of 1040
geographical square miles. The western side of the chain, viewed from sea, presents
the appearance of a single low island with numerous small openings, which more
closely examined are found to be several islands, straits dividing them from each
other, and which occasionally widen into broad sheetB of water, connected by narrow
gorges, producing eddies and whirlpools dangerous to native vessels. The islands are
low throughout, on the western side hardly rising above the level of the sea, with the
exception of a few hummocks of lime-stone, some 15 or 20 feet high. The Aroes
are of lime-stone formation, and the land which rises towards their eastern side abounds
in caverns, the resort of the swallow furnishing the esculent nest. They are, as usual,
covered with tall trees, among which the most prominent is the cassuarina, which
gives them name. The native inhabitants are of a quasi-negro race, and said to bear
more resemblance to the northern tribes of Australia than to the Papuas of New
Guinea. They would seem to have acquired a larger measure of civilisation than any
other tribe of the insular negros. But besides the Aborigines, many strangers, Malays,
Javanese, and natives of Celebes and the Moluccas, are settled in the islands. The
total population, although we have no actual enumeration, has been computed at 80,000.
The agriculture of the Aroes is confined to the culture of maiz, yams, the sago-palm,
and some fruits; but sago is not much in use, the people being well supplied with rice
from Java and Celebes, in the course of trade. The products of their fisheries are