restriction from any other cause. With partial exceptions, the Chinese are at present the
effectual miners and smelters, and the increase which has taken place in the quantity
produced is remarkable. In the beginning of the present century the quantity yielded
by Banca did not exceed 560 tons, and at present, increasing yearly, it is not less than
5540 tons. Yet the mines of Banca have now been worked for neai^a century and a-half,
being stated to have been first discovered only in the first years of the eighteenth
century. The tin mines of Malacca were not worked at all, until as late as 1793, and
not effectually by Chinese until 1840, but in 1848 they yielded, paying a seignorage
of a tenth to the state, better than 250 tons. The production in the neighbouring Malay
states had also greatly increased, so that the whole quantity exported from Malacca
amounted in that year to above 960 tons. Mr. Logan estimates the whole quantity
produced in the Malay Peninsula at about 2350 tons, exclusive of the produce of the
Siamese territory; and when this is added to the produce of Banca, namely, 5540 tons,
we have an aggregate annual yield of 7890 tons, or, making but a moderate allowance
for the produce of the Siamese mines, of which we have no estimate, probably not less
than double the amount of the tin of Cornwall. Probably, not less than five-sixths of
this amount have been brought into existence in the course of the present century.
The price has not fallen with this new supply to the market, and as in the case of the
gold of California and Australia, it may be asked how this has happened, and the
answer must he the same, that new sources of consumption have been found, increased
wealth and population keeping the demand equal to the supply.
Barbosa mentions tin among the commodities taken by the Malay and Javanese
traders to the Moluccas and other eastern islands from Malacca; but in a detailed
list of the articles taken by the junks to China, and amounting to ten in number, tin
is not found. Neither does he name it in his Calicut Price Current of thirty articles,
although among them there be several, the peculiar products of the Malayan countries,
such as the clove, nutmeg, white pepper, agila-wood, and benzoin. De Barros
names the metal as one of those found in the market of Malacca, but calls it, erroneously,
a product of Sumatra. The tin referred to by these writers, was, no doubt,
the produce of rude Malayan industry, for in their time the Chinese had not yet settled
in any part of the Archipelago, I t would, consequently, have been small in quantity,
and, as it is, at present at least, by twenty per cent, less valuable than that smelted
by the skilful Chinese. Malay tin must have reached Hindustan at an early period,
for it iB otherwise difficult to understand from whence the Hindus, who have none of
their own, could have obtained their supply of a metal which is largely used by them
in the formation of alloys. In the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, tin is named as an
article to be found a t the emporia of the western side of India, namely, Barugaza,
supposed to be Baroach, and Barak<5, believed to have been Nilcunda. From both
places it is said to have been exported, and from the first to have been brought from
Oz'end, or Ougein. Dr. Vincent is of opinion that this tin was British, but i^is far
more likely to have been Malayan, part of it, probably, brought overland from the
Coromandel coast. The most usual Sanscrit names for tin, vanga, and ranga, seem to
be Indian, and to have no relation to the Malayan word timah.
TINGI (Pulo), literally, “ High Island,” is the name of the most southerly of
a group of islets, close to the eastern coast of the Malay Peninsula, towards its
extreme end, and belonging to the State of Pahang. It is a mass of trap and porphyry,
rising to the height of 2046 feet above the level of the sea, and covered with forest.
Along with the islets near it, it contains a population of 300 Malay fishermen. North
latitude, 2° 17'.
TOBACCO (Nicotiana), in Malay and Javanese tambako, a slight corruption
of the Spanish and Portuguese, tabaco. In the polite dialect of the Javanese, it
has the whimsical name of sata, which signifies a “ fowl,” or “ cock.” According to a
Javanese chronicle, tobacco was first introduced into Java in the year 1601, which
was ninety years after the conquest of Malacca by the Portuguese. I t was, most
probably, introduced by this nation, for at the time alluded to, the Dutch had as yet
formed no establishment in the island, and, indeed, had appeared there as traders
only four years before. Of the time when it was first introduced in other parts of the
Malay and.Philippine Archipelago there is no record. It was, most probably, earliest
introduced into Malacca, and could not have been introduced into the Philippines
sooner than 1565, the date of the first settlement of the Spaniards in these islands.
As in other parts of the world, the culture and use of tobacco became, throughout
both Archipelagos, rapid and universal. For home use, it is grown almost everywhere,
but it is only in the most fertile islands, as Java, Bali, and Luzon, that it is
produced largely as an article of trade. The tobacco of Java and Luzon are extensively
consumed in the respective Archipelagos to which they belong, and that of the
latter, in the form of cigars, is exported to the continent of India, and to Europe and
America. Tobacco is not a taxed article in any part of the Malay Archipelago, but it
is a monopoly of a Spanish government of the Philippines, confined, however, to the
island of Luzon, where, in 1839, it yielded a net revenue of 1,280,283 Spanish dollars,
or 277,3431., being the largest branch of the public revenue.
TOMAIKI. The name given to a great bay which divides the eastern from the
south-eastern peninsula of Celebes. At its entrance, reckoning from the island of
Wowoni to the Cape of Tolabi, it is not less than 180 miles wide, but does not
penetrate the land to a greater depth than 120. Its coasts are rude, little known
countries, without any evidence of industry or civilisation. Such a name as this and
others given to the other great gulfs of Celebes, it should be recollected, are unknown
to the natives of the Archipelago, and have been imposed by European navigators,
although the terms which designate them are of native origin.
TOMBORO, the name of the mountain in the island of Sumbawa, in which, in
the month of April, 1815, took place the greatest and most destructive volcanic
eruption of which there is any record. The crater of this mountain is in south latitude
8° 14' 30", and east longitude 117° 55' 30", and the mountain itself rises to the
height of 9000 feet above the level of the sea. The year preceding the eruption, I
accompanied an expedition to Macassar in Celebes, and in our course we passed close
to the coast of Sumbawa, and even then the volcano of Tomboro was in a state of
great activity. At a distance, the clouds of ashes which it threw out blackened one
side of the horizon in such a manner as to convey the appearance of a threatening
tropical squall. In fact, it was mistaken for one, and the commander of the ship in
which I was, took in sail, and preparedito encounter it. As we approached, the real
nature of the phenomenon became apparent, and ashes even fell on the deck When
the great eruption took place, I was in civil charge of the province of Surabaya, in
Java, distant from Tomboro about 300 miles. The noises proceeding from the volcano
at this distance much resembled, at first, a distant but heavy eannonade, and the
illusion, indeed, was so complete that gun-boats were ordered out, under the supposition
that a merchantman was attacked by pirates in the Straits of Madura. The same
deception respecting the detonations extended to Yogyakarta, 180 miles further west
than Surabaya, or, in all, 480 miles distant from the volcano, for there my friend the
late Colonel Dalton, marched out with his battalion to the relief of a fortress eighteen
miles east of that place, which he imagined had been attacked, and had got half way
to it before he was undeceived. The day after the sounds and shocks of earthquake
which accompanied them were heard at Surabaya, the ashes began to fall, and
on the third day, up to noon, it was pitch dark; and for several days after I transacted
all business by candle-light. For several months, indeed, the sun’s disk was
not distinct, nor the atmosphere clear and bright, as it usually is during the southeast
monsoon. The explosions of the volcano were heard, and even ashes fell, as far
as Bencoolen, a thousand miles distant from the volcano; and the same evidence of
the eruption was experienced in the Banda Islands, at the distance, in an easterly
direction, and against the monsoon, of 750 miles. The total number of persons
supposed to have lost their lives from the immediate effects of the eruption has been
reckoned at twelve thousand, but its indirect effects extended much further, for the
ashes fell so thick in Lomboc, Bali, and the eastern end of Java, as to destroy or
injure much of the growing rice crops. The future effects of the ashes, however,
were, in some places, evidently beneficial, for I see it stated that, in some parts of
Lomboc, where, from its proximity, they fell heaviest, they had greatly increased the
fertility of some districts.
TOMBORO is also the name of a native state of Sumbawa, which probably gives
its name to the volcanic mountain. Before the eruption of the volcano in 1815, this
was computed to have had a population of 6000, but in 1847, I do not find it named
as a state at all, and most probably it had disappeared as the result of the catastrophe.
TOMINI. This is the name of the great gulf, which penetrating the island of
Celebes to the depth of 220 miles, divides its northern from its eastern peninsula.
At its entrance, it is about 65 miles wide, and in its broadest part about 90. At its
extreme western end, an isthmus, not above 20 miles broad, divides it from the
Straits of Macassar, which separate Celebes from Borneo. On the northern shore