DAA 118 DAMPIER
population of 7510 inhabitants. This is defended by a fine stone fortress with four
bastions, mounted with heavy cannon, built at the cost of the clergy, as a protection
against the corsairs of Sulu and Mindano. The town was founded m 1622, and in
the same year the Catholic religion was first preached to the inhabitants.
D .
DAA, pronounced by the Javanese DOO, an ancient kingdom of Java, corresponding
with the modern province of Kadiri. The most celebrated of its kings,
well known in Javanese story as Jayabaya, is stated to have begun his reign m the
year of Salivana 1117, corresponding with 1195 of Christ. The country contains
many relics of the ancient religion of Java.
DAMAR. The meaning of this word in Malay and Javanese is “ resin.” The
substance usually known under this name is the produce of several forest trees, and
is the sap which exudes spontaneously, and being exposed to the air acquires a flinty-
hardness from which the epithet batu, or stone, is given to it to distinguish it from a
softer substance, kruin or wood-oil. The damar is found either in large masses at
the foot of the trees which yield it, or floating in rivers, drifted to them by the floods
of the rainy season. I t is produced in such abundance, and gathered with so little
labour that, its market price seldom exceeds four or five shillings a hundredweight.
The natives of the country apply it to most of the uses to which we put tar, pitch,
and resin, and it forms an article of exportation to Continental India. Most of the
family of Dipterocarpese yield resinous balsamic juices, those of the genus Diptero-
carpus the wood-oils, and of Valeria, indurated damar. The natural order abounds
in Sumatra, Java, and Borneo, which are the chief sources of the damar of commerce.
DAMAR (Pulo). This is the name of two islets, one lying off the western
coast of Borneo, and the other off the extreme end of the southern peninsula of
Gilolo.
DAMPIER. William Dampier, the greatest of onr naval discoverers after Cooke,
was like him, a man of humble origin, having been, as he himself informs us, the son
of a small farmer in East Coker, near Yeovil, in Somersetshire. He is said to have
been bom in 1652. “ My friends,” says he, “ did not originally design me for the
sea till I came to years fit for a trade. But upon the death of my father and
mother they who had the disposal of me took other measures, and having removed
me from the Latin school to learn writing and arithmetic, they soon after placed me
with the master of a ship at Weymouth, complying with the indications I had very
earlv of seeing the world.” He made voyages to France, to Newfoundland, and to
Bantam, in Java, as “.a man before the mast.” He afterwards attempted to settle as
assistant to planters in Jamaica, but dissatisfied with this mode of life, he joined the
lew-wood cutters in the Bay of Campeachy, and eventually the buccaneers, who crossed
the continent and carried on their depredations on the western Bhore of America.
In 1684 lie went on a privateering expedition round Cape Horn, and after committing
depredations on the coasts of Chili, Peru, and Mexico, the ship to which he belonged
crossed the Pacific, and brought him into the Asiatic Archipelago m 1686, where he
^ The style^of Dam pier's writings is well known as being at once graphic and simple.
I t was the model for his narrative which Swift adopted in the celebrated I Travels of
Gulliver ” and as his first voyage was published in 1691, it maybe suspected that
De Foe was under obligations to him for hi3 “ Robinson Crusoe.’ That he was a
keen accurate judicious, and even enlightened observer, his voyages afford ample
evidence The parts of the Archipelago, or its neighbourhood, which he chiefly
describes are the island of Mindano, Achin, and Tonquin, and of these, at an interval
of 170 years his accounts are the fullest and the best we possess. The fame which
he acquired by his voyage round the world recommended him to the command of a
sloop of war the Roebuck, in which he made his discoveries on the coast of New
Holland and its neighbourhood. This voyage was published in 1708, but he seems
to have gone again to sea in 1711, since which time nothing of him is known, not
even the time or manner of his death. His voyages are dedicated to noblemen,
successive First Lords of the Admiralty, in terms of sufficient humility, and he expresses
his obligations to a third nobleman equally unknown to fame, because he
had his wife—most probably a maid-servant out of his lordship s family.
DEER
DEER. In the Asiatic Archipelago there are found eight the
Cervus and three of the genus Moschus, or pigmy deer. Of the first, there are tn
Cervus maniac the Cervus Kuhlii, the Cervus equmus, the Cervus hippelaphus, the
n o i +he Cervus Moluccensis, and the Cervus babi-rusa, or hogdeer
UThe second genus consists of Moschus memina, Moschus Javanicus, and Moschus
kanchil hornless animals, of less bulk and weight than an European hare Besides
these there is one antelope, or at least an animal approaching to the character of the
antelopes the Antilope depressicornis. With the exception of one species, the Cervus
Moluccensis all the Cervi and all the Moschi are confined to the islands of the Malay
Archipelago West of Celebes. Cervus Kuhlii is restricted to Java and its island8,
Cervus axis to Sumatra, and Cervus equinus to Borneo. The smgie antelope belongs
to Celebes only. The most frequent of all these deer are Cervus rusa, the rusa of the
Malays, and the mftnjangan of the Javanese, and the Cervus manjac theki^angof
the Malays and kidang of the Javanese. These are common to all the large islands
and to many of the small ones west of Celebes Such is also the case with the^three
species of pigmy deer called by the Malays and Japanese napuh, kanchil, and palandok.
The babi-rusa is not found west of Celebes.
DELLI, in Malay DILI. The name of a Malay state on the north-eastern side
of Sumatra, opposite to the state of Perak, in the Peninsula. The mohthoif t e
small river on which the chief town lies ism north latitude 3 46 30 , and east
longitude 98° 42' 30". The embouchure is a quarter of a mile broad, but tour
miles up, the river, where the town stands, narrows to forty yards. I he river is a
shallow stream throughout, and on its bar the depth at high water is no more than
four feet, so that it is only navigable for small native craft. It has its source at the
base of two lofty mountains called Kwali and Sukanalu, visible in clear weather irom
tb Theaterritory of Delli extends for about sixty miles along the coast, and to an
unknown extent inland, including the dependent states of Butu-china and Langkat.
It forms a part of the great alluvial plain which embraces nearly the whole northeastern
side of Sumatra. Near the coast the land is almost on a level with the sea,
but inland rises a few feet above it. The soil near the coast is described as a deep
black mould, which with skill and industry would be fertile, but for the present
the land, with the exception of a few spots, is covered with a deep forest, and most
likely has been so from the creation. The inhabitants consist of the ruling people,
the Malays, of Bataks, and Achinese, with a few Javanese, Bugis, and Chinese.
Of the number of the population nothing is known, except that it is very scanty. The
productions of the country are the usual ones, the principal being rice, black pepper,
and gambier. Of the first hardly enough is produced for domestic consumption,
but the pepper is a large produce, which Mr. Anderson, the source of most of our
information respecting the country, estimated in 1822 at as much as 5,600,000
pounds, all exported to the British possessions in the Straits of Malacca.
When or how the Malays settled in this part of Sumatra is unknown to themselves.
There exist, however, in the country some remains of antiquity, indicating the
former presence of strangers more advanced than the Malays. On the river of
Butu-china, about three days’ sail up, there is at a place called Kuta-bangun, a stone
building sixty feet square, having the figures of men and animals sculptured on its
walls, most probably a Hindu temple. On the Delli river there are the remains of a
stone fortress, said to be in some parts thirty feet in height, with a circumference of
200 fathoms, an earthen entrenchment of the extent of a mile or a mile and a
quarter, called Kuta-jawa or the Javanese fortress, and a large stone with an
inscription in a character unknown to the present inhabitants. According to the
tradition of the Malays, a Javanese colony of 5000 persons was once settled in this
part of Sumatra, and the probability is that the monuments in question were erected
by this people. The inscription will probably be found to be in the Kawi, or ancient
character of Java, and similar to those which Sir Stamford Raffles found in the
neighbouring inland country of Menangkabo. The account of these relics is on
native authority, for no European traveller has ever seen them. Delli, as an
independent state, is most probably of modern origin, for it does not appear to have
existed as such on the first arrival of the Portuguese, as may be seen from De Barros,
who names the nine-and-twenty kingdoms of Sumatra, among which it is not found.
DEMPO. The name of a mountain in Sumatra, in the territory of Pasaman-lebar,
and latitude 4° 10' south, computed to have a height of 10,250 feet above the level of the
sea. It is an active volcano—the most southerly and easterly of those of that island.