DENDENG. The Malay name for the jerked beef of commerce, th a t is, of animal
muscular fibre, preserved by drying in the sun, nearly the only mode of curing flesh
in the Archipelago. Dendeng is made of the flesh of deer, oxen, and buffalos, and
by the Chinese of that of the wild hog. It is a considerable article of native trade.
DESA. This word, taken from the Sanscrit, signifies “ the country,” as distinguished
from “ the town,” or rather from the seat of government, and it is also
a synonym for a “ village.” It occurs, not unfrequently, in the names of places.
DIAMOND. In Malay and Javanese intan, and sometimes kumala. The
diamond has been found in no part of the Asiatic Archipelago except Borneo, and
even in that island only in a comparatively small part of it, a portion of its western
coast. The principal diamond mines are in the district of Landak, in the territory of
Pontiyanak, in the longitude of 109° east, about forty miles north of the equator,
and they occur from thence as far as Banjarmasin, in south latitude between three and
four degrees, and longitude between 114° and 115° east. The mines are worked by
the wild Dayaks and the Malays, but with far superior skill by the Chinese. The
gems are found in a yellow-coloured rubble or gravel which occurs at various
depths, the greatest to which a shaft has been known to be sunk being between fifty
and sixty feet. When a shaft of such a depth is sunk, six different alluvial strata
occur before reaching the diamond-yielding one, which the Malays call the Areng.
These strata are,—a black mould, a yellow sandy clay, a red clay, a blue clay, a blue
clay intermixed with gravel, called by the Malays “ ampir,” or “ near at hand,” and
lastly, a stiff yellow clay, in which the diamonds are imbedded. The largest diamond
found in the Bornean mines of late years, was only of thirty-two carats. The prince
of Matan, however, has long had in his possession, a rough diamond of 367 carats,
but its genuineness has been suspected. At present the Dutch government are the
owners of the diamond mines, and make advances to the miners, who are bound to
deliver all stones at twenty per cent, below their market value, which is equivalent
to a seignorage of twenty-five per cent. Under this management there were delivered
in 1824 no more than 1900 carats, and the quantity in the two subsequent years was
still less.
DIENG. The name of a mountain in Java, lying between the provinces of
Pakalongan and Baglen, having an altitude of 6300 feet above the level of the sea.
In the plateau between it and the adjacent mountain Prau, which is 7870 feet high,
there are one-and-twenty small temples, each of about 30 feet high, tolerably entire ;
with the ruins of many others, all built of blocks of hewn trachyte. This is the
most elevated locality in which Hindu remains are found in Java. The temples of
Dieng are said to be purely Braminical, without any intermixture of the worship of
Buddah, or Jain, such as occurs in the ruins of Brambanan. No dates or other
inscriptions have been found in these temples; but, most probably, like Brambanan
and Borobudor, they were built in the 12th or 13th centuries.
DILI. The name of a Portuguese settlement on the northern side of the island of
Timur. The name is exactly the same as that of the Malay state on the north-eastern
side of Sumatra, which is written in our maps Delli; and as Malays have been
immemorially settled in this part of Timur, and as the current language is still Malay,
it seems probable that the place was a colony of the Malays of Sumatra. See Timur.
The small town and harbour of Dili are in south latitude 8° 35' 36", and east longitude
125° 40'. The harbour would be exposed nearly to every wind, except the
south, but for the coral reef, bare at low water, which forms it, and through which
there are but two navigable channels, the widest of which is only from a cable and a
half to two cables length broad. The Portuguese claim the sovereignty of all that
part of Timur which lies east of Dili, but their authority, beyond the limit of this
place itself, is for the most part nominal. This poor possession, then, is all-that
" remains to the nation of the insular empire, so gallantly established and so badly
managed in the 16 th century.
DISEASES. In the Malay and Javanese languages the same words express
disease and pain. The most frequent word in both languages for this purpose, is
sakit; but the Javanese have three synonyms, garing, lara, and garah, the last, however,
signifying also “ heat.” The ordinary diseases to which the natives of the Indian
islands are subject, are those arising from malaria, namely, fevers, remittent and intermittent
and dysentery. The epidemics are small-pox, measles, hooping cough,
and Asiatic cholera. The last was introduced in 1820, three years after its first appearance
in Bengal. This, therefore, they owe to ourselves, as more than three
centuries ago they did syphilis to the Portuguese and Spaniards. The Turkish
pest has never reached them, any more than it has other countries east of Persia.
Leprosy, the disease of filth and barbarism, is common to them as to other
Asiatic nations. I have seen many examples of it in Java, where the sufferers have,
as elsewhere, been considered as outcasts. Inflammatory diseases, and tubercular
ones, are less frequent than in temperate and cold regions, but the inhabitants
are by no means exempt from them. Diseases of the skin are very frequent, more
especially among the flsh-eaters of the coasts. In the mountainous parts of the
country, goitres are to be seen, and this too, close to the equator, and in countries
where there is no snow.
In so far as concerns their native inhabitants, there is no reason to believe that the
Indian islands generally, are in climate less salubrious than other parts of the world.
Every place that is tolerably dry, and, above all, well-ventilated, is healthy; while
localities even when dry, but not well-ventilated, are sure to be unhealthy. The town
of Singapore, although a part of it be built in a salt marsh and on the level of the sea,
is as salubrious as any tropical country, because thoroughly ventilated by land and
sea-breezes, by the north-eastern monsoon, and by occasional squalls from the west.
But within two miles of it is a beautiful and picturesque land-locked harbour, which
although dry, has a climate that is pestilential from malaria. High lands are generally
more healthy than low ones, but it must be presumed chiefly because they are
better ventilated. In proof of the salubrity of the climate of the Indian islands,
it may be stated that longevity among its native inhabitants is as frequent as in
temperate regions. In the Spanish Philippines, there were living in 1850, sixty-two
persons of the age of 100 or upwards, the oldest of them having attained the age
of 137. This fact is stated in the population returns.
DISTILLATION. The probability is, th a t the Indian islanders were unacquainted
with the art of distilling an ardent spirit, until they acquired it either from
the Arabs or the Chinese. The Javanese have a fermented liquor made from rice,
which they call bnlm, and the Malays another called gilang, but these are not
obtained by distillation; and all the current names which both nations have for
ardent spirit are of foreign origin. These are the Arabic arak, the Chinese chu,
and the Dutch soopije, a dram, corrupted into sopi. The Javanese have, indeed,
terms for the verb to distil, and for the noun a still, or alembic, but they are only
derivatives from the word kukus, smoke or vapour. The distilled spirit obtained
from a mixture of rice, molasses, and palm wine, so well known under the name of
“ Batavian arrack,” seems to have been an invention of the Chinese, who are still its
-only manufacturers.
DJILOLO. The Dutch orthography of the word which we should write Jilolo.
This name for the whole island of Halmahera, seems to be taken from a bay on its
western coast, nearly opposite to the island of Ternate, one of the five clove islets.
See Almahera.
DJOCJOCAETA. This is the cumbrous and not very correct orthography in
which the Dutch write the name of the capital town of one of the two existing
tributary princes of Java,—and which may be more accurately written Ayuga-karta,
or abbreviated, Yugyakarta. Ses Yugyakarta.
DOG. The dog is found in all the islands of the Archipelago, in the halfdomestic
state in which it is seen in every country of the East, except China, Tonquin,
Cochin-China, and the islands of the Pacific, in which it is kept for food. Some of the
rudest tribes alone use it in hunting. I t is the same prick-eared cur as in other
Asiatic countries, varying a good deal in colour,—not much in size or shape,—never
owned,—never become wild, but always the common scavenger of every town and
village. Its origin is as obscure as in other parts of the world. As the wolf, the
fox, and the jackal do not exist in any part of the Archipelago, it cannot, locally at
least, have sprung from any of these. There is, however, one species of wild dog
in Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, and Java, which some naturalists have
called the Canis Sumatrensis, and others Canis rutilans; and from this the halfdomesticated
dog may have sprung, although there is certainly no evidence that it
has done so. At the same time there is none that points at a foreign origin. In
Sumatra there are several names for the dog, all native, as anjing, in Malay, and
kuyo, in the languages of the Bejangs and Lampungs. In Javanese, there are five
names, three of them native, and one Sanscrit; which last, however, turns out to
be a name for the jackal in that language. The usual Javanese name is asu; and it