from Acheen to Pegu on ^onei: side, .and from Timor to Papua, or-New
Guinea, on the other: _ they cons^tpte on. th^ wg§t and south, as do
Bdnka, Biliton, the great islands of Borneo and Celebes, and the Möjïjcqas
on the north, the barriers of the Javan Seas and the Malayan Archipelago.
From the eastern peninsula of India, Java is,distant about one hundred and
•forty leagues, "from Borneo about fifty-six,.' and/from New Holland |®l§
hundred.
To what cause the, island is indebted for its present name of Javajior Jdwa
as it is pronounced by the natives) is uncertain. - Among the traditions -of
the country (which are more particularly mentioned jij another place)’’there
is one, which relates, that it was, so "termed hy the ’fir-st colonists from the
continent ■-of India, "in consequence of- discovery/of a certain- .grain,
called jdwajtmt* on which the- inhabitants are .supposed" to haveSmbsisted
at that early period, and that it had been known previously only unde/ the
term of Niisa hara-hdra, or. Nusa- kéndang, meaning the i s l andwi l d
Uncultivated waste, or in which the hills run irï) ridges.
In the tenth chapter of Genesis we are told,” that tb ^ ^ r a f óf^ïhe
“ Gentiles were divided in their lands; everyone after his tongue, after
** their families, in the nations: ” and .iii the twenty-seventh chapter" of
Ezekiel We find among the rich merchants, those >oï'Javan “ who trailed,
“ the persons of men, and vedels- of brass, -to' the market' of T^fëf^and
“ who going to and fro, occupied in liarfairs, brought .bright irori^cassia,
“ and calamusL” But we shall leave it toothers to trace the connection
between the Ja/óan of- Holy Writ and the Java of modern times. It appears,
that the Arabs, who had widely extended-their commercial intercourse,
and established their religious faith over the greatest portion of thé Indian
Archipelago, long before the Europeans had navigated round the Cape of
Good Hope, designate the whole of the nations and tribes which; inhabit
those regions by the general term of the people of Jam, as in the following
passage taken from one of their religious tracts.— The people óf
“ Jam do not observe with strictness thé rule laid down for keeping the fast,
“ inasmuch as they éat before the sun sets, while the-Arabs continue -the
“ fast until that luminary has sunk below the horizon.” ' Jamt or Jam is
also the name by which Borneo, Java, Sumatra, the Malayan Peninsula
and the islands lying amongst them, are known -among the nations of
Celebes, who apply thé Bugis diminutive Jawa-Jatedka, or Java minor,- to
thé
Fanicum Italiciun.
the Moluccas, Ambon, Bdnda, Timor, ■ and Ende. Jabadios Insulae, from
Ja$d,rm $dfo?tfiv or-5<?rd,lias"'been employed in the largest sense fey Euro-
pea!|fs,- and k is probalble this ‘was’ontee genterally the case among the Asiatics,
with the.terms Ja'ud,"Ja'wd, Jawti,-arid Jaba* which, as the appellations of
people inhabitin|fr'thc.e"Bhn tries beyond the continent or distant, some have
derived'from the word/a^:of*very general'acceptation in eastern languages,
and meaning' be^Wd'i 'distant.\
Ifr isy perhaps, in (consequence Of these names having embraced the whole,
or. at least" several -of the ^islands hdfficrively, that “the1 accounts given "by
MatebTJ?dld, and -othfer early European Vbyagers, of particular TglaWjs, as
Java Major and Java "Mfrf&r»’ * £te' 'so" inconsistent with one another. The
country describe® hy Marco Polo as Java Minor, ‘-seems1, beyond doubt, to
■' have
* The term Zapage or Zdbaja seems also to have been-h -corruption from Jama, and to have
been used with the same • latitude,- according -to the fallowing notices hy Major Wilford.
■‘‘^Thel'e.was a constant jntocaurae, both by sea and land, betweerrthfe kingdom of MagacUfA
^L^AChina . Q-Rftfhe authority rfTChmese1 jiistory: and • they traded to an.island and-king-
JV^^Sc^le^Tounan, to the eastward of Siam^migg the third and fourth centimes’. This was
“ probably a Malay kmgdSm'ybut we-canW; ascertain iftfshUaHOBV I t1 seem's that the Malay
vi.emperors and kings, -as those of Zapagi and Fottnan, did what (hey could to introduce trade
V and learning intof their dominions, but their exertions-proved ineffectual; at least they were
“ n<jt‘§£jj|S^d.with-PJpch. suCp^s ^jand ti^F^uMaatSjSoon .relapsed into their former mode of
f fl^ ^ ^ ^M ^ |T h e re a re tw o counfeies.-^ g d Maharaja,-whichareofteu coirfpundedtogether :
“ the first, ^f^ em ittom ^S re i^ re e ri SM^^m®mg uengaTand dll uie^SumMes on the
“ banks'of the'UangS; the second /JomptehenSed 'the 'pemnrala^dffMalacca, ^<l's’6tne of
“ A1? adjacent‘islands in the seasof Vtihirial In these countries die emperoi-, or king, always
^ the tide of Maharaja, evpn ,until this day-. , ‘Their country, in general, was called
fh id e , is a .corrupt!pn from Ja$a ox Jaba* as,it was called, in the west,
and wp? d|\i^matra, according and to
“ Marco Irithe ^ in s u l a of Mlacca was the famous'emporiuiri of Z a b a Y s ^ y fi'^ u
V Sanscrit, -wOuldJsighlfytlien Zaba. The'/fempfre W^Zctbaje was thus called, probably, from
Vi its metropolis, Zaba, as well as the principahislands -near it. Zaba was a principal
1^ ,’eypn as. early as the tinje .P to lem y It .remained so tilftius time- ofi tthc two Musselman
Vi. travellers o^-Renaudot, and probably muclr longer. It is now called Batu Sabor, upon the
*s as large as, the Euphrates, acfeorckhg to* these" travelers";" who add,
^ that the town of Calahar, bii the coa&trof Coromandel, and ten days to the south of Madras,
« belonged to the Maharaja of Zabaje. The wars of this Maharaja with the King of Mhoner
* or tequntries near Cape- Comorin, are mentioned by the two Musselman travellers in the
“ wnt^aeptury and it seems that, at .that, time,, the , Malayan empire was in its-greatest
kj^M^dor.’’. Astatic Researches, vol. ix.
J - f Other?again “ ajn*mrived’-thejterm ha&a from Yam,'which5in Sanscrit means Barley,
whence Java has occasionally-been termfed the land of-barley. H i I