Chapter LANDWIND to LAOS of L by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

LANDWIND to LAOS

LANDWIND, s. Used in the south of India. A wind which blows seaward during the night and early morning. [The dangerous effects of it are described in Madras Gloss. s.v.] In Port. Terrenho.

1561.—“Correndo a costa com terrenhos.”—Correa, Lendas, I. i. 115.

[1598.—“The East winds beginne to blow from off the land into the seas, whereby they are called Terreinhos.”—Linschoten, Hak. Soc. i. 234.

[1612.—“Send John Dench … that in the morning he may go out with the landtorne and return with the seatorne.”—Danvers, Letters, i. 206.]

1644.—“And as it is between monsoon and monsoon (monsam) the wind is quite uncertain only at the beginning of summer. The N.W. prevails more than any other wind … and at the end of it begin the land winds (terrenhos) from midnight to about noon, and these are E. winds.”—Bocarro, MS.

1673.—“… we made for the Land, to gain the Land Breezes. They begin about Midnight, and hold till Noon, and are by the Portugals named Terrhenoes.”—Fryer, 23.

[1773.—See the account in Ives, 76.]

1838.—“We have had some very bad weather for the last week; furious landwind, very fatiguing and weakening. … Everything was so dried up, that when I attempted to walk a few yards towards the beach, the grass crunched under my feet like snow.”—Letters from Madras, 199–200.

LANGASAQUE, n.p. The most usual old form for the Japanese city which we now call Nagasaki (see Sainsbury, passim).

1611.—“After two or three dayes space a Iesuite came vnto vs from a place called Langesacke, to which place the Carake of Macao is yeerely wont to come.”—W. Adams, in Purchas, i. 126.

1613.—The Journal of Capt. John Saris has both Nangasaque and Langasaque.—Ibid. 366.

1614.—“Geve hym counsell to take heed of one Pedro Guzano, a papist Christian, whoe is his hoste at Miaco; for a lyinge fryre (or Jesuit) tould Mr. Peacock at Langasaque that Capt. Adams was dead in the howse of the said Guzano, which now I know is a lye per letters I received. …”—Cocks, to Wickham, in Diary, &c., ii. 264.

1618.—“It has now com to passe, which before I feared, that a company of rich usurers have gotten this sentence against us, and com doune together every yeare to Langasaque and this place, and have allwais byn accustomed to buy by the pancado (as they call it), or whole sale, all the goodes which came in the carick from Amacan, the Portingales having no prevelegese as we have.”—The same to the E.I. Co., ii. 207-8.

Two years later Cocks changes his spelling and adopts Nangasaque (Ibid. 300 and to the end).

LAN JOHN, LANGIANNE, &c., n.p. Such names are applied in the early part of the 17th century to the Shan or Laos State of Luang Praban on the Mekong. Lan-chan is one of its names signifying in Siamese, it is said, ‘a million of elephants.’ It is known to the Burmese by the same name (Len-Shen). It was near this place that the estimable French traveller Henri Mouhot died, in 1861.

1587.—“I went from Pegu to Iamahey (see JANGOMAY), which is in the country of the Langeiannes; it is flue and twentie dayes iourney North-east from Pegu.”—Fitch, in Hakl. ii.

c. 1598.—“Thus we arrived at Lanchan, the capital of the Kingdom (Lao) where the King resides. It is a Kingdom of great extent, but thinly inhabited, because it has been frequently devastated by Pegu.”—De Morga, 98.

1613.—“There reigned in Pegu in the year 1590 a King called Ximindo ginico, Lord reigning from the confines and roots of Great Tartary, to the very last territories bordering on our fortress of Malaca. He kept at his court the principal sons of the Kings of Ová, Tangu, Porão, Lanjão (i.e. Ava, Taungu, Prome, Lanjang), Jangomá, Siam, Camboja, and many other realms, making two and thirty of the white umbrella.”—Bocarro, 117.

1617.—“The merchants of the country of Lan John, a place joining to the country of Jangoma (JANGOMAY) arrived at the city of Judea … and brought great store of merchandize.”—Sainsbury, ii. 90.

1663.—“Entre tant et de si puissans Royaumes du dernier Orient, desquels on n’a presque iamais entendu parler en Europe, il y en a vn qui se nomme Lao, et plus proprement le Royaume des Langiens … le Royaume n’a pris son nom que du grand nombre d’Elephants qui s’y rencontrent: de vray ce mot de Langiens signifie proprement, miliers d’Elephants.”—Marini, H. Norvelle et Cvrievse des Royaumes de Tunquin et de Lao (Fr. Tr., Paris, 1666), 329, 337.

1668.—Lanchang appears in the Map of Siam in De la Loubère’s work, but we do not find it in the book itself.

c. 1692.—“Laos est situé sous le même Climat que Tonquin; c’est