Chapter LAR to LARKIN of L by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

LAREK, n.p. Larak; an island in the Persian Gulf, not far from the island of Jerun or Ormus.

[1623.—“At noon, being near Lareck, and no wind stirring, we cast Anchor.”—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. i. 3.]

1685.—“We came up with the Islands of Ormus and Arack …” (called Lareck afterwards).—Hedges, Diary, May 23; [Hak. Soc. i. 202].

LARIN, s. Pers. lari. A peculiar kind of money formerly in use on the Persian Gulf, W. Coast of India, and in the Maldive Islands, in which last it survived to the last century. The name is there retained still, though coins of the ordinary form are used. It is sufficiently described in the quotations, and representations are given by De Bry and Tavernier. The name appears to have been derived from the territory of Lar on the Persian Gulf. (See under that word, [and Mr. Gray’s note on Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 232 seq.].)

1525.—“As tamgas larys valem cada huua sesêmta reis. …”—Lembrança, das Cousas da India, 38.

c. 1563.—“I have seen the men of the Country who were Gentiles take their children, their sonnes and their daughters, and have desired the Portugalls to buy them, and I have seene them sold for eight or ten larines apiece, which may be of our money x s. or xiii s. iiii d.”—Master Caesar Frederike, in Hakl. ii. 343.

1583.—Gasparo Balbi has an account of the Larino, the greater part of which seems to be borrowed literatim by Fitch in the succeeding quotation. But Balbi adds: “The first who began to strike them was the King of Lar, who formerly was a powerful King in Persia, but is now a small one.”—f. 35.

1587.—“The said Larine is a strange piece of money, not being round, as all other current money in Christianitie, but is a small rod of silver, of the greatnesse of the pen of a goose feather … which is wrested so that two endes meet at the just half part, and in the head thereof is a stamp Turkesco, and these be the best current money in all the Indias, and 6 of these Larines make a duckat.”—R. Fitch, in Hakl. ii. 407.

1598.—“An Oxe or a Cowe is there to be bought for one Larijn, which is as much as halfe a Gilderne.”—Linschoten, 28; [Hak. Soc. i. 94; in i. 48 Larynen; see also i. 242].

c. 1610.—“La monnoye du Royaume n’est que d’argent et d’vne sorte. Ce sont des pieces d’argent qu’ils appellent larins, de valeur de huit sols ou enuiron de nostre monnoye … longues comme le doigt mais redoublées. …”—Pyrard de Laval, i. 163; [Hak. Soc. i. 232].

1613.—“We agreed with one of the Governor’s kinred for twenty laries (twenty shillings) to conduct us. …”—N. Whithington, in Purchas, i. 484.

1622.—“The lari is a piece of money that I will exhibit in Italy, most eccentric in form, for it is nothing but a little rod of silver of a fixed weight, and bent double unequally. On the bend it is marked with some small stamp or other. It is called Lari because it was the peculiar money of the Princes of Lar, invented by them when they were separated from the Kingdom of Persia. … In value every 5 lari are equal to a piastre or patacca of reals of Spain, or ‘piece of eight’ as we choose to call it.”—P. della Valle, ii. 434.

LARKIN, s. (obsolete). A kind of drink—apparently a sort of punch—which was popular in the Company’s old factories. We know the word only on the authority of Pietro della Valle; but he is the most accurate of travellers. We are in the dark as to the origin of the name. On the one hand its form suggests an eponymus among the old servants of the Company, such as Robert Larkin, whom we find to have been engaged for the service in 1610, and to have died chief of the Factory of Patani, on the E. coast of the Malay Peninsula, in 1616. But again we find in a Vocabulary of “Certaine Wordes of the Naturall Language of Iaua,” in Drake’s Voyage (Hak. iv. 246): “Larnike=Drinke.” Of this word we can trace nothing nearer than (Javan.) larih, ‘to pledge, or invite to drink at an entertainment,’ and (Malay) larih-larahan, ‘mutual pledging to drink.’ It will be observed that della Valle assigns the drink especially to Java.

1623.—“Meanwhile the year 1622 was drawing near its close, and its last days were often celebrated of an evening in the House of the English, with good fellowship. And on one of these occasions I learned from them how to make a beverage called Larkin, which they told me was in great vogue in Java, and in all those other islands of the Far East. This said beverage seemed to me in truth an admirable thing,—not for use at every meal (it is too strong for that), —but as a tonic in case of debility, and to make tasty possets, much better than those we make with Muscatel wines or Cretan malmseys. So I asked for the recipe; and am taking it to Italy with me. … It seemed odd to me that those hot southern regions, as well