Chapter SAMPAN to SANDOWAY of S by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

SAMPAN to SANDOWAY

SAMPAN, s. A kind of small boat or skiff. The word appears to be Javanese and Malay. It must have been adopted on the Indian shores, for it was picked up there at an early date by the Portuguese; and it is now current all through the further East. [The French have adopted the Annamite form tamban.] The word is often said to be originally Chinese, ‘sanpan,’ = ‘three boards,’ and this is possible. It is certainly one of the most ordinary words for a boat in China. Moreover, we learn, on the authority of Mr. E. C. Baber, that there is another kind of boat on the Yangtse which is called wu-pan, ‘five boards.’ Giles however says: “From the Malay sampan = three boards”; but in this there is some confusion. The word has no such meaning in Malay.

1510.—“My companion said, ‘What means then might there be for going to this island?” They answered: ‘That it was necessary to purchase a chiampana,’ that is a small vessel, of which many are found there.”—Varthema, 242.

1516.—“They (the Moors of Quilacare) perform their voyages in small vessels which they call champana.”—Barbosa, 172.

c. 1540.—“In the other, whereof the captain was slain, there was not one escaped, for Quiay Panian pursued them in a Champana, which was the Boat of his Junk.”—Pinto (Cogan, p. 79), orig. ch. lix.

1552.—“… Champanas, which are a kind of small vessels.”—Castanheda, ii. 76; [rather, Bk. ii. ch. xxii. p. 76].

1613.—“And on the beach called the Bazar of the Jaos … they sell every sort of provision in rice and grain for the Jaos merchants of Java Major, who daily from the dawn are landing provisions from their junks and ships in their boats or Champenas (which are little skiffs). …”—Godinho de Eredia, 6.

[1622.—“Yt was thought fytt … to trym up a China Sampan to goe with the fleete. …”—Cocks’s Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. 122.]

1648. — In Van Spilbergen’s Voyage we have Champane, and the still more odd Champaigne. [See under TOPAZ.]

1702.—“Sampans being not to be got we were forced to send for the Sarah and Eaton’s Long-boats.”—MS. Correspondence in 1. Office from China Factory (at Chusan), Jan. 8.

c. 1788.—“Some made their escape in prows, and some in sampans.”—Mem. of a Malay Family, 3.

1868.—“The harbour is crowded with men-of-war and trading vessels … from vessels of several hundred tons burthen down to little fishing-boats and passenger sampans.”—Wallace, Malay Archip. 21.

SAMSHOO, s. A kind of ardent spirit made in China from rice. Mr. Baber doubts this being Chinese; but according to Wells Williams the name is san-shao, ‘thrice fired’ (Guide, 220). ‘Distilled liquor’ is shao- siu, ‘fired liquor.’ Compare Germ. Brantwein, and XXX beer. Strabo says: ‘Wine the Indians drink not except when sacrificing, and that is made of rice in lieu of barley” (xv. c. i. § 53).

1684.—“… sampsoe, or Chinese Beer.”—Valentijn, iv. (China) 129.

[1687.—“Samshu.” See under ARRACK.]

1727.—“… Samshew or Rice Arrack.”—A. Hamilton, ii. 222; [ed. 1744, ii. 224].

c.1752.—“… the people who make the Chinese brandy called Samsu, live likewise in the suburbs.”—Osbeck’s Voyage, i. 235.

[1852.—“… samshoe, a Chinese invention, and which is distilled from rice, after the rice has been permitted to foment (?) in … vinegar and water.”—Neale, Residence in Siam, 75.

SANDAL, SANDLE, SANDERS, SANDAL-WOOD, s. From Low Latin santalum, in Greek [Greek Text] santalon, and in later Greek [Greek Text] sandanon; coming from the Arab. sandal, and that from Skt. chandana. The name properly belongs to the fragrant wood of the Santalum album, L. Three woods bearing the name santalum, white, yellow, and red, were in officinal use in the Middle Ages. But the name Red Sandalwood, or Red Sanders, has been long applied, both in English and in the Indian vernaculars, to the wood of Pterocarpus santalina, L., a tree of S. India, the wood of which is inodorous, but which is valued for various purposes in India (pillars, turning, &c.), and is exported as a dye-wood. According to Hanbury and Flückiger this last was the sanders so much used in the cookery of the Middle Ages for colouring sauces, &c. In the opinion of those authorities it is doubtful whether the red sandal of the medieval pharmacologists was a kind of the real odorous sandal-wood, or was the wood of Pteroc. santal. It is possible that sometimes the one and sometimes the other was meant. For on the one hand, even in modern times, we find Milburn (see below) speaking of the three colours of the real sandal- wood; and on the other hand we find Matthioli in the 16th century speaking of the red sandal as inodorous.

It has been a question how the Pteroearpus santalina came to be called sandal-wood at all. We may