Chapter SAPECA to SAPPAN-WOOD of S by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

For curious particulars as to the names of this dye-wood, and its vicissitudes, see BRAZIL; [and Burnell’s note on Linschoten, Hak. Soc. i. 121].

c. 1570.—

“O rico Sião ja dado ao Bremem,

O Cochim de Calemba que deu mana De sapão, chumbo, salitre e vitualhas Lhe apercebem celleiros e muralhas.”
A de Abreu, Desc. de Malaca.

1598.—“There are likewise some Diamants and also … the wood Sapon, whereof also much is brought from Sian, it is like Brasill to die withall.”—Linschoten, 36; [Hak. Soc. i. 120].

c. 1616.—“There are in this city of Ová (read Odia, Judea), capital of the kingdom of Siam, two factories; one of the Hollanders with great capital, and another of the English with less. The trade which both drive is in deer-skins, shagreen sappan (sapão) and much silk which comes thither from Chincheo and Cochinchina. …”— Bocarro, Decada, 530.

[1615.—“Hindering the cutting of baccam or brazill wood.”—Foster, Letters, iii. 158.]

1616.—“I went to sapàn Dono to know whether he would lend me any money upon interest, as he promised me; but … he drove me afe with wordes, ofring to deliver me money for all our sappon which was com in this junk, at 22 mas per pico.”—Cocks’s Diary, i. 208–9.

1617.—Johnson and Pitts at Judea in Siam “are glad they can send a junk well laden with sapon, because of its scarcity.”— Sainsbury, ii. 32.

1625.—“… a wood to die withall called Sapan wood, the same we here call Brasill.” —Purchas, Pilgrimage, 1004.

1685.—“Moreover in the whole Island there is a great plenty of Brazill wood, which in India is called sapão.”—Ribeiro, Fat. Hist. f. 8.

1727.—“It (the Siam Coast) produces good store of Sapan and Agala-woods, with Gumlack and Sticklack, and many Drugs that I know little about.”—A. Hamilton, ii. 194; [ed. 1744].

1860.—“The other productions which constituted the exports of the island were Sapan wood to Persia.…”—Tennent, Ceylon, ii. 54.