LEWCHEW, LIU KIU, LOO-CHOO, &c., n.p. The name of a group of islands to the south of Japan, a name much more familiar than in later years during the 16th century, when their people habitually navigated the China seas, and visited the ports of the Archipelago. In the earliest notices they are perhaps mixt up with the Japanese. [Mr. Chamberlain writes the name Luchu, and says that it is pronounced Dūchū by the natives and Ryūkyū by the Japanese (Things Japanese, 3rd ed. p. 267). Mr. Pringle traces the name in the "Gold flowered loes" which appear in a Madras list of 1684, and which he supposes to be "a name invented for the occasion to describe some silk stuff brought from the Liu Kiu islands." (Diary Ft. St. Geo. 1st ser. iii. 174).]
1516.—"Opposite this country of China there are many islands in the sea, and beyond them at 175 leagues to the east there is one very large, which they say is the mainland, from whence there come in each year to Malaca 3 or 4 ships like those of the Chinese, of white people whom they describe as great and wealthy merchants.... These islands are called Lequeos, the people of Malaca say they are better men, and greater and wealthier merchants, and better dressed and adorned, and more honourable than the Chinese."—Barbosa, 207.
1540.—"And they, demanding of him whence he came, and what he would have, he answered them that he was of the Kingdom of Siam [of the settlement of the Tanaucarim foreigners, and that he came from Veniaga] and as a merchant was going to traffique in the Isle of Lequios."—Pinto (orig. cap. x. xli), in Cogan, 49.
1553.—"Fernao Peres ... whilst he remained at that island of Beniaga, saw there certain junks of the people called Lequios, of whom he had already got a good deal of information at Malaca, as that they inhabited certain islands adjoining that coast of China; and he observed that the most part of the merchandize that they brought was a great quantity of gold ... and they appeared to him a better disposed people than the Chinese...."—Barros, III. ii. 8. See also II. vi. 6.
1556.—(In this year) "a Portugal arrived at Malaca, named Pero Gomez d'Almeyda, servant to the Grand Master of Santiago, with a rich Present, and letters from the Nautaquim, Prince of the Island of Tanixumaa, directed to King John the third ... to have five hundred Portugals granted to him, to the end that with them, and his own Forces, he might conquer the Island of Lequio, for which he would remain tributary to him at 5000 Kintals of Copper and 1000 of Lattin, yearly...."—Pinto, in Cogan, p. 188.
1615.—"The King of Mashona (qu. Shashma?) ... who is King of the westermost islands of Japan ... has conquered the Leques Islands, which not long since were under the Government of China."—Sainsbury, i. 447.
" "The King of Shashma ... a man of greate power, and hath conquered the islandes called the Leques, which not long since were under the government of China. Leque Grande yeeldeth greate store of amber greece of the best sorte, and will vent 1,000 or 15,000 (sic) ps. of coarse cloth, as dutties and such like, per annum."—Letter of Raphe Coppindall, in Cocks, ii. 272.
[ " "They being put from Liquea...."—Ibid. i. 1.]
LIAMPO, n.p. This is the name which the older writers, especially Portuguese, give to the Chinese port which we now call Ning-Po. It is a form of corruption which appears in other cases of names used by the Portuguese, or of those who learned from them. Thus Nanking is similarly called Lanchin in the publications of the same age, and Yunnan appears in Mendoza as Olam.
1540.—"Sailing in this manner we arrived six dayes after at the Ports of Liampoo, which are two Islands one just against another, distant three Leagues from the place, where at that time the Portugals used their commerce. There they had built above a thousand houses, that were governed by Sheriffs, Auditors, Consuls, Judges, and 6 or 7 other kinde of Officers [com governança de Vereadores, & Ouvidor, & Alcaides, & outras seis ou sete Varas de Justiça & Officiaes de Republica], where the Notaries underneath the publique Acts which they made, wrote thus, I, such a one, publique Notarie of this Town of Liampoo for the King our Soveraign Lord. And this they did with as much confidence and assurance as if this Place had been scituated between Santarem and Lisbon; so that there were houses there which cost three or four thousand Duckats the building, but both they and all the rest were afterwards demolished for our sins by the Chineses...."—Pinto (orig. cap. lxvi.), in Cogan, p. 82.