1557.—"The people were obliged to bring hay, and corn, and mungo, which is a certain species of seed that they feed horses with."—Albuquerque, Hak. Soc. ii. 132.
1563.—"Servant-maid.—That girl that you brought from the Deccan asks me for mungo, and says that in her country they give it them to eat, husked and boiled. Shall I give it her?
"Orta.—Give it her since she wishes it; but bread and a boiled chicken would be better. For she comes from a country where they eat bread, and not rice."—Garcia, f. 145.
[1611.—"... for 25 maunds Moong, 28 m. 09 p."—Danvers, Letters, i. 141.]
MOONGA, MOOGA, s. Beng. mūgā. A kind of wild silk, the produce of Antheraea assama, collected and manufactured in Assam. ["Its Assamese name is said to be derived from the amber munga, 'coral' colour of the silk, and is frequently used to denote silk in general" (B. C. Allen, Mono. on the Silk Cloths of Assam, 1899, p. 10).] The quotations in elucidation of this word may claim some peculiar interest. That from Purchas is a modern illustration of the legends which reached the Roman Empire in classic times, of the growth of silk in the Seric jungles ("velleraque ut foliis depectunt tenuia Seres"); whilst that from Robert Lindsay may possibly throw light on the statements in the Periplus regarding an overland importation of silk from Thin into Gangetic India.
1626.—"... Moga which is made of the bark of a certaine tree."—Purchas, Pilgrimage, 1005.
c. 1676.—"The kingdom of Asem is one of the best countries of all Asia.... There is a sort of Silk that is found under the trees, which is spun by a Creature like our Silk-worms, but rounder, and which lives all the year long under the trees. The Silks which are made of this Silk glist'n very much, but they fret presently."—Tavernier, E.T. ii. 187-8; [ed. Ball, ii. 281].
1680.—"The Floretta yarn or Muckta examined and priced.... The Agent informed 'that 'twas called Arundee, made neither with cotton nor silke, but of a kind of Herba spun by a worme that feeds upon the leaves of a stalke or tree called Arundee which bears a round prickly berry, of which oyle is made; vast quantitys of this cloth is made in the country about Goora Ghaut beyond Seripore Mercha; where the wormes are kept as silke wormes here; twill never come white, but will take any colour'" &c.—Ft. St. Geo. Agent on Tour, Consn., Nov. 19. In Notes and Exts., No. iii. p. 58. Araṇḍī or reṇḍī is the castor-oil plant, and this must be the Attacus ricini, Jones, called in H. Arrindi, Arrindiaria (?) and in Bengali Eri, Eria, Erindy, according to Forbes Watson's Nomenclature, No. 8002, p. 371. [For full details see Allen, Mono. pp. 5, seqq.].
1763.—"No duties have ever yet been paid on Lacks, Mugga-dooties, and other goods brought from Assam."—In Van Sittart, i. 249.
c. 1778.—"... Silks of a coarse quality, called Moonga dutties, are also brought from the frontiers of China for the Malay trade."—Hon. R. Lindsay, in Lives of the Lindsays, iii. 174.