1849.—"A man sitting quietly among his friends and relatives, will without provocation suddenly start up, weapon in hand, and slay all within his reach.... Next day when interrogated ... the answer has invariably been, "The Devil entered into me, my eyes were darkened, I did not know what I was about." I have received the same reply on at least 20 different occasions; on examination of these monomaniacs, I have generally found them labouring under some gastric disease, or troublesome ulcer.... The Bugis, whether from revenge or disease, are by far the most addicted to run amok. I should think three-fourths of all the cases I have seen have been by persons of this nation."—Dr T. Oxley, in J. Ind. Archip., iii. 532.
[1869.—"Macassar is the most celebrated place in the East for 'running a muck.'"—Wallace, Malay Archip. (ed. 1890), p. 134.]
[1870.—For a full account of many cases in India, see Chevers, Med. Jurisprudence, p. 781 seqq.]
1873.—"They (the English) ... crave governors who, not having bound themselves beforehand to 'run amuck,' may give the land some chance of repose."—Blackwood's Magazine, June, p. 759.
1875.—"On being struck the Malay at once stabbed Arshad with a kriss; the blood of the people who had witnessed the deed was aroused, they ran amok, attacked Mr Birch, who was bathing in a floating bath close to the shore, stabbed and killed him."—Sir W. D. Jervois to the E. of Carnarvon, Nov. 16, 1875.
1876.—"Twice over, while we were wending our way up the steep hill in Galata, it was our luck to see a Turk 'run a muck' ... nine times out of ten this frenzy is feigned, but not always, as for instance in the case where a priest took to running a-muck on an Austrian Lloyd's boat on the Black Sea, and after killing one or two passengers, and wounding others, was only stopped by repeated shots from the Captain's pistol."—Barkley, Five Years in Bulgaria, 240-41.
1877.—The Times of February 11th mentions a fatal muck run by a Spanish sailor, Manuel Alves, at the Sailors' Home, Liverpool; and the Overland Times of India (31st August) another run by a sepoy at Meerut.
1879.—"Running a-muck does not seem to be confined to the Malays. At Ravenna, on Monday, when the streets were full of people celebrating the festa of St John the Baptist, a maniac rushed out, snatched up a knife from a butcher's stall and fell upon everyone he came across ... before he was captured he wounded more or less seriously 11 persons, among whom was one little child."—Pall Mall Gazette, July 1.
" "Captain Shaw mentioned ... that he had known as many as 40 people being injured by a single 'amok' runner. When the cry 'amok! amok!' is raised, people fly to the right and left for shelter, for after the blinded madman's kris has once 'drunk blood,' his fury becomes ungovernable, his sole desire is to kill; he strikes here and there; he stabs fugitives in the back, his kris drips blood, he rushes on yet more wildly, blood and murder in his course; there are shrieks and groans, his bloodshot eyes start from their sockets, his frenzy gives him unnatural strength; then all of a sudden he drops, shot through the heart, or from sudden exhaustion, clutching his bloody kris."—Miss Bird, Golden Chersonese, 356.
ANACONDA, s. This word for a great python, or boa, is of very obscure origin. It is now applied in scientific zoology as the specific name of a great S. American water-snake. Cuvier has "L'Anacondo (Boa scytale et murina, L.—Boa aquatica, Prince Max.)," (Règne Animal, 1829, ii. 78). Again, in the Official Report prepared by the Brazilian Government for the Philadelphia Exhibition of 1876, we find: "Of the genus Boa ... we may mention the ... sucuriù or sucuriuba (B. anaconda), whose skins are used for boots and shoes and other purposes." And as the subject was engaging our attention we read the following in the St James' Gazette of April 3, 1882:—"A very unpleasant account is given by a Brazilian paper, the Voz do Povo of Diamantino, of the proceedings of a huge water-snake called the sucuruyu, which is to be found in some of the rivers of Brazil.... A slave, with some companions, was fishing with a net in the river, when he was suddenly seized by a sucuruyu, who made an effort with his hinder coils to carry off at the same time another of the fishing party." We had naturally supposed the name to be S. American, and its S. American character was rather corroborated by our finding in Ramusio's version of Pietro Martire d'Angheria such S. American names as Anacauchoa and Anacaona. Serious doubt was however thrown on the American origin of the word when we found that Mr H. W. Bates entirely disbelieved it, and when we failed to trace the name in any older books about S. America.