1810.—"The Syce, or groom, attends but one horse."—Williamson, V.M. i. 254.
c. 1858?—
"Tandis que les çais veillent les chiens rodeurs."
Leconte de Lisle.
SYCEE, s. In China applied to pure silver bullion in ingots, or [shoes] (q.v.). The origin of the name is said to be si (pron. at Canton sai and sei) = sz', i.e. 'fine silk'; and we are told by Mr. Giles that it is so called because, if pure, it may be drawn out into fine threads. [Linschoten (1598) speaks of: "Peeces of cut silver, in which sort they pay and receive all their money" (Hak. Soc. i. 132).]
1711.—"Formerly they used to sell for Sisee, or Silver full fine; but of late the Method is alter'd."—Lockyer, 135.
SYRAS, CYRUS. See under [CYRUS].
SYRIAM, n.p. A place on the Pegu R., near its confluence with the Rangoon R., six miles E. of Rangoon, and very famous in the Portuguese dealings with Pegu. The Burmese form is Than-lyeng, but probably the Talaing name was nearer that which foreigners give it. [See Burma Gazetteer, ii. 672. Mr. St. John (J. R. As. Soc., 1894, p. 151) suggests the Mwn word sarang or siring, 'a swinging cradle.'] Syriam was the site of an English factory in the 17th century, of the history of which little is known. See the quotation from Dalrymple below.
1587.—"To Cirion a Port of Pegu come ships from Mecca with woollen Cloth, Scarlets, Velvets, Opium, and such like."—R. Fitch, in Hakl. ii. 393.
1600.—"I went thither with Philip Brito, and in fifteene dayes arrived at Sirian the chiefe Port in Pegu. It is a lamentable spectacle to see the bankes of the Riuers set with infinite fruit-bearing trees, now ouerwhelmed with ruines of gilded Temples, and noble edifices; the wayes and fields full of skulls and bones of wretched Peguans, killed or famished, and cast into the River in such numbers that the multitude of carkasses prohibiteth the way and passage of ships."—The Jesuit Andrew Boves, in Purchas, ii. 1748.