BUNCUS, BUNCO, s. An old word for cheroot. Apparently from the Malay bungkus, 'a wrapper, bundle, thing wrapped.'
1711.—"Tobacco ... for want of Pipes they smoke in Buncos, as on the Coromándel Coast. A Bunco is a little Tobacco wrapt up in the Leaf of a Tree, about the Bigness of one's little Finger, they light one End, and draw the Smoke thro' the other ... these are curiously made up, and sold 20 or 30 in a bundle."—Lockyer, 61.
1726.—"After a meal, and on other occasions it is one of their greatest delights, both men and women, old and young, to eat Pinang (areca), and to smoke tobacco, which the women do with a Bongkos, or dry leaf rolled up, and the men with a Gorregorri (a little can or flower pot) whereby they both manage to pass most of their time."—Valentijn, v. Chorom., 55. [Gorregorri is Malay guri-guri, 'a small earthenware pot, also used for holding provisions' (Klinkert).]
" (In the retinue of Grandees in Java):
"One with a coconut shell mounted in gold or silver to hold their tobacco or bongkooses (i.e. tobacco in rolled leaves)."—Valentijn, iv. 61.
c. 1760.—"The tobacco leaf, simply rolled up, in about a finger's length, which they call a buncus, and is, I fancy, of the same make as what the West Indians term a segar; and of this the Gentoos chiefly make use."—Grose, i. 146.
BUND, s. Any artificial embankment, a dam, dyke, or causeway. H. band. The root is both Skt. (bandh) and P., but the common word, used as it is without aspirate, seems to have come from the latter. The word is common in Persia (e.g. see [BENDAMEER]). It is also naturalised in the Anglo-Chinese ports. It is there applied especially to the embanked quay along the shore of the settlements. In Hong Kong alone this is called (not bund, but) praia (Port. 'shore' [see [PRAYA]]), probably adopted from Macao.
1810.—"The great bund or dyke."—Williamson, V. M. ii. 279.
1860.—"The natives have a tradition that the destruction of the bund was effected by a foreign enemy."—Tennent's Ceylon, ii. 504.
1875.—"... it is pleasant to see the Chinese ... being propelled along the bund in their hand carts."—Thomson's Malacca, &c., 408.