Our factories in the Archipelago were older than any of our settlements in India Proper. The factors and writers were frequently moved about, and it is conceivable that a word so much wanted (for no English word now in use does express the idea satisfactorily) should have found ready acceptance. In fact the word, from like causes, has spread to the ports of China and to the missionary and mercantile stations in tropical Africa, East and West, and in Madagascar.
But it may be observed that it was possible that the word kampung was itself originally a corruption of the Port. campo, taking the meaning first of camp, and thence of an enclosed area, or rather that in some less definable way the two words reacted on each other. The Chinese quarter at Batavia—Kampong Tzina—is commonly called in Dutch 'het Chinesche Kamp' or 'het Kamp der Chinezen.' Kampung was used at Portuguese Malacca in this way at least 270 years ago, as the quotation from Godinho de Eredia shows. The earliest Anglo-Indian example of the word compound is that of 1679 (below). In a quotation from Dampier (1688) under [Cot], where compound would come in naturally, he says 'yard.'
1613.—(At Malacca). "And this settlement is divided into 2 parishes, S. Thomé and S. Stephen, and that part of S. Thomé called Campon Chelim extends from the shore of the Jaos bazar to N.W., terminating at the Stone Bastion; and in this dwell the Chelis of Coromandel.... And the other part of S. Stephen's, called Campon China, extends from the said shore of the Jaos Bazar, and mouth of the river to the N.E., ... and in this part, called Campon China, dwell the Chincheos ... and foreign traders, and native fishermen."—Godinho de Eredia, i. 6. In the plans given by this writer, we find different parts of the city marked accordingly, as Campon Chelim, Campon China, Campon Bendara (the quarter where the native magistrate, the [Bendāra] lived). [See also [CHELING] and [CAMPOO].]
1679.—(At Pollicull near Madapollam), "There the Dutch have a Factory of a large Compounde, where they dye much blew cloth, having above 300 jars set in the ground for that work; also they make many of their best paintings there."—Fort St. Geo. Consns. (on Tour), April 14. In Notes and Extracts, Madras, 1871.
1696.—"The 27th we began to unlade, and come to their custom-houses, of which there are three, in a square Compound of about 100 paces over each way.... The goods being brought and set in two Rows in the middle of the square are one by one opened before the Mandareens."—Mr. Bowyear's Journal at Cochin China, dated Foy-Foe, April 30. Dalrymple, Or. Rep. i. 79.
1772.—"Yard (before or behind a house), Aungâun. Commonly called a Compound."—Vocabulary in Hadley's Grammar, 129. (See under [MOORS].)
1781.—
"In common usage here a chit
Serves for our business or our wit.
Bankshal's a place to lodge our ropes,