1673.—"The Sailors had stigmatized this place of its Excessive Heat, with this sarcastical Saying, That there was but an Inch-Deal between Gomberoon and Hell"—Fryer, 224.
Fryer in another place (marginal rubric, p. 331) says: "Gombroon ware, made of Earth, the best next China." Was this one of the sites of manufacture of the Persian porcelain now so highly prized? ["The main varieties of this Perso-Chinese ware are the following:—(1) A sort of semi-porcelain, called by English dealers, quite without reason, 'Gombroon ware,' which is pure white and semi-transparent, but, unlike Chinese porcelain, is soft and friable where not protected by the glaze."—Ency. Brit. 9th ed. xix. 621.]
1727.—"This Gombroon was formerly a Fishing Town, and when Shaw Abass began to build it, had its Appellation from the Portugueze, in Derision, because it was a good place for catching Prawns and Shrimps, which they call Camerong."—A. Hamilton, i. 92; [ed. 1744, i. 93].
1762.—"As this officer (Comte d'Estaing) ... broke his parole by taking and destroying our settlements at Gombroon, and upon the west Coast of Sumatra, at a time when he was still a prisoner of war, we have laid before his Majesty a true state of the case."—In Long, 288.
GOMUTÍ, s. Malay gumuti [Scott gives gāmūti]. A substance resembling horsehair, and forming excellent cordage (the cabos negros of the Portuguese—Marre, Kata-Kata Malayou, p. 92), sometimes improperly called [coir] (q.v.), which is produced by a palm growing in the Archipelago, Arenga saccharifera, Labill. (Borassus Gomutus, Lour.). The tree also furnishes ḳalams or reed-pens for writing, and the material for the poisoned arrows used with the blow-tube. The name of the palm itself in Malay is anau. (See [SAGWIRE].) There is a very interesting account of this palm in Rumphius, Herb. Amb., i. pl. xiii. Dampier speaks of the fibre thus:
1686.—"... There is another sort of Coire cables ... that are black, and more strong and lasting, and are made of Strings that grow like Horse-hair at the Heads of certain Trees, almost like the Coco-trees. This sort comes mostly from the Island of Timor."—i. 295.
GONG, s. This word appears to be Malay (or, according to Crawfurd, originally Javanese), gong or agong. ["The word gong is often said to be Chinese. Clifford and Swettenham so mark it; but no one seems to be able to point out the Chinese original" (Scott, Malayan Words in English, 53).] Its well-known application is to a disk of thin bell-metal, which when struck with a mallet, yields musical notes, and is used in the further east as a substitute for a bell. ["The name gong, agong, is considered to be imitative or suggestive of the sound which the instrument produces" (Scott, loc. cit. 51).] Marcel Devic says that the word exists in all the languages of the Archipelago; [for the variants see Scott, loc. cit.]. He defines it as meaning "instrument de musique aussi appelé tam-tam"; but see under [TOM-TOM]. The great drum, to which Dampier applies the name, was used like the metallic gong for striking the hour. Systems of gongs variously arranged form harmonious musical instruments among the Burmese, and still more elaborately among the Javanese.
The word is commonly applied by Anglo-Indians also to the H. ghanṭā (ganṭa, Dec.) or ghaṛī, a thicker metal disc, not musical, used in India for striking the hour (see [GHURRY]). The gong being used to strike the hour, we find the word applied by Fryer (like gurry) to the hour itself, or interval denoted.
c. 1590.—"In the morning before day the Generall did strike his Gongo, which is an instrument of War that soundeth like a Bell."—(This was in Africa, near Benguela). Advent. of Andrew Battel, in Purchas, ii. 970.
1673.—"They have no Watches nor Hour-Glasses, but measure Time by the dropping of Water out of a Brass Bason, which holds a Ghong, or less than half an Hour; when they strike once distinctly, to tell them it's the First Ghong, which is renewed at the Second Ghong for Two, and so Three at the End of it till they come to Eight; when they strike on the Brass Vessel at their liberty to give notice the Pore (see [PUHUR]) is out, and at last strike One leisurely to tell them it is the First Pore."—Fryer, 186.