1882.—"The Hong merchants (collectively the Co-hong) of a body corporate, date from 1720."—The Fankwae at Canton, p. 34.
Cohong is, we believe, though speaking with diffidence, an exogamous union between the Latin co- and the Chinese hong. [Mr. G. T. Gardner confirms this explanation, and writes: "The term used in Canton itself is invariable: 'The Thirteen Hong,' or 'The Thirteen Firms'; and as these thirteen firms formed an association that had at one time the monopoly of the foreign trade, and as they were collectively responsible to the Chinese Government for the conduct of the trade, and to the foreign merchants for goods supplied to any one of the firms, some collective expression was required to denote the co-operation of the Thirteen Firms, and the word Cohang, I presume, was found most expressive.">[
HONG-BOAT, s. A kind of [sampan] (q.v.) or boat, with a small wooden house in the middle, used by foreigners at Canton. "A public passenger-boat (all over China, I believe) is called Hang-chwen, where chwen is generically 'vessel,' and hang is perhaps used in the sense of 'plying regularly.' Boats built for this purpose, used as private boats by merchants and others, probably gave the English name Hong-boat to those used by our countrymen at Canton" (Note by Bp. Moule).
[1878.—"The Koong-Sze Teng, or Hong-Mee-Teng, or hong boats are from thirty to forty feet in length, and are somewhat like the gondolas of Venice. They are in many instances carved and gilded, and the saloon is so spacious as to afford sitting room for eight or ten persons. Abaft the saloon there is a cabin for the boatmen. The boats are propelled by a large scull, which works on a pivot made fast in the stern post."—Gray, China, ii. 273.]
HONG KONG, n.p. The name of this flourishing settlement is hiang-kiang, 'fragrant waterway' (Bp. Moule).
HONORE, ONORE, n.p. Honāvar, a town and port of Canara, of ancient standing and long of piratical repute. The etymology is unknown to us (see what Barbosa gives as the native name below). [A place of the same name in the Bellary District is said to be Can. Honnūru, honnu, 'gold,' ūru, 'village.'] Vincent has supposed it to be the Νάουρα of the Periplus, "the first part of the pepper-country Λιμυρικὴ,"—for which read Διμυρικὴ, the Tamil country or Malabar. But this can hardly be accepted, for Honore is less than 5000 stadia from Barygaza, instead of being 7000 as it ought to be by the Periplus, nor is it in the Tamil region. The true Νάουρα must have been Cannanore, or Pudopatana, a little south of the last. [The Madras Gloss. explains Νάουρα as the country of the Nairs.] The long defence of Honore by Captain Torriano, of the Bombay Artillery, against the forces of Tippoo, in 1783-1784, is one of the most noble records of the Indian army. (See an account of it in Forbes, Or. Mem. iv. 109 seqq.; [2nd ed. ii. 455 seqq.]).
c. 1343.—"Next day we arrived at the city of Hinaur, beside a great estuary which big ships enter.... The women of Hinaur are beautiful and chaste ... they all know the Ḳurān al-'Azīm by heart. I saw at Hinaur 13 schools for the instruction of girls and 23 for boys,—such a thing as I have seen nowhere else. The inhabitants of Maleibār pay the Sultan ... a fixed annual sum from fear of his maritime power."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 65-67.
1516.—"... there is another river on which stands a good town called Honor; the inhabitants use the language of the country, and the Malabars call it Ponou-aram (or Ponaram, in Ramusio); here the Malabars carry on much traffic.... In this town of Onor are two Gentoo corsairs patronised by the Lord of the Land, one called Timoja and the other Raogy, each of whom has 5 or 6 very big ships with large and well-armed crews."—Barbosa, Lisbon ed. 291.
1553.—"This port (Onor) and that of Baticalá ... belonged to the King of Bisnaga, and to this King of Onor his tributary, and these ports, less than 40 years before were the most famous of all that coast, not only for the fertility of the soil and its abundance in provisions ... but for being the ingress and egress of all merchandize for the kingdom of Bisnaga, from which the King had a great revenue; and principally of horses from Arabia...."—Barros, I. viii. cap. x. [And see P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. ii. 202; Comm. Dalboquerque, Hak. Soc. i. 148.]
HOOGLY, HOOGHLEY, n.p. Properly Hūglī, [and said to take its name from Beng. hoglā, 'the elephant grass' (Typha angustifolia)]: a town on the right bank of the Western Delta Branch of the Ganges, that which has long been known from this place as the Hoogly River, and on which Calcutta also stands, on the other bank, and 25 miles nearer the sea. Hoogly was one of the first places occupied by Europeans in the interior of Bengal; first by the Portuguese in the first half of the 16th century. An English factory was established here in 1640; and it was for some time their chief settlement in Bengal. In 1688 a quarrel with the Nawab led to armed action, and the English abandoned Hoogly; but on the arrangement of peace they settled at Chatānatī ([Chuttanutty]), now [Calcutta].