40 THE BAMBOO GARDEN CHAP. 
of Sumatra as a native word, but that it is elsewhere unknown to the 
Malay language. The usual Malay word is Buluh. He thinks it 
more likely to have found its way into English from Sumatra than 
from Canara. But there is evidence enough of its familiarity among 
the Portuguese before the end of the sixteenth century to indicate 
the probability that we adopted the word, like so many others, 
through them. We believe that the correct Canarese word is Banwu. 
In the sixteenth century the word in the Concan appears to have been 
Mambu, or at least so it was represented by the Portuguese. 
Rumphius seems to suggest a quaint onomatopceia: ‘ Vehementissimos 
edunt ictus et sonitus, quum incendio comburuntur, quando notum ejus 
nomen Bambu, Basubu, facile exauditur” (Herbariwm Amboinense, 
iv. 17). It is possible that the Canarese word is a vernacular 
corruption or development of the Sanskrit Vansa. Bamboo does not 
occur, so far as we can find, in any of the earlier sixteenth century 
books, which employ Canna or the like. 
Colonel Yule quotes passages from many of the old 
writers illustrating the first use of the word. Three extracts 
will be curious and suffice for our purpose. Garcia, in his 
Colloquois dos Simples e Drogas e cousas Medecinaes da 
India, published in 1563, says, speaking of Tabashir, the 
drug extracted from the canes of Bamboos, “The people from 
whom it is got call it sacar-mambum ... because the 
canes of that plant are called by the Indians Mambu.” 
The two following passages are from Acosta’s T'ractado 
de las Drogas y Medecinas de las Indias Orientales. Ato. 
Burgos, 1578 :— 
Some of these (canes), especially in Malabar, are found so large 
that the people make use of them as boats, not opening them out, but 
cutting one of the canes right across and using the natural knots to 
stop the ends, and so a couple of naked blacks go upon it... 
each of them at his own end of the Mambu (so they call it) being 
provided with two paddles, one in each hand... and so upon 
a cane of this kind the folk pass across, and sitting with their legs 
clinging naked. 
