Damansara in early maps and written records
In December 1875, a 53-year-old Welsh naval officer named William B. Douglas came to Selangorsee James C. Jackson (1963) Kuala Lumpur in the 1880's: The contribution of Bloomfield Douglas, Journal of Southeast Asian History 4(2), pp. 117-127. to take over the position of Assistant Resident from Frank Swettenham.
Later, Douglas's son-in-law, an Australian surveyor named Daniel D. Daly, was madesee Isabella Bird (2002) Letters to Henrietta, Northeastern University Press, Boston, p. 321 the Superintendent of Public Works and Surveys of Selangor. However, according to Daly himself, he was appointed by Sir Andrew Clarke in May 1875. Since Daly's appointment as surveyor predates Douglas's Selangor assignment, the following must be true: Daly was initially recruited by Clarke to work in Singapore. When Douglas was transferred to Selangor in 1875, and later made the Resident of Selangor in April 1876, he made Daly his second-in-command.
Mr. Daly is important in our story because it was through him that the toponym Damansara entered the English lexicon publicly for the very first time. The word was used in his description of the accidental discoverySee D. D. Daly (1879) Caves at Sungei Batu in Selangor, Journal of Straits Branch of Royal Asiatic Society 3, pp. 116-119. of Batu Caves by a group of explorers in 1878. On page 116, Daly quoted one of the explorers:
Leaving Klang at 8 a.m. in the steam-tender Abdul Samat and following up the Klang river a distance of 17 miles, the rising township of Damansara was reached at 10 a.m., thence a good road for 13 miles on ponies, and 4 miles through jungles, brought the parties to the great tin-mining centre at Kwala Lumpor.
In a contemporaneous map prepared by de Souza in 1879, the spelling Damar Sara is used. Since the data used by de Souza predates Daly's survey, and it is not surprising to find that the toponym is rendered differently by Daly and de Souza.
The group of explorers who discovered Batu Caves consists primarily of three persons: Daly's father-in-law William B. Douglas (Resident of Selangor), Harry C. Syers (Superintendent of Police of Selangor), and William HornadaySee W. T. Hornaday (1879) Account of a naturalist's visit to the Territory of Selangor, Journal of Straits Branch of Royal Asiatic Society 3, p. 126. (an American zoologist and taxidermist). In Hornaday's article (which is ten pages away from Daly's 1879 article), however, the spelling used was Damasara:
We left Klang on the evening of June 26th, and proceeded up the river 18 miles by boat to Damasara, arriving there there same night. Early the next morning we set out for Kwala Lumpor, a large town 17 miles to the East of Damasara, in the centre of the tin-mining district. A good carriage road is being constructed from Damasara to Kwala Lumpor, but at the time was completed for only about 12 miles. . .
Both of these 1879 articles confirm that Damansara is the place where travellers switch from boat-travel to land-travel on their way from Klang to Kuala Lumpur in the mid 19th century. The switch was made in order to save time because after Damansara, boat travellers have to make a u-shape descend southward, before curving towards Kuala Lumpur.
Daly and his father-in-law were later forced to resign because of corruption in 1882. And on 8 May 1882, he gave a talkSee D. D. Daly (1882) Surveys and explorations in the Native States of the Malayan Peninsula, 1875-82, Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography 4(7), p. 394. in front of the members of the Royal Geographical Society. This time, however, the toponym is rendered in the article as Damarsara:
Klang was at that time the capital of Sĕlangor, and it is situated in lat. 3°3′ N. and long. 101°29′30″ E. on a river of the same name. It is at the head of the navigation for vessels drawing 13 feet of water, and a fort garrisoned by Malay police commands the river. Leaving Klang, the river winds through rich alluvial deposits, covered with primeval jungle on either side, low lands admirably adapted for sugar, rice, and other low-land products. At a distance of 18 miles up the river, and the the head of the navigation for steam-launches, there is a village called Damarsara, where there was a jungle track - 18 miles in length - through an undulating country to the town of Kwala Lumpur. The soil on the rises consisted of ferruginous red and yellow clays, and the valleys contained black soil mixed with a little sand.
We do not have a good explanation as to why the toponym is linguistically transformed from Daly's original spelling of Damansara to Damarsara. Given Daly's earlier spelling, if we suppose Daly's manuscript was faithful to the original 1879 spelling, then the choice is likely due to a typesetting bias influenced by the cartographers in London.
A few years later, the American zoologist who helped to discover Batu Caves, printed a memoir to recount his experiences in Asia. See W. T. Hornaday (1885) Two years in the jungle: the experiences of a hunter and naturalist in India, Ceylon, the Malay Peninsula and Borneo, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. This time, he dropped his earlier rendering of Damasara in favour of Damensara.
On again reaching Klang I found there Captain Douglas, the British Resident, who, much to my advantage, was kind enough to interest himself in the object of my visit. Through this co-operation Mr. Syers obtained fourteen days' leave of absence for the trip we had planned to take into the interior, and, on the evening of June 27th (of 1878), we started up the river in Mr. Syers' boat. Four Malays pulled the boat, while we lay down and slept comfortably until we reach Damensara, eighteen miles up, where we tied up till morning. From the Police Station at that point a good carriage road leads east seventeen miles to Kwala Lumpor, the largest town in the territory, in the centre of the mining district.
This choice of the 1885 text appears to illustrate three things:
- Hornaday's choice is not influenced by the map produced by cartographers in London from 1878-1885.
- Hornaday must have decided six years later that his original vocalisation of the toponym can be improved.
- Hornday's new rendering is consistent with Daly's original spelling of Damansara in 1879.
Since both Daly and Hornaday were in Selangor in her early days, their choice of spelling carries more linguistic weight than that of the cartographers thousands miles away. Actually, the word Damansara can also be found in Douglas's diary when he traveled to Kuala Lumpur for the first time in July 1867 but his Selangor diaries did not make their public appearance until recentlysee J. M. Gullick (1975) Selangor 1876-1882: The Bloomfield Douglas diary, Journal of Malaysian Branch of Royal Asiatic Society 48(2), pp. 1-51.. For example, in the 21 July 1867 entry, Douglas wrote:
At 6.10 a.m. started from Kuala Lumpur en route to Ulu Selangor taking with me Ah Eng, the Capitan China's head panglima, Tun Sheikh Mohamed Ali, my guard of twelve men, two servants and seven coolies - our baggage weighed two pickups fifty katis, the guard only carrying their arms and ammunition. Mr. Angus and Mr. Syers left for Damansara. I took advantage of a lift on one the Capitan China's ponies as I had blistered my foot in walking yesterday in thin shoes and I was afraid it might become worse before I completed the journey to Bernam.
In general, the evolution of any Malay toponym in English publications can be quite convoluted. For Damansara specifically, we know it has experienced significant amount of fluctuations: In maps, we have seen that it has changed from Demarsura (1875), Damarsara (1876), Damar Sara (1879), Damansara (1883), Damar Sara (1891), Damansara (1898), Daman Sara (1903), before settling down to Damansara (1913-2020). And in written text: From Damansara (1867 Douglas), Damansara (Daly 1879), Damasara (Hornaday 1879), Damarsara (Daly 1882), Damensara (Hornaday 1885).
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