[1563.—"And there are men who carry this umbrella so dexterously to ward off the sun, that although their master trots on his horse, the sun does not touch any part of his body, and such men are called in India boi."—Barros, Dec. 3, Bk. x. ch. 9.]
1591.—A proclamation of the viceroy, Matthias d'Alboquerque, orders: "that no person, of what quality or condition soever, shall go in a palanquim without my express licence, save they be over 60 years of age, to be first proved before the Auditor-General of Police ... and those who contravene this shall pay a penalty of 200 cruzados, and persons of mean estate the half, the palanquys and their belongings to be forfeited, and the bois or mouços who carry such palanquys shall be condemned to his Majesty's galleys."—Archiv. Port. Orient., fasc. 3, 324.
1608-10.—"... faisans les graues et obseruans le Sossiego à l'Espagnole, ayans tousiours leur boay qui porte leur parasol, sans lequel ils n'osent sortir de logis, ou autrement on les estimeroit picaros et miserables."—Mocquet, Voyages, 305.
1610.—"... autres Gentils qui sont comme Crocheteurs et Porte-faix, qu'ils appellent Boye, c'est a dire Bœuf pour porter quelque pesãt faix que ce soit."—Pyrard de Laval, ii. 27; [Hak. Soc. ii. 44. On this Mr. Gray notes: "Pyrard's fanciful interpretation 'ox,' Port. boi, may be due either to himself or to some Portuguese friend who would have his joke. It is repeated by Boullaye-de-Gouz (p. 211), who finds a parallel indignity in the use of the term mulets by the French gentry towards their chair-men."]
1673.—"We might recite the Coolies ... and Palenkeen Boys; by the very Heathens esteemed a degenerate Offspring of the Holencores (see HALALCORE)."—Fryer, 34.
1720.—"Bois. In Portuguese India are those who carry the Andores (see ANDOR), and in Salsete there is a village of them which pays its dues from the fish which they sell, buying it from the fishermen of the shores."—Bluteau, Dict. s.v.
1755-60.—"... Palankin-boys."—Ives, 50.
1778.—"Boys de palanquim, Kàhàr."—Gramatica Indostana (Port.), Roma, 86.
1782.—"... un bambou arqué dans le milieu, qui tient au palanquin, et sur {111a}les bouts duquel se mettent 5 ou 6 porteurs qu'on appelle Boués."—Sonnerat, Voyage, i. 58.
1785.—"The boys with Colonel Lawrence's palankeen having straggled a little out of the line of march, were picked up by the Morattas."—Carraccioli, Life of Clive, i. 207.
1804.—"My palanquin boys will be laid on the road on Monday."—Wellington, iii. 553.
1809.—"My boys were in high spirits, laughing and singing through the whole night."—Ld. Valentia, i. 326.
1810.—"The palankeen-bearers are called Bhois, and are remarkable for strength and swiftness."—Maria Graham, 128.
BOYA, s. A buoy. Sea H. (Roebuck). [Mr. Skeat adds: "The Malay word is also boya or bai-rop, which latter I cannot trace."]
[BOYANORE, BAONOR, s. A corr. of the Malayāl. Vāllunavar, 'Ruler.'
[1887.—"Somewhere about 1694-95 ... the Kadattunād Raja, known to the early English as the Boyanore or Baonor of Badagara, was in semi-independent possession of Kaduttanād, that is, of the territory lying between the Mahé and Kōtta rivers."—Logan, Man. of Malabar, i. 345.]
BRAB, s. The Palmyra Tree (see PALMYRA) or Borassus flabelliformis. The Portuguese called this Palmeira brava ('wild' palm), whence the English corruption. The term is unknown in Bengal, where the tree is called 'fan-palm,' 'palmyra,' or by the H. name tāl or tār.
1623.—"The book is made after the fashion of this country, i.e. not of paper which is seldom or never used, but of palm leaves, viz. of the leaves of that which the Portuguese call palmum brama (sic), or wild palm."—P. della Valle, ii. 681; [Hak. Soc. ii. 291].
c. 1666.—"Tous les Malabares écrivent comme nous de gauche à droit sur les feuïlles des Palmeras Bravas."—Thevenot, v. 268.
1673.—"Another Tree called Brabb, bodied like the Cocoe, but the leaves grow round like a Peacock's Tail set upright."—Fryer, 76.
1759.—"Brabb, so called at Bombay: Palmira on the coast; and Tall at Bengal."—Ives, 458.
c. 1760.—"There are also here and there interspersed a few brab-trees, or rather wild palm-trees (the word brab being derived from Brabo, which in Portuguese signifies wild) ... the chief profit from that is the toddy."—Grose, i. 48.
[1808.—See quotation under BANDAREE.]
1809.—"The Palmyra ... here called the brab, furnishes the best leaves for thatching, and the dead ones serve for fuel."—Maria Graham, 5.
BRAHMIN, BRAHMAN, BRAMIN, s. In some parts of India called Bahman; Skt. Brāhmaṇa. This word now means a member of the priestly caste, but the original meaning and use were different. Haug, (Brahma und die Brahmanen, pp. 8-11) traces the word to the root brih, 'to increase,' and shows how it has come to have its present signification. The older English form is Brachman, which comes to us through the Greek and Latin authors.
c. B.C. 330.—"... τῶν ἐν Ταξίλοις σοφιστῶν ἰδεῖν δύο φησὶ, Βραχμᾶνας ἀμφοτέρους, τὸν μὲν πρεσβύτερον ἐξυρημένον, τὸν δὲ νεώτερον κομήτην, ἀμφοτέροις δ' ἀκολουθεῖν μαθητάς...."—Aristobulus, quoted in Strabo, xv. c. 61.
c. B.C. 300.—"Ἄλλην δὲ διαίρεσιν ποιεῖται περὶ τῶν φιλοσόφων δύο γενη φάσκων, ὥν τοὺς μὲν Βραχμᾶνας καλεῖ, τοὺς δὲ Γαρμάνας [Σαρμάνας?]"—From Megasthenes, in Strabo, xv. c. 59.
c.
c. A.D. 500.—"Βραχμᾶνες; Ἰνδικὸν ἔθνος σοφώτατον οὓς καὶ βράχμας καλοῦσιν."—Stephanus Byzantinus.
1298.—Marco Polo writes (pl.) Abraiaman or Abraiamin, which seems to represent an incorrect Ar. plural (e.g. Abrāhamīn) picked up from Arab sailors; the correct Ar. plural is Barāhima.
1444.—Poggio taking down the reminiscences of Nicolo Conti writes Brammones.
1555.—"Among these is ther a people called Brachmanes, whiche (as Didimus their Kinge wrote unto Alexandre ...) live a pure and simple life, led with no likerous lustes of other mennes vanities."—W. Watreman, Fardle of Faciouns.
1572.—
"Brahmenes são os seus religiosos,
Nome antiguo, e de grande preeminencia:
Observam os preceitos tão famosos
D'hum, que primeiro poz nomo á sciencia."
Camões, vii. 40.
1578.—Acosta has Bragmen.
1582.—"Castañeda, tr. by N. L.," has Bramane.
1630.—"The Bramanes ... Origen, cap. 13 & 15, affirmeth to bee descended from Abraham by Cheturah, who seated {112a}themselves in India, and that so they were called Abrahmanes."—Lord, Desc. of the Banian Rel., 71.
1676.—
"Comes he to upbraid us with his innocence?
Seize him, and take this preaching Brachman hence."
Dryden, Aurungzebe, iii. 3.
1688.—"The public worship of the pagods was tolerated at Goa, and the sect of the Brachmans daily increased in power, because these Pagan priests had bribed the Portuguese officers."—Dryden, Life of Xavier.
1714.—"The Dervis at first made some scruple of violating his promise to the dying brachman."—The Spectator, No. 578.
BRAHMINY BULL, s. A bull devoted to Śiva and let loose; generally found frequenting Hindu bazars, and fattened by the run of the Bunyas' shops. The term is sometimes used more generally (Brahminy bull, -ox, or -cow) to denote the humped Indian ox as a species.
1872.—"He could stop a huge Bramini bull, when running in fury, by catching hold of its horns."—Govinda Samanta, i. 85.
[1889.—"Herbert Edwards made his mark as a writer of the Brahminee Bull Letters in the Delhi Gazette."—Calcutta Rev., app. xxii.]
BRAHMINY BUTTER, s. This seems to have been an old name for Ghee (q.v.). In MS. "Acct. Charges, Dieting, &c., at Fort St. David for Nov.-Jany., 1746-47," in India Office, we find:
| " | Butter | Pagodas | 2 | 2 | 0 | |
| Brahminy do. | " | 1 | 13 | 0 | ." |
BRAHMINY DUCK, s. The common Anglo-Indian name of the handsome bird Casarca rutila (Pallas), or 'Ruddy Shieldrake'; constantly seen on the sandy shores of the Gangetic rivers in single pairs, the pair almost always at some distance apart. The Hindi name is chakwā, and the chakwā-chakwī (male and female of the species) afford a commonplace comparison in Hindi literature for faithful lovers and spouses. "The Hindus have a legend that two lovers for their indiscretion were transformed into Brahminy Ducks, that they are condemned to pass the night apart from each other, on opposite banks of the river, and that all night long each, in its turn, asks its mate if it shall come across, but the question {112b}is always met by a negative—"Chakwa, shall I come?" "No, Chakwi." "Chakwi, shall I come?" "No, Chakwa."—(Jerdon.) The same author says the bird is occasionally killed in England.
BRAHMINY KITE, s. The Milvus Pondicerianus of Jerdon, Haliastur Indus, Boddaert. The name is given because the bird is regarded with some reverence by the Hindus as sacred to Vishnu. It is found throughout India.
c. 1328.—"There is also in this India a certain bird, big, like a Kite, having a white head and belly, but all red above, which boldly snatches fish out of the hands of fishermen and other people, and indeed [these birds] go on just like dogs."—Friar Jordanus, 36.
1673.—"... 'tis Sacrilege with them to kill a Cow or Calf; but highly piacular to shoot a Kite, dedicated to the Brachmins, for which Money will hardly pacify."—Fryer, 33.
[1813.—"We had a still bolder and more ravenous enemy in the hawks and brahminee kites."—Forbes, Or. Mem., 2nd ed., ii. 162.]
BRAHMO-SOMÁJ, s. The Bengali pronunciation of Skt. Brahma Samāja, 'assembly of Brahmists'; Brahma being the Supreme Being according to the Indian philosophic systems. The reform of Hinduism so called was begun by Ram Mohun Roy (Rāma Mohana Rāī) in 1830. Professor A. Weber has shown that it does not constitute an independent Indian movement, but is derived from European Theism. [Also see Monier-Williams, Brahmanism, 486.]
1876.—"The Brahmo Somaj, or Theistic Church of India, is an experiment hitherto unique in religious history."—Collet, Brahmo Year-book, 5.
BRANDUL, s. 'Backstay,' in Sea H. Port. brandal (Roebuck).
BRANDY COORTEE, -COATEE, s. Or sometimes simply Brandy. A corruption of bārānī, 'a cloak,' literally pluviale, from P. bārān, 'rain.' Bārānī-kurtī seems to be a kind of hybrid shaped by the English word coat, though kurtā and kurtī are true P. words for various forms of jacket or tunic.
[1754.—"Their women also being not less than 6000, were dressed with great coats (these are called baranni) of crimson cloth, after the manner of the men, and not to be {113a}distinguished at a distance; so that the whole made a very formidable appearance."—H. of Nadir Shah, in Hanway, 367.]
1788.—"Barrannee—a cloak to cover one from the rain."—Ind. Vocab. (Stockdale).
[The word Bārānī is now commonly used to describe those crops which are dependent on the annual rains, not on artificial irrigation.
[1900.—"The recent rain has improved the barani crops."—Pioneer Mail, 19th Feb.]
BRANDYPAWNEE, s. Brandy and water; a specimen of genuine Urdū, i.e. Camp jargon, which hardly needs interpretation. H. panī, 'water.' Williamson (1810) has brandy-shraub-pauny (V. M. ii. 123).
[1854.—"I'm sorry to see you gentlemen drinking brandy-pawnee," says he; "it plays the deuce with our young men in India."—Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. i.]
1866.—"The brandy pawnee of the East, and the 'sangaree' of the West Indies, are happily now almost things of the past, or exist in a very modified form."—Waring, Tropical Resident, 177.
BRASS, s. A brace. Sea dialect.—(Roebuck.)
[BRASS-KNOCKER, s. A term applied to a réchauffé or serving up again of yesterday's dinner or supper. It is said to be found in a novel by Winwood Reade called Liberty Hall, as a piece of Anglo-Indian slang; and it is supposed to be a corruption of bāsī khāna, H. 'stale food'; see 5 ser. N. & Q., 34, 77.]
BRATTY, s. A word, used only in the South, for cakes of dry cow-dung, used as fuel more or less all over India. It is Tam. varaṭṭi, [or virāṭṭi], 'dried dung.' Various terms are current elsewhere, but in Upper India the most common is uplā.—(Vide OOPLA).
BRAVA, n.p. A sea-port on the east coast of Africa, lat. 1° 7′ N., long. 44° 3′, properly Barāwa.
1516.—"... a town of the Moors, well walled, and built of good stone and whitewash, which is called Brava.... It is a place of trade, which has already been destroyed by the Portuguese, with great slaughter of the inhabitants...."—Barbosa, 15.
BRAZIL-WOOD, s. This name is now applied in trade to the dye-wood {113b}imported from Pernambuco, which is derived from certain species of Caesalpinia indigenous there. But it originally applied to a dye-wood of the same genus which was imported from India, and which is now known in trade as Sappan (q.v.). [It is the andam or baḳḳam of the Arabs (Burton, Ar. Nights, iii. 49).] The history of the word is very curious. For when the name was applied to the newly discovered region in S. America, probably, as Barros alleges, because it produced a dye-wood similar in character to the brazil of the East, the trade-name gradually became appropriated to the S. American product, and was taken away from that of the E. Indies. See some further remarks in Marco Polo, 2nd ed., ii. 368-370 [and Encycl. Bibl. i. 120].
This is alluded to also by Camões (x. 140):
"But here where Earth spreads wider, ye shall claim
realms by the ruddy Dye-wood made renown'd;
these of the 'Sacred Cross' shall win the name:
by your first Navy shall that world be found."
Burton.
The medieval forms of brazil were many; in Italian it is generally verzi, verzino, or the like.
1330.—"And here they burn the brazil-wood (verzino) for fuel...."—Fr. Odoric, in Cathay, &c., p. 77.
1552.—"... when it came to the 3d of May, and Pedralvares was about to set sail, in order to give a name to the land thus newly discovered, he ordered a very great Cross to be hoisted at the top of a tree, after mass had been said at the foot of the tree, and it had been set up with the solemn benediction of the priests, and then he gave the country the name of Sancta Cruz.... But as it was through the symbol of the Cross that the Devil lost his dominion over us ... as soon as the red wood called Brazil began to arrive from that country, he wrought that that name should abide in the mouth of the people, and that the name of Holy Cross should be lost, as if the name of a wood for colouring cloth were of more moment than that wood which imbues all the sacraments with the tincture of salvation, which is the Blood of Jesus Christ."—Barros, I. v. 2.
1554.—"The baar (Bahar) of Brazil contains 20 faraçolas (see FRAZALA), weighing it in a coir rope, and there is no picotaa (see PICOTA)"—A. Nunes, 18.
1641.—"We went to see the Rasp-house where the lusty knaves are compelled to labour, and the rasping of Brazill and Logwood is very hard labour."—Evelyn's Diary, August [19].
BREECH-CANDY, n.p. A locality on the shore of Bombay Island to the north of Malabar Hill. The true name, as Dr. Murray Mitchell tells me, is believed to be Burj-khāḍī, 'the Tower of the Creek.'
BRIDGEMÁN, s. Anglo-Sepoy H. brijmān, denoting a military prisoner, of which word it is a quaint corruption.
BRINJARRY, s. Also BINJARREE, BUNJARREE, and so on. But the first form has become classical from its constant occurrence in the Indian Despatches of Sir A. Wellesley. The word is properly H. banjārā, and Wilson derives it from Skt. baṇij, 'trade,' kāra, 'doer.' It is possible that the form brinjārā may have been suggested by a supposed connection with the Pers. birinj, 'rice.' (It is alleged in the Dict. of Words used in the E. Indies, 2nd ed., 1805, to be derived from brinj, 'rice,' and ara, 'bring'!) The Brinjarries of the Deccan are dealers in grain and salt, who move about, in numerous parties with cattle, carrying their goods to different markets, and who in the days of the Deccan wars were the great resource of the commissariat, as they followed the armies with supplies for sale. They talk a kind of Mahratta or Hindi patois. Most classes of Banjārās in the west appear to have a tradition of having first come to the Deccan with Moghul camps as commissariat carriers. In a pamphlet called Some Account of the Bunjarrah Class, by N. R. Cumberlege, District Sup. of Police, Basein, Berar (Bombay, 1882; [North Indian N. & Q. iv. 163 seqq.]), the author attempts to distinguish between brinjarees as 'grain-carriers,' and bunjarrahs, from bunjār, 'waste land' (meaning banjar or bānjaṛ). But this seems fanciful. In the N.-W. Provinces the name is also in use, and is applied to a numerous tribe spread along the skirt of the Himālaya from Hardwār to Gorakhpur, some of whom are settled, whilst the rest move about with their cattle, sometimes transporting goods for hire, and sometimes carrying grain, salt, lime, forest produce, or other merchandise for sale. [See Crooke, Tribes and Castes, i. 149 seqq.] Vanjārās, as they are called about Bombay, used to come down from Rajputāna and Central India, with {114b}large droves of cattle, laden with grain, &c., taking back with them salt for the most part. These were not mere carriers, but the actual dealers, paying ready money, and they were orderly in conduct.
c. 1505.—"As scarcity was felt in his camp (Sultan Sikandar Lodi's) in consequence of the non-arrival of the Banjáras, he despatched 'Azam Humáyun for the purpose of bringing in supplies."—Ni'amat Ullah, in Elliot, v. 100 (written c. 1612).
1516.—"The Moors and Gentiles of the cities and towns throughout the country come to set up their shops and cloths at Cheul ... they bring these in great caravans of domestic oxen, with packs, like donkeys, and on the top of these long white sacks placed crosswise, in which they bring their goods; and one man drives 30 or 40 beasts before him."—Barbosa, 71.
1563.—"... This King of Dely took the Balagat from certain very powerful gentoos, whose tribe are those whom we now call Venezaras, and from others dwelling in the country, who are called Colles; and all these, Colles, and Venezaras, and Reisbutos, live by theft and robbery to this day."—Garcia De O., f. 34.
c. 1632.—"The very first step which Mohabut Khan [Khān Khānān] took in the Deccan, was to present the Bunjaras of Hindostan with elephants, horses, and cloths; and he collected (by these conciliatory measures) so many of them that he had one chief Bunjara at Agrah, another in Goojrat, and another above the Ghats, and established the advanced price of 10 sers per rupee (in his camp) to enable him to buy it cheaper."—MS. Life of Mohabut Khan (Khan Khanan), in Briggs's paper quoted below, 183.
1638.—"Il y a dans le Royaume de Cuncam vn certain peuple qu'ils appellent Venesars, qui achettent le bled et le ris ... pour le reuendre dans l'Indosthan ... ou ils vont auec des Caffilas ou Caravances de cinq ou six, et quelque fois de neuf ou dix mille bestes de somme...."—Mandelslo, 245.
1793.—"Whilst the army halted on the 23rd, accounts were received from Captain Read ... that his convoy of brinjarries had been attacked by a body of horse."—Dirom, 2.
1800.—"The Binjarries I look upon in the light of servants of the public, of whose grain I have a right to regulate the sale ... always taking care that they have a proportionate advantage."—A. Wellesley, in Life of Sir T. Munro, i. 264.
" "The Brinjarries drop in by degrees."—Wellington, i. 175.
1810.—"Immediately facing us a troop of Brinjarees had taken up their residence for the night. These people travel from one end of India to the other, carrying salt, grain, assafœtida, almost as necessary to an army as salt."—Maria Graham, 61.
1813.—"We met there a number of Vanjarrahs, or merchants, with large droves of oxen, laden with valuable articles from the interior country, to commute for salt on the sea-coast."—Forbes, Or. Mem. i. 206; [2nd ed. i. 118; also see ii. 276 seqq.].
" "As the Deccan is devoid of a single navigable river, and has no roads that admit of wheel-carriages, the whole of this extensive intercourse is carried on by laden bullocks, the property of that class of people known as Bunjaras."—Acc. of Origin, Hist., and Manners of ... Bunjaras, by Capt. John Briggs, in Tr. Lit. Soc. Bo. i. 61.
1825.—"We passed a number of Brinjarrees who were carrying salt.... They ... had all bows ... arrows, sword and shield.... Even the children had, many of them, bows and arrows suited to their strength, and I saw one young woman equipped in the same manner."—Heber, ii. 94.
1877.—"They were brinjarries, or carriers of grain, and were quietly encamped at a village about 24 miles off; trading most unsuspiciously in grain and salt."—Meadows Taylor, Life, ii. 17.
BRINJAUL, s. The name of a vegetable called in the W. Indies the Egg-plant, and more commonly known to the English in Bengal under that of bangun (prop. baingan). It is the Solanum Melongena, L., very commonly cultivated on the shores of the Mediterranean as well as in India and the East generally. Though not known in a wild state under this form, there is no reasonable doubt that S. Melongena is a derivative of the common Indian S. insanum, L. The word in the form brinjaul is from the Portuguese, as we shall see. But probably there is no word of the kind which has undergone such extraordinary variety of modifications, whilst retaining the same meaning, as this. The Skt. is bhaṇṭākī, H. bhāṇṭā, baigan, baingan, P. badingān, badilgān, Ar. badinjān, Span. alberengena, berengena, Port. beringela, bringiela, bringella, Low Latin melangolus, merangolus, Ital. melangola, melanzana, mela insana, &c. (see P. della Valle, below), French aubergine (from alberengena), melongène, merangène, and provincially belingène, albergaine, albergine, albergame. (See Marcel Devic, p. 46.) Littré, we may remark, explains (dormitante Homero?) aubergine as 'espèce de morelle,' giving the etym. as "diminutif de auberge" (in the sense of a kind of peach). Melongena is no real Latin word, but a factitious {115b}rendering of melanzana, or, as Marcel Devic says, "Latin du botaniste." It looks as if the Skt. word were the original of all. The H. baingan again seems to have been modified from the P. badingān, [or, as Platts asserts, direct from the Skt. vanga, vangana, 'the plant of Bengal,'] and baingan also through the Ar. to have been the parent of the Span. berengena, and so of all the other European names except the English 'egg-plant.' The Ital. mela insana is the most curious of these corruptions, framed by the usual effort after meaning, and connecting itself with the somewhat indigestible reputation of the vegetable as it is eaten in Italy, which is a fact. When cholera is abroad it is considered (e.g. in Sicily) to be an act of folly to eat the melanzana. There is, however, behind this, some notion (exemplified in the quotation from Lane's Mod. Egypt. below) connecting the badinjān with madness. [Burton, Ar. Nights, iii. 417.] And it would seem that the old Arab medical writers give it a bad character as an article of diet. Thus Avicenna says the badinjān generates melancholy and obstructions. To the N. O. Solanaceae many poisonous plants belong.
The word has been carried, with the vegetable, to the Archipelago, probably by the Portuguese, for the Malays call it berinjalā. [On this Mr. Skeat writes: "The Malay form brinjal, from the Port., not berinjalā, is given by Clifford and Swettenham, but it cannot be established as a Malay word, being almost certainly the Eng. brinjaul done into Malay. It finds no place in Klinkert, and the native Malay word, which is the only word used in pure Peninsular Malay, is terong or trong. The form berinjalā, I believe, must have come from the Islands if it really exists."]
1554.—(At Goa). "And the excise from garden stuff under which are comprised these things, viz.: Radishes, beetroot, garlick, onions green and dry, green tamarinds, lettuces, conbalinguas, ginger, oranges, dill, coriander, mint, cabbage, salted mangoes, brinjelas, lemons, gourds, citrons, cucumbers, which articles none may sell in retail except the Rendeiro of this excise, or some one who has got permission from him...."—S. Botelho, Tombo, 49.
c. 1580.—"Trifolium quoque virens comedunt Arabes, mentham Judaei crudam, ... mala insana...."—Prosper Alpinus, i. 65.
1611.—"We had a market there kept {116a}upon the Strand of diuers sorts of prouisions, towit ... Pallingenies, cucumbers...."—N. Dounton, in Purchas, i. 298.
1616.—"It seems to me to be one of those fruits which are called in good Tuscan petronciani, but which by the Lombards are called melanzane, and by the vulgar at Rome marignani; and if my memory does not deceive me, by the Neapolitans in their patois molegnane."—P. della Valle, i. 197.
1673.—"The Garden ... planted with Potatoes, Yawms, Berenjaws, both hot plants...."—Fryer, 104.
1738.—"Then follow during the rest of the summer, calabashas ... bedin-janas, and tomatas."—Shaw's Travels, 2nd ed. 1757, p. 141.
c. 1740.—"This man (Balaji Rao), who had become absolute in Hindostan as well as in Decan, was fond of bread made of Badjrah ... he lived on raw Bringelas, on unripe mangoes, and on raw red pepper."—Seir Mutaqherin, iii. 229.
1782.—Sonnerat writes Béringédes.—i. 186.
1783.—Forrest spells brinjalles (V. to Mergui, 40); and (1810) Williamson biringal (V. M. i. 133). Forbes (1813), bringal and berenjal (Or. Mem. i. 32) [in 2nd ed. i. 22, bungal,] ii. 50; [in 2nd ed. i. 348].
1810.—"I saw last night at least two acres covered with brinjaal, a species of Solanum."—Maria Graham, 24.
1826.—"A plate of poached eggs, fried in sugar and butter; a dish of badenjâns, slit in the middle and boiled in grease."—Hajji Baba, ed. 1835, p. 150.
1835.—"The neighbours unanimously declared that the husband was mad.... One exclaimed: 'There is no strength nor power but in God! God restore thee!' Another said: 'How sad! He was really a worthy man.' A third remarked: 'Badingâns are very abundant just now.'"—Lane, Mod. Egyptians, ed. 1860, 299.
1860.—"Amongst other triumphs of the native cuisine were some singular, but by no means inelegant chefs d'œuvre, brinjals boiled and stuffed with savoury meats, but exhibiting ripe and undressed fruit growing on the same branch."—Tennent's Ceylon, ii. 161. This dish is mentioned in the Sanskrit Cookery Book, which passes as by King Nala. It is managed by wrapping part of the fruit in wet cloths whilst the rest is being cooked.
BROACH, n.p. Bharōch, an ancient and still surviving city of Guzerat, on the River Nerbudda. The original forms of the name are Bhṛigu-kachchha, and Bhāru-Kachchha, which last form appears in the Sunnar Cave Inscription No. ix., and this was written with fair correctness by the Greeks as Βαρυγάζα and Βαργόση. "Illiterate Guzerattees would in attempting to {116b}articulate Bhreeghoo-Kshetra (sic), lose the half in coalescence, and call it Barigache."—Drummond, Illus. of Guzerattee, &c.
c. B.C. 20.—"And then laughing, and stript naked, anointed and with his loin-cloth on, he leaped upon the pyre. And this inscription was set upon his tomb: Zarmanochēgas the Indian from Bargósē having rendered himself immortal after the hereditary custom of the Indians lieth here."—Nicolaus Damascenus, in Strabo, xv. 72. [Lassen takes the name Zarmanochēgas to represent the Skt. Śrámanácharya, teacher of the Śrámanas, from which it would appear that he was a Buddhist priest.]
c. A.D. 80.—"On the right, at the very mouth of the gulf, there is a long and narrow strip of shoal.... And if one succeeds in getting into the gulf, still it is hard to hit the mouth of the river leading to Barygaza, owing to the land being so low ... and when found it is difficult to enter, owing to the shoals of the river near the mouth. On this account there are at the entrances fishermen employed by the King ... to meet ships as far off as Syrastrene, and by these they are piloted up to Barygaza."—Periplus, sect. 43. It is very interesting to compare Horsburgh with this ancient account. "From the sands of Swallow to Broach a continued bank extends along the shore, which at Broach river projects out about 5 miles.... The tide flows here ... velocity 6 knots ... rising nearly 30 feet.... On the north side of the river, a great way up, the town of Broach is situated; vessels of considerable burden may proceed to this place, as the channels are deep in many places, but too intricate to be navigated without a pilot."—India Directory (in loco).
c. 718.—Barús is mentioned as one of the places against which Arab attacks were directed.—See Elliot, i. 441.
c. 1300.—"... a river which lies between the Sarsut and Ganges ... has a south-westerly course till it falls into the sea near Bahrúch."—Al-Birūni, in Elliot, i. 49.
A.D. 1321.—"After their blessed martyrdom, which occurred on the Thursday before Palm Sunday, in Thana of India, I baptised about 90 persons in a certain city called Parocco, 10 days' journey distant therefrom...."—Friar Jordanus, in Cathay, &c., 226.
1552.—"A great and rich ship said to belong to Meleque Gupij, Lord of Baroche."—Barros, II. vi. 2.
1555.—"Sultan Ahmed on his part marched upon Barūj."—Sidī 'Ali, 85.
[1615.—"It would be necessary to give credit unto two or three Guzzaratts for some cloth to make a voyage to Burrouse."—Foster, Letters, iv. 94.]
1617.—"We gave our host ... a peece of backar baroche to his children to make {117a}them 2 coates."—Cocks's Diary, i. 330. [Backar here seems to represent a port connected with Broach, called in the Āīn (ii. 243) Bhankora or Bhakor; Bayley gives Bhakorah as a village on the frontier of Gujerat.]
1623.—"Before the hour of complines ... we arrived at the city of Barochi, or Behrug as they call it in Persian, under the walls of which, on the south side, flows a river called Nerbedà."—P. della Valle, ii. 529; [Hak. Soc. i. 60].
1648.—In Van Twist (p. 11), it is written Broichia.
[1676.—"From Surat to Baroche, 22 coss."—Tavernier, ed. Ball, i. 66.]
1756.—"Bandar of Bhrōch."—(Bird's tr. of) Mirat-i-Ahmadi, 115.
1803.—"I have the honour to enclose ... papers which contain a detailed account of the ... capture of Baroach."—Wellington, ii. 289.
BUCK, v. To prate, to chatter, to talk much and egotistically. H. baknā. [A buck-stick is a chatterer.]
1880.—"And then ... he bucks with a quiet stubborn determination that would fill an American editor, or an Under Secretary of State with despair. He belongs to the 12-foot-tiger school, so perhaps he can't help it."—Ali Baba, 164.
BUCKAUL, s. Ar. H. baḳḳāl, 'a shopkeeper;' a bunya (q.v. under BANYAN). In Ar. it means rather a 'second-hand' dealer.
[c. 1590.—"There is one cast of the Vaiśyas called Banik, more commonly termed Baniya (grain-merchant). The Persians name them bakkál...."—Āīn, tr. Jarrett, iii. 118.]
1800.—"... a buccal of this place told me he would let me have 500 bags to-morrow."—Wellington, i. 196.
1826.—"Should I find our neighbour the Baqual ... at whose shop I used to spend in sweetmeats all the copper money that I could purloin from my father."—Hajji Baba, ed. 1835, 295.
BUCKSHAW, s. We have not been able to identify the fish so called, or the true form of the name. Perhaps it is only H. bachchā, Mahr. bachchā (P. bacha, Skt. vatsa), 'the young of any creature.' But the Konkani Dict. gives 'boussa—peixe pequeno de qualquer sorte,' 'little fish of any kind.' This is perhaps the real word; but it also may represent bachcha. The practice of manuring the coco-palms with putrid fish is still rife, as residents of the Government House at Parell never {117b}forget. The fish in use is refuse bummelo (q.v.). [The word is really the H. bachhuā, a well-known edible fish which abounds in the Ganges and other N. Indian rivers. It is either the Pseudoutropius garua, or P. murius of Day, Fish. Ind., nos. 474 or 471; Fau. Br. Ind. i. 141, 137.]
1673.—"... Cocoe Nuts, for Oyl, which latter they dunging with (Bubsho) Fish, the Land-Breezes brought a poysonous Smell on board Ship."—Fryer, 55. [Also see Wheeler, Early Rec., 40.]
1727.—"The Air is somewhat unhealthful, which is chiefly imputed to their dunging their Cocoa-nut trees with Buckshoe, a sort of small Fishes which their Sea abounds in."—A. Hamilton, i. 181.
c. 1760.—"... manure for the coconut-tree ... consisting of the small fry of fish, and called by the country name of Buckshaw."—Grose, i. 31.
[1883.—"Mahsīr, rohū and batchwa are found in the river Jumna."—Gazetteer of Delhi District, 21.]
BUCKSHAW, s. This is also used in Cocks's Diary (i. 63, 99) for some kind of Indian piece-goods, we know not what. [The word is not found in modern lists of piece-goods. It is perhaps a corruption of Pers. buḳchah, 'a bundle,' used specially of clothes. Tavernier (see below) uses the word in its ordinary sense.]
[1614.—"Percalla, Boxshaes."—Foster, Letters, ii. 88.
[1615.—"80 pieces Boxsha gingams"; "Per Puxshaws, double piece, at 9 mas."—Ibid. iii. 156; iv. 50.
[1665.—"I went to lie down, my bouchha being all the time in the same place, half under the head of my bed and half outside."—Tavernier, ed. Ball, ii. 166.]
BUCKSHEESH, BUXEES, s. P. through P.—H. bakhshish. Buonamano, Trinkgeld, pourboire; we don't seem to have in England any exact equivalent for the word, though the thing is so general; 'something for (the driver)' is a poor expression; tip is accurate, but is slang; gratuity is official or dictionary English.
[1625.—"Bacsheese (as they say in the Arabicke tongue) that is gratis freely."—Purchas, ii. 1340 [N.E.D.].
1759.—"To Presents:—
| R. | A. | P. | ||
| 2 Pieces of flowered Velvet | 532 | 7 | 0 | |
| 1 ditto of Broad Cloth | 50 | 0 | 0 | |
| Buxis to the Servants | 50 | 0 | 0 | " |
Cost of Entertainment to Jugget Set. In Long, 190.
c. 1760.—"... Buxie money."—Ives, 51.
1810.—"... each mile will cost full one rupee (i.e. 2s. 6d.), besides various little disbursements by way of buxees, or presents, to every set of bearers."—Williamson, V. M. ii. 235.
1823.—"These Christmas-boxes are said to be an ancient custom here, and I could almost fancy that our name of box for this particular kind of present ... is a corruption of buckshish, a gift or gratuity, in Turkish, Persian, and Hindoostanee."—Heber, i. 45.
1853.—"The relieved bearers opened the shutters, thrust in their torch, and their black heads, and most unceremoniously demanded buxees."—W. Arnold, Oakfield, i. 239.
BUCKYNE, s. H. bakāyan, the tree Melia sempervivens, Roxb. (N. O. Meliaceae). It has a considerable resemblance to the nīm tree (see NEEM); and in Bengali is called mahā-nīm, which is also the Skt. name, mahā-nimba. It is sometimes erroneously called Persian Lilac.
BUDDHA, BUDDHISM, BUDDHIST. These words are often written with a quite erroneous assumption of precision Bhudda, &c. All that we shall do here is to collect some of the earlier mentions of Buddha and the religion called by his name.
c. 200.—"Εἰσὶ δὲ τῶν Ἰνδῶν οἱ τοῖς Βούττα πειθόμενοι παραγγέλμασιν· ὃν δι' ὑπερβολὴν σεμνότητος εἰς θεὸν τετιμήκασι."—Clemens Alexandrinus, Strōmatōn, Liber I. (Oxford ed., 1715, i. 359).
c. 240.—"Wisdom and deeds have always from time to time been brought to mankind by the messengers of God. So in one age they have been brought to mankind by the messenger called Buddha to India, in another by Zarâdusht to Persia, in another by Jesus to the West. Thereupon this revelation has come down, this prophecy in this last age, through me, Mânî, the messenger of the God of truth to Babylonia."—The Book of Mānī, called Shābūrkān, quoted by Albirūnī, in his Chronology, tr. by Sachau, p. 190.
c. 400.—"Apud Gymnosophistas Indiae quasi per manus hujus opinionis auctoritas traditur, quod Buddam principem dogmatis eorum, e latere suo virgo generaret. Nec hoc mirum de barbaris, quum Minervam quoque de capite Jovis, et Liberum patrem de femore ejus procreatos, docta finxit Graecia."—St. Jerome, Adv. Jovinianum, Lib. i. ed. Vallarsii, ii. 309.
c. 440.—"... Τηνικαῦτα γαρ τὸ Ἐμπεδοκλέους τοῦ παρ' Ἕλλησι φιλοσόφου δόγμα, διὰ τοῦ Μανιχαίου χριστιανισμὸν ὑπεκρίνατο ... τούτου δὲ τοῦ Σκυθιανοῦ μαθητὴς γίνεται Βούδδας, πρότερον Τερέβινθος καλούμενος ... κ. τ. λ." {118b}(see the same matter from Georgius Cedrenus below).—Socratis, Hist. Eccles. Lib. I. cap. 22.
c. 840.—"An certè Bragmanorum sequemur opinionem, ut quemadmodum illi sectae suae auctorem Bubdam, per virginis latus narrant exortum, ita nos Christum fuisse praedicemus? Vel magis sic nascitur Dei sapientia de virginis cerebro, quomodo Minerva de Jovis vertice, tamquam Liber Pater de femore? Ut Christicolam de virginis partu non solennis natura, vel auctoritas sacrae lectionis, sed superstitio Gentilis, et commenta perdoceant fabulosa."—Ratramni Corbeiensis L. de Nativitate Xti., cap. iii. in L. D'Achery, Spicilegium, tom. i. p. 54, Paris, 1723.
c. 870.—"The Indians give in general the name of budd to anything connected with their worship, or which forms the object of their veneration. So, an idol is called budd."—Biládurí, in Elliot, i. 123.
c. 904.—"Budāsaf was the founder of the Sabaean Religion ... he preached to mankind renunciation (of this world) and the intimate contemplation of the superior worlds.... There was to be read on the gate of the Naobihar[44] at Balkh an inscription in the Persian tongue of which this is the interpretation: 'The words of Budāsaf: In the courts of kings three things are needed, Sense, Patience, Wealth.' Below had been written in Arabic: 'Budāsaf lies. If a free man possesses any of the three, he will flee from the courts of Kings.'"—Mas'ūdī, iv. 45 and 49.
1000.—"... pseudo-prophets came forward, the number and history of whom it would be impossible to detail.... The first mentioned is Bûdhâsaf, who came forward in India."—Albirûnî, Chronology, by Sachau, p. 186. This name given to Buddha is specially interesting as showing a step nearer the true Bodhisattva, the origin of the name Ἰωάσαφ, under which Buddha became a Saint of the Church, and as elucidating Prof. Max Müller's ingenious suggestion of that origin (see Chips, &c., iv. 184; see also Academy, Sept. 1, 1883, p. 146).
c. 1030.—"A stone was found there in the temple of the great Budda on which an inscription ... purporting that the temple had been founded 50,000 years ago...."—Al 'Utbi, in Elliot, ii. 39.
c. 1060.—"This madman then, Manēs (also called Scythianus) was by race a Brachman, and he had for his teacher Budas, formerly called Terebinthus, who having been brought up by Scythianus in the learning of the Greeks became a follower of the sect of Empedocles (who said there were two first principles opposed to one another), and when he entered Persia declared that he had been born of a virgin, and had been brought up among the hills ... and this Budas (alias Terebinthus) did perish, crushed by an unclean spirit."—Georg. Cedrenus, Hist. Comp., {119a}Bonn ed., 455 (old ed. i. 259). This wonderful jumble, mainly copied, as we see, from Socrates (supra), seems to bring Buddha and Manes together. "Many of the ideas of Manicheism were but fragments of Buddhism."—E. B. Cowell, in Smith's Dict. of Christ. Biog.
c. 1190.—"Very grieved was Sārang Deva. Constantly he performed the worship of the Arihant; the Buddhist religion he adopted; he wore no sword."—The Poem of Chand Bardai, paraphr. by Beames, in Ind. Ant. i. 271.
1610.—"... This Prince is called in the histories of him by many names: his proper name was Dramá Rajo; but that by which he has been known since they have held him for a saint is the Budao, which is as much as to say 'Sage' ... and to this name the Gentiles throughout all India have dedicated great and superb Pagodas."—Couto, Dec. V., liv. vi. cap. 2.
[1615.—"The image of Dibottes, with the hudge collosso or bras imadg (or rather idoll) in it."—Cocks's Diary, i. 200.]
c. 1666.—"There is indeed another, a seventh Sect, which is called Bauté, whence do proceed 12 other different sects; but this is not so common as the others, the Votaries of it being hated and despised as a company of irreligious and atheistical people, nor do they live like the rest."—Bernier, E. T., ii. 107; [ed. Constable, 336].
1685.—"Above all these they have one to whom they pay much veneration, whom they call Bodu; his figure is that of a man."—Ribeiro, f. 40b.
1728.—"Before Gautama Budhum there have been known 26 Budhums—viz.:...."—Valentijn, v. (Ceylon) 369.
1753.—"Edrisi nous instruit de cette circonstance, en disant que le Balahar est adorateur de Bodda. Les Brahmènes du Malabar disent que c'est le nom que Vishtnu a pris dans une de ses apparitions, et on connoît Vishtnu pour une des trois principales divinités Indiennes. Suivant St. Jerôme et St. Clément d'Alexandrie, Budda ou Butta est le legislateur des Gymno-Sophistes de l'Inde. La secte des Shamans ou Samanéens, qui est demeurée la dominante dans tous les royaumes d'au delà du Gange, a fait de Budda en cette qualité son objet d'adoration. C'est la première des divinités Chingulaises ou de Ceilan, selon Ribeiro. Samano-Codom (see GAUTAMA), la grande idole des Siamois, est par eux appelé Putti."—D'Anville, Éclaircissemens, 75. What knowledge and apprehension, on a subject then so obscure, is shown by this great Geographer! Compare the pretentious ignorance of the flashy Abbé Raynal in the quotations under 1770.
1770.—"Among the deities of the second order, particular honours are paid to Buddou, who descended upon earth to take upon himself the office of mediator between God and mankind."—Raynal (tr. 1777), i. 91.
"The Budzoists are another sect of Japan, of which Budzo was the founder.... The {119b}spirit of Budzoism is dreadful. It breathes nothing but penitence, excessive fear, and cruel severity."—Ibid. i. 138. Raynal in the two preceding passages shows that he was not aware that the religions alluded to in Ceylon and in Japan were the same.
1779.—"Il y avoit alors dans ces parties de l'Inde, et principalement à la Côte de Coromandel et à Ceylan, un Culte dont on ignore absolument les Dogmes; le Dieu Baouth, dont on ne connoit aujourd'hui, dans l'Inde que le Nom et l'objet de ce Culte; mais il est tout-à-fait aboli, si ce n'est, qu'il se trouve encore quelques familles d'Indiens séparées et méprisées des autres Castes, qui sont restées fidèles à Baouth, et qui ne reconnoissent pas la religion des Brames."—Voyage de M. Gentil, quoted by W. Chambers, in As. Res. i. 170.
1801.—"It is generally known that the religion of Bouddhou is the religion of the people of Ceylon, but no one is acquainted with its forms and precepts. I shall here relate what I have heard upon the subject."—M. Joinville, in As. Res. vii. 399.
1806.—"... The head is covered with the cone that ever adorns the head of the Chinese deity Fo, who has been often supposed to be the same as Boudah."—Salt, Caves of Salsette, in Tr. Lit. Soc. Bo. i. 50.
1810.—"Among the Bhuddists there are no distinct castes."—Maria Graham, 89.
It is remarkable how many poems on the subject of Buddha have appeared of late years. We have noted:
1. Buddha, Epische Dichtung in Zwanzig Gesängen, i.e. an Epic Poem in 20 cantos (in ottava rima). Von Joseph Vittor Widmann, Bern. 1869.
2. The Story of Gautama Buddha and his Creed: An Epic by Richard Phillips, Longmans, 1871. This is also printed in octaves, but each octave consists of 4 heroic couplets.
3. Vasadavatta, a Buddhist Idyll; by Dean Plumtre. Republished in Things New and Old, 1884. The subject is the story of the Courtesan of Mathura ("Vāsavadattā and Upagupta"), which is given in Burnouf's Introd. a l'Histoire du Buddhisme Indien, 146-148; a touching story, even in its original crude form.
It opens:
"Where proud Mathoura rears her hundred towers...."
The Skt. Dict. gives indeed as an alternative Mathūra, but Mathŭra is the usual name, whence Anglo-Ind. Muttra.
4. The brilliant Poem of Sir Edwin Arnold, called The Light of Asia, or the Great Renunciation, being the Life and {120a}Teaching of Gautama, Prince of India, and Founder of Buddhism, as told in verse by an Indian Buddhist, 1879.
BUDGE-BUDGE, n.p. A village on the Hooghly R., 15 m. below Calcutta, where stood a fort which was captured by Clive when advancing on Calcutta to recapture it, in December, 1756. The Imperial Gazetteer gives the true name as Baj-baj, [but Hamilton writes Bhuja-bhuj].
1756.—"On the 29th December, at six o'clock in the morning, the admiral having landed the Company's troops the evening before at Mayapour, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Clive, cannonaded Bougee Bougee Fort, which was strong and built of mud, and had a wet ditch round it."—Ives, 99.
1757.—The Author of Memoir of the Revolution in Bengal calls it Busbudgia; (1763), Luke Scrafton Budge Boodjee.
BUDGEROW, s. A lumbering keelless barge, formerly much used by Europeans travelling on the Gangetic rivers. Two-thirds of the length aft was occupied by cabins with Venetian windows. Wilson gives the word as H. and B. bajrā; Shakespear gives H. bajrā and bajra, with an improbable suggestion of derivation from bajar, 'hard or heavy.' Among Blochmann's extracts from Mahommedan accounts of the conquest of Assam we find, in a detail of Mīr Jumla's fleet in his expedition of 1662, mention of 4 bajras (J. As. Soc. Ben. xli. pt. i. 73). The same extracts contain mention of war-sloops called bach'haris (pp. 57, 75, 81), but these last must be different. Bajra may possibly have been applied in the sense of 'thunder-bolt.' This may seem unsuited to the modern budgerow, but is not more so than the title of 'lightning-darter' is to the modern Burkundauze (q.v.)! We remember how Joinville says of the approach of the great galley of the Count of Jaffa:—"Sembloit que foudre cheist des ciex." It is however perhaps more probable that bajrā may have been a variation of baglā. And this is especially suggested by the existence of the Portuguese form pajeres, and of the Ar. form bagara (see under BUGGALOW). Mr. Edye, Master Shipwright of the Naval Yard in Trincomalee, in a paper on the Native Craft of India and Ceylon, speaks of the {120b}Baggala or Budgerow, as if he had been accustomed to hear the words used indiscriminately. (See J. R. A. S., vol. i. p. 12). [There is a drawing of a modern Budgerow in Grant, Rural Life, p. 5.]
c. 1570.—"Their barkes be light and armed with oares, like to Foistes ... and they call these barkes Bazaras and Patuas" (in Bengal).—Cæsar Frederick, E. T. in Hakl. ii. 358.
1662.—(Blochmann's Ext. as above).
1705.—"... des Bazaras qui sont de grands bateaux."—Luillier, 52.
1723.—"Le lendemain nous passâmes sur les Bazaras de la compagnie de France."—Lett. Edif. xiii. 269.
1727.—"... in the evening to recreate themselves in Chaises or Palankins; ... or by water in their Budgeroes, which is a convenient Boat."—A. Hamilton, ii. 12.
1737.—"Charges, Budgrows ... Rs. 281. 6. 3."—MS. Account from Ft. William, in India Office.
1780.—"A gentleman's Bugerow was drove ashore near Chaun-paul Gaut...."—Hicky's Bengal Gazette, May 13th.
1781.—"The boats used by the natives for travelling, and also by the Europeans, are the budgerows, which both sail and row."—Hodges, 39.
1783.—"... his boat, which, though in Kashmire (it) was thought magnificent, would not have been disgraced in the station of a Kitchen-tender to a Bengal budgero."—G. Forster, Journey, ii. 10.
1784.—"I shall not be at liberty to enter my budgerow till the end of July, and must be again at Calcutta on the 22nd of October."—Sir W. Jones, in Mem. ii. 38.
1785.—"Mr. Hastings went aboard his Budgerow, and proceeded down the river, as soon as the tide served, to embark for Europe on the Berrington."—In Seton-Karr, i. 86.
1794.—"By order of the Governor-General in Council ... will be sold the Hon'ble Company's Budgerow, named the Sonamookhee[45] ... the Budgerow lays in the nullah opposite to Chitpore."—Ibid. ii. 114.
1830.—
"Upon the bosom of the tide
Vessels of every fabric ride;
The fisher's skiff, the light canoe,
* * * * * *
The Bujra broad, the Bholia trim,
Or Pinnaces that gallant swim,
With favouring breeze—or dull and slow
Against the heady current go...."
H. H. Wilson, in Bengal Annual, 29.
BUDGROOK, s. Port. bazarucco. A coin of low denomination, and of varying value and metal (copper, tin, lead, and tutenague), formerly current at Goa and elsewhere on the Western Coast, as well as at some other places on the Indian seas. It was also adopted from the Portuguese in the earliest English coinage at Bombay. In the earliest Goa coinage, that of Albuquerque (1510), the leal or bazarucco was equal to 2 reis, of which reis there went 420 to the gold cruzado (Gerson da Cunha). The name appears to have been a native one in use in Goa at the time of the conquest, but its etymology is uncertain. In Van Noort's Voyage (1648) the word is derived from bāzār, and said to mean 'market-money' (perhaps bāzār-rūka, the last word being used for a copper coin in Canarese). [This view is accepted by Gray in his notes on Pyrard (Hak. Soc. ii. 68), and by Burnell (Linschoten, Hak. Soc. ii. 143). The Madras. Admin. Man. Gloss. (s.v.) gives the Can. form as bajāra-rokkha, 'market-money.'] C. P. Brown (MS. notes) makes the word = baḍaga-rūka, which he says would in Canarese be 'base-penny,' and he ingeniously quotes Shakspeare's "beggarly denier," and Horace's "vilem assem." This is adopted in substance by Mr. E. Thomas, who points out that rukā or rukkā is in Mahratti (see Molesworth, s.v.) one-twelfth of an anna. But the words of Khāfi Khān below suggest that the word may be a corruption of the P. buzurg, 'big,' and according to Wilson, budrūkh (s.v.) is used in Mahratti as a dialectic corruption of buzūrg. This derivation may be partially corroborated by the fact that at Mocha there is, or was formerly, a coin (which had become a money of account only, 80 to the dollar) called kabīr, i.e. 'big' (see Ovington, 463, and Milburn, i. 98). If we could attach any value to Pyrard's spelling—bousuruques—this would be in favour of the same etymology; as is also the form besorg given by Mandelslo. [For a full examination of the value of the budgrook based on the most recent authorities, see Whiteway, Rise of the Port. Power, p. 68.]
1554.—Bazarucos at Maluco (Moluccas) 50 = 1 tanga, at 60 reis to the tanga, 5 tangas = 1 pardao. "Os quaes bazarucos se faz {121b}comta de 200 caixas" (i.e. to the tanga).—A. Nunes, 41.
[1584.—Basaruchies, Barret, in Hakl. See SHROFF.]
1598.—"They pay two Basarukes, which is as much as a Hollander's Doit.... It is molten money of badde Tinne."—Linschoten, 52, 69; [Hak. Soc. i. 180, 242].
1609.—"Le plus bas argent, sont Basarucos ... et sont fait de mauvais Estain."—Houtmann, in Navigation des Hollandois, i. 53v.
c. 1610.—"Il y en a de plusieurs sortes. La premiere est appellée Bousuruques, dont il en faut 75 pour une Tangue. Il y a d'autre Bousuruques vieilles, dont il en faut 105 pour le Tangue.... Il y a de cette monnoye qui est de fer; et d'autre de callin, metal de Chine" (see CALAY).—Pyrard, ii. 39; see also 21; [Hak. Soc. ii. 33, 68].
1611.—"Or a Viceroy coins false money; for so I may call it, as the people lose by it. For copper is worth 40 xerafims (see XERAFINE) the hundred weight, but they coin the basaruccos at the rate of 60 and 70. The Moors on the other hand, keeping a keen eye on our affairs, and seeing what a huge profit there is, coin there on the mainland a great quantity of basarucos, and gradually smuggle them into Goa, making a pitful of gold."—Couto, Dialogo do Soldado Pratico, 138.
1638.—"They have (at Gombroon) a certain Copper Coin which they call Besorg, whereof 6 make a Peys, and 10 Peys make a Chay (Shāhī) which is worth about 5d. English."—V. and Tr. of J. A. Mandelslo into the E. Indies, E. T. 1669, p. 8.
1672.—"Their coins (at Tanor in Malabar) ... of Copper, a Buserook, 20 of which make a Fanam."—Fryer, 53. [He also spells the word Basrook. See quotation under REAS.]
1677.—"Rupees, Pices and Budgrooks."—Letters Patent of Charles II. in Charters of the E. I. Co., p. 111.
1711.—"The Budgerooks (at Muskat) are mixt Mettle, rather like Iron than anything else, have a Cross on one side, and were coin'd by the Portuguese. Thirty of them make a silver Mamooda, of about Eight Pence Value."—Lockyer, 211.
c. 1720-30.—"They (the Portuguese) also use bits of copper which they call buzurg, and four of these buzurgs pass for a fulús."—Khāfī Khān, in Elliot, v. 345.
c. 1760.—"At Goa the sceraphim is worth 240 Portugal reas, or about 16d. sterling; 2 reas make a basaraco, 15 basaracos a vintin, 42 vintins a tanga, 4 tangas a paru, 2½ parues a pagoda of gold."—Grose, i. 282.
1838.—"Only eight or ten loads (of coffee) were imported this year, including two loads of 'Kopes' (see COPECK), the copper currency of Russia, known in this country by the name of Bughrukcha. They are converted to the same uses as copper."—Report from Kabul, by A. Burnes; in Punjab Trade Report, App. p. iii.
This may possibly contain some indication of the true form of this obscure word, but I have derived no light from it myself. The budgrook was apparently current at Muscat down to the beginning of last century (see Milburn, i. 116).
BUDLEE, s. A substitute in public or domestic service. H. badlī, 'exchange; a person taken in exchange; a locum tenens'; from Ar. badal, 'he changed.' (See MUDDLE.)
BUDMÁSH, s. One following evil courses; Fr. mauvais sujet; It. malandrino. Properly bad-ma'āsh, from P. bad, 'evil,' and Ar. ma'āsh, 'means of livelihood.'
1844.—"... the reputation which John Lawrence acquired ... by the masterly manœuvring of a body of police with whom he descended on a nest of gamblers and cut-throats, 'budmashes' of every description, and took them all prisoners."—Bosworth Smith's Life of Ld. Lawrence, i. 178.
1866.—"The truth of the matter is that I was foolish enough to pay these budmashes beforehand, and they have thrown me over."—The Dawk Bungalow, by G. O. Trevelyan, in Fraser, p. 385.
BUDZAT, s. H. from P. badzāt, 'evil race,' a low fellow, 'a bad lot,' a blackguard.
1866.—"Cholmondeley.
BUFFALO, s. This is of course originally from the Latin bubalus, which we have in older English forms, buffle and buff and bugle, through the French. The present form probably came from India, as it seems to be the Port. bufalo. The proper meaning of bubalus, according to Pliny, was not an animal of the ox-kind (βοόβαλις was a kind of African antelope); but in Martial, as quoted, it would seem to bear the vulgar sense, rejected by Pliny.
At an early period of our connection with India the name of buffalo appears to have been given erroneously to the common Indian ox, whence came the still surviving misnomer of London shops, 'buffalo humps.' (See also the quotation from Ovington.) The buffalo has no hump. Buffalo tongues are another matter, and an old luxury, as the third quotation shows. The ox having appropriated the name of the buffalo, the true Indian domestic buffalo was differentiated as the 'water {122b}buffalo,' a phrase still maintained by the British soldier in India. This has probably misled Mr. Blochmann, who uses the term 'water buffalo,' in his excellent English version of the Āīn (e.g. i. 219). We find the same phrase in Barkley's Five Years in Bulgaria, 1876: "Besides their bullocks every well-to-do Turk had a drove of water-buffaloes" (32). Also in Collingwood's Rambles of a Naturalist (1868), p. 43, and in Miss Bird's Golden Chersonese (1883), 60, 274. [The unscientific use of the word as applied to the American Bison is as old as the end of the 18th century (see N.E.D.).]
The domestic buffalo is apparently derived from the wild buffalo (Bubalus arni, Jerd.; Bos bubalus, Blanf.), whose favourite habitat is in the swampy sites of the Sunderbunds and Eastern Bengal, but whose haunts extend north-eastward to the head of the Assam valley, in the Terai west to Oudh, and south nearly to the Godavery; not beyond this in the Peninsula, though the animal is found in the north and north-east of Ceylon.
The domestic buffalo exists not only in India but in Java, Sumatra, and Manilla, in Mazanderan, Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Adherbijan, Egypt, Turkey, and Italy. It does not seem to be known how or when it was introduced into Italy.—(See Hehn.) [According to the Encycl. Britt. (9th ed. iv. 442), it was introduced into Greece and Italy towards the close of the 6th century.]
c. A.D. 70.—"Howbeit that country bringeth forth certain kinds of goodly great wild bœufes: to wit the Bisontes, mained with a collar, like Lions; and the Vri [Urus], a mightie strong beast, and a swift, which the ignorant people call Buffles (bubalos), whereas indeed the Buffle is bred in Affrica, and carieth some resemblance of a calfe rather, or a Stag."—Pliny, by Ph. Hollande, i. 199-200.
c. A.D. 90.—
"Ille tulit geminos facili cervice juvencos
Illi cessit atrox bubalus atque bison."
Martial, De Spectaculis, xxiv.
c. 1580.—"Veneti mercatores linguas Bubalorum, tanquam mensis optimas, sale conditas, in magna copia Venetias mittunt."—Prosperi Alpini, Hist. Nat. Aegypti, P. I. p. 228.
1585.—"Here be many Tigers, wild Bufs, and great store of wilde Foule...."—R. Fitch, in Hakl. ii. 389.
"Here are many wilde buffes and Elephants."—Ibid. 394.
"The King (Akbar) hath ... as they doe credibly report, 1000 Elephants, 30,000 horses, 1400 tame deere, 800 concubines; such store of ounces, tigers, Buffles, cocks and Haukes, that it is very strange to see."—Ibid. 386.
1589.—"They doo plough and till their ground with kine, bufalos, and bulles."—Mendoza's China, tr. by Parkes, ii. 56.
[c. 1590.—Two methods of snaring the buffalo are described in Āīn, Blochmann, tr. i. 293.]
1598.—"There is also an infinite number of wild buffs that go wandering about the desarts."—Pigafetta, E. T. in Harleian Coll. of Voyages, ii. 546.
[1623.—"The inhabitants (of Malabar) keep Cows, or buffalls."—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. ii. 207.]
1630.—"As to Kine and Buffaloes ... they besmeare the floores of their houses with their dung, and thinke the ground sanctified by such pollution."—Lord, Discoverie of the Banian Religion, 60-61.
1644.—"We tooke coach to Livorno, thro' the Great Duke's new Parke, full of huge corke-trees; the underwood all myrtills, amongst which were many buffalos feeding, a kind of wild ox, short nos'd, horns reversed."—Evelyn, Oct. 21.
1666.—"... it produces Elephants in great number, oxen and buffaloes" (bufaros).—Faria y Souza, i. 189.
1689.—"... both of this kind (of Oxen), and the Buffaloes, are remarkable for a big piece of Flesh that rises above Six Inches high between their Shoulders, which is the choicest and delicatest piece of Meat upon them, especially put into a dish of Palau."—Ovington, 254.
1808.—"... the Buffala milk, and curd, and butter simply churned and clarified, is in common use among these Indians, whilst the dainties of the Cow Dairy is prescribed to valetudinarians, as Hectics, and preferred by vicicous (sic) appetites, or impotents alone, as that of the caprine and assine is at home."—Drummond, Illus. of Guzerattee, &c.
1810.—
"The tank which fed his fields was there ...
There from the intolerable heat
The buffaloes retreat;
Only their nostrils raised to meet the air,
Amid the shelt'ring element they rest."
Curse of Kehama ix. 7.
1878.—"I had in my possession a head of a cow buffalo that measures 13 feet 8 inches in circumference, and 6 feet 6 inches between the tips—the largest buffalo head in the world."—Pollok, Sport in Br. Burmah, &c., i. 107.
BUGGALOW, s. Mahr. baglā, bagalā. A name commonly given on the W. coast of India to Arab vessels of the old native form. It is also in common use in the Red Sea (bakalā) for the larger native vessels, all built {123b}of teak from India. It seems to be a corruption of the Span. and Port. bajel, baxel, baixel, baxella, from the Lat. vascellum (see Diez, Etym. Wörterb. i. 439, s.v.). Cobarruvias (1611) gives in his Sp. Dict. "Baxel, quasi vasel" as a generic name for a vessel of any kind going on the sea, and quotes St. Isidore, who identifies it with phaselus, and from whom we transcribe the passage below. It remains doubtful whether this word was introduced into the East by the Portuguese, or had at an earlier date passed into Arabic marine use. The latter is most probable. In Correa (c. 1561) this word occurs in the form pajer, pl. pajeres (j and x being interchangeable in Sp. and Port. See Lendas, i. 2, pp. 592, 619, &c.). In Pinto we have another form. Among the models in the Fisheries Exhibition (1883), there was "A Zaroogat or Bagarah from Aden." [On the other hand Burton (Ar. Nights, i. 119) derives the word from the Ar. baghlah, 'a she-mule.' Also see BUDGEROW.]
c. 636.—"Phaselus est navigium quod nos corrupte baselum dicimus. De quo Virgilius: Pictisque phaselis."—Isodorus Hispalensis, Originum et Etymol. lib. xix.
c. 1539.—"Partida a nao pera Goa, Fernão de Morais ... seguio sua viage na volta do porto de Dabul, onde chegou ao outro dia as nove horas, e tomando nelle hũ paguel de Malavares, carregado de algodao e de pimenta, poz logo a tormento o Capitano e o piloto delle, os quaes confessarão...."—Pinto, ch. viii.
1842.—"As store and horse boats for that service, Capt. Oliver, I find, would prefer the large class of native buggalas, by which so much of the trade of this coast with Scinde, Cutch ... is carried on."—Sir G. Arthur, in Ind. Admin. of Lord Ellenborough, 222.
[1900.—"His tiny baggala, which mounted ten tiny guns, is now employed in trade."—Bent, Southern Arabia, 8.]
BUGGY, s. In India this is a (two-wheeled) gig with a hood, like the gentleman's cab that was in vogue in London about 1830-40, before broughams came in. Latham puts a (?) after the word, and the earliest examples that he gives are from the second quarter of this century (from Praed and I. D'Israeli). Though we trace the word much further back, we have not discovered its birthplace or etymology. The word, though used in England, has never been very common there; it is better known both in {124a}Ireland and in America. Littré gives boghei as French also. The American buggy is defined by Noah Webster as "a light, one-horse, four-wheel vehicle, usually with one seat, and with or without a calash-top." Cuthbert Bede shows (N. & Q. 5 ser. v. p. 445) that the adjective 'buggy' is used in the Eastern Midlands for 'conceited.' This suggests a possible origin. "When the Hunterian spelling-controversy raged in India, a learned Member of Council is said to have stated that he approved the change until —— —— began to spell buggy as bagī. Then he gave it up."—(M.-G. Keatinge.) I have recently seen this spelling in print. [The N.E.D. leaves the etymology unsettled, merely saying that it has been connected with bogie and bug. The earliest quotation given is that of 1773 below.]
1773.—"Thursday 3d (June). At the sessions at Hicks's Hall two boys were indicted for driving a post-coach and four against a single horse-chaise, throwing out the driver of it, and breaking the chaise to pieces. Justice Welch, the Chairman, took notice of the frequency of the brutish custom among the post drivers, and their insensibility in making it a matter of sport, ludicrously denominating mischief of this kind 'Running down the Buggies.'—The prisoners were sentenced to be confined in Newgate for 12 months."—Gentleman's Magazine, xliii. 297.
1780.—
"Shall D(onal)d come with Butts and tons
And knock down Epegrams and Puns?
With Chairs, old Cots, and Buggies trick ye?
Forbid it, Phœbus, and forbid it, Hicky!"
In Hicky's Bengal Gazette, May 13th.
" "... go twice round the Race-Course as hard as we can set legs to ground, but we are beat hollow by Bob Crochet's Horses driven by Miss Fanny Hardheart, who in her career oversets Tim Capias the Attorney in his Buggy...."—In India Gazette, Dec. 23rd.
1782.—"Wanted, an excellent Buggy Horse about 15 Hands high, that will trot 15 miles an hour."—India Gazette, Sept. 14.
1784.—"For sale at Mr. Mann's, Rada Bazar. A Phaeton, a four-spring'd Buggy, and a two-spring'd ditto...."—Calcutta Gazette, in Seton-Karr, i. 41.
1793.—"For sale. A good Buggy and Horse...."—Bombay Courier, Jan. 20th.
1824.—"... the Archdeacon's buggy and horse had every appearance of issuing from the back-gate of a college in Cambridge on Sunday morning."—Heber, i. 192 (ed. 1844).
[1837.—"The vehicles of the place {124b}(Monghir), amounting to four Buggies (that is a foolish term for a cabriolet, but as it is the only vehicle in use in India, and as buggy is the only name for said vehicle, I give it up), ... were assembled for our use."—Miss Eden, Up the Country, i. 14.]
c. 1838.—"But substitute for him an average ordinary, uninteresting Minister; obese, dumpy ... with a second-rate wife—dusty, deliquescent—... or let him be seen in one of those Shem-Ham-and-Japhet buggies, made on Mount Ararat soon after the subsidence of the waters...."—Sydney Smith, 3rd Letter to Archdeacon Singleton.
1848.—"'Joseph wants me to see if his—his buggy is at the door.'
"'What is a buggy, papa?'
"'It is a one-horse palanquin,' said the old gentleman, who was a wag in his way."—Vanity Fair, ch. iii.
1872.—"He drove his charger in his old buggy."—A True Reformer, ch. i.
1878.—"I don't like your new Bombay buggy. With much practice I have learned to get into it, I am hanged if I can ever get out."—Overland Times of India, 4th Feb.
1879.—"Driven by that hunger for news which impels special correspondents, he had actually ventured to drive in a 'spider,' apparently a kind of buggy, from the Tugela to Ginglihovo."—Spectator, May 24th.
BUGIS, n.p. Name given by the Malays to the dominant race of the island of Celébes, originating in the S.-Western limb of the island; the people calling themselves Wugi. But the name used to be applied in the Archipelago to native soldiers in European service, raised in any of the islands. Compare the analogous use of Telinga (q.v.) formerly in India.
[1615.—"All these in the kingdom of Macassar ... besides Bugies, Mander and Tollova."—Foster, Letters, iii. 152.]
1656.—"Thereupon the Hollanders resolv'd to unite their forces with the Bouquises, that were in rebellion against their Soveraign."—Tavernier, E. T. ii. 192.
1688.—"These Buggasses are a sort of warlike trading Malayans and mercenary soldiers of India. I know not well whence they come, unless from Macassar in the Isle of Celebes."—Dampier, ii. 108.
[1697.—"... with the help of Buggesses...."—Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. cxvii.]
1758.—"The Dutch were commanded by Colonel Roussely, a French soldier of fortune. They consisted of nearly 700 Europeans, and as many buggoses, besides country troops."—Narr. of Dutch attempt in Hoogly, in Malcolm's Clive, ii. 87.
1783.—"Buggesses, inhabitants of Celebes."—Forrest, Voyage to Mergui, p. 59.
1783.—"The word Buggess has become among Europeans consonant to soldier, in the east of India, as Sepoy is in the West."—Ibid. 78.
1811.—"We had fallen in with a fleet of nine Buggese prows, when we went out towards Pulo Mancap."—Lord Minto in India, 279.
1878.—"The Bugis are evidently a distinct race from the Malays, and come originally from the southern part of the Island of Celebes."—McNair, Perak, 130.
BULBUL, s. The word bulbul is originally Persian (no doubt intended to imitate the bird's note), and applied to a bird which does duty with Persian poets for the nightingale. Whatever the Persian bulbul may be correctly, the application of the name to certain species in India "has led to many misconceptions about their powers of voice and song," says Jerdon. These species belong to the family Brachipodidae, or short-legged thrushes, and the true bulbuls to the sub-family Pycnonotinae, e.g. genera Hypsipetes, Hemixos, Alcurus, Criniger, Ixos, Kelaartia, Rubigula, Brachipodius, Otocompsa, Pycnonotus (P. pygaeus, common Bengal Bulbul; P. haemorhous, common Madras Bulbul). Another sub-family, Phyllornithinae, contains various species which Jerdon calls green Bulbuls.
[A lady having asked the late Lord Robertson, a Judge of the Court of Session, "What sort of animal is the bull-bull?" he replied, "I suppose, Ma'am, it must be the mate of the coo-coo."—3rd ser., N. & Q. v. 81.]
1784.—"We are literally lulled to sleep by Persian nightingales, and cease to wonder that the Bulbul, with a thousand tales, makes such a figure in Persian poetry."—Sir W. Jones, in Memoirs, &c., ii. 37.
1813.—"The bulbul or Persian nightingale.... I never heard one that possessed the charming variety of the English nightingale ... whether the Indian bulbul and that of Iran entirely correspond I have some doubts."—Forbes, Oriental Memoirs, i. 50; [2nd ed. i. 34].
1848.—"'It is one's nature to sing and the other's to hoot,' he said, laughing, 'and with such a sweet voice as you have yourself, you must belong to the Bulbul faction.'"—Vanity Fair, ii. ch. xxvii.
BULGAR, BOLGAR, s. P. bulghār. The general Asiatic name for what we call 'Russia leather,' from the fact that the region of manufacture and export was originally Bolghār on the Volga, a kingdom which stood for {125b}many centuries, and gave place to Kazan in the beginning of the 15th century. The word was usual also among Anglo-Indians till the beginning of last century, and is still in native Hindustani use. A native (mythical) account of the manufacture is given in Baden-Powell's Punjab Handbook, 1872, and this fanciful etymology: "as the scent is derived from soaking in the pits (ghār), the leather is called Balghār" (p. 124).
1298.—"He bestows on each of those 12,000 Barons ... likewise a pair of boots of Borgal, curiously wrought with silver thread."—Marco Polo, 2nd ed. i. 381. See also the note on this passage.
c. 1333.—"I wore on my feet boots (or stockings) of wool; over these a pair of linen lined, and over all a thin pair of Borghāli, i.e. of horse-leather lined with wolf skin."—Ibn Batuta, ii. 445.
[1614.—"Of your Bullgaryan hides there are brought hither some 150."—Foster, Letters, iii. 67.]
1623.—Offer of Sheriff Freeman and Mr. Coxe to furnish the Company with "Bulgary red hides."—Court Minutes, in Sainsbury, iii. 184.
1624.—"Purefy and Hayward, Factors at Ispahan to the E. I. Co., have bartered morse-teeth and 'bulgars' for carpets."—Ibid. p. 268.
1673.—"They carry also Bulgar-Hides, which they form into Tanks to bathe themselves."—Fryer, 398.
c. 1680.—"Putting on a certain dress made of Bulgar-leather, stuffed with cotton."—Seir Mutaqherin, iii. 387.
1759.—Among expenses on account of the Nabob of Bengal's visit to Calcutta we find:
"To 50 pair of Bulger Hides at 13 per pair, Rs. 702 : 0 : 0."—Long, 193.
1786.—Among "a very capital and choice assortment of Europe goods" we find "Bulgar Hides."—Cal. Gazette, June 8, in Seton-Karr, i. 177.
1811.—"Most of us furnished at least one of our servants with a kind of bottle, holding nearly three quarts, made of bulghár ... or Russia-leather."—W. Ousely's Travels, i. 247.
In Tibetan the word is bulhari.
BULKUT, s. A large decked ferry-boat; from Telug. balla, a board. (C. P. Brown).
BULLUMTEER, s. Anglo-Sepoy dialect for 'Volunteer.' This distinctive title was applied to certain regiments of the old Bengal Army, whose terms of enlistment embraced service {126a}beyond sea; and in the days of that army various ludicrous stories were current in connection with the name.
BUMBA, s. H. bamba, from Port. bomba, 'a pump.' Haex (1631) gives: "Bomba, organum pneumaticum quo aqua hauritur," as a Malay word. This is incorrect, of course, as to the origin of the word, but it shows its early adoption into an Eastern language. The word is applied at Ahmedabad to the water-towers, but this is modern; [and so is the general application of the word in N. India to a canal distributary].
1572.—
"'Alija, disse o mestre rijamente,
Alija tudo ao mar, não falte acordo
Vão outros dar á bomba, não cessando;
Á bomba que nos imos alagando.'"
Camões, vi. 72.

Others go work the pumps, and with a will:
The pumps! and sharp, look sharp, before she fill!'"
BUMMELO, s. A small fish, abounding on all the coasts of India and the Archipelago; Harpodon nehereus of Buch. Hamilton; the specific name being taken from the Bengali name nehare. The fish is a great delicacy when fresh caught and fried. When dried it becomes the famous Bombay Duck (see DUCKS, BOMBAY), which is now imported into England.
The origin of either name is obscure. Molesworth gives the word as Mahratti with the spelling bombīl, or bombīla (p. 595 a). Bummelo occurs in the Supp. (1727) to Bluteau's Dict. in the Portuguese form bambulim, as "the name of a very savoury fish in India." The same word bambulim is also explained to mean 'humas pregas na saya a moda,' 'certain plaits in the fashionable ruff,' but we know not if there is any connection between the two. The form Bombay Duck has an analogy to Digby Chicks which are sold in the London shops, also a kind of dried fish, pilchards we believe, and the name may have originated in imitation of this or some similar {126b}English name. [The Digby Chick is said to be a small herring cured in a peculiar manner at Digby, in Lincolnshire: but the Americans derive them from Digby in Nova Scotia; see 8 ser. N. & Q. vii. 247.]
In an old chart of Chittagong River (by B. Plaisted, 1764, published by A. Dalrymple, 1785) we find a point called Bumbello Point.
1673.—"Up the Bay a Mile lies Massigoung, a great Fishing-Town, peculiarly notable for a Fish called Bumbelow, the Sustenance of the Poorer sort."—Fryer, 67.
1785.—"My friend General Campbell, Governor of Madras, tells me that they make Speldings in the East Indies, particularly at Bombay, where they call them Bumbaloes."—Note by Boswell in his Tour to the Hebrides, under August 18th, 1773.
1810.—"The bumbelo is like a large sand-eel; it is dried in the sun, and is usually eaten at breakfast with kedgeree."—Maria Graham, 25.
1813.—Forbes has bumbalo; Or. Mem., i. 53; [2nd ed., i. 36].
1877.—"Bummalow or Bobil, the dried fish still called 'Bombay Duck.'"—Burton, Sind Revisited, i. 68.
BUNCUS, BUNCO, s. An old word for cheroot. Apparently from the Malay bungkus, 'a wrapper, bundle, thing wrapped.'
1711.—"Tobacco ... for want of Pipes they smoke in Buncos, as on the Coromándel Coast. A Bunco is a little Tobacco wrapt up in the Leaf of a Tree, about the Bigness of one's little Finger, they light one End, and draw the Smoke thro' the other ... these are curiously made up, and sold 20 or 30 in a bundle."—Lockyer, 61.
1726.—"After a meal, and on other occasions it is one of their greatest delights, both men and women, old and young, to eat Pinang (areca), and to smoke tobacco, which the women do with a Bongkos, or dry leaf rolled up, and the men with a Gorregorri (a little can or flower pot) whereby they both manage to pass most of their time."—Valentijn, v. Chorom., 55. [Gorregorri is Malay guri-guri, 'a small earthenware pot, also used for holding provisions' (Klinkert).]
" (In the retinue of Grandees in Java):
"One with a coconut shell mounted in gold or silver to hold their tobacco or bongkooses (i.e. tobacco in rolled leaves)."—Valentijn, iv. 61.
c. 1760.—"The tobacco leaf, simply rolled up, in about a finger's length, which they call a buncus, and is, I fancy, of the same make as what the West Indians term a segar; and of this the Gentoos chiefly make use."—Grose, i. 146.
BUND, s. Any artificial embankment, a dam, dyke, or causeway. H. band. The root is both Skt. (bandh) and P., but the common word, used as it is without aspirate, seems to have come from the latter. The word is common in Persia (e.g. see BENDAMEER). It is also naturalised in the Anglo-Chinese ports. It is there applied especially to the embanked quay along the shore of the settlements. In Hong Kong alone this is called (not bund, but) praia (Port. 'shore' [see PRAYA]), probably adopted from Macao.
1810.—"The great bund or dyke."—Williamson, V. M. ii. 279.
1860.—"The natives have a tradition that the destruction of the bund was effected by a foreign enemy."—Tennent's Ceylon, ii. 504.
1875.—"... it is pleasant to see the Chinese ... being propelled along the bund in their hand carts."—Thomson's Malacca, &c., 408.
1876.—"... so I took a stroll on Tien-Tsin bund."—Gill, River of Golden Sand, i. 28.
BUNDER, s. P. bandar, a landing-place or quay; a seaport; a harbour; (and sometimes also a custom-house). The old Ital. scala, mod. scalo, is the nearest equivalent in most of the senses that occurs to us. We have (c. 1565) the Mīr-bandar, or Port Master, in Sind (Elliot, i. 277) [cf. Shabunder]. The Portuguese often wrote the word bandel. Bunder is in S. India the popular native name of Masulipatam, or Machli-bandar.
c. 1344.—"The profit of the treasury, which they call bandar, consists in the right of buying a certain portion of all sorts of cargo at a fixed price, whether the goods be only worth that or more; and this is called the Law of the Bandar."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 120.
c. 1346.—"So we landed at the bandar, which is a large collection of houses on the sea-shore."—Ibid. 228.
1552.—"Coga-atar sent word to Affonzo d'Alboquerque that on the coast of the main land opposite, at a port which is called Bandar Angon ... were arrived two ambassadors of the King of Shiraz."—Barros, II. ii. 4.
[1616.—"Besides the danger in intercepting our boats to and from the shore, &c., their firing from the Banda would be with much difficulty."—Foster, Letters, iv. 328.]
1673.—"We fortify our Houses, have Bunders or Docks for our Vessels, to which belong Yards for Seamen, Soldiers, and Stores."—Fryer, 115.
1809.—"On the new bunder or pier."—Maria Graham, 11.
[1847, 1860.—See quotations under APOLLO BUNDER.]
BUNDER-BOAT, s. A boat in use on the Bombay and Madras coast for communicating with ships at anchor, and also much employed by officers of the civil departments (Salt, &c.) in going up and down the coast. It is rigged as Bp. Heber describes, with a cabin amidships.
1825.—"We crossed over ... in a stout boat called here a bundur boat. I suppose from 'bundur' a harbour, with two masts, and two lateen sails...."—Heber, ii. 121, ed. 1844.
BUNDOBUST, s. P.—H.—band-o-bast, lit. 'tying and binding.' Any system or mode of regulation; discipline; a revenue settlement.
[1768.—"Mr. Rumbold advises us ... he proposes making a tour through that province ... and to settle the Bandobust for the ensuing year."—Letter to the Court of Directors, in Verelst, View of Bengal, App. 77.]
c. 1843.—"There must be bahut achch'hā bandobast (i.e. very good order or discipline) in your country," said an aged Khānsamā (in Hindustani) to one of the present writers. "When I have gone to the Sandheads to meet a young gentleman from Bilāyat, if I gave him a cup of tea, 'tānki tānki,' said he. Three months afterwards this was all changed; bad language, violence, no more tānki."
1880.—"There is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your travelling M.P. This unhappy creature, whose mind is a perfect blank regarding Faujdari and Bandobast...."—Ali Baba, 181.
BUNDOOK, s. H. bandūḳ, from Ar. bunduḳ. The common H. term for a musket or matchlock. The history of the word is very curious. Bunduḳ, pl. banādiḳ, was a name applied by the Arabs to filberts (as some allege) because they came from Venice (Banadiḳ, comp. German Venedig). The name was transferred to the nut-like pellets shot from cross-bows, and thence the cross-bows or arblasts were called bunduḳ, elliptically for kaus al-b., 'pellet-bow.' From cross-bows the name was transferred again to firearms, as in the parallel case of arquebus. [Al-Banduḳāni, 'the man of the pellet-bow,' was one of the names by which the Caliph Hārūn-al-Rashīd was known, and Al Zahir Baybars {128a}al-Banduḳdāri, the fourth Baharite Soldan (A.D. 1260-77) was so entitled because he had been slave to a Bandukdār, or Master of Artillery (Burton, Ar. Nights, xii. 38).]
[1875.—"Bandūqis, or orderlies of the Maharaja, carrying long guns in a loose red cloth cover."—Drew, Jummoo and Kashmir, 74.]
BUNGALOW, s. H. and Mahr. banglā. The most usual class of house occupied by Europeans in the interior of India; being on one story, and covered by a pyramidal roof, which in the normal bungalow is of thatch, but may be of tiles without impairing its title to be called a bungalow. Most of the houses of officers in Indian cantonments are of this character. In reference to the style of the house, bungalow is sometimes employed in contradistinction to the (usually more pretentious) pucka house; by which latter term is implied a masonry house with a terraced roof. A bungalow may also be a small building of the type which we have described, but of temporary material, in a garden, on a terraced roof for sleeping in, &c., &c. The word has also been adopted by the French in the East, and by Europeans generally in Ceylon, China, Japan, and the coast of Africa.
Wilson writes the word bānglā, giving it as a Bengālī word, and as probably derived from Banga, Bengal. This is fundamentally the etymology mentioned by Bp. Heber in his Journal (see below), and that etymology is corroborated by our first quotation, from a native historian, as well as by that from F. Buchanan. It is to be remembered that in Hindustan proper the adjective 'of or belonging to Bengal' is constantly pronounced as bangălā or banglā. Thus one of the eras used in E. India is distinguished as the Banglā era. The probability is that, when Europeans began to build houses of this character in Behar and Upper India, these were called Banglā or 'Bengal-fashion' houses; that the name was adopted by the Europeans themselves and their followers, and so was brought back to Bengal itself, as well as carried to other parts of India. ["In Bengal, and notably in the districts near Calcutta, native houses to this day are divided into ath-chala, chau-chala, and Bangala, or {128b}eight-roofed, four-roofed, and Bengali, or common huts. The first term does not imply that the house has eight coverings, but that the roof has four distinct sides with four more projections, so as to cover a verandah all round the house, which is square. The Bangala, or Bengali house, or bungalow has a sloping roof on two sides and two gable ends. Doubtless the term was taken up by the first settlers in Bengal from the native style of edifice, was materially improved, and was thence carried to other parts of India. It is not necessary to assume that the first bungalows were erected in Behar." (Saturday Rev., 17th April 1886, in a review of the first ed. of this book).]
A.H. 1041 = A.D. 1633.—"Under the rule of the Bengalis (darahd-i-Bangālīyān) a party of Frank merchants, who are inhabitants of Sundíp, came trading to Sátgánw. One kos above that place they occupied some ground on the banks of the estuary. Under the pretence that a building was necessary for their transactions in buying and selling, they erected several houses in the Bengálí style."—Bādshāhnāma, in Elliot, vii. 31.
c. 1680.—In the tracing of an old Dutch chart in the India Office, which may be assigned to about this date, as it has no indication of Calcutta, we find at Hoogly: "Ougli ... Hollantze Logie ... Bangelaer of Speelhuys," i.e. "Hoogly ... Dutch Factory ... Bungalow, or Pleasure-house."
1711.—"Mr. Herring, the Pilot's, Directions for bringing of Ships down the River of Hughley.
"From Gull Gat all along the Hughley Shore until below the New Chaney almost as far as the Dutch Bungelow lies a Sand...."—Thornton, The English Pilot, Pt. III. p. 54.
1711.—"Natty Bungelo or Nedds Bangalla River lies in this Reach (Tanna) on the Larboard side...."—Ibid. 56. The place in the chart is Nedds Bengalla, and seems to have been near the present Akra on the Hoogly.
1747.—"Nabob's Camp near the Hedge of the Bounds, building a Bangallaa, raising Mudd Walls round the Camp, making Gun Carriages, &c. ... (Pagodas) 55:10:73."—Acct. of Extraordinary Charges ... January, at Fort St. David, MS. Records in India Office.
1758.—"I was talking with my friends in Dr. Fullerton's bangla when news came of Ram Narain's being defeated."—Seir Mutaqherin, ii. 103.
1780.—"To be Sold or Let, A Commodious Bungalo and out Houses ... situated on the Road leading from the Hospital to the Burying Ground, and directly opposite to the Avenue in front of Sir Elijah Impey's House...."—The India Gazette, Dec. 23.
1781-83.—"Bungelows are buildings in India, generally raised on a base of brick, one, two, or three feet from the ground, and consist of only one story: the plan of them usually is a large room in the center for an eating and sitting room, and rooms at each corner for sleeping; the whole is covered with one general thatch, which comes low to each side; the spaces between the angle rooms are viranders or open porticoes ... sometimes the center viranders at each end are converted into rooms."—Hodges, Travels, 146.
1784.—"To be let at Chinsurah.... That large and commodious House.... The out-buildings are—a warehouse and two large bottle-connahs, 6 store-rooms, a cook-room, and a garden, with a bungalow near the house."—Cal. Gazette, in Seton-Karr, i. 40.
1787.—"At Barrackpore many of the Bungalows much damaged, though none entirely destroyed."—Ibid. p. 213.
1793.—"... the bungalo, or Summer-house...."—Dirom, 211.
" "For Sale, a Bungalo situated between the two Tombstones, in the Island of Coulaba."—Bombay Courier, Jan. 12.
1794.—"The candid critic will not however expect the parched plains of India, or bungaloes in the land-winds, will hardly tempt the Aonian maids wont to disport on the banks of Tiber and Thames...."—Hugh Boyd, 170.
1809.—"We came to a small bungalo or garden-house, at the point of the hill, from which there is, I think, the finest view I ever saw."—Maria Graham, 10.
c. 1810.—"The style of private edifices that is proper and peculiar to Bengal consists of a hut with a pent roof constructed of two sloping sides which meet in a ridge forming the segment of a circle.... This kind of hut, it is said, from being peculiar to Bengal, is called by the natives Banggolo, a name which has been somewhat altered by Europeans, and applied by them to all their buildings in the cottage style, although none of them have the proper shape, and many of them are excellent brick houses."—Buchanan's Dinagepore (in Eastern India, ii. 922).
1817.—"The Yorŭ-bangala is made like two thatched houses or bangalas, placed side by side.... These temples are dedicated to different gods, but are not now frequently seen in Bengal."—Ward's Hindoos, Bk. II. ch. i.
c. 1818.—"As soon as the sun is down we will go over to the Captain's bungalow."—Mrs Sherwood, Stories, &c., ed. 1873, p. 1. The original editions of this book contain an engraving of "The Captain's Bungalow at Cawnpore" (c. 1811-12), which shows that no material change has occurred in the character of such dwellings down to the present time.
1824.—"The house itself of Barrackpore ... barely accommodates Lord Amherst's own family; and his aides-de-camp and visitors sleep in bungalows built at some {129b}little distance from it in the Park. Bungalow, a corruption of Bengalee, is the general name in this country for any structure in the cottage style, and only of one floor. Some of these are spacious and comfortable dwellings...."—Heber, ed. 1844, i. 33.
1872.—"L'emplacement du bungalou avait été choisi avec un soin tout particulier."—Rev. des Deux Mondes, tom. xcviii. 930.
1875.—"The little groups of officers dispersed to their respective bungalows to dress and breakfast."—The Dilemma, ch. i.
[In Oudh the name was specially applied to Fyzabad.
[1858.—"Fyzabad ... was founded by the first rulers of the reigning family, and called for some time Bungalow, from a bungalow which they built on the verge of the stream."—Sleeman, Journey through the Kingdom of Oudh, i. 137.]
BUNGALOW, DAWK-, s. A rest-house for the accommodation of travellers, formerly maintained (and still to a reduced extent) by the paternal care of the Government of India. The matériel of the accommodation was humble enough, but comprised the things essential for the weary traveller—shelter, a bed and table, a bathroom, and a servant furnishing food at a very moderate cost. On principal lines of thoroughfare these bungalows were at a distance of 10 to 15 miles apart, so that it was possible for a traveller to make his journey by marches without carrying a tent. On some less frequented roads they were 40 or 50 miles apart, adapted to a night's run in a palankin.
1853.—"Dâk-bungalows have been described by some Oriental travellers as the 'Inns of India.' Playful satirists!"—Oakfield, ii. 17.
1866.—"The Dawk Bungalow; or, Is his Appointment Pucka?"—By G. O. Trevelyan, in Fraser's Magazine, vol. 73, p. 215.
1878.—"I am inclined to think the value of life to a dak bungalow fowl must be very trifling."—In my Indian Garden, 11.
BUNGY, s. H. bhangī. The name of a low caste, habitually employed as sweepers, and in the lowest menial offices, the man being a house sweeper and dog-boy, [his wife an Ayah]. Its members are found throughout Northern and Western India, and every European household has a servant of this class. The colloquial application of the term bungy to such {130a}servants is however peculiar to Bombay, [but the word is commonly used in the N.W.P. but always with a contemptuous significance]. In the Bengal Pry. he is generally called Mehtar (q.v.), and by politer natives Halālkhor (see HALALCORE), &c. In Madras totī (see TOTY) is the usual word; [in W. India Dheṛ or Dheḍ]. Wilson suggests that the caste name may be derived from bhang (see BANG), and this is possible enough, as the class is generally given to strong drink and intoxicating drugs.
1826.—"The Kalpa or Skinner, and the Bunghee, or Sweeper, are yet one step below the Dher."—Tr. Lit. Soc. Bombay, iii. 362.
BUNOW, s. and v. H. banāo, used in the sense of 'preparation, fabrication,' &c., but properly the imperative of banānā, 'to make, prepare, fabricate.' The Anglo-Indian word is applied to anything fictitious or factitious, 'a cram, a shave, a sham'; or, as a verb, to the manufacture of the like. The following lines have been found among old papers belonging to an officer who was at the Court of the Nawāb Sa'ādat 'Ali at Lucknow, at the beginning of the last century:—
"Young Grant and Ford the other day
Would fain have had some Sport,
But Hound nor Beagle none had they,
Nor aught of Canine sort.
A luckless Parry[46] came most pat
When Ford—'we've Dogs enow!
Here Maitre—Kawn aur Doom ko Kaut
Juld! Terrier bunnow!'[47]
"So Saadut with the like design
(I mean, to form a Pack)
To * * * * * t gave a Feather fine
And Red Coat to his Back;
A Persian Sword to clog his side,
And Boots Hussar sub-nyah,[48]
Then eyed his Handiwork with Pride,
Crying Meejir myn bunnayah!!!"[49]
"Appointed to be said or sung in all Mosques, Mutts, Tuckeahs, or Eedgahs within the Reserved Dominions."[50]
1853.—"You will see within a week if {130b}this is anything more than a banau."—Oakfield, ii. 58.
[1870.—"We shall be satisfied with choosing for illustration, out of many, one kind of benowed or prepared evidence."—Chevers, Med. Jurisprud., 86.]
BURDWÁN, n.p. A town 67 m. N.W. of Calcutta—Bardwān, but in its original Skt. form Vardhamāna, 'thriving, prosperous,' a name which we find in Ptolemy (Bardamana), though in another part of India. Some closer approximation to the ancient form must have been current till the middle of 18th century, for Holwell, writing in 1765, speaks of "Burdwan, the principal town of Burdomaan" (Hist. Events, &c., 1. 112; see also 122, 125).
BURGHER. This word has three distinct applications.
a. s. This is only used in Ceylon. It is the Dutch word burger, 'citizen.' The Dutch admitted people of mixt descent to a kind of citizenship, and these people were distinguished by this name from pure natives. The word now indicates any persons who claim to be of partly European descent, and is used in the same sense as 'half-caste' and 'Eurasian' in India Proper. [In its higher sense it is still used by the Boers of the Transvaal.]
1807.—"The greater part of them were admitted by the Dutch to all the privileges of citizens under the denomination of Burghers."—Cordiner, Desc. of Ceylon.
1877.—"About 60 years ago the Burghers of Ceylon occupied a position similar to that of the Eurasians of India at the present moment."—Calcutta Review, cxvii. 180-1.
b. n.p. People of the Nilgherry Hills, properly Baḍagas, or Northerners.'—See under BADEGA.
c. s. A rafter, H. bargā.
BURKUNDAUZE, s. An armed retainer; an armed policeman, or other armed unmounted employé of a civil department; from Ar.-P. barḳandāz, 'lightning-darter,' a word of the same class as jān-bāz, &c. [Also see BUXERRY.]
1726.—"2000 men on foot, called Bircandes, and 2000 pioneers to make the road, called Bieldars (see BILDAR)."—Valentijn, iv. Suratte, 276.
1793.—"Capt. Welsh has succeeded in driving the Bengal Berkendosses out of Assam."—Cornwallis, ii. 207.
1794.—"Notice is hereby given that persons desirous of sending escorts of burkundazes or other armed men, with merchandise, are to apply for passports."—In Seton-Karr, ii. 139.
[1832.—"The whole line of march is guarded in each procession by burkhandhars (matchlock men), who fire singly, at intervals, on the way."—Mrs Meer Hassan Ali, i. 87.]
BURMA, BURMAH (with BURMESE, &c.) n.p. The name by which we designate the ancient kingdom and nation occupying the central basin of the Irawadi River. "British Burma" is constituted of the provinces conquered from that kingdom in the two wars of 1824-26 and 1852-53, viz. (in the first) Arakan, Martaban, Tenasserim, and (in the second) Pegu. [Upper Burma and the Shan States were annexed after the third war of 1885.]
The name is taken from Mran-mā, the national name of the Burmese people, which they themselves generally pronounce Bam-mā, unless when speaking formally and emphatically. Sir Arthur Phayre considers that this name was in all probability adopted by the Mongoloid tribes of the Upper Irawadi, on their conversion to Buddhism by missionaries from Gangetic India, and is identical with that (Brām-mā) by which the first and holy inhabitants of the world are styled in the (Pali) Buddhist Scriptures. Brahma-desa was the term applied to the country by a Singhalese monk returning thence to Ceylon, in conversation with one of the present writers. It is however the view of Bp. Bigandet and of Prof. Forchhammer, supported by considerable arguments, that Mran, Myan, or Myen was the original name of the Burmese people, and is traceable in the names given to them by their neighbours; e.g. by Chinese Mien (and in Marco Polo); by Kakhyens, Myen or Mren; by Shans, Mān; by Sgaw Karens, Payo; by Pgaw Karens, Payān; by Paloungs, Parān, &c.[51] Prof. F. considers that Mran-mā (with this honorific suffix) does not date beyond the 14th century. [In J. R. A. Soc. (1894, p. 152 seqq.), Mr. St John suggests that the word Myamma is derived {131b}from myan, 'swift,' and ma, 'strong,' and was taken as a soubriquet by the people at some early date, perhaps in the time of Anawrahta, A.D. 1150.]
1516.—"Having passed the Kingdom of Bengale, along the coast which turns to the South, there is another Kingdom of Gentiles, called Berma.... They frequently are at war with the King of Peigu. We have no further information respecting this country, because it has no shipping."—Barbosa, 181.
[ " "Verma." See quotation under ARAKAN.
[1538.—"But the war lasted on and the Bramãs took all the kingdom."—Correa, iii. 851.]
1543.—"And folk coming to know of the secrecy with which the force was being despatched, a great desire took possession of all to know whither the Governor intended to send so large an armament, there being no Rumis to go after, and nothing being known of any other cause why ships should be despatched in secret at such a time. So some gentlemen spoke of it to the Governor, and much importuned him to tell them whither they were going, and the Governor, all the more bent on concealment of his intentions, told them that the expedition was going to Pegu to fight with the Bramas who had taken that Kingdom."—Ibid. iv. 298.
c. 1545.—"How the King of Bramâ undertook the conquest of this kingdom of Sião (Siam), and of what happened till his arrival at the City of Odiâ."—F. M. Pinto (orig.) cap. 185.
[1553.—"Bremá." See quotation under JANGOMAY.]
1606.—"Although one's whole life were wasted in describing the superstitions of these Gentiles—the Pegus and the Bramas—one could not have done with the half, therefore I only treat of some, in passing, as I am now about to do."—Couto, viii. cap. xii.
[1639.—"His (King of Pegu's) Guard consists of a great number of Souldiers, with them called Brahmans, is kept at the second Port."—Mandelslo, Travels, E. T. ii. 118.]
1680.—"Articles of Commerce to be proposed to the King of Barma and Pegu, in behalfe of the English Nation for the settling of a Trade in those countrys."—Ft. St. Geo. Cons., in Notes and Exts., iii. 7.
1727.—"The Dominions of Barma are at present very large, reaching from Moravi near Tanacerin, to the Province of Yunan in China."—A. Hamilton, ii. 41.
1759.—"The Bûraghmahs are much more numerous than the Peguese and more addicted to commerce; even in Pegu their numbers are 100 to 1."—Letter in Dalrymple, O. R., i. 99. The writer appears desirous to convey by his unusual spelling some accurate reproduction of the name as he had heard it. His testimony as to the {132a}predominance of Burmese in Pegu, at that date even, is remarkable.
[1763.—"Burmah." See quotation under MUNNEEPORE.
[1767.—"Buraghmagh." See quotation under SONAPARANTA.
[1782.—"Bahmans." See quotation under GAUTAMA.]
1793.—"Burmah borders on Pegu to the north, and occupies both banks of the river as far as the frontiers of China."—Rennell's Memoir, 297.
[1795.—"Birman." See quotation under SHAN.
[c. 1819.—"In fact in their own language, their name is not Burmese, which we have borrowed from the Portuguese, but Biamma."—Sangermano, 36.]
BURRA-BEEBEE, s. H. baṛī bībī, 'Grande dame.' This is a kind of slang word applied in Anglo-Indian society to the lady who claims precedence at a party. [Nowadays Baṛī Mem is the term applied to the chief lady in a Station.]
1807.—"At table I have hitherto been allowed but one dish, namely the Burro Bebee, or lady of the highest rank."—Lord Minto in India, 29.
1848.—"The ladies carry their burrah-bibiship into the steamers when they go to England.... My friend endeavoured in vain to persuade them that whatever their social importance in the 'City of Palaces,' they would be but small folk in London."—Chow Chow, by Viscountess Falkland, i. 92.
[BURRA-DIN, s. H. baṛā-din. A 'great day,' the term applied by natives to a great festival of Europeans, particularly to Christmas Day.
[1880.—"This being the Burra Din, or great day, the fact of an animal being shot was interpreted by the men as a favourable augury."—Ball, Jungle Life, 279.]
BURRA-KHANA, s. H. baṛā khāna, 'big dinner'; a term of the same character as the two last, applied to a vast and solemn entertainment.
[1880.—"To go out to a burra khana, or big dinner, which is succeeded in the same or some other house by a larger evening party."—Wilson, Abode of Snow, 51.]
BURRA SAHIB. H. baṛā, 'great'; 'the great Ṣāḥib (or Master),' a term constantly occurring, whether in a family to distinguish the father or the elder brother, in a station to indicate the Collector, Commissioner, or whatever officer may be the recognised head of the society, or in a {132b}department to designate the head of that department, local or remote.
[1889.—"At any rate a few of the great lords and ladies (Burra Sahib and Burra Mem Sahib) did speak to me without being driven to it."—Lady Dufferin, 34.]
BURRAMPOOTER, n.p. Properly (Skt.) Brahmaputra ('the son of Brahmā'), the great river Brahmputr of which Assam is the valley. Rising within 100 miles of the source of the Ganges, these rivers, after being separated by 17 degrees of longitude, join before entering the sea. There is no distinct recognition of this great river by the ancients, but the Diardanes or Oidanes, of Curtius and Strabo, described as a large river in the remoter parts of India, abounding in dolphins and crocodiles, probably represents this river under one of its Skt. names, Hlādini.
1552.—Barros does not mention the name before us, but the Brahmaputra seems to be the river of Caor, which traversing the kingdom so called (Gour) and that of Comotay, and that of Cirote (see SILHET), issues above Chatigão (see CHITTAGONG), in that notable arm of the Ganges which passes through the island of Sornagam.
c. 1590.—"There is another very large river called Berhumputter, which runs from Khatai to Coach (see COOCH BEHAR) and from thence through Bazoohah to the sea."—Ayeen Akberry (Gladwin) ed. 1800, ii. 6; [ed. Jarrett, ii. 121].
1726.—"Out of the same mountains we see ... a great river flowing which ... divides into two branches, whereof the easterly one on account of its size is called the Great Barrempooter."—Valentijn, v. 154.
1753.—"Un peu au-dessous de Daka, le Gange est joint par une grosse rivière, qui sort de la frontière du Tibet. Le nom de Bramanpoutre qu'on lui trouve dans quelques cartes est une corruption de celui de Brahmaputren, qui dans le langage du pays signifie tirant son origine de Brahma."—D'Anville, Éclaircissemens, 62.
1767.—"Just before the Ganges falls into ye Bay of Bengall, it receives the Baramputrey or Assam River. The Assam River is larger than the Ganges ... it is a perfect Sea of fresh Water after the Junction of the two Rivers...."—MS. Letter of James Rennell, d. 10th March.
1793.—"... till the year 1765, the Burrampooter, as a capital river, was unknown in Europe. On tracing this river in 1765, I was no less surprised at finding it rather larger than the Ganges, than at its course previous to its entering Bengal.... I could no longer doubt that the Burrampooter and Sanpoo were one and the same river."—Rennell, Memoir, 3rd ed. 356.
BURREL, s. H. bharal; Ovis nahura, Hodgson. The blue wild sheep of the Himālaya. [Blanford, Mamm. 499, with illustration.]
BURSAUTEE, s. H. barsātī, from barsāt, 'the Rains.'
a. The word properly is applied to a disease to which horses are liable in the rains, pustular eruptions breaking out on the head and fore parts of the body.
[1828.—"That very extraordinary disease, the bursattee."—Or. Sport. Mag., reprint, 1873, i. 125.
[1832.—"Horses are subject to an infectious disease, which generally makes its appearance in the rainy season, and therefore called burrhsaatie."—Mrs Meer Hassan Ali, ii. 27.]
b. But the word is also applied to a waterproof cloak, or the like. (See BRANDY COORTEE.)
1880.—"The scenery has now been arranged for the second part of the Simla season ... and the appropriate costume for both sexes is the decorous bursatti."—Pioneer Mail, July 8.
BUS, adv. P.-H. bas, 'enough.' Used commonly as a kind of interjection: 'Enough! Stop! Ohe jam satis! Basta, basta!' Few Hindustani words stick closer by the returned Anglo-Indian. The Italian expression, though of obscure etymology, can hardly have any connection with bas. But in use it always feels like a mere expansion of it!
1853.—"'And if you pass,' say my dear good-natured friends, 'you may get an appointment. Bus! (you see my Hindostanee knowledge already carries me the length of that emphatic monosyllable)....'"—Oakfield, 2nd ed. i. 42.
BUSHIRE, n.p. The principal modern Persian seaport on the Persian Gulf; properly Abūshahr.
1727.—"Bowchier is also a Maritim Town.... It stands on an Island, and has a pretty good Trade."—A. Hamilton, i. 90.
BUSTEE, s. An inhabited quarter, a village. H. bastī, from Skt. vas = 'dwell.' Many years ago a native in Upper India said to a European assistant in the Canal Department: "You Feringis talk much of your country and its power, but we know that the whole of you come from five villages" (pānch basti). The word is applied {133b}in Calcutta to the separate groups of huts in the humbler native quarters, the sanitary state of which has often been held up to reprobation.
[1889.—"There is a dreary bustee in the neighbourhood which is said to make the most of any cholera that may be going."—R. Kipling, City of Dreadful Night, 54.]
BUTLER, s. In the Madras and Bombay Presidencies this is the title usually applied to the head-servant of any English or quasi-English household. He generally makes the daily market, has charge of domestic stores, and superintends the table. As his profession is one which affords a large scope for feathering a nest at the expense of a foreign master, it is often followed at Madras by men of comparatively good caste. (See CONSUMAH.)
1616.—"Yosky the butler, being sick, asked lycense to goe to his howse to take phisick."—Cocks, i. 135.
1689.—"... the Butlers are enjoin'd to take an account of the Place each Night, before they depart home, that they (the Peons) might be examin'd before they stir, if ought be wanting."—Ovington, 393.
1782.—"Wanted a Person to act as Steward or Butler in a Gentleman's House, he must understand Hairdressing."—India Gazette, March 2.
1789.—"No person considers himself as comfortably accommodated without entertaining a Dubash at 4 pagodas per month, a Butler at 3, a Peon at 2, a Cook at 3, a Compradore at 2, and kitchen boy at 1 pagoda."—Munro's Narrative of Operations, p. 27.
1873.—"Glancing round, my eye fell on the pantry department ... and the butler trimming the reading lamps."—Camp Life in India, Fraser's Mag., June, 696.
1879.—"... the moment when it occurred to him (i.e. the Nyoung-young Prince of Burma) that he ought really to assume the guise of a Madras butler, and be off to the Residency, was the happiest inspiration of his life."—Standard, July 11.
BUTLER-ENGLISH. The broken English spoken by native servants in the Madras Presidency; which is not very much better than the Pigeon-English of China. It is a singular dialect; the present participle (e.g.) being used for the future indicative, and the preterite indicative being formed by 'done'; thus I telling = 'I will tell'; I done tell = 'I have told'; done come = 'actually arrived.' Peculiar meanings are also attached to {134a}words; thus family = 'wife.' The oddest characteristic about this jargon is (or was) that masters used it in speaking to their servants as well as servants to their masters.
BUXEE, s. A military paymaster; H. bakhshī. This is a word of complex and curious history.
In origin it is believed to be the Mongol or Turki corruption of the Skt. bhikshu, 'a beggar,' and thence a Buddhist or religious mendicant or member of the ascetic order, bound by his discipline to obtain his daily food by begging.[52] Bakshi was the word commonly applied by the Tartars of the host of Chingiz and his successors, and after them by the Persian writers of the Mongol era, to the regular Buddhist clergy; and thus the word appears under various forms in the works of medieval European writers from whom examples are quoted below. Many of the class came to Persia and the west with Hulākū and with Bātū Khān; and as the writers in the Tartar camps were probably found chiefly among the bakshis, the word underwent exactly the same transfer of meaning as our clerk, and came to signify a literatus, scribe or secretary. Thus in the Latino-Perso-Turkish vocabulary, which belonged to Petrarch and is preserved at Venice, the word scriba is rendered in Comanian, i.e. the then Turkish of the Crimea, as Bacsi. The change of meaning did not stop here.
Abu'l-Faẓl in his account of Kashmīr (in the Āīn, [ed. Jarrett, iii. 212]) recalls the fact that bakhshī was the title given by the learned among Persian and Arabic writers to the Buddhist priests whom the Tibetans styled lāmās. But in the time of Baber, say circa 1500, among the Mongols the word had come to mean surgeon; a change analogous again, in some measure, to our colloquial use of doctor. The modern Mongols, according to Pallas, use the word in the sense of 'Teacher,' and apply it to the most venerable or learned priest of a community. Among {134b}the Kirghiz Kazzāks, who profess Mahommedanism, it has come to bear the character which Marco Polo more or less associates with it, and means a mere conjurer or medicine-man; whilst in Western Turkestan it signifies a 'Bard' or 'Minstrel.' [Vambéry in his Sketches of Central Asia (p. 81) speaks of a Bakhshi as a troubadour.]
By a further transfer of meaning, of which all the steps are not clear, in another direction, under the Mohammedan Emperors of India the word bakhshi was applied to an officer high in military administration, whose office is sometimes rendered 'Master of the Horse' (of horse, it is to be remembered, the whole substance of the army consisted), but whose duties sometimes, if not habitually, embraced those of Paymaster-General, as well as, in a manner, of Commander-in-Chief, or Chief of the Staff. [Mr. Irvine, who gives a detailed account of the Bakhshi under the latter Moguls (J. R. A. Soc., July 1896, p. 539 seqq.), prefers to call him Adjutant-General.] More properly perhaps this was the position of the Mīr Bakhshī, who had other bakhshīs under him. Bakhshīs in military command continued in the armies of the Mahrattas, of Hyder Ali, and of other native powers. But both the Persian spelling and the modern connection of the title with pay indicate a probability that some confusion of association had arisen between the old Tartar title and the P. bakhsh, 'portion,' bakhshīdan, 'to give,' bakhshīsh, 'payment.' In the early days of the Council of Fort William we find the title Buxee applied to a European Civil officer, through whom payments were made (see Long and Seton-Karr, passim). This is obsolete, but the word is still in the Anglo-Indian Army the recognised designation of a Paymaster.
This is the best known existing use of the word. But under some Native Governments it is still the designation of a high officer of state. And according to the Calcutta Glossary it has been used in the N.W.P. for 'a collector of a house tax' (?) and the like; in Bengal for 'a superintendent of peons'; in Mysore for 'a treasurer,' &c. [In the N.W.P. the Bakhshī, popularly known to natives as 'Bakhshī Tikkas,' 'Tax Bakhshi,' is the person in charge {135a}of one of the minor towns which are not under a Municipal Board, but are managed by a Panch, or body of assessors, who raise the income needed for watch and ward and conservancy by means of a graduated house assessment.] See an interesting note on this word in Quatremère, H. des Mongols, 184 seqq.; also see Marco Polo, Bk. i. ch. 61, note.
1298.—"There is another marvel performed by those Bacsi, of whom I have been speaking as knowing so many enchantments...."—Marco Polo, Bk. I. ch. 61.
c. 1300.—"Although there are many Bakhshis, Chinese, Indian and others, those of Tibet are most esteemed."—Rashid-uddín, quoted by D'Ohsson, ii. 370.
c. 1300.—"Et sciendum, quod Tartar quosdam homines super omnes de mundo honorant: boxitas, scilicet quosdam pontifices ydolorum."—Ricoldus de Montecrucis, in Peregrinatores, IV. p. 117.
c. 1308.—"Ταῦτα γὰρ Κουτζίμπαξις ἐπανήκων πρὸς βασιλέα διεβεβαίον· πρῶτος δὲ τῶν ἱερομάγων, τοὔνομα τοῦτο ἐξελληνίζεται."—Georg. Pachymeres de Andronico Palaeologo, Lib. vii. The last part of the name of this Kutzimpaxis, 'the first of the sacred magi,' appears to be Bakhshi; the whole perhaps to be Khoja-Bakhshi, or Kūchin-Bakhshi.
c. 1340.—"The Kings of this country sprung from Jinghiz Khan ... followed exactly the yassah (or laws) of that Prince and the dogmas received in his family, which consisted in revering the sun, and conforming in all things to the advice of the Bakshis."—Shihābuddīn, in Not. et Extr. xiii. 237.
1420.—"In this city of Kamcheu there is an idol temple 500 cubits square. In the middle is an idol lying at length, which measures 50 paces.... Behind this image ... figures of Bakshis as large as life...."—Shah Rukh's Mission to China, in Cathay, i: cciii.
1615.—"Then I moved him for his favor for an English Factory to be Resident in the Towne, which hee willingly granted, and gave present order to the Buxy, to draw a Firma both for their comming vp, and for their residence."—Sir T. Roe, in Purchas, i. 541; [Hak. Soc. i. 93.]
c. 1660.—"... obliged me to take a Salary from the Grand Mogol in the quality of a Phisitian, and a little after from Danechmend-Kan, the most knowing man of Asia, who had been Bakchis, or Great Master of the Horse."—Bernier, E.T. p. 2; [ed. Constable, p. 4].
1701.—"The friendship of the Buxie is not so much desired for the post he is now in, but that he is of a very good family, and has many relations near the King."—In Wheeler, i. 378.
1706-7.—"So the Emperor appointed a {135b}nobleman to act as the bakshí of Kám Bakhsh, and to him he intrusted the Prince, with instructions to take care of him. The bakshí was Sultan Hasan, otherwise called Mír Malang."—Dowson's Elliot, vii. 385.
1711.—"To his Excellency Zulfikar Khan Bahadur, Nurzerat Sing (Nasrat-Jang?) Backshee of the whole Empire."—Address of a Letter from President and Council of Fort St. George, in Wheeler, ii. 160.
1712.—"Chan Dhjehaan ... first Baksi general, or Muster-Master of the horsemen."—Valentijn, iv. (Suratte), 295.
1753.—"The Buxey acquaints the Board he has been using his endeavours to get sundry artificers for the Negrais."—In Long, 43.
1756.—Barth. Plaisted represents the bad treatment he had met with for "strictly adhering to his duty during the Buxy-ship of Messrs. Bellamy and Kempe"; and "the abuses in the post of Buxy."—Letter to the Hon. the Court of Directors, &c., p. 3.
1763.—"The buxey or general of the army, at the head of a select body, closed the procession."—Orme, i. 26 (reprint).
1766.—"The Buxey lays before the Board an account of charges incurred in the Buxey Connah ... for the relief of people saved from the Falmouth."—Ft. William, Cons., Long, 457.
1793.—"The bukshey allowed it would be prudent in the Sultan not to hazard the event."—Dirom, 50.
1804.—"A buckshee and a body of horse belonging to this same man were opposed to me in the action of the 5th; whom I daresay that I shall have the pleasure of meeting shortly at the Peshwah's durbar."—Wellington, iii. 80.
1811.—"There appear to have been different descriptions of Buktshies (in Tippoo's service). The Buktshies of Kushoons were a sort of commissaries and paymasters, and were subordinate to the sipahdâr, if not to the Resâladâr, or commandant of a battalion. The Meer Buktshy, however, took rank of the Sipahdâr. The Buktshies of the Ehsham and Jyshe were, I believe, the superior officers of these corps respectively."—Note to Tippoo's Letters, 165.
1823.—"In the Mahratta armies the prince is deemed the Sirdar or Commander; next to him is the Bukshee or Paymaster, who is vested with the principal charge and responsibility, and is considered accountable for all military expenses and disbursements."—Malcolm, Central India, i. 534.
1827.—"Doubt it not—the soldiers of the Beegum Mootee Mahul ... are less hers than mine. I am myself the Bukshee ... and her Sirdars are at my devotion."—Walter Scott, The Surgeon's Daughter, ch. xii.
1861.—"To the best of my memory he was accused of having done his best to urge the people of Dhar to rise against our Government, and several of the witnesses deposed to this effect; amongst them the Bukshi."—Memo. on Dhar, by Major McMullen.
1874.—"Before the depositions were taken down, the gomasta of the planter drew aside the Bakshí, who is a police-officer next to the darogá."—Govinda Samanta, ii. 235.
BUXERRY, s. A matchlock man; apparently used in much the same sense as Burkundauze (q.v.) now obsolete. We have not found this term excepting in documents pertaining to the middle decades of 18th century in Bengal; [but see references supplied by Mr. Irvine below;] nor have we found any satisfactory etymology. Buxo is in Port. a gun-barrel (Germ. Buchse); which suggests some possible word buxeiro. There is however none such in Bluteau, who has, on the other hand, "Butgeros, an Indian term, artillery-men, &c.," and quotes from Hist. Orient. iii. 7: "Butgeri sunt hi qui quinque tormentis praeficiuntur." This does not throw much light. Bajjar, 'thunderbolt,' may have given vogue to a word in analogy to P. barḳandāz, 'lightning-darter,' but we find no such word. As an additional conjecture, however, we may suggest Baksāris, from the possible circumstance that such men were recruited in the country about Baksār (Buxar), i.e. the Shāhābād district, which up to 1857 was a great recruiting ground for sepoys. [There can be no doubt that this last suggestion gives the correct origin of the word. Buchanan Hamilton, Eastern India, i. 471, describes the large number of men who joined the native army from this part of the country.]
[1690.—The Mogul army was divided into three classes—Suwārān, or mounted men; Topkhānah, artillery; Aḥshām, infantry and artificers.
["Aḥshām—Bandūqchī-i-jangī—Baksariyah wa Bundelah Aḥshām, i.e. regular matchlock-men, Baksariyahs and Bundelahs."—Dastūr-ul-'amal, written about 1690-1; B. Museum MS., No. 1641, fol. 58b.]
1748.—"Ordered the Zemindars to send Buxerries to clear the boats and bring them up as Prisoners."—Ft. William Cons., April, in Long, p. 6.
" "We received a letter from ... Council at Cossimbazar ... advising of their having sent Ensign McKion with all the Military that were able to travel, 150 buxerries, 4 field pieces, and a large quantity of ammunition to Cutway."—Ibid. p. 1.
1749.—"Having frequent reports of several straggling parties of this banditti plundering about this place, we on the 2d November ordered the Zemindars to entertain one {136b}hundred buxeries and fifty pike-men over and above what were then in pay for the protection of the outskirts of your Honor's town."—Letter to Court, Jan. 13, Ibid. p. 21.
1755.—"Agreed, we despatch Lieutenant John Harding of a command of soldiers 25 Buxaries in order to clear these boats if stopped in their way to this place."—Ibid. 55.
" "In an account for this year we find among charges on behalf of William Wallis, Esq., Chief at Cossimbazar:
| Rs. | ||
| "'4 Buxeries | 20 (year) | 240.'" |
| MS. Records in India Office. |
1761.—"The 5th they made their last effort with all the Sepoys and Buxerries they could assemble."—In Long, 254.
" "The number of Buxerriés or matchlockmen was therefore augmented to 1500."—Orme (reprint), ii. 59.
" "In a few minutes they killed 6 buxerries."—Ibid. 65; see also 279.
1772.—"Buckserrias. Foot soldiers whose common arms are only sword and target."—Glossary in Grose's Voyage, 2nd ed. [This is copied, as Mr. Irvine shows, from the Glossary of 1757 prefixed to An Address to the Proprietors of E. I. Stock, in Holwell's Indian Tracts, 3rd ed., 1779.]
1788.—"Buxerries—Foot soldiers, whose common arms are swords and targets or spears."—Indian Vocabulary (Stockdale's).
1850.—"Another point to which Clive turned his attention ... was the organization of an efficient native regular force.... Hitherto the native troops employed at Calcutta ... designated Buxarries were nothing more than Burkandāz, armed and equipped in the usual native manner."—Broome, Hist. of the Rise and Progress of the Bengal Army, i. 92.
BYDE, or BEDE HORSE, s. A note by Kirkpatrick to the passage below from Tippoo's Letters says Byde Horse are "the same as Pindârehs, Looties, and Kuzzâks" (see PINDARRY, LOOTY, COSSACK). In the Life of Hyder Ali by Hussain 'Ali Khān Kirmāni, tr. by Miles, we read that Hyder's Kuzzaks were under the command of "Ghazi Khan Bede." But whether this leader was so called from leading the "Bede" Horse, or gave his name to them, does not appear. Miles has the highly intelligent note: 'Bede is another name for (Kuzzak): Kirkpatrick supposed the word Bede meant infantry, which, I believe, it does not' (p. 36). The quotation from the Life of Tippoo seems to indicate that it was the name of a caste. And we find in Sherring's Indian Tribes and Castes, among those of Mysore, mention of the Bedar as a {137a}tribe, probably of huntsmen, dark, tall, and warlike. Formerly many were employed as soldiers, and served in Hyder's wars (iii. 153; see also the same tribe in the S. Mahratta country, ii. 321). Assuming -ar to be a plural sign, we have here probably the "Bedes" who gave their name to these plundering horse. The Bedar are mentioned as one of the predatory classes of the peninsula, along with Marawars, Kallars, Ramūsis (see RAMOOSY), &c., in Sir Walter Elliot's paper (J. Ethnol. Soc., 1869, N.S. pp. 112-13). But more will be found regarding them in a paper by the late Gen. Briggs, the translator of Ferishta's Hist. (J. R. A. Soc. xiii.). Besides Bedar, Bednor (or Nagar) in Mysore seems to take its name from this tribe. [See Rice, Mysore, i. 255.]
1758.—"... The Cavalry of the Rao ... received such a defeat from Hydur's Bedes or Kuzzaks that they fled and never looked behind them until they arrived at Goori Bundar."—Hist. of Hydur Naik, p. 120.
1785.—"Byde Horse, out of employ, have committed great excesses and depredations in the Sircar's dominions."—Letters of Tippoo Sultan, 6.
1802.—"The Kakur and Chapao horse.... (Although these are included in the Bede tribe, they carry off the palm even from them in the arts of robbery)...."—H. of Tipú, by Hussein 'Ali Khan Kirmāni, tr. by Miles, p. 76.
[BYLEE, s. A small two-wheeled vehicle drawn by two oxen. H. bahal, bahlī, bailī, which has no connection, as is generally supposed, with bail, 'an ox'; but is derived from the Skt. vah, 'to carry.' The bylee is used only for passengers, and a larger and more imposing vehicle of the same class is the Rut. There is a good drawing of a Panjab bylee in Kipling's Beast and Man (p. 117); also see the note on the quotation from Forbes under HACKERY.
[1841.—"A native bylee will usually produce, in gold and silver of great purity, ten times the weight of precious metals to be obtained from a general officer's equipage."—Society in India, i. 162.
[1854.—"Most of the party ... were in a barouch, but the rich man himself [one of the Muttra Seths] still adheres to the primitive conveyance of a bylis, a thing like a footboard on two wheels, generally drawn by two oxen, but in which he drives a splendid pair of white horses, sitting cross-legged the while!"—Mrs Mackenzie, Life in the Mission, &c., ii. 205.]
CABAYA, s. This word, though of Asiatic origin, was perhaps introduced into India by the Portuguese, whose writers of the 16th century apply it to the surcoat or long tunic of muslin, which is one of the most common native garments of the better classes in India. The word seems to be one of those which the Portuguese had received in older times from the Arabic (ḳabā, 'a vesture'). From Dozy's remarks this would seem in Barbary to take the form ḳabāya. Whether from Arabic or from Portuguese, the word has been introduced into the Malay countries, and is in common use in Java for the light cotton surcoat worn by Europeans, both ladies and gentlemen, in dishabille. The word is not now used in India Proper, unless by the Portuguese. But it has become familiar in Dutch, from its use in Java. [Mr. Gray, in his notes to Pyrard (i. 372), thinks that the word was introduced before the time of the Portuguese, and remarks that kabaya in Ceylon means a coat or jacket worn by a European or native.]
c. 1540.—"There was in her an Embassador who had brought Hidalcan [Idalcan] a very rich Cabaya ... which he would not accept of, for that thereby he would not acknowledge himself subject to the Turk."—Cogan's Pinto, pp. 10-11.
1552.—"... he ordered him then to bestow a cabaya."—Castanheda, iv. 438. See also Stanley's Correa, 132.
1554.—"And moreover there are given to these Kings (Malabar Rajas) when they come to receive these allowances, to each of them a cabaya of silk, or of scarlet, of 4 cubits, and a cap or two, and two sheath-knives."—S. Botelho, Tombo, 26.
1572.—
"Luzem da fina purpura as cabayas,
Lustram os pannos da tecida seda."
Camões, ii. 93.
"Cabaya de damasco rico e dino
Da Tyria cor, entre elles estimada."
Ibid. 95.
In these two passages Burton translates caftan.
1585.—"The King is apparelled with a Cabie made like a shirt tied with strings on one side."—R. Fitch, in Hakl., ii. 386.
1598.—"They wear sometimes when they go abroad a thinne cotton linnen gowne called Cabaia...."—Linschoten, 70; [Hak. Soc. i. 247].
c. 1610.—"Cette jaquette ou soutane, qu'ils appellent Libasse (P. libās, 'clothing') ou Cabaye, est de toile de Cotton fort fine et blanche, qui leur va jusqu'aux talons."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 265; [Hak. Soc. i. 372].
[1614.—"The white Cabas which you have with you at Bantam would sell here."—Foster, Letters, ii. 44.]
1645.—"Vne Cabaye qui est vne sorte de vestement comme vne large soutane couverte par le devant, à manches fort larges."—Cardim, Rel. de la Prov. du Japon, 56.
1689.—"It is a distinction between the Moors and Bannians, the Moors tie their Caba's always on the Right side, and the Bannians on the left...."—Ovington, 314. This distinction is still true.
1860.—"I afterwards understood that the dress they were wearing was a sort of native garment, which there in the country they call sarong or kabaai, but I found it very unbecoming."—Max Havelaar, 43. [There is some mistake here, sarong and Kabaya are quite different.]
1878.—"Over all this is worn (by Malay women) a long loose dressing-gown style of garment called the kabaya. This robe falls to the middle of the leg, and is fastened down the front with circular brooches."—McNair, Perak, &c., 151.
CABOB, s. Ar.-H. kabāb. This word is used in Anglo-Indian households generically for roast meat. [It usually follows the name of the dish, e.g. murghī kabāb, 'roast fowl'.] But specifically it is applied to the dish described in the quotations from Fryer and Ovington.
c. 1580.—"Altero modo ... ipsam (carnem) in parva frustra dissectam, et veruculis ferreis acuum modo infixam, super crates ferreas igne supposito positam torrefaciunt, quam succo limonum aspersam avidè esitant."—Prosper Alpinus, Pt. i. 229.
1673.—"Cabob is Rostmeat on Skewers, cut in little round pieces no bigger than a Sixpence, and Ginger and Garlick put between each."—Fryer, 404.
1689.—"Cabob, that is Beef or Mutton cut in small pieces, sprinkled with salt and pepper, and dipt with Oil and Garlick, which have been mixt together in a dish, and then roasted on a Spit, with sweet Herbs put between and stuff in them, and basted with Oil and Garlick all the while."—Ovington, 397.
1814.—"I often partook with my Arabs of a dish common in Arabia called Kabob or Kab-ab, which is meat cut into small pieces and placed on thin skewers, alternately between slices of onion and green ginger, seasoned with pepper, salt, and Kian, fried in ghee, to be ate with rice and dholl."—Forbes, Or. Mem. ii. 480; [2nd ed. ii. 82; in i. 315 he writes Kebabs].
[1876.—"... kavap (a name which is naturalised with us as Cabobs), small bits of meat roasted on a spit...."—Schuyler, Turkistan, i. 125.]
CABOOK, s. This is the Ceylon term for the substance called in India Laterite (q.v.), and in Madras by the native name Moorum (q.v.). The word is perhaps the Port. cabouco or cavouco, 'a quarry.' It is not in Singh. Dictionaries. [Mr. Ferguson says that it is a corruption of the Port. pedras de cavouco, 'quarry-stones,' the last word being by a misapprehension applied to the stones themselves. The earliest instance of the use of the word he has met with occurs in the Travels of Dr. Aegidius Daalmans (1687-89), who describes kaphok stone as 'like small pebbles lying in a hard clay, so that if a large square stone is allowed to lie for some time in the water, the clay dissolves and the pebbles fall in a heap together; but if this stone is laid in good mortar, so that the water cannot get at it, it does good service' (J. As. Soc. Ceylon, x. 162). The word is not in the ordinary Singhalese Dicts., but A. Mendis Gunasekara in his Singhalese Grammar (1891), among words derived from the Port., gives kabuk-gal (cabouco), cabook (stone), 'laterite.']
1834.—"The soil varies in different situations on the Island. In the country round Colombo it consists of a strong red clay, or marl, called Cabook, mixed with sandy ferruginous particles."—Ceylon Gazetteer, 33.