CLOVE, s. The flower-bud of Caryophyllum aromaticum, L., a tree of the Moluccas. The modern English name {223b}of this spice is a kind of ellipsis from the French clous de girofles, 'Nails of Girofles,' i.e. of garofala, caryophylla, &c., the name by which this spice was known to the ancients; the full old English name was similar, 'clove gillofloure,' a name which, cut in two like a polypus, has formed two different creatures, the clove (or nail) being assigned to the spice, and the 'gillyflower' to a familiar clove-smelling flower. The comparison to nails runs through many languages. In Chinese the thing is called ting-hiang, or 'nail-spice'; in Persian mekhak, 'little nails,' or 'nailkins,' like the German Nelken, Nägelchen, and Gewürtz-nagel (spice nail).
[1602-3.—"Alsoe be carefull to gett together all the cloues you can."—Birdwood, First Letter Book, 36.]
COAST, THE, n.p. This term in books of the 18th century means the 'Madras or Coromandel Coast,' and often 'the Madras Presidency.' It is curious to find Παραλία, "the Shore," applied in a similar specific way, in Ptolemy, to the coast near Cape Comorin. It will be seen that the term "Coast Army," for "Madras Army," occurs quite recently. The Persian rendering of Coast Army by Bandarī below is curious.
1781.—"Just imported from the Coast ... a very fine assortment of the following cloths."—India Gazette, Sept. 15.
1793.—"Unseduced by novelty, and uninfluenced by example, the belles of the Coast have courage enough to be unfashionable ... and we still see their charming tresses flow in luxuriant ringlets."—Hugh Boyd, 78.
1800.—"I have only 1892 Coast and 1200 Bombay sepoys."—Wellington, i. 227.
1802.—"From Hydurabád also, Colonels Roberts and Dalrymple, with 4000 of the Bunduri or coast sipahees."—H. of Reign of Tipú Sultán, E. T. by Miles, p. 253.
1879.—"Is it any wonder then, that the Coast Army has lost its ancient renown, and that it is never employed, as an army should be, in fighting the battles of its country, or its employers?"—Pollok, Sport in Br. Burmah, &c., i. 26.
COBANG. See KOBANG.
COBILY MASH, s. This is the dried bonito (q.v.), which has for ages been a staple of the Maldive Islands. It is still especially esteemed in Achin {224a}and other Malay countries. The name is explained below by Pyrard as 'black fish,' and he is generally to be depended on. But the first accurate elucidation has been given by Mr. H. C. P. Bell, of the Ceylon C. S., in the Indian Antiquary for Oct. 1882, p. 294; see also Mr. Bell's Report on Maldive Islands, Colombo, 1882, p. 93, where there is an account of the preparation. It is the Maldive kalu-bili-mās, 'black-bonito-fish.' The second word corresponds to the Singhalese balayā.
c. 1345.—"Its flesh is red, and without fat, but it smells like mutton. When caught each fish is cut in four, slightly boiled, and then placed in baskets of palm-leaf, and hung in the smoke. When perfectly dry it is eaten. From this country it is exported to India, China, and Yemen. It is called Kolb-al-mās."—Ibn Batuta (on Maldives), iv. 112, also 311.
1578.—"... They eat it with a sort of dried fish, which comes from the Islands of Maledivia, and resembles jerked beef, and it is called Comalamasa."—Acosta, 103.
c. 1610.—"Ce poisson qui se prend ainsi, s'apelle generalement en leur langue cobolly masse, c'est à dire du poisson noir.... Ils le font cuire en de l'eau de mer, et puis le font secher au feu sur des clayes, en sorte qu'estant sec il se garde fort long-temps."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 138; see also 141; [Hak. Soc. i. 190 (with Gray's note) and 194].
1727.—"The Bonetta is caught with Hook and Line, or with nets ... they cut the Fish from the Back-bone on each Side, and lay them in a Shade to dry, sprinkling them sometimes with Sea Water. When they are dry enough ... they wrap them up in Leaves of Cocoa-nut Trees, and put them a Foot or two under the Surface of the Sand, and with the Heat of the Sun, they become baked as hard as Stock-fish, and Ships come from Atcheen ... and purchase them with Gold-dust. I have seen Comelamash (for that is their name after they are dried) sell at Atcheen for 8L. Sterl. per 1000."—A. Hamilton, i. 347; [ed. 1744, i. 350].
1783.—"Many Maldivia boats come yearly to Atcheen, and bring chiefly dried bonnetta in small pieces about two or three ounces; this is a sort of staple article of commerce, many shops in the Bazar deal in it only, having large quantities piled up, put in matt bags. It is when properly cured, hard like horn in the middle; when kept long the worm gets to it."—Forrest, V. to Mergui, 45.
1813.—"The fish called Commel mutch, so much esteemed in Malabar, is caught at Minicoy."—Milburn, i. 321, also 336.
1841.—"The Sultan of the Maldiva Islands sends an agent or minister every year to the government of Ceylon with presents consisting of ... a considerable {224b}quantity of dried fish, consisting of bonitos, albicores, and fish called by the inhabitants of the Maldivas the black fish, or comboli mas."—J. R. As. Soc. vi. 75.
The same article contains a Maldivian vocabulary, in which we have "Bonito or goomulmutch ... kannelimas" (p. 49). Thus we have in this one paper three corrupt forms of the same expression, viz. comboli mas, kanneli mas, and goomulmutch, all attempts at the true Maldivian term kalu-bili-mās, 'black bonito fish.'
COBRA DE CAPELLO, or simply COBRA, s. The venomous snake Naja tripudians. Cobra [Lat. colubra] is Port. for 'snake'; cobra de capello, 'snake of (the) hood.' [In the following we have a curious translation of the name: "Another sort, which is called Chapel-snakes, because they keep in Chapels or Churches, and sometimes in Houses" (A Relation of Two Several Voyages made into the East Indies, by Christopher Fryke, Surg.... London, 1700, p. 291).]
1523.—"A few days before, cobras de capello had been secretly introduced into the fort, which bit some black people who died thereof, both men and women; and when this news became known it was perceived that they must have been introduced by the hand of some one, for since the fort was made never had the like been heard of."—Correa, ii. 776.
1539.—"Vimos tãbẽ aquy grande soma de cobras de capello, da grossura da coxa de hũ homẽ, e tão peçonhentas em tanto estremo, que dizião os negros que se chegarão cõ a baba da boca a qualquer cousa viva, logo em proviso cahia morta em terra...."—Pinto, cap. xiv.
" "... Adders that were copped on the crowns of their heads, as big as a man's thigh, and so venomous, as the Negroes of the country informed us, that if any living thing came within the reach of their breath, it dyed presently...."—Cogan's Transl., p. 17.
1563.—"In the beautiful island of Ceylon ... there are yet many serpents of the kind which are vulgarly called Cobras de capello; and in Latin we may call them regulus serpens."—Garcia, f. 156.
1672.—"In Jafnapatam, in my time, there lay among others in garrison a certain High German who was commonly known as the Snake-Catcher; and this man was summoned by our Commander ... to lay hold of a Cobre Capel that was in his Chamber. And this the man did, merely holding his hat before his eyes, and seizing it with his hand, without any damage.... I had my suspicions that this was done by some devilry ... but he maintained that it was all by natural means...."—Baldaeus (Germ. ed.), 25.
Some forty-nine or fifty years ago a staff-sergeant at Delhi had a bull-dog that used {225a}to catch cobras in much the same way as this High-Dutchman did.
1710.—"The Brother Francisco Rodriguez persevered for the whole 40 days in these exercises, and as the house was of clay, and his cell adjoined the garden, it was invaded by cobra de capelo, and he made report of this inconvenience to the Father-Rector. But his answer was that these were not the snakes that did spiritual harm; and so left the Brother in the same cell. This and other admirable instances have always led me to doubt if S. Paul did not communicate to his Paulists in India the same virtue as of the tongues of S. Paul,[70] for the snakes in these parts are so numerous and so venomous, and though our Missionaries make such long journeys through wild uncultivated places, there is no account to this day that any Paulist was ever bitten."—F. de Souza, Oriente Conquistado, Conq. i. Div. i. cap. 73.
1711.—Bluteau, in his great Port. Dict., explains Cobra de Capello as a "reptile (bicho) of Brazil." But it is only a slip; what is further said shows that he meant to say India.
c. 1713.—"En secouant la peau de cerf sur laquelle nous avons coutume de nous asseoir, il en sortit un gros serpent de ceux qu'on appelle en Portugais Cobra-Capel."—Lettres Edif., ed. 1781, xi. 83.
1883.—"In my walks abroad I generally carry a strong, supple walking cane.... Armed with it, you may rout and slaughter the hottest-tempered cobra in Hindustan. Let it rear itself up and spread its spectacled head-gear and bluster as it will, but one rap on the side of its head will bring it to reason."—Tribes on my Frontier, 198-9.
COBRA LILY, s. The flower Arum campanulatum, which stands on its curving stem exactly like a cobra with a reared head.
COBRA MANILLA, or MINELLE, s. Another popular name in S. India for a species of venomous snake, perhaps a little uncertain in its application. Dr. Russell says the Bungarus caeruleus was sent to him from Masulipatam, with the name Cobra Monil, whilst Günther says this name is given in S. India to the Daboia Russellii, or Tic-Polonga (q.v.) (see Fayrer's Thanatophidia, pp. 11 and 15). [The Madras Gloss. calls it the chain-viper, Daboia elegans.] One explanation of the name is given in the quotation from Lockyer. But the name is really Mahr. maṇer, from Skt. maṇi, 'a jewel.' There are judicious remarks in a book lately quoted, {225b}regarding the popular names and popular stories of snakes, which apply, we suspect, to all the quotations under the following heading:
"There are names in plenty ... but they are applied promiscuously to any sort of snake, real or imaginary, and are therefore of no use. The fact is, that in real life, as distinguished from romance, snakes are so seldom seen, that no one who does not make a study of them can know one from the other."[71]—Tribes on my Frontier, 197.
1711.—"The Cobra Manilla has its name from a way of Expression common among the Nears on the Malabar Coast, who speaking of a quick Motion ... say, in a Phrase peculiar to themselves, Before they can pull a Manilla from their Hands. A Person bit with this Snake, dies immediately; or before one can take a Manilla off. A Manilla is a solid piece of Gold, of two or three ounces Weight, worn in a Ring round the Wrist."—Lockyer, 276.
[1773.—"The Covra Manilla, is a small bluish snake of the size of a man's little finger, and about a foot long, often seen about old walls."—Ives, 43.]
1780.—"The most dangerous of those reptiles are the coverymanil and the green snake. The first is a beautiful little creature, very lively, and about 6 or 7 inches long. It creeps into all private corners of houses, and is often found coiled up betwixt the sheets, or perhaps under the pillow of one's bed. Its sting is said to inflict immediate death, though I must confess, for my own part, I never heard of any dangerous accident occasioned by it."—Munro's Narrative, 34.
1810.—"...
COCHIN, n.p. A famous city of Malabar, Malayāl. Kochchī, ['a small place'] which the nasalising, so usual with the Portuguese, converted into Cochim or Cochin. We say "the Portuguese" because we seem to owe so many nasal terminations of words in Indian use to them; but it is evident that the real origin of this nasal was in some cases anterior to their arrival, as in the present case (see the first quotations), and in that of Acheen (q.v.). Padre Paolino says the town was called after the small river "Cocci" (as he writes it). It will be seen that {226a}Conti in the 15th century makes the same statement.
c. 1430.—"Relictâ Coloënâ ad urbem Cocym, trium dierum itinere transiit, quinque millibus passuum ambitu supra ostium fluminis, a quo et nomen."—N. Conti in Poggius, de Variet. Fortunae, iv.
1503.—"Inde Franci ad urbem Cocen profecti, castrum ingens ibidem construxere, et trecentis praesidiariis viris bellicosis munivere...."—Letter of Nestorian Bishops from India, in Assemani, iii. 596.
1510.—"And truly he (the K. of Portugal) deserves every good, for in India and especially in Cucin, every fête day ten and even twelve Pagans and Moors are baptised."—Varthema, 296.
[1562.—"Cochym." See under BEADALA.]
1572.—
"Vereis a fortaleza sustentar-se
De Cananor con pouca força e gente
* * * * *
E vereis em Cochin assinalar-se
Tanto hum peito soberbo, e insolente[72]
Que cithara ja mais cantou victoria,
Que assi mereça eterno nome e gloria."
Camões, ii. 52.
By Burton:
"Thou shalt behold the Fortalice hold out
of Cananor with scanty garrison
* * * * *
shalt in Cochin see one approv'd so stout,
who such an arr'gance of the sword hath shown,
no harp of mortal sang a similar story,
digne of e'erlasting name, eternal glory."
[1606.—"Att Cowcheen which is a place neere Callicutt is stoare of pepper...."—Birdwood, First Letter Book, 84.
[1610.—"Cochim bow worth in Surat as sceala and kannikee."—Danvers, Letters, i. 74.]
1767.—"From this place the Nawaub marched to Koochi-Bundur, from the inhabitants of which he exacted a large sum of money."—H. of Hydur Naik, 186.
COCHIN-CHINA, n.p. This country was called by the Malays Kuchi, and apparently also, to distinguish it from Kuchi of India (or Cochin), Kuchi-China, a term which the Portuguese adopted as Cauchi-China; the Dutch and English from them. Kuchi occurs in this sense in the Malay traditions called Sijara Malayu (see J. Ind. Archip., v. 729). In its origin this {226b}word Kuchi is no doubt a foreigner's form of the Annamite Kuu-chön (Chin. Kiu-Ching, South Chin. Kau-Chen), which was the ancient name of the province Thanh'-hoa, in which the city of Huë has been the capital since 1398.[73]
1516.—"And he (Fernão Peres) set sail from Malaca ... in August of the year 516, and got into the Gulf of Concam china, which he entered in the night, escaping by miracle from being lost on the shoals...."—Correa, ii. 474.
[1524.—"I sent Duarte Coelho to discover Canchim China."—Letter of Albuquerque to the King, India Office MSS., Corpo Chronologico, vol. i.]
c. 1535.—"This King of Cochinchina keeps always an ambassador at the court of the King of China; not that he does this of his own good will, or has any content therein, but because he is his vassal."—Sommario de' Regni, in Ramusio, i. 336v.
c. 1543.—"Now it was not without much labour, pain, and danger, that we passed these two Channels, as also the River of Ventinau, by reason of the Pyrats that usually are encountred there, nevertheless we at length arrived at the Town of Manaquilen, which is scituated at the foot of the Mountains of Chomay (Comhay in orig.), upon the Frontiers of the two Kingdoms of China, and Cauchenchina (da China e do Cauchim in orig.), where the Ambassadors were well received by the Governor thereof."—Pinto, E. T., p. 166 (orig. cap. cxxix.).
c. 1543.—"Capitulo CXXX. Do recebimento que este Rey da Cauchenchina fez ao Embaixador da Tartaria na villa de Fanau grem."—Pinto, original.
1572.—
"Ves, Cauchichina esta de oscura fama,
E de Ainão vê a incognita enseada."
Camões, x. 129.
By Burton:
"See Cauchichina still of note obscure
and of Ainam yon undiscovered Bight."
1598.—"This land of Cauchinchina is devided into two or three Kingdomes, which are vnder the subiection of the King of China, it is a fruitfull countrie of all necessarie prouisiouns and Victuals."—Linschoten, ch. 22; [Hak. Soc. i. 124].
1606.—"Nel Regno di Coccincina, che ... è alle volte chiamato dal nome di Anan, vi sono quattordici Provincie piccole...."—Viaggi di Carletti, ii. 138.
[1614.—"The Cocchichinnas cut him all in pieces."—Foster, Letters, ii. 75.
[1616.—"27 pecull of lignum aloes of Cutcheinchenn."—Ibid. iv. 213.]
1652.—"Cauchin-China is bounded on the West with the Kingdomes of Brama; on the East, with the Great Realm of China; on the North extending towards Tartary; and on the South, bordering on Camboia."—P. Heylin, Cosmographie, iii. 239.
1727.—"Couchin-china has a large Sea-coast of about 700 Miles in Extent ... and it has the Conveniency of many good Harbours on it, tho' they are not frequented by Strangers."—A. Hamilton, ii. 208; [ed. 1744].
COCHIN-LEG. A name formerly given to elephantiasis, as it prevailed in Malabar. [The name appears to be still in use (Boswell, Man. of Nellore, 33). Linschoten (1598) describes it in Malabar (Hak. Soc. i. 288), and it was also called "St. Thomas's leg" (see an account with refs. in Gray, Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 392).]
1757.—"We could not but take notice at this place (Cochin) of the great number of the Cochin, or Elephant legs."—Ives, 193.
1781.—"... my friend Jack Griskin, enclosed in a buckram Coat of the 1745, with a Cochin Leg, hobbling the Allemand...."—Letter from an Old Country Captain, in India Gazette, Feb. 24.
1813.—"Cochin-Leg, or elephantiasis."—Forbes, Or. Mem. i. 327; [2nd ed. i. 207].
COCKATOO, s. This word is taken from the Malay kākātūwa. According to Crawfurd the word means properly 'a vice,' or 'gripe,' but is applied to the bird. It seems probable, however, that the name, which is asserted to be the natural cry of the bird, may have come with the latter from some remoter region of the Archipelago, and the name of the tool may have been taken from the bird. This would be more in accordance with usual analogy. [Mr. Skeat writes: "There is no doubt that Sir H. Yule is right here and Crawfurd wrong. Kakak tuwa (or tua) means in Malay, if the words are thus separated, 'old sister,' or 'old lady.' I think it is possible that it may be a familiar Malay name for the bird, like our 'Polly.' The final k in kakak is a mere click, which would easily drop out."]
1638.—"Il y en a qui sont blancs ... et sont coeffés d'vne houpe incarnate ... l'on les appelle kakatou, à cause de ce mot qu'ils prononcent en leur chant assez distinctement."—Mandelslo (Paris, 1669), 144.
1654.—"Some rarities of naturall things, but nothing extraordinary save the skin of {227b}a jaccall, a rarely colour'd jacatoo or prodigious parrot...."—Evelyn's Diary, July 11.
1673.—"... Cockatooas and Newries (see LORY) from Bantem."—Fryer, 116.
1705.—"The Crockadore is a Bird of various Sizes, some being as big as a Hen, and others no bigger than a Pidgeon. They are in all Parts exactly of the shape of a Parrot.... When they fly wild up and down the Woods they will call Crockadore, Crockadore; for which reason they go by that name."—Funnel, in Dampier, iv. 265-6.
1719.—"Maccaws, Cokatoes, plovers, and a great variety of other birds of curious colours."—Shelvocke's Voyage, 54-55.
1775.—"At Sooloo there are no Loories, but the Cocatores have yellow tufts."—Forrest, V. to N. Guinea, 295.
[1843.—"... saucy Krocotoas, and gaudy-coloured Loris."—Belcher, Narr. of Voyage of Samarang, i. 15.]
COCKROACH, s. This objectionable insect (Blatta orientalis) is called by the Portuguese cacalacca, for the reason given by Bontius below; a name adopted by the Dutch as kakerlak, and by the French as cancrelat. The Dutch also apply their term as a slang name to half-castes. But our word seems to have come from the Spanish cucaracha. The original application of this Spanish name appears to have been to a common insect found under water-vessels standing on the ground, &c. (apparently Oniscus, or woodlouse); but as cucaracha de Indias it was applied to the insect now in question (see Dicc. de la Lengua Castellana, 1729).
1577.—"We were likewise annoyed not a little by the biting of an Indian fly called Cacaroch, a name agreeable to its bad condition; for living it vext our flesh; and being kill'd smelt as loathsomely as the French punaise, whose smell is odious."—Herbert's Travels, 3rd ed., 332-33.
[1598.—"There is a kind of beast that flyeth, twice as big as a Bee, and is called Baratta (Blatta)."—Linschoten, Hak. Soc. i. 304.]
1631.—"Scarabaeos autem hos Lusitani Caca-laccas vocant, quod ova quae excludunt, colorem et laevorem Laccae factitiae (i.e. of sealing-wax) referant."—Jac. Bontii, lib. v. cap 4.
1764.—
"... from their retreats
Cockroaches crawl displeasingly abroad."
Grainger, Bk. i.
c. 1775.—"Most of my shirts, books, &c., were gnawed to dust by the blatta or cockroach, called cackerlakke in Surinam."—Stedman, i. 203.
COCKUP, s. An excellent table-fish, found in the mouths of tidal rivers in most parts of India. In Calcutta it is generally known by the Beng. name of begtī or bhiktī (see BHIKTY), and it forms the daily breakfast dish of half the European gentlemen in that city. The name may be a corruption, we know not of what; or it may be given from the erect sharp spines of the dorsal fin. [The word is a corr. of the Malay (ikan) kakap, which Klinkert defines as a palatable sea-fish, Lates nobilis, the more common form being siyakap.] It is Lates calcarifer (Günther) of the group Percina, family Percidae, and grows to an immense size, sometimes to eight feet in length.
COCO, COCOA, COCOA-NUT, and (vulg.) COKER-NUT, s. The tree and nut Cocos nucifera, L.; a palm found in all tropical countries, and the only one common to the Old and New Worlds.
The etymology of this name is very obscure. Some conjectural origins are given in the passages quoted below. Ritter supposes, from a passage in Pigafetta's Voyage of Magellan, which we cite, that the name may have been indigenous in the Ladrone Islands, to which that passage refers, and that it was first introduced into Europe by Magellan's crew. On the other hand, the late Mr. C. W. Goodwin found in ancient Egyptian the word kuku used as "the name of the fruit of a palm 60 cubits high, which fruit contained water." (Chabas, Mélanges Égyptologiques, ii. 239.) It is hard, however, to conceive how this name should have survived, to reappear in Europe in the later Middle Ages, without being known in any intermediate literature.[74]
The more common etymology is that which is given by Barros, Garcia de Orta, Linschoten, &c., as from a Spanish word coco applied to a monkey's or other grotesque face, with reference to the appearance of the base of the shell with its three holes. But after all may the term not have {228b}originated in the old Span. coca, 'a shell' (presumably Lat. concha), which we have also in French coque? properly an egg-shell, but used also for the shell of any nut. (See a remark under COPRAH.)
The Skt. narikila [nārikera, nārikela] has originated the Pers. nārgīl, which Cosmas grecizes into ἀργελλίον, [and H. nāriyal].
Medieval writers generally (such as Marco Polo, Fr. Jordanus, &c.) call the fruit the Indian Nut, the name by which it was known to the Arabs (al jauz-al-Hindī). There is no evidence of its having been known to classical writers, nor are we aware of any Greek or Latin mention of it before Cosmas. But Brugsch, describing from the Egyptian wall-paintings of c. B.C. 1600, on the temple of Queen Hashop, representing the expeditions by sea which she sent to the Incense Land of Punt, says: "Men never seen before, the inhabitants of this divine land, showed themselves on the coast, not less astonished than the Egyptians. They lived on pile-buildings, in little dome-shaped huts, the entrance to which was effected by a ladder, under the shade of cocoa-palms laden with fruit, and splendid incense-trees, on whose boughs strange fowls rocked themselves, and at whose feet herds of cattle peacefully reposed." (H. of Egypt, 2nd ed. i. 353; [Maspero, Struggle of the Nations, 248].)
c. A.D. 70.—"In ipsâ quidem Aethiopiâ fricatur haec, tanta est siccitas, et farinae modo spissatur in panem. Gignitur autem in frutice ramis cubitalibus, folio latiore, pomo rotundo majore quam mali amplitudine, coicas vocant."—Pliny, xiii. § 9.
A.D. 545.—"Another tree is that which bears the Argell, i.e. the great Indian Nut."—Cosmas, in Cathay, &c., clxxvi.
1292.—"The Indian Nuts are as big as melons, and in colour green, like gourds. Their leaves and branches are like those of the date-tree."—John of Monte Corvino, in do., p. 213.
c. 1328.—"First of these is a certain tree called Nargil; which tree every month in the year sends out a beautiful frond like [that of] a [date-] palm tree, which frond or branch produces very large fruit, as big as a man's head.... And both flowers and fruit are produced at the same time, beginning with the first month, and going up gradually to the twelfth.... The fruit is that which we call nuts of India."—Friar Jordanus, 15 seq. The wonder of the coco-palm is so often noticed in this form by medieval writers, that doubtless in their {229a}minds they referred it to that "tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruit, and yielded her fruit every month" (Apocal. xxii. 2).
c. 1340.—"Le nargīl, appelé autrement noix d'Inde, auquel on ne peut comparer aucun autre fruit, est vert et rempli d'huile."—Shihābbuddīn Dimishḳī, in Not. et Exts. xiii. 175.
c. 1350.—"Wonderful fruits there are, which we never see in these parts, such as the Nargil. Now the Nargil is the Indian Nut."—John Marignolli, in Cathay, p. 352.
1498-99.—"And we who were nearest boarded the vessel, and found nothing in her but provisions and arms; and the provisions consisted of coquos and of four jars of certain cakes of palm-sugar, and there was nothing else but sand for ballast."—Roteiro de Vasco da Gama, 94.
1510.—Varthema gives an excellent account of the tree; but he uses only the Malayāl. name tenga. [Tam. tennai, ten, 'south' as it was supposed to have been brought from Ceylon.]
1516.—"These trees have clean smooth stems, without any branch, only a tuft of leaves at the top, amongst which grows a large fruit which they call tenga.... We call these fruits quoquos."—Barbosa, 154 (collating Portuguese of Lisbon Academy, p. 346).
1519.—"Cocas (coche) are the fruits of palm-trees, and as we have bread, wine, oil, and vinegar, so in that country they extract all these things from this one tree."—Pigafetta, Viaggio intorno il Mondo, in Ramusio, i. f. 356.
1553.—"Our people have given it the name of coco, a word applied by women to anything with which they try to frighten children; and this name has stuck, because nobody knew any other, though the proper name was, as the Malabars call it, tenga, or as the Canarins call it, narle."—Barros, Dec. III. liv. iii. cap. 7.
c. 1561.—Correa writes coquos.—I. i. 115.
1563.—"... We have given it the name of coco, because it looks like the face of a monkey, or of some other animal."—Garcia, 66b.
"That which we call coco, and the Malabars Temga."—Ibid. 67b.
1578.—"The Portuguese call it coco (because of those three holes that it has)."—Acosta, 98.
1598.—"Another that bears the Indian nuts called Coecos, because they have within them a certain shell that is like an ape; and on this account they use in Spain to show their children a Coecota when they would make them afraid."—English trans. of Pigafetta's Congo, in Harleian Coll. ii. 553.
The parallel passage in De Bry runs: "Illas quoque quae nuces Indicas coceas, id est Simias (intus enim simiae caput referunt) dictas palmas appellant."—i. 29.
Purchas has various forms in different narratives: Cocūs (i. 37); Cokers, a form which still holds its ground among London stall-keepers and costermongers (i. 461, 502); coquer-nuts (Terry, in ii. 1466); coco (ii. 1008); coquo (Pilgrimage, 567), &c.
[c. 1610.—"None, however, is more useful than the coco or Indian nut, which they (in the Maldives) call roul (Malē, rū)."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 113.]
c. 1690.—Rumphius, who has cocus in Latin, and cocos in Dutch, mentions the derivation already given as that of Linschoten and many others, but proceeds:—
"Meo vero judicio verior et certior vocis origo invenienda est, plures enim nationes, quibus hic fructus est notus, nucem appellant. Sic dicitur Arabicè Gauzos-Indi vel Geuzos-Indi, h. e. Nux Indica.... Turcis Cock-Indi eadem significatione, unde sine dubio Ætiopes, Africani, eorumque vicini Hispani ac Portugalli coquo deflexerunt. Omnia vero ista nomina, originem suam debent Hebraicae voci Egoz quae nucem significat."—Herb. Amboin. i. p. 7.
" "... in India Occidentali Kokernoot vocatus...."—Ibid. p. 47.
One would like to know where Rumphius got the term Cock-Indi, of which we can find no trace.
1810.—
"What if he felt no wind? The air was still.
That was the general will
Of Nature....
Yon rows of rice erect and silent stand,
The shadow of the Cocoa's lightest plume
Is steady on the sand."
Curse of Kehama, iv. 4.
1881.—"Among the popular French slang words for 'head' we may notice the term 'coco,' given—like our own 'nut'—on account of the similarity in shape between a cocoa-nut and a human skull:—
"'Mais de ce franc picton de table
Qui rend spirituel, aimable,
Sans vous alourdir le coco,
Je m'en fourre à gogo.'—H. Valère."
Sat. Review, Sept. 10, p. 326.
The Dict. Hist. d'Argot of Lorédan Larchey, from which this seems taken, explains picton as 'vin supérieur.'
COCO-DE-MER, or DOUBLE COCO-NUT, s. The curious twin fruit so called, the produce of the Lodoicea Sechellarum, a palm growing only in the Seychelles Islands, is cast up on the shores of the Indian Ocean, most frequently on the Maldive Islands, but occasionally also on Ceylon and S. India, and on the coasts of Zanzibar, of Sumatra, and some others of the Malay Islands. Great virtues as medicine and antidote were supposed to reside in these fruits, {230a}and extravagant prices were paid for them. The story goes that a "country captain," expecting to make his fortune, took a cargo of these nuts from the Seychelles Islands to Calcutta, but the only result was to destroy their value for the future.
The old belief was that the fruit was produced on a palm growing below the sea, whose fronds, according to Malay seamen, were sometimes seen in quiet bights on the Sumatran coast, especially in the Lampong Bay. According to one form of the story among the Malays, which is told both by Pigafetta and by Rumphius, there was but one such tree, the fronds of which rose above an abyss of the Southern Ocean, and were the abode of the monstrous bird Garuda (or Rukh of the Arabs—see ROC).[75] The tree itself was called Pausengi, which Rumphius seems to interpret as a corruption of Buwa-zangi, "Fruit of Zang" or E. Africa. [Mr. Skeat writes: "Rumphius is evidently wrong.... The first part of the word is 'Pau,' or 'Pauh,' which is perfectly good Malay, and is the name given to various species of mango, especially the wild one, so that 'Pausengi' represents (not 'Buwa,' but) 'Pauh Janggi,' which is to this day the universal Malay name for the tree which grows, according to Malay fable, in the central whirlpool or Navel of the Seas. Some versions add that it grows upon a sunken bank (tĕbing runtoh), and is guarded by dragons. This tree figures largely in Malay romances, especially those which form the subject of Malay shadow-plays (vide infra, Pl. 23, for an illustration of the Pauh Janggi and the Crab). Rumphius' explanation of the second part of the name (i.e. Janggi) is, no doubt, quite correct."—Malay Magic, pp. 6 seqq.] They were cast up occasionally on the islands off the S.W. coast of Sumatra; and the wild people of the islands brought them for sale to the Sumatran marts, such as Padang and Priamang. One of the largest (say about 12 inches across) would sell for 150 rix dollars. But the Malay princes coveted them {230b}greatly, and would sometimes (it was alleged) give a laden junk for a single nut. In India the best known source of supply was from the Maldive Islands. [In India it is known as Daryāī nāriyal, or 'cocoa-nut of the sea,' and this term has been in Bombay corrupted into jaharī (zahrī) or 'poisonous,' so that the fruit is incorrectly regarded as dangerous to life. The hard shell is largely used to make Fakīrs' water-bowls.]
The medicinal virtues of the nut were not only famous among all the peoples of the East, including the Chinese, but are extolled by Piso and by Rumphius, with many details. The latter, learned and laborious student of nature as he was, believed in the submarine origin of the nut, though he discredited its growing on a great palm, as no traces of such a plant had ever been discovered on the coasts. The fame of the nut's virtues had extended to Europe, and the Emperor Rudolf II. in his later days offered in vain 4000 florins to purchase from the family of Wolfert Hermanszen, a Dutch Admiral, one that had been presented to that commander by the King of Bantam, on the Hollander's relieving his capital, attacked by the Portuguese, in 1602.
It will be seen that the Maldive name of this fruit was Tāva-kārhī. The latter word is 'coco-nut,' but the meaning of tāva does not appear from any Maldive vocabulary. [The term is properly Tāva'karhi, 'the hard-shelled nut,' (Gray, on Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 231).] Rumphius states that a book in 4to (totum opusculum) was published on this nut, at Amsterdam in 1634, by Augerius Clutius, M.D. [In more recent times the nut has become famous as the subject of curious speculations regarding it by the late Gen. Gordon.]
1522.—"They also related to us that beyond Java Major ... there is an enormous tree named Campanganghi, in which dwell certain birds named Garuda, so large that they take with their claws, and carry away flying, a buffalo and even an elephant, to the place of the tree.... The fruit of this tree is called Buapanganghi, and is larger than a water-melon ... it was understood that those fruits which are frequently found in the sea came from that place."—Pigafetta, Hak. Soc. p. 155.
1553.—"... it appears ... that in some places beneath the salt-water there grows {231a}another kind of these trees, which gives a fruit bigger than the coco-nut; and experience shows that the inner husk of this is much more efficacious against poison than the Bezoar stone."—Barros, III. iii. 7.
1563.—"The common story is that those islands were formerly part of the continent, but being low they were submerged, whilst these palm-trees continued in situ; and growing very old they produced such great and very hard coco-nuts, buried in the earth which is now covered by the sea.... When I learn anything in contradiction of this I will write to you in Portugal, and anything that I can discover here, if God grant me life; for I hope to learn all about the matter when, please God, I make my journey to Malabar. And you must know that these cocos come joined two in one, just like the hind quarters of an animal."—Garcia, f. 70-71.
1572.—
"Nas ilhas de Maldiva nasce a planta
No profundo das aguas soberana,
Cujo pomo contra o veneno urgente
He tido por antidoto excellente."
Camões, x. 136.
c. 1610.—"Il est ainsi d'vne certaine noix que la mer iette quelques fois à bord, qui est grosse comme la teste d'vn homme qu'on pourroit comparer à deux gros melons ioints ensemble. Ils la nom̃ent Tauarcarré, et ils tiennent que cela vient de quelques arbres qui sont sous la mer ... quand quelqu'vn deuient riche tout à coup et en peu de temps, on dit communement qu'il a trouué du Tauarcarré ou de l'ambre."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 163; [Hak. Soc. i. 230].
? 1650.—In Piso's Mantissa Aromatica, &c., there is a long dissertation, extending to 23 pp., De Tavarcare seu Nuce Medicâ Maldivensium.
1678.—"P.S. Pray remember ye Coquer nutt Shells (doubtless Coco-de-Mer) and long nulls (?) formerly desired for ye Prince."—Letter from Dacca, quoted under CHOP.
c. 1680.—"Hic itaque Calappus marinus[76] non est fructus terrestris qui casu in mare procidit ... uti Garcias ab Orta persuadere voluit, sed fructus est in ipso crescens mari, cujus arbor, quantum scio, hominum oculis ignota et occulta est."—Rumphius, Lib. xii. cap. 8.
1763.—"By Durbar charges paid for the following presents to the Nawab, as per Order of Consultation, the 14th October, 1762.
* * * * *
1 Sea cocoa nut............Rs. 300 0 0."
In Long, 308.
1777.—"Cocoa-nuts from the Maldives, or as they are called the Zee Calappers, are said to be annually brought hither (to Colombo) by certain messengers, and presented, among other things, to the Governor. {231b}The kernel of the fruit ... is looked upon here as a very efficacious antidote or a sovereign remedy against the Flux, the Epilepsy and Apoplexy. The inhabitants of the Maldives call it Tavarcare...."—Travels of Charles Peter Thunberg, M.D. (E.T.) iv. 209.
[1833.—"The most extraordinary and valuable production of these islands (Seychelles) is the Coco Do Mar, or Maldivia nut, a tree which, from its singular character, deserves particular mention...."—Owen, Narrative, ii. 166 seqq.]
1882.—"Two minor products obtained by the islanders from the sea require notice. These are ambergris (M. goma, mávaharu) and the so-called 'sea-cocoanut' (M. táva-kárhi) ... rated at so high a value in the estimation of the Maldive Sultans as to be retained as part of their royalties."—H. C. P. Bell (Ceylon C. S.), Report on the Maldive Islands, p. 87.
1883.—"... sailed straight into the coco-de-mer valley, my great object. Fancy a valley as big as old Hastings, quite full of the great yellow stars! It was almost too good to believe.... Dr. Hoad had a nut cut down for me. The outside husk is shaped like a mango.... It is the inner nut which is double. I ate some of the jelly from inside; there must have been enough to fill a soup-tureen—of the purest white, and not bad."—(Miss North) in Pall Mall Gazette, Jan. 21, 1884.
CODAVASCAM, n.p. A region with this puzzling name appears in the Map of Blaeu (c. 1650), and as Ryk van Codavascan in the Map of Bengal in Valentijn (vol. v.), to the E. of Chittagong. Wilford has some Wilfordian nonsense about it, connecting it with the Τοκοσάννα R. of Ptolemy, and with a Touascan which he says is mentioned by the "Portuguese writers" (in such case a criminal mode of expression). The name was really that of a Mahommedan chief, "hum Principe Mouro, grande Senhor," and "Vassalo del Rey de Bengála." It was probably "Khodābakhsh Khān." His territory must have been south of Chittagong, for one of his towns was Chacuriá, still known as Chakirīa on the Chittagong and Arakan Road, in lat. 21° 45′. (See Barros, IV. ii. 8. and IV. ix. 1; and Couto, IV. iv. 10; also Correa, iii. 264-266, and again as below):—
1533.—"But in the city there was the Rumi whose foist had been seized by Dimião Bernaldes; being a soldier (lascarym) of the King's, and seeing the present (offered by the Portuguese) he said: My lord, these are crafty robbers; they get into a country with their wares, and pretend to buy and sell, and make friendly gifts, whilst they go {232a}spying out the land and the people, and then come with an armed force to seize them, slaying and burning ... till they become masters of the land.... And this Captain-Major is the same that was made prisoner and ill-used by Codavascão in Chatigão, and he is come to take vengeance for the ill that was done him."—Correa, iii. 479.
COFFEE, s. Arab. ḳahwa, a word which appears to have been originally a term for wine.[77] [So in the Arab. Nights, ii. 158, where Burton gives the derivation as akhá, fastidire fecit, causing disinclination for food. In old days the scrupulous called coffee ḳihwah to distinguish it from ḳahwah, wine.] It is probable, therefore, that a somewhat similar word was twisted into this form by the usual propensity to strive after meaning. Indeed, the derivation of the name has been plausibly traced to Kaffa, one of those districts of the S. Abyssinian highlands (Enarea and Kaffa) which appear to have been the original habitat of the Coffee plant (Coffea arabica, L.); and if this is correct, then Coffee is nearer the original than Ḳahwa. On the other hand, Ḳahwa, or some form thereof, is in the earliest mentions appropriated to the drink, whilst some form of the word Bunn is that given to the plant, and Būn is the existing name of the plant in Shoa. This name is also that applied in Yemen to the coffee-berry. There is very fair evidence in Arabic literature that the use of coffee was introduced into Aden by a certain Sheikh Shihābuddīn Dhabḥānī, who had made acquaintance with it on the African coast, and who died in the year H. 875, i.e. A.D. 1470, so that the introduction may be put about the middle of the 15th century, a time consistent with the other negative and positive data.[78] From Yemen it spread to Mecca (where there arose after some years, in 1511, a crusade against its use as unlawful), to Cairo, to Damascus and Aleppo, and to Constantinople, where the first coffee-house was established in 1554. [It is said to have been introduced into S. India {232b}some two centuries ago by a Mahommedan pilgrim, named Bābā Būdan, who brought a few seeds with him from Mecca: see Grigg, Nilagiri Man. 483; Rice, Mysore, i. 162.] The first European mention of coffee seems to be by Rauwolff, who knew it in Aleppo in 1573. [See 1 ser. N. & Q. I. 25 seqq.] It is singular that in the Observations of Pierre Belon, who was in Egypt, 1546-49, full of intelligence and curious matter as they are, there is no indication of a knowledge of coffee.
1558.—Extrait du Livre intitulé: "Les Preuves le plus fortes en faveur de la legitimité de l'usage du Café (Kahwa); par le Scheikh Abd-Alkader Ansari Djézéri Hanbali, fils de Mohammed."—In De Sacy, Chrest. Arabe, 2nd ed. i. 412.
1573.—"Among the rest they have a very good Drink, by them called Chaube, that is almost black as Ink, and very good in Illness, chiefly that of the Stomach; of this they drink in the Morning early in open places before everybody, without any fear or regard, out of China cups, as hot as they can; they put it often to their Lips, but drink but little at a Time, and let it go round as they sit. In the same water they take a Fruit called Bunru, which in its Bigness, Shape, and Colour, is almost like unto a Bay-berry, with two thin Shells ... they agree in the Virtue, Figure, Looks, and Name with the Buncho of Avicen,[79] and Bancha of Rasis ad Almans. exactly; therefore I take them to be the same."—Rauwolff, 92.
c. 1580.—"Arborem vidi in viridario Halydei Turcae, cujus tu iconem nunc spectabis, ex qua semina illa ibi vulgatissima, Bon vel Ban appellata, producuntur; ex his tum Aegyptii tum Arabes parant decoctum vulgatissimum, quod vini loco ipsi potant, venditurque in publicis œnopoliis, non secus quod apud nos vinum: illique ipsum vocant Caova.... Avicenna de his seminibus meminit."[79]—Prosper Alpinus, ii. 36.
1598.—In a note on the use of tea in Japan, Dr. Paludanus says: "The Turkes holde almost the same mañer of drinking of their Chaona (read Chaoua), which they make of a certaine fruit, which is like unto the Bakelaer,[80] and by the Egyptians called Bon or Ban; they take of this fruite one pound and a halfe, and roast them a little in the fire, and then sieth them in twentie poundes of water, till the half be consumed away; this drinke they take everie morning fasting in their chambers, out of an earthen pot, being verie hote, as we doe here drinke aqua composita in the morning; and they say that it strengtheneth them and maketh them warm, breaketh wind, and openeth any {233a}stopping."—In Linschoten, 46; [Hak. Soc. i. 157].
c. 1610.—"La boisson la plus commune c'est de l'eau, ou bien du vin de Cocos tiré le mesme iour. On en fait de deux autres sortes plus delicates; l'vne est chaude, composée de l'eau et de mièl de Cocos, avec quantité de poivre (dont ils vsent beaucoup en toutes leurs viandes, et ils le nomment Pasme) et d'vne autre graine appellée Cahoa...."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 128; [Hak. Soc. i. 172].
[1611.—"Buy some coho pots and send me."—Danvers, Letters, i. 122; "coffao pots."—Ibid. i. 124.]
1615.—"They have in steed of it (wine) a certaine drinke called Caahiete as black as Inke, which they make with the barke of a tree(!) and drinke as hot as they can endure it."—Monfart, 28.
" "... passano tutto il resto della notte con mille feste e bagordi; e particolarmente in certi luoghi pubblici ... bevendo di quando in quando a sorsi (per chè è calda che cuoce) più d'uno scodellino di certa loro acqua nera, che chiamano cahue; la quale, nelle conversazioni serve a loro, appunto come a noi il giuoco dello sbaraglino" (i.e. backgammon).—P. della Valle (from Constant.), i. 51. See also pp. 74-76.
[ " "Cohu, blake liquor taken as hotte as may be endured."—Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. i. 32.]
1616.—"Many of the people there (in India), who are strict in their Religion, drink no Wine at all; but they use a Liquor more wholesome than pleasant, they call Coffee; made by a black Seed boyld in water, which turnes it almost into the same colour, but doth very little alter the taste of the water (!): notwithstanding it is very good to help Digestion, to quicken the Spirits, and to cleanse the Blood."—Terry, ed. of 1665, p. 365.
1623.—"Turcae habent etiam in usu herbae genus quam vocant Caphe ... quam dicunt haud parvum praestans illis vigorem, et in animas (sic) et in ingenio; quae tamen largius sumpta mentem movet et turbat...."—F. Bacon, Hist. Vitae et Mortis, 25.
c. 1628.—"They drink (in Persia) ... above all the rest, Coho or Copha: by Turk and Arab called Caphe and Cahua: a drink imitating that in the Stigian lake, black, thick, and bitter: destrain'd from Bunchy, Bunnu, or Bay berries; wholsome they say, if hot, for it expels melancholy ... but not so much regarded for those good properties, as from a Romance that it was invented and brew'd by Gabriel ... to restore the decayed radical Moysture of kind hearted Mahomet...."—Sir T. Herbert, Travels, ed. 1638, p. 241.
[1631.—"Caveah." See quotation under TEA.]
c. 1637.—"There came in my time to the Coll. (Balliol) one Nathaniel Conopios out of Greece, from Cyril the Patriarch of Constantinople.... He was the first I {233b}ever saw drink coffee, which custom came not into England till 30 years after."—Evelyn's Diary, [May 10].
1673.—"Every one pays him their congratulations, and after a dish of Coho or Tea, mounting, accompany him to the Palace."—Fryer, 225.
" "Cependant on l'apporta le cavé, le parfum, et le sorbet."—Journal d'Antoine Galland, ii. 124.
[1677.—"Cave." See quotation under TEA.]
1690.—"For Tea and Coffee which are judg'd the privileg'd Liquors of all the Mahometans, as well Turks, as those of Persia, India, and other parts of Arabia, are condemn'd by them (the Arabs of Muscatt) as unlawful Refreshments, and abominated as Bug-bear Liquors, as well as Wine."—Ovington, 427.
1726.—"A certain gentleman, M. Paschius, maintains in his Latin work published at Leipzig in 1700, that the parched corn (1 Sam. xxv. 18) which Abigail presented with other things to David, to appease his wrath, was nought else but Coffi-beans."—Valentijn, v. 192.
COIMBATORE, n.p. Name of a District and town in the Madras Presidency. Koyammutūru; [Kōni, the local goddess so called, muttu, 'pearl,' ūr, 'village'].
COIR, s. The fibre of the coco-nut husk, from which rope is made. But properly the word, which is Tam. kayiru, Malayāl. kāyar, from v. kāyāṛu, 'to be twisted,' means 'cord' itself (see the accurate Al-Birūnī below). The former use among Europeans is very early. And both the fibre and the rope made from it appear to have been exported to Europe in the middle of the 16th century. The word appears in early Arabic writers in the forms ḳānbar and ḳanbār, arising probably from some misreading of the diacritical points (for ḳāiyar, and ḳaiyār). The Portuguese adopted the word in the form cairo. The form coir seems to have been introduced by the English in the 18th century. [The N.E.D. gives coire in 1697; coir in 1779.] It was less likely to be used by the Portuguese because coiro in their language is 'leather.' And Barros (where quoted below) says allusively of the rope: "parece feito de coiro (leather) encolhendo e estendendo a vontade do mar," contracting and stretching with the movement of the sea.
c. 1030.—"The other islands are called Dīva Ḳanbār from the word Ḳanbār {234a}signifying the cord plaited from the fibre of the coco-tree with which they stitch their ships together."—Al-Birūnī, in J. As., Ser. iv. tom. viii. 266.
c. 1346.—"They export ... cowries and kanbar; the latter is the name which they give to the fibrous husk of the coco-nut.... They make of it twine to stitch together the planks of their ships, and the cordage is also exported to China, India, and Yemen. This ḳanbar is better than hemp."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 121.
1510.—"The Governor (Alboquerque) ... in Cananor devoted much care to the preparation of cables and rigging for the whole fleet, for what they had was all rotten from the rains in Goa River; ordering that all should be made of coir (cairo), of which there was great abundance in Cananor; because a Moor called Mamalle, a chief trader there, held the whole trade of the Maldive islands by a contract with the kings of the isles ... so that this Moor came to be called the Lord of the Maldives, and that all the coir that was used throughout India had to be bought from the hands of this Moor.... The Governor, learning this, sent for the said Moor, and ordered him to abandon this island trade and to recall his factors.... The Moor, not to lose such a profitable business, ... finally arranged with the Governor that the Isles should not be taken from him, and that he in return would furnish for the king 1000 bahars (barés) of coarse coir, and 1000 more of fine coir, each bahar weighing 4½ quintals; and this every year, and laid down at his own charges in Cananor and Cochym, gratis and free of all charge to the King (not being able to endure that the Portuguese should frequent the Isles at their pleasure)."—Correa, ii. 129-30.
1516.—"These islands make much cordage of palm-trees, which they call cayro."—Barbosa, 164.
c. 1530.—"They made ropes of coir, which is a thread which the people of the country make of the husks which the coco-nuts have outside."—Correa, by Stanley, 133.
1553.—"They make much use of this cairo in place of nails; for as it has this quality of recovering its freshness and swelling in the sea-water, they stitch with it the planking of a ship's sides, and reckon them then very secure."—De Barros, Dec. III. liv. iii. cap. 7.
1563.—"The first rind is very tough, and from it is made cairo, so called by the Malabars and by us, from which is made the cord for the rigging of all kinds of vessels."—Garcia, f. 67v.
1582.—"The Dwellers therein are Moores; which trade to Sofala in great Ships that have no Decks, nor nailes, but are sowed with Cayro."—Castañeda (by N. L.), f. 14b.
c. 1610.—"This revenue consists in ... Cairo, which is the cord made of the coco-tree."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 172; [Hak. Soc. i. 250].
1673.—"They (the Surat people) have not only the Cair-yarn made of the Cocoe for {234b}cordage, but good Flax and Hemp."—Fryer, 121.
c. 1690.—"Externus nucis cortex putamen ambiens, quum exsiccatus, et stupae similis ... dicitur ... Malabarice Cairo, quod nomen ubique usurpatur ubi lingua Portugallica est in usu...."—Rumphius, i. 7.
1727.—"Of the Rind of the Nut they make Cayar, which are the Fibres of the Cask that environs the Nut spun fit to make Cordage and Cables for Shipping."—A. Hamilton, i. 296; [ed. 1744, i. 298].
[1773.—"... these they call Kiar Yarns."—Ives, 457.]
COJA, s. P. khojah for khwājah, a respectful title applied to various classes: as in India especially to eunuchs; in Persia to wealthy merchants; in Turkistan to persons of sacred families.
c. 1343.—"The chief mosque (at Kaulam) is admirable; it was built by the merchant Khojah Muhaddhab."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 100.
[1590.—"Hoggia." See quotation under TALISMAN.
[1615.—"The Governor of Suratt is displaced, and Hoyja Hassan in his room."—Foster, Letters, iv. 16.
[1708.—"This grave is made for Hodges Shaughsware, the chiefest servant to the King of Persia for twenty years...."—Inscription on the tomb of "Coya Shawsware, a Persin in St. Botolph's Churchyard, Bishopsgate," New View of London, p. 169.]
1786.—"I also beg to acquaint you I sent for Retafit Ali Khân, the Cojah who has the charge of (the women of Oudh Zenanah) who informs me it is well grounded that they have sold everything they had, even the clothes from their backs, and now have no means to subsist."—Capt. Jaques in Articles of Charge, &c., Burke, vii. 27.
1838.—"About a century back Khan Khojah, a Mohamedan ruler of Kashghar and Yarkand, eminent for his sanctity, having been driven from his dominions by the Chinese, took shelter in Badakhshan."—Wood's Oxus, ed. 1872, p. 161.
COLAO, s. Chin. koh-lao, 'Council Chamber Elders' (Bp. Moule). A title for a Chinese Minister of State, which frequently occurs in the Jesuit writers of the 17th century.
COLEROON, n.p. The chief mouth, or delta-branch, of the Kāveri River (see CAUVERY). It is a Portuguese corruption of the proper name Kŏḷḷiḍam, vulg. Kollaḍam. This name, from Tam. kŏl, 'to receive,' and 'iḍam,' 'place,' perhaps answers to the fact of this channel having been originally an {235a}escape formed at the construction of the great Tanjore irrigation works in the 11th century. In full flood the Coleroon is now, in places, nearly a mile wide, whilst the original stream of the Kāveri disappears before reaching the sea. Besides the etymology and the tradition, the absence of notice of the Coleroon in Ptolemy's Tables is (quantum valeat) an indication of its modern origin. As the sudden rise of floods in the rivers of the Coromandel coast often causes fatal accidents, there seems a curious popular tendency to connect the names of the rivers with this fact. Thus Kŏlliḍam, with the meaning that has been explained, has been commonly made into Kolliḍam, 'Killing-place.' [So the Madras Gloss. which connects the name with a tradition of the drowning of workmen when the Srirangam temple was built, but elsewhere (ii. 213) it is derived from Tam. koḷḷāyī, 'a breach in a bank.'] Thus also the two rivers Peṇṇar are popularly connected with piṇam, 'corpse.' Fra Paolino gives the name as properly Colárru, and as meaning 'the River of Wild Boars.' But his etymologies are often wild as the supposed Boars.
1553.—De Barros writes Coloran, and speaks of it as a place (lugar) on the coast, not as a river.—Dec. I. liv. ix. cap. 1.
1672.—"From Trangebar one passes by Trinilivaas to Colderon; here a Sandbank stretches into the sea which is very dangerous."—Baldaeus, 150. (He does not speak of it as a River either.)
c. 1713.—"Les deux Princes ... se liguèrent contre l'ennemi commun, à fin de le contraindre par la force des armes à rompre une digue si préjudiciable à leurs Etats. Ils faisoient déjà de grands préparatifs, lorsque le fleuve Coloran vengea par lui-même (comme on s'exprimoit ici) l'affront que le Roi faisoit a ses eaux en les retenant captives."—Lettres Edifiantes, ed. 1781, xi. 180.
1753.—"... en doublant le Cap Callamedu, jusqu'à la branche du fleuve Caveri qui porte le nom de Colh-ram, et dont l'embouchure est la plus septentrionale de celles du Caveri."—D'Anville, 115.
c. 1760.—"... the same river being written Collarum by M. la Croze, and Collodham by Mr. Ziegenbalg."—Grose, i. 281.
1761.—"Clive dislodged a strong body of the Nabob's troops, who had taken post at Sameavarem, a fort and temple situated on the river Kalderon."—Complete H. of the War in India, from 1749 to 1761 (Tract), p. 12.
1780.—"About 3 leagues north from the river Triminious [? Tirumullavāsel], is that of Coloran. Mr. Michelson calls this river Danecotta."—Dunn, N. Directory, 138.
The same book has "Coloran or Colderoon."
1785.—"Sundah Saheb having thrown some of his wretched infantry into a temple, fortified according to the Indian method, upon the river Kaldaron, Mr. Clive knew there was no danger in investing it."—Carraccioli's Life of Clive, i. 20.
COLLECTOR, s. The chief administrative official of an Indian Zillah or District. The special duty of the office is, as the name intimates, the Collection of Revenue; but in India generally, with the exception of Bengal Proper, the Collector, also holding controlling magisterial powers, has been a small pro-consul, or kind of préfet. This is, however, much modified of late years by the greater definition of powers, and subdivision of duties everywhere. The title was originally no doubt a translation of taḥṣīldār. It was introduced, with the office, under Warren Hastings, but the Collector's duties were not formally settled till 1793, when these appointments were reserved to members of the covenanted Civil Service.
1772.—"The Company having determined to stand forth as dewan, the Supervisors should now be designated Collectors."—Reg. of 14th May, 1772.
1773.—"Do not laugh at the formality with which we have made a law to change their name from supervisors to collectors. You know full well how much the world's opinion is governed by names."—W. Hastings to Josias Dupre, in Gleig, i. 267.
1785.—"The numerous Collectors with their assistants had hitherto enjoyed very moderate allowances from their employers."—Letter in Colebrooke's Life, p. 16.
1838.—"As soon as three or four of them get together they speak about nothing but 'employment' and 'promotion' ... and if left to themselves, they sit and conjugate the verb 'to collect': 'I am a Collector—He was a Collector—We shall be Collectors—You ought to be a Collector—They would have been Collectors.'"—Letters from Madras, 146.
1848.—"Yet she could not bring herself to suppose that the little grateful gentle governess would dare to look up to such a magnificent personage as the Collector of Boggleywallah."—Thackeray, Vanity Fair, ch. iv.
1871.—"There is no doubt a decay of discretionary administration throughout India ... it may be taken for granted that in earlier days Collectors and {236a}Commissioners changed their rules far oftener than does the Legislature at present."—Maine, Village Communities, 214.
1876.—"These 'distinguished visitors' are becoming a frightful nuisance; they think that Collectors and Judges have nothing to do but to act as their guides, and that Indian officials have so little work, and suffer so much from ennui, that even ordinary thanks for hospitality are unnecessary; they take it all as their right."—Ext. of a Letter from India.
COLLEGE-PHEASANT, s. An absurd enough corruption of kālij; the name in the Himālaya about Simla and Mussooree for the birds of the genus Gallophasis of Hodgson, intermediate between the pheasants and the Jungle-fowls. "The group is composed of at least three species, two being found in the Himalayas, and one in Assam, Chittagong and Arakan." (Jerdon).
[1880.—"These, with kalege pheasants, afforded me some very fair sport."—Ball, Jungle Life, 538.
[1882.—"Jungle-fowl were plentiful, as well as the black khalege pheasant."—Sanderson, Thirteen Years among Wild Beasts, 147.]
COLLERY, CALLERY, &c. s. Properly Bengali khālāṛī, 'a salt-pan, or place for making salt.'
[1767.—"... rents of the Collaries, the fifteen Dees, and of Calcutta town, are none of them included in the estimation I have laid before you."—Verelst, View of Bengal, App. 223.]
1768.—"... the Collector-general be desired to obtain as exact an account as he possibly can, of the number of colleries in the Calcutta purgunnehs."—In Carraccioli's L. of Clive, iv. 112.
COLLERY, n.p. The name given to a non-Aryan race inhabiting part of the country east of Madura. Tam. kallaṛ, 'thieves.' They are called in Nelson's Madura, [Pt. ii. 44 seqq.] Kallans; Kallan being the singular, Kallar plural.
1763.—"The Polygar Tondiman ... likewise sent 3000 Colleries; these are a people who, under several petty chiefs, inhabit the woods between Trichinopoly and Cape Comorin; their name in their own language signifies Thieves, and justly describes their general character."—Orme, i. 208.
c. 1785.—"Colleries, inhabitants of the woods under the Government of the Tondiman."—Carraccioli, Life of Clive, iv. 561.
1790.—"The country of the Colleries ... extends from the sea coast to the {236b}confines of Madura, in a range of sixty miles by fifty-five."—Cal. Monthly Register or India Repository, i. 7.
COLLERY-HORN, s. This is a long brass horn of hideous sound, which is often used at native funerals in the Peninsula, and has come to be called, absurdly enough, Cholera-horn!
[1832.—"Toorree or Toorrtooree, commonly designated by Europeans collery horn, consists of three pieces fixed into one another, of a semi-circular shape."—Herklots, Qanoon-e-Islam, ed. 1863, p. liv. App.]
1879.—"... an early start being necessary, a happy thought struck the Chief Commissioner, to have the Amildar's Cholera-horn men out at that hour to sound the reveillé, making the round of the camp."—Madras Mail, Oct. 7.
COLLERY-STICK, s. This is a kind of throwing-stick or boomerang used by the Colleries.
1801.—"It was he first taught me to throw the spear, and hurl the Collery-stick, a weapon scarcely known elsewhere, but in a skilful hand capable of being thrown to a certainty to any distance within 100 yards."—Welsh's Reminiscences, i. 130.
Nelson calls these weapons "Vallari Thadis or boomerangs."—Madura, Pt. ii. 44. [The proper form seems to be Tam. valai tādi, 'curved stick'; more usually Tam. kallardādi, tādi, 'stick.'] See also Sir Walter Elliot in J. Ethnol. Soc., N. S., i. 112, seq.
COLOMBO, n.p. Properly Kol̤umbu, the modern capital of Ceylon, but a place of considerable antiquity. The derivation is very uncertain; some suppose it to be connected with the adjoining river Kalani-gangi. The name Columbum, used in several medieval narratives, belongs not to this place but to Kaulam (see QUILON).
c. 1346.—"We started for the city of Kalanbū, one of the finest and largest cities of the island of Serendīb. It is the residence of the Wazīr Lord of the Sea (Ḥākim-al-Bahr), Jālastī, who has with him about 500 Habshis."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 185.
1517.—"The next day was Thursday in Passion Week; and they, well remembering this, and inspired with valour, said to the King that in fighting the Moors they would be insensible to death, which they greatly desired rather than be slaves to the Moors.... There were not 40 men in all, whole and sound for battle. And one brave man made a cross on the tip of a cane, which he set in front for standard, saying that God was his Captain, and that was his Flag, under which they should march deliberately against Columbo, where the Moor was with his forces."—Correa, ii. 521.
1553.—"The King, Don Manuel, because ... he knew ... that the King of Columbo, who was the true Lord of the Cinnamon, desired to possess our peace and friendship, wrote to the said Affonso d'Alboquerque, who was in the island in person, that if he deemed it well, he should establish a fortress in the harbour of Columbo, so as to make sure the offers of the King."—Barros, Dec. III. liv. ii. cap. 2.
COLUMBO ROOT, CALUMBA ROOT, is stated by Milburn (1813) to be a staple export from Mozambique, being in great esteem as a remedy for dysentery, &c. It is Jateorhiza palmata, Miers; and the name Kalumb is of E. African origin (Hanbury and Flückiger, 23). [The N.E.D. takes it from Colombo, 'under a false impression that it was supplied from thence.'] The following quotation is in error as to the name:
c. 1779.—"Radix Colombo ... derives its name from the town of Columbo, from whence it is sent with the ships to Europe (?); but it is well known that this root is neither found near Columba, nor upon the whole island of Ceylon...."—Thunberg, Travels, iv. 185.
1782.—"Any person having a quantity of fresh sound Columbia Root to dispose of, will please direct a line...."—India Gazette, Aug. 24.
[1809.—"An Account of the Male Plant, which furnishes the Medicine generally called Columbo or Colomba Root."—Asiat. Res. x. 385 seqq.]
1850.—"Caoutchouc, or India-rubber, is found in abundance ... (near Tette) ... and calumba-root is plentiful....  32.
COMAR, n.p. This name (Ar. al-Ḳumār), which appears often in the old Arab geographers, has been the subject of much confusion among modern commentators, and probably also among the Arabs themselves; some of the former (e.g. the late M. Reinaud) confounding it with C. Comorin, others with Kāmrūp (or Assam). The various indications, e.g. that it was on the continent, and facing the direction of Arabia, i.e. the west; that it produced most valuable aloes-wood; that it lay a day's voyage, or three days' voyage, west of Ṣanf or Champa (q.v.), and from ten to twenty days' sail from Zābaj (or Java), together with the name, identify it with {237b}Camboja, or Khmer, as the native name is (see Reinaud, Rel. des Arabes, i. 97, ii. 48, 49; Gildemeister, 156 seqq.; Ibn Batuta, iv. 240; Abulfeda, Cathay and the Way Thither, 519, 569). Even the sagacious De Orta is misled by the Arabs, and confounds alcomari with a product of Cape Comorin (see Colloquios, f. 120v.).
CÓMATY, s. Telug. and Canar. kōmati, 'a trader,' [said to be derived from Skt. go, 'eye,' mushṭi, 'fist,' from their vigilant habits]. This is a term used chiefly in the north of the Madras Presidency, and corresponding to Chetty, [which the males assume as an affix].
1627.—"The next Tribe is there termed Committy, and these are generally the Merchants of the Place who by themselves or their servants, travell into the Countrey, gathering up Callicoes from the weavers, and other commodities, which they sell againe in greater parcels."—Purchas, Pilgrimage, 997.
[1679.—"There came to us the Factory this day a Dworfe an Indian of the Comitte Cast, he was he said 30 years old ... we measured him by the rule 46 inches high, all his limbs and his body streight and equall proportioned, of comely face, his speech small equalling his stature...."—Streynsham Master, in Kistna Man. 142.
[1869.—"Komatis." See quotation under CHUCKLER.]
COMBACONUM, n.p., written Kumbakoṇam. Formerly the seat of the Chola dynasty. Col. Branfill gives, as the usual derivation, Skt. Kumbhakoṇa, 'brim of a water-pot'; [the Madras Gloss. Skt. kumbha, kona, 'lane'] and this form is given in Williams's Skt. Dict. as 'name of a town.' The fact that an idol in the Saiva temple at Combaconam is called Kumbheśvaram ('Lord of the water-pot') may possibly be a justification of this etymology. But see general remarks on S. Indian names in the Introduction.
COMBOY. A sort of skirt or kilt of white calico, worn by Singhalese of both sexes, much in the same way as the Malay Sarong. The derivation which Sir E. Tennent (Ceylon, i. 612, ii. 107) gives of the word is quite inadmissible. He finds that a Chinese author describes the people of Ceylon as wearing a cloth made of koo-pei, i.e. of cotton; and he assumes therefore {238a}that those people call their own dress by a Chinese name for cotton! The word, however, is not real Singhalese; and we can have no doubt that it is the proper name Cambay. Paños de Cãbaya are mentioned early as used in Ceylon (Castanheda, ii. 78), and Cambays by Forrest (Voyage to Mergui, 79). In the Government List of Native Words (Ceylon, 1869) the form used in the Island is actually Kambāya. A picture of the dress is given by Tennent (Ceylon, i. 612). It is now usually of white, but in mourning black is used.
1615.—"Tansho Samme, the Kinges kinsman, brought two pec. Cambaia cloth."—Cocks's Diary, i. 15.
[1674-5.—"Cambaja Brawles."—Invoice in Birdwood, Report on Old Recs., p. 42.]
1726.—In list of cloths purchased at Porto Novo are "Cambayen."—Valentijn, Chorom. 10.
[1727.—"Cambaya Lungies." See quotation under LOONGHEE.]
COMMERCOLLY, n.p. A small but well-known town of Lower Bengal in the Nadiya District; properly Kumār-khālī ['Prince's Creek']. The name is familiar in connection with the feather trade (see ADJUTANT).
COMMISSIONER, s. In the Bengal and Bombay Presidencies this is a grade in the ordinary administrative hierarchy; it does not exist in Madras, but is found in the Punjab, Central Provinces, &c. The Commissioner is over a Division embracing several Districts or Zillahs, and stands between the Collectors and Magistrates of these Districts on the one side, and the Revenue Board (if there is one) and the Local Government on the other. In the Regulation Provinces he is always a member of the Covenanted Civil Service; in Non-Regulation Provinces he may be a military officer; and in these the District officers immediately under him are termed 'Deputy Commissioners.'
COMMISSIONER, CHIEF. A high official, governing a Province inferior to a Lieutenant-Governorship, in direct subordination to the Governor-General in Council. Thus the Punjab till 1859 was under a Chief Commissioner, as was Oudh till 1877 (and indeed, though the offices are united, the Lieut.-Governor of the N.W. {238b}Provinces holds also the title of Chief Commissioner of Oudh). The Central Provinces, Assam, and Burma are other examples of Provinces under Chief Commissioners.
COMORIN, CAPE, n.p. The extreme southern point of the Peninsula of India; a name of great antiquity. No doubt Wilson's explanation is perfectly correct; and the quotation from the Periplus corroborates it. He says: "Kumārī, ... a young girl, a princess; a name of the goddess Durgā, to whom a temple dedicated at the extremity of the Peninsula has long given to the adjacent cape and coast the name of Kumārī, corrupted to Comorin...." The Tamil pronunciation is Kumări.
c. 80-90.—"Another place follows called Κομὰρ, at which place is (* * *) and a port;[81] and here those who wish to consecrate the remainder of their life come and bathe, and there remain in celibacy. The same do women likewise. For it is related that the goddess there tarried a while and bathed."—Periplus, in Müller's Geog. Gr. Min. i. 300.
c. 150.—"Κομαρία ἄκρον καὶ πόλις."—Ptol. [viii. 1 § 9].
1298.—"Comari is a country belonging to India, and there you may see something of the North Star, which we had not been able to see from the Lesser Java thus far."—Marco Polo, Bk. III. ch. 23.
c. 1330.—"The country called Ma'bar is said to commence at the Cape Kumhari, a name applied both to a town and a mountain."—Abulfeda, in Gildemeister, 185.
[1514.—"Comedis." See quotation under MALABAR.]
1572.—
"Ves corre a costa celebre Indiana
Para o Sul até o cabo Comori
Ja chamado Cori, que Taprobana
(Que ora he Ceilão) de fronte tem de si."
Camões, v. 107.
Here Camões identifies the ancient Κῶρυ or Κῶλις with Comorin. These are in Ptolemy distinct, and his Kory appears to be the point of the Island of Rāmeśvaram from which the passage to Ceylon was shortest. This, as Kōlis, appears in various forms in other geographers as the extreme seaward point of India, and in the geographical poem of Dionysius it is described as towering to a stupendous height above the waves. Mela regards Colis as the {239a}turning point of the Indian coast, and even in Ptolemy's Tables his Kōry is further south than Komaria, and is the point of departure from which he discusses distances to the further East (see Ptolemy, Bk. I. capp. 13, 14; also see Bishop Caldwell's Comp. Grammar, Introd., p. 103). It is thus intelligible how comparative geographers of the 16th century identified Kōry with C. Comorin.
In 1864 the late venerated Bishop Cotton visited C. Comorin in company with two of his clergy (both now missionary bishops). He said that having bathed at Hardwār, one of the most northerly of Hindu sacred places, he should like to bathe at this, the most southerly. Each of the chaplains took one of the bishop's hands as they entered the surf, which was heavy; so heavy that his right-hand aid was torn from him, and had not the other been able to hold fast, Bishop Cotton could hardly have escaped.[82]
[1609.—"... very strong cloth and is called Cacha de Comoree."—Danvers, Letters, i. 29.
[1767.—"The pagoda of the Cunnacomary belonging to Tinnevelly."—Treaty, in Logan, Malabar, iii. 117.]
1817.—
"... Lightly latticed in
With odoriferous woods of Comorin."
Lalla Rookh, Mokanna.
This probably is derived from D'Herbelot, and involves a confusion often made between Comorin and Comar—the land of aloes-wood.
COMOTAY, COMATY, n.p. This name appears prominently in some of the old maps of Bengal, e.g. that embraced in the Magni Mogolis Imperium of Blaeu's great Atlas (1645-50). It represents Kāmata, a State, and Kāmatapur, a city, of which most extensive remains exist in the territory of Koch Bihār in Eastern Bengal (see COOCH BEHAR). These are described by Dr. Francis Buchanan, in the book published by Montgomery Martin under the name of Eastern India (vol. iii. 426 seqq.). The city stood on the west bank of the River Darlā, which formed the defence on the east side, about 5 miles in extent. The whole circumference of the enclosure is estimated by Buchanan at 19 miles, the remainder being formed by a rampart which was (c. 1809) "in general about 130 feet in width at the base, and from 20 to 30 feet in perpendicular height."
1553.—"Within the limits in which we {239b}comprehend the kingdom of Bengala are those kingdoms subject to it ... lower down towards the sea the kingdom of Comotaij."—Barros, IV. ix. 1.
[c. 1596.—"Kamtah." See quotation under COOCH BEHAR.]
1873.—"During the 15th century, the tract north of Rangpúr was in the hands of the Rájahs of Kámata.... Kámata was invaded, about 1498 A.D., by Husain Sháh."—Blochmann, in J. As. Soc. Bengal, xiii. pt. i. 240.
COMPETITION-WALLAH, s. A hybrid of English and Hindustani, applied in modern Anglo-Indian colloquial to members of the Civil Service who have entered it by the competitive system first introduced in 1856. The phrase was probably the invention of one of the older or Haileybury members of the same service. These latter, whose nominations were due to interest, and who were bound together by the intimacies and esprit de corps of a common college, looked with some disfavour upon the children of Innovation. The name was readily taken up in India, but its familiarity in England is probably due in great part to the "Letters of a Competition-wala," written by one who had no real claim to the title, Sir G. O. Trevelyan, who was later on member for Hawick Burghs, Chief Secretary for Ireland, and author of the excellent Life of his uncle, Lord Macaulay.
The second portion of the word, wālā, is properly a Hindi adjectival affix, corresponding in a general way to the Latin -arius. Its usual employment as affix to a substantive makes it frequently denote "agent, doer, keeper, man, inhabitant, master, lord, possessor, owner," as Shakespear vainly tries to define it, and as in Anglo-Indian usage is popularly assumed to be its meaning. But this kind of denotation is incidental; there is no real limitation to such meaning. This is demonstrable from such phrases as Kābul-wālā ghoṛā, 'the Kabulian horse,' and from the common form of village nomenclature in the Panjāb, e.g. Mīr-Khān-wālā, Ganda-Singh-wālā, and so forth, implying the village established by Mir-Khan or Ganda-Singh. In the three immediately following quotations, the second and third exhibit a strictly idiomatic use of wālā, the first an incorrect English use of it.
1785.—
"Tho' then the Bostonians made such a fuss,
Their example ought not to be followed by us,
But I wish that a band of good Patriot-wallahs ..."—In Seton-Karr, i. 93.
" In this year Tippoo Sahib addresses a rude letter to the Nawāb of Shānūr (or Savanūr) as "The Shahnoorwâlah."—Select Letters of Tippoo, 184.
1814.—"Gungadhur Shastree is a person of great shrewdness and talent.... Though a very learned shastree, he affects to be quite an Englishman, walks fast, talks fast, interrupts and contradicts, and calls the Peshwa and his ministers 'old fools' and ... 'dam rascals.' He mixes English words with everything he says, and will say of some one (Holkar for instance): Bhot trickswalla tha, laiken barra akulkund, Kukhye tha, ('He was very tricky, but very sagacious; he was cock-eyed')."—Elphinstone, in Life, i. 276.
1853.—"'No, I'm a Suffolk-walla.'"—Oakfield, i. 66.
1864.—"The stories against the Competition-wallahs, which are told and fondly believed by the Haileybury men, are all founded more or less on the want of savoir faire. A collection of these stories would be a curious proof of the credulity of the human mind on a question of class against class."—Trevelyan, p. 9.
1867.—"From a deficiency of civil servants ... it became necessary to seek reinforcements, not alone from Haileybury, ... but from new recruiting fields whence volunteers might be obtained ... under the pressure of necessity, such an exceptional measure was sanctioned by Parliament. Mr. Elliot, having been nominated as a candidate by Campbell Marjoribanks, was the first of the since celebrated list of the Competition-wallahs."—Biog. Notice prefixed to vol. i. of Dowson's Ed. of Elliot's Historians of India, p. xxviii.
The exceptional arrangement alluded to in the preceding quotation was authorised by 7 Geo. IV. cap. 56. But it did not involve competition; it only authorised a system by which writerships could be given to young men who had not been at Haileybury College, on their passing certain test examinations, and they were ranked according to their merit in passing such examinations, but below the writers who had left Haileybury at the preceding half-yearly examination. The first examination under this system was held 29th March, 1827, and Sir H. M. Elliot headed the list. The system continued in force for five years, the last examination being held in April, 1832. In all 83 civilians were nominated in this way, and, among other well-known names, the list included H. Torrens, Sir H. B. Harington, Sir R. Montgomery, Sir J. Cracroft Wilson, Sir T. Pycroft, W. Tayler, the Hon. E. Drummond.
1878.—"The Competition-Wallah, at home on leave or retirement, dins {240b}perpetually into our ears the greatness of India.... We are asked to feel awestruck and humbled at the fact that Bengal alone has 66 millions of inhabitants. We are invited to experience an awful thrill of sublimity when we learn that the area of Madras far exceeds that of the United Kingdom."—Sat. Rev., June 15, p. 750.
COMPOUND, s. The enclosed ground, whether garden or waste, which surrounds an Anglo-Indian house. Various derivations have been suggested for this word, but its history is very obscure. The following are the principal suggestions that have been made:—[83]
(a.) That it is a corruption of some supposed Portuguese word.
(b.) That it is a corruption of the French campagne.
(c.) That it is a corruption of the Malay word kampung, as first (we believe) indicated by Mr. John Crawfurd.
(a.) The Portuguese origin is assumed by Bishop Heber in passages quoted below. In one he derives it from campaña (for which, in modern Portuguese at least, we should read campanha); but campanha is not used in such a sense. It seems to be used only for 'a campaign,' or for the Roman Campagna. In the other passage he derives it from campao (sic), but there is no such word.
It is also alleged by Sir Emerson Tennent (infra), who suggests campinho; but this, meaning 'a small plain,' is not used for compound. Neither is the latter word, nor any word suggestive of it, used among the Indo-Portuguese.
In the early Portuguese histories of India (e.g. Castanheda, iii. 436, 442; vi. 3) the words used for what we term compound, are jardim, patio, horta. An examination of all the passages of the Indo-Portuguese Bible, {241a}where the word might be expected to occur, affords only horta.
There is a use of campo by the Italian Capuchin P. Vincenzo Maria (Roma, 1672), which we thought at first to be analogous: "Gionti alla porta della città (Aleppo) ... arrivati al Campo de' Francesi; doue è la Dogana...." (p. 475). We find also in Rauwolff's Travels (c. 1573), as published in English by the famous John Ray: "Each of these nations (at Aleppo) have their peculiar Champ to themselves, commonly named after the Master that built it...."; and again: "When ... the Turks have washed and cleansed themselves, they go into their Chappells, which are in the Middle of their great Camps or Carvatschars...." (p. 84 and p. 259 of Ray's 2nd edition). This use of Campo, and Champ, has a curious kind of analogy to compound, but it is probably only a translation of Maidān or some such Oriental word.
(b.) As regards campagne, which once commended itself as probable, it must be observed that nothing like the required sense is found among the seven or eight classes of meaning assigned to the word in Littré.
The word campo again in the Portuguese of the 16th century seems to mean always, or nearly always, a camp. We have found only one instance in those writers of its use with a meaning in the least suggestive of compound, but in this its real meaning is 'site': "queymou a cidade toda ate não ficar mais que ho campo em que estevera." ("They burned the whole city till nothing remained but the site on which it stood"—Castanheda, vi. 130). There is a special use of campo by the Portuguese in the Further East, alluded to in the quotation from Pallegoix's Siam, but that we shall see to be only a representation of the Malay Kampung. We shall come back upon it. [See quotation from Correa, with note, under FACTORY.]
(c.) The objection raised to kampung as the origin of compound is chiefly that the former word is not so used in Java by either Dutch or natives, and the author of Max Havelaar expresses doubt if compound is a Malay or Javanese word at all (pp. 360-361). Erf is the usual word among the Dutch. {241b}In Java kampung seems to be used only for a native village, or for a particular ward or quarter of a town.
But it is impossible to doubt that among the English in our Malay settlements compound is used in this sense in speaking English, and kampung in speaking Malay. Kampung is also used by the Malays themselves, in our settlements, in this sense. All the modern dictionaries that we have consulted give this sense among others. The old Dictionarium Malaico-Latinum of David Haex (Romae, 1631) is a little vague:
"Campon, coniunctio, vel conuentus. Hinc viciniae et parua loca, campon etiam appellantur."
Crawfurd (1852): "Kampung ... an enclosure, a space fenced in; a village; a quarter or subdivision of a town."
Favre (1875): "Maison avec un terrain qui l'entoure."
Pijnappel (1875), Maleisch-Hollandisch Woordenboek: "Kampoeng—Omheind Erf, Wijk, Buurt, Kamp," i.e. "Ground hedged round, village, hamlet, camp."
And also, let it be noted, the Javanese Dict. of P. Jansz (Javaansch-Nederlandsch Woordenboek, Samarang, 1876): "Kampoeng—Omheind erf van Woningen; wijk die onder een hoofd staat," i.e. "Enclosed ground of dwellings; village which is under one Headman."
Marre, in his Kata-Kata Malayou (Paris, 1875), gives the following expanded definition: "Village palissadé, ou, dans une ville, quartier séparé et généralement clos, occupé par des gens de même nation, Malays, Siamois, Chinois, Bouguis, &c. Ce mot signifie proprement un enclos, une enciente, et par extension quartier clos, faubourg, ou village palissadé. Le mot Kampong désigne parfois aussi une maison d'une certaine importance avec le terrain clos qui en dépend, et qui l'entoure" (p. 95).
 Mem-bûat [to make] rumah [house] serta {242a}dañgan [together with] kampong-nia [compound thereof], to erect a house with its enclosure ... Ber-Kampong, to assemble, come together; meñgampong, to collect, to bring together." The Reverse Dictionary gives: "Yard, alaman, Kampong." [See also many further references much to the same effect in Scott, Malayan Words, p. 123 seqq.]
In a Malay poem given in the Journal of the Ind. Archipelago, vol i. p. 44, we have these words:—
"Trúsláh ka kampong s'orange Saudágar."
["Passed to the kampong of a Merchant."]
and
"Titáh bágindú rajá sultání
Kámpong śiápá garángun íní."
["Thus said the Prince, the Raja Sultani,
Whose kampong may this be?"]
These explanations and illustrations render it almost unnecessary to add in corroboration that a friend who held office in the Straits for twenty years assures us that the word kampung is habitually used, in the Malay there spoken, as the equivalent of the Indian compound. If this was the case 150 years ago in the English settlements at Bencoolen and elsewhere (and we know from Marsden that it was so 100 years ago), it does not matter whether such a use of kampung was correct or not, compound will have been a natural corruption of it. Mr. E. C. Baber, who lately spent some time in our Malay settlements on his way from China, tells me (H. Y.) that the frequency with which he heard kampung applied to the 'compound,' convinced him of this etymology, which he had before doubted greatly.
It is not difficult to suppose that the word, if its use originated in our Malay factories and settlements, should have spread to the continental Presidencies, and so over India.
Our factories in the Archipelago were older than any of our settlements in India Proper. The factors and writers were frequently moved about, and it is conceivable that a word so much wanted (for no English word now in use does express the idea satisfactorily) should have found ready acceptance. In fact the word, from like causes, has spread to the ports of {242b}China and to the missionary and mercantile stations in tropical Africa, East and West, and in Madagascar.
But it may be observed that it was possible that the word kampung was itself originally a corruption of the Port. campo, taking the meaning first of camp, and thence of an enclosed area, or rather that in some less definable way the two words reacted on each other. The Chinese quarter at Batavia—Kampong Tzina—is commonly called in Dutch 'het Chinesche Kamp' or 'het Kamp der Chinezen.' Kampung was used at Portuguese Malacca in this way at least 270 years ago, as the quotation from Godinho de Eredia shows. The earliest Anglo-Indian example of the word compound is that of 1679 (below). In a quotation from Dampier (1688) under Cot, where compound would come in naturally, he says 'yard.'
1613.—(At Malacca). "And this settlement is divided into 2 parishes, S. Thomé and S. Stephen, and that part of S. Thomé called Campon Chelim extends from the shore of the Jaos bazar to N.W., terminating at the Stone Bastion; and in this dwell the Chelis of Coromandel.... And the other part of S. Stephen's, called Campon China, extends from the said shore of the Jaos Bazar, and mouth of the river to the N.E., ... and in this part, called Campon China, dwell the Chincheos ... and foreign traders, and native fishermen."—Godinho de Eredia, i. 6. In the plans given by this writer, we find different parts of the city marked accordingly, as Campon Chelim, Campon China, Campon Bendara (the quarter where the native magistrate, the Bendāra lived). [See also CHELING and CAMPOO.]
1679.—(At Pollicull near Madapollam), "There the Dutch have a Factory of a large Compounde, where they dye much blew cloth, having above 300 jars set in the ground for that work; also they make many of their best paintings there."—Fort St. Geo. Consns. (on Tour), April 14. In Notes and Extracts, Madras, 1871.
1696.—"The 27th we began to unlade, and come to their custom-houses, of which there are three, in a square Compound of about 100 paces over each way.... The goods being brought and set in two Rows in the middle of the square are one by one opened before the Mandareens."—Mr. Bowyear's Journal at Cochin China, dated Foy-Foe, April 30. Dalrymple, Or. Rep. i. 79.
1772.—"Yard (before or behind a house), Aungâun. Commonly called a Compound."—Vocabulary in Hadley's Grammar, 129. (See under MOORS.)
1781.—
"In common usage here a chit
Serves for our business or our wit.

Godown usurps the ware-house place,
Compound denotes each walled space.
To Dufterkhanna, Ottor, Tanks,
The English language owes no thanks;
Since Office, Essence, Fish-pond shew
We need not words so harsh and new.
Much more I could such words expose,
But Ghauts and Dawks the list shall close;
Which in plain English is no more
Than Wharf and Post expressed before."
India Gazette, March 3.
" "... will be sold by Public Auction ... all that Brick Dwelling-house, Godowns, and Compound."—Ibid., April 21.
1788.—"Compound—The court-yard belonging to a house. A corrupt word."—The Indian Vocabulary, London, Stockdale.
1793.—"To be sold by Public Outcry ... the House, Out Houses, and Compound," &c.—Bombay Courier, Nov. 2.
1810.—"The houses (at Madras) are usually surrounded by a field or compound, with a few trees or shrubs, but it is with incredible pains that flowers or fruit are raised."—Maria Graham, 124.
" "When I entered the great gates, and looked around for my palankeen ... and when I beheld the beauty and extent of the compound ... I thought that I was no longer in the world that I had left in the East."—An Account of Bengal, and of a Visit to Government House (at Calcutta) by Ibrahim the son of Candu the Merchant, ibid. p. 198. This is a Malay narrative translated by Dr. Leyden. Very probably the word translated compound was kampung, but that cannot be ascertained.
1811.—"Major Yule's attack was equally spirited, but after routing the enemy's force at Campong Malayo, and killing many of them, he found the bridge on fire, and was unable to penetrate further."—Sir S. Auchmuty's Report of the Capture of Fort Cornelis.
c. 1817.—"When they got into the compound, they saw all the ladies and gentlemen in the verandah waiting."—Mrs. Sherwood's Stories, ed. 1863, p. 6.
1824.—"He then proceeded to the rear compound of the house, returned, and said, 'It is a tiger, sir.'"—Seely, Wonders of Ellora, ch. i.
" "... The large and handsome edifices of Garden Reach, each standing by itself in a little woody lawn (a 'compound' they call it here, by an easy corruption from the Portuguese word campaña ...)."—Heber, ed. 1844, i. 28.
1848.—"Lady O'Dowd, too, had gone to her bed in the nuptial chamber, on the ground floor, and had tucked her mosquito curtains round her fair form, when the guard at the gates of the commanding {243b}officer's compound beheld Major Dobbin, in the moonlight, rushing towards the house with a swift step."—Vanity Fair, ed. 1867, ii. 93.
1860.—"Even amongst the English, the number of Portuguese terms in daily use is remarkable. The grounds attached to a house are its 'compound,' campinho."—Emerson Tennent, Ceylon, ii. 70.
[1869.—"I obtained the use of a good-sized house in the Campong Sirani (or Christian village)."—Wallace, Malay Archip., ed. 1890, p. 256.]
We have found this word singularly transformed in a passage extracted from a modern novel:
1877.—"When the Rebellion broke out at other stations in India, I left our own compost."—Sat. Review, Feb. 3, p. 148.
A little learning is a dangerous thing!
The following shows the adoption of the word in West Africa.
1880.—From West Afr. Mission, Port Lokkoh, Mr. A. Burchaell writes: "Every evening we go out visiting and preaching the Gospel to our Timneh friends in their compounds."—Proceedings of C. M. Society for 1878-9, p. 14.
COMPRADORE, COMPODORE, &c., s. Port. comprador, 'purchaser,' from comprar, 'to purchase.' This word was formerly in use in Bengal, where it is now quite obsolete; but it is perhaps still remembered in Madras, and it is common in China. In Madras the compradore is (or was) a kind of house-steward, who keeps the household accounts, and purchases necessaries. In China he is much the same as a Butler (q.v.). A new building was to be erected on the Bund at Shanghai, and Sir T. Wade was asked his opinion as to what style of architecture should be adopted. He at once said that for Shanghai, a great Chinese commercial centre, it ought to be Compradoric!
1533.—"Antonio da Silva kept his own counsel about the (threat of) war, because during the delay caused by the exchange of messages, he was all the time buying and selling by means of his compradores."—Correa, iii. 562.
1615.—"I understand that yesterday the Hollanders cut a slave of theirs a-peeces for theft, per order of justice, and thrust their comprador (or cats buyer) out of dores for a lecherous knave...."—Cocks's Diary, i. 19.
1711.—"Every Factory had formerly a Compradore, whose Business it was to buy in Provisions and other Necessarys. But {244a}the Hoppos have made them all such Knaves...."—Lockyer, 108.
[1748.—"Compradores." See quotation under BANKSHALL.]
1754.—"Compidore. The office of this servant is to go to market and bring home small things, such as fruit, &c."—Ives, 50.
1760-1810.—"All river-pilots and ships' Compradores must be registered at the office of the Tung-che at Macao."—'Eight Regulations,' from the Fankwae at Canton (1882), p. 28.
1782.—"Le Comprador est celui qui fournit généralement tout ce dont on a besoin, excepté les objets de cargaison; il y en a un pour chaque Nation: il approvisionne la loge, et tient sous lui plusieurs commis chargés de la fourniture des vaisseaux."—Sonnerat (ed. 1782), ii. 236.
1785.—"Compudour ... Sicca Rs. 3."—In Seton-Karr, i. 107 (Table of Wages).
1810.—"The Compadore, or Kurz-burdar, or Butler-Konnah-Sircar, are all designations for the same individual, who acts as purveyor.... This servant may be considered as appertaining to the order of sircars, of which he should possess all the cunning."—Williamson, V. M. i. 270.
See SIRCAR. The obsolete term Kurz-burdar above represents Kharach-bardār "in charge of (daily) expenditure."
1840.—"About 10 days ago ... the Chinese, having kidnapped our Compendor, Parties were sent out to endeavour to recover him."—Mem. Col. Mountain, 164.
1876.—"We speak chiefly of the educated classes, and not of 'boys' and compradores, who learn in a short time both to touch their caps, and wipe their noses in their masters' pocket-handkerchiefs."—Giles, Chinese Sketches, [p. 15].
1876.—
"An' Massa Coe feel velly sore
An' go an' scold he compradore."
Leland, Pidgin English Sing-Song, 26.
1882.—"The most important Chinese within the Factory was the Compradore ... all Chinese employed in any factory, whether as his own 'pursers,' or in the capacity of servants, cooks, or coolies, were the Compradore's own people."—The Fankwae, p. 53.
CONBALINGUA, s. The common pumpkin, [cucurbita pepo. The word comes from the Malayāl., Tel. or Can. kumbalam; kumbalanu, the pumpkin].
1510.—"I saw another kind of fruit which resembled a pumpkin in colour, is two spans in length, and has more than three fingers of pulp ... and it is a very curious thing, and it is called Comolanga, and grows on the ground like melons."—Varthema, 161.
[1554.—"Conbalinguas." See quotation under BRINJAUL.]
[c. 1610.—Couto gives a tradition of the origin of the kingdom of Pegu, from a {244b}fisherman who was born of a certain flower; "they also say that his wife was born of a Combalenga, which is an apple (pomo) very common in India of which they make several kinds of preserve, so cold that it is used in place of sugar of roses; and they are of the size and fashion of large melons; and there are some so large that it would be as much as a lad could do to lift one by himself. This apple the Pegús call Sapua."—Dec. xii. liv. v. cap. iii.]
c. 1690.—"In Indiae insulis quaedam quoque Cucurbitae et Cucumeris reperiuntur species ab Europaeis diversae ... harumque nobilissima est Comolinga, quae maxima est species Indicarum cucurbitarum."—Rumphius, Herb. Amb. v. 395.
CONCAN, n.p. Skt. konkaṇa, [Tam. konkaṇam], the former in the Pauranic lists the name of a people; Hind. Konkan and Kokan. The low country of Western India between the Ghauts and the sea, extending, roughly speaking, from Goa northward to Guzerat. But the modern Commissionership, or Civil Division, embraces also North Canara (south of Goa). In medieval writings we find frequently, by a common Asiatic fashion of coupling names, Kokan- or Konkan-Tana; Tana having been a chief place and port of Konkan.
c. 70 A.D.—The Cocondae of Pliny are perhaps the Konkaṇas.
404.—"In the south are Ceylon (Lankâ) ... Konkan ..." &c.—Bṛhat Saṅhita, in J.R.A.S., N.S. v. 83.
c. 1300.—"Beyond Guzerat are Konkan and Tána; beyond them the country of Malíbár."—Rashīduddīn, in Elliot, i. 68.
c. 1335.—"When he heard of the Sultan's death he fled to a Kafir prince called Burabra, who lived in the inaccessible mountains between Daulatabad and Kūkan-Tāna."—Ibn Batuta, iii. 335.
c. 1350.—In the Portulano Mediceo in the Laurentian Library we have 'Cocintana,' and in the Catalan Map of 1375 'Cocintaya.'
1553.—"And as from the Ghauts (Gate) to the Sea, on the west of the Decan, all that strip is called Concan, so also from the Ghauts to the Sea, on the West of Canara (leaving out those forty and six leagues just spoken of, which are also parts of this same Canara), that strip which extends to Cape Comorin ... is called Malabar...."—Barros, I. ix. 1.
[1563.—"Cuncam." See quotation under GHAUT.]
1726.—"The kingdom of this Prince is commonly called Visiapoer, after its capital, ... but it is properly called Cunkan."—Valentijn, iv. (Suratte), 243; [also see under DECCAN].
c. 1732.—"Goa, in the Adel Sháhi Kokan."—Khāfī Khān, in Elliot, vii. 211.
1804.—"I have received your letter of the 28th, upon the subject of the landing of 3 French officers in the Konkan; and I have taken measures to have them arrested."—Wellington, iii. 33.
1813.—"... Concan or Cokun ..."—Forbes, Or. Mem. i. 189; [2nd ed. i. 102].
1819.—Mr. W. Erskine, in his Account of Elephanta, writes Kokan.—Tr. Lit. Soc. Bomb., i. 249.
CONFIRMED, p. Applied to an officer whose hold of an appointment is made permanent. In the Bengal Presidency the popular term is pucka; (q.v.); (also see CUTCHA).
[1805.—"It appears not unlikely that the Government and the Company may confirm Sir G. Barlow in the station to which he has succeeded...."—In L. of Colebrooke, 223.]
1886.—"... one Marsden, who has paid his addresses to my daughter—a young man in the Public Works, who (would you believe it, Mr. Cholmondeley?) has not even been confirmed.
"Cholm. The young heathen!"—Trevelyan, The Dawk Bungalow, p. 220.
CONGEE, s. In use all over India for the water in which rice has been boiled. The article being used as one of invalid diet, the word is sometimes applied to such slops generally. Congee also forms the usual starch of Indian washermen. [A conjee-cap was a sort of starched night-cap, and Mr. Draper, the husband of Sterne's Eliza, had it put on by Mrs. Draper's rival when he took his afternoon nap. (Douglas, Glimpses of Old Bombay, pp. 86, 201.)] It is from the Tamil kanjī, 'boilings.' Congee is known to Horace, though reckoned, it would seem, so costly a remedy that the miser patient would as lief die as be plundered to the extent implied in its use:
"... Hunc medicus multum celer atque fidelis
Excitat hoc pacto ...
... 'Agedum; sume hoc ptisanarium Oryzae.'
'Quanti emptae?' 'Parvo.' 'Quanti ergo.' 'Octussibus.' 'Eheu!
Quid refert, morbo, an furtis pereamve rapinis?'"
Sat. II. iii. 147 seqq.
c. A.D. 70.—(Indi) "maxime quidem oryza gaudent, ex qua tisanam conficiunt quam reliqui mortales ex hordeo."—Pliny, xviii. § 13.
1563.—"They give him to drink the water squeezed out of rice with pepper and {245b}cummin (which they call canje)."—Garcia, f. 76b.
1578.—"... Canju, which is the water from the boiling of rice, keeping it first for some hours till it becomes acid...."—Acosta, Tractado, 56.
1631.—"Potus quotidianus itaque sit decoctum oryzae quod Candgie Indi vocant."—Jac. Bontii, Lib. II. cap. iii.
1672.—"... la cangia, ordinaria colatione degl' Indiani ... quale colano del riso mal cotto."—P. Vinc. Maria, 3rd ed., 379.
1673.—"They have ... a great smooth Stone on which they beat their Cloaths till clean; and if for Family use, starch them with Congee."—Fryer, 200.
1680.—"Le dejeûné des noirs est ordinairement du Cangé, qui est une eau de ris epaisse."—Dellon, Inquisition at Goa, 136.
1796.—"Cagni, boiled rice water, which the Europeans call Cangi, is given free of all expenses, in order that the traveller may quench his thirst with a cooling and wholesome beverage."—P. Paulinus, Voyage, p. 70.
"Can't drink as it is hot, and can't throw away as it is Kanji."—Ceylon Proverb, Ind. Ant. i. 59.
CONGEE-HOUSE, CONJEE-HOUSE, s. The 'cells' (or temporary lock-up) of a regiment in India; so called from the traditionary regimen of the inmates; [in N. India commonly applied to a cattle-pound].
1835.—"All men confined for drunkenness should, if possible, be confined by themselves in the Congee-House, till sober."—G. O., quoted in Mawson's Records of the Indian Command of Sir C. Napier, 101 note.
CONGEVERAM, n.p. An ancient and holy city of S. India, 46 m. S.W. of Madras. It is called Kachchi in Tamil literature, and Kachchipuram is probably represented by the modern name. [The Madras Gloss. gives the indigenous name as Cutchy (Kachchi), meaning 'the heart-leaved moon-seed plant,' tinospera cordifolia, from which the Skt. name Kanchipura, 'shining city,' is corrupted.]
c. 1030.—See Kanchi in Al-Birūnī, under MALABAR.
1531.—"Some of them said that the whole history of the Holy House (of St. Thomas) was written in the house of the Pagoda which is called Camjeverão, twenty leagues distant from the Holy House, of which I will tell you hereafter...."—Correa, iii. 424.
1680.—"Upon a report that Podela Lingapa had put a stop to all the Dutch business of Policat under his government, {246a}the agent sent Braminy spys to Conjee Voram and to Policat."—Ft. St. Geo. Cons. Aug. 30. In Notes and Exts. No. iii. 32.
CONGO-BUNDER, CONG, n.p. Kung bandar; a port formerly of some consequence and trade, on the north shore of the Persian Gulf, about 100 m. west of Gombroon. The Portuguese had a factory here for a good many years after their expulsion from Ormus, and under treaty with Persia, made in 1625, had a right of pearl-fishing at Bahrein and a claim to half of the customs of Cong. These claims seem to have been gradually disregarded, and to have had no effect after about 1670, though the Portuguese would appear to have still kept up some pretext of monopoly of rights there in 1677 (see Chardin, ed. 1735, i. 348, and Bruce's Annals of the E.I.C., iii. 393). Some confusion is created by the circumstance that there is another place on the same coast, called Kongūn, which possessed a good many vessels up to 1859, when it was destroyed by a neighbouring chief (see Stiffe's P. Gulf Pilot, 128). And this place is indicated by A. Hamilton (below) as the great mart for Bahrein pearls, which Fryer and others assign to what is evidently Cong.
1652.—"Near to the place where the Euphrates falls from Balsara [see BALSORA] into the Sea, there is a little Island, where the Barques generally come to an Anchor.... There we stay'd four days, whence to Bandar-Congo it is 14 days Sail.... This place would be a far better habitation for the Merchants than Ormus, where it is very unwholsom and dangerous to live. But that which hinders the Trade from Bandar-Congo is, because the Road to Lar is so bad.... The 30th, we hir'd a Vessel for Bander-Abassi, and after 3 or 4 hours Sailing we put into a Village ... in the Island of Keckmishe" (see KISHM).—Tavernier, E.T. i. 94.
1653.—"Congue est vne petite ville fort agreable sur le sein Persique à trois journées du Bandar Abbassi tirant à l'Ouest dominée par le Schah ... les Portugais y ont vn Feitour (see FACTOR) qui prend la moitié de la Doüane, et donne la permission aux barques de nauiger, en luy payant vn certain droit, parceque toutes ces mers sont tributaires de la generalité de Mascati, qui est à l'entrée du sein Persique.... Cette ville est peuplée d'Arabes, de Parsis et d'Indous qui ont leur Pagodes et leur Saincts hors la ville."—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, p. 284.
1677.—"A Voyage to Congo for Pearl.—Two days after our Arrival at Gombroon, I {246b}went to Congo.... At noon we came to Bassatu (see BASSADORE), an old ruined Town of the Portugals, fronting Congo.... Congo is something better built than Gombroon, and has some small Advantage of the Air" (Then goes off about pearls).—Fryer, 320.
1683.—"One Haggerston taken by ye said President into his Service, was run away with a considerable quantity of Gold and Pearle, to ye amount of 30,000 Rupees, intrusted to him at Bussera (see BALSORA) and Cong, to bring to Surrat, to save Freight and Custom."—Hedges, Diary, i. 96 seq.
1685.—"May 27.—This afternoon it pleased God to bring us in safety to Cong Road. I went ashore immediately to Mr. Brough's house (Supra Cargo of ye Siam Merchant), and lay there all night."—Ibid. i. 202.
1727.—"Congoun stands on the South side of a large River, and makes a pretty good figure in Trade; for most of the Pearl that are caught at Bareen, on the Arabian Side, are brought hither for a Market, and many fine Horses are sent thence to India, where they generally sell well.... The next maritim town, down the Gulf, is Cong, where the Portuguese lately had a Factory, but of no great Figure in Trade, tho' that Town has a small Trade with Banyans and Moors from India." (Here the first place is Kongun, the second one Kung).—A. Hamilton, i. 92 seq.; [ed. 1744].
CONICOPOLY, s. Literally 'Account-Man,' from Tam. kanakka, 'account' or 'writing,' and piḷḷai, 'child' or 'person.' ["The Kanakar are usually addressed as 'Pillay,' a title of respect common to them and the agricultural and shepherd castes" (Madras Man. ii. 229).] In Madras, a native clerk or writer, [in particular a shipping clerk. The corresponding Tel. term is Curnum].
1544.—"Duc eò tecum ... domesticos tuos; pueros et aliquem Conacapulam qui norit scribere, cujus manu exaratas relinquere posses in quovis loco precationes a Pueris et aliis Catechumenis ediscendas."—Scti. Franc. Xavier, Epist., pp. 160 seq.
1584.—"So you must appoint in each village or station fitting teachers and Canacopoly, as we have already arranged, and these must assemble the children every day at a certain time and place, and teach and drive into them the elements of reading and religion."—Ditto, in Coleridge's L. of him, ii. 24.
1578.—"At Tanor in Malabar I was acquainted with a Nayre Canacopola, a writer in the Camara del Rey at Tanor ... who every day used to eat to the weight of 5 drachms (of opium), which he would take in my presence."—Acosta, Tractado, 415.
c. 1580.—"One came who worked as a clerk, and said he was a poor canaquapolle, who had nothing to give."—Primor e Honra, &c., f. 94.
1672.—"Xaverius set everywhere teachers called Canacappels."—Baldaeus, Ceylon, 377.
1680.—"The Governour, accompanyed with the Councell and severall Persons of the factory, attended by six files of Soldyers, the Company's Peons, 300 of the Washers, the Pedda Naigue, the Cancoply of the Towne and of the grounds, went the circuit of Madras ground, which was described by the Cancoply of the grounds, and lyes so intermixed with others (as is customary in these Countrys) that 'tis impossible to be knowne to any others, therefore every Village has a Cancoply and a Parryar, who are imployed in this office, which goes from Father to Son for ever."—Ft. St. Geo. Consn. Sept. 21. In Notes and Exts., No. iii. 34.
1718.—"Besides this we maintain seven Kanakappel, or Malabarick writers."—Propagation of the Gospel in the East, Pt. ii. 55.
1726.—"The Conakapules (commonly called Kannekappels) are writers."—Valentijn, Choro. 88.
[1749.—"Canacapula," in Logan, Malabar, iii. 52.
[1750.—"Conicoplas," ibid. iii. 150.
[1773.—"Conucopola. He keeps your accounts, pays the rest of the servants their wages, and assists the Dubash in buying and selling. At Bengal he is called secretary...."—Ives, 49.]
CONSOO-HOUSE, n.p. At Canton this was a range of buildings adjoining the foreign Factories, called also the 'Council Hall' of the foreign Factories. It was the property of the body of Hong merchants, and was the place of meeting of these merchants among themselves, or with the chiefs of the Foreign houses, when there was need for such conference (see Fankwae, p. 23). The name is probably a corruption of 'Council.' Bp. Moule, however, says: "The name is likely to have come from kung-su, the public hall, where a kung-sz', a 'public company,' or guild, meets."
CONSUMAH, KHANSAMA, s. P. Khānsāmān; 'a house-steward.' In Anglo-Indian households in the Bengal Presidency, this is the title of the chief table servant and provider, now always a Mahommedan. [See BUTLER.] The literal meaning of the word is 'Master of the household gear'; it is not connected with khwān, 'a tray,' as Wilson suggests. The {247b}analogous word Mīr-sāmān occurs in Elliot, vii. 153. The Anglo-Indian form Consumer seems to have been not uncommon in the 18th century, probably with a spice of intention. From tables quoted in Long, 182, and in Seton-Karr, i. 95, 107, we see that the wages of a "Consumah, Christian, Moor, or Gentoo," were at Calcutta, in 1759, 5 rupees a month, and in 1785, 8 to 10 rupees.
[1609.—"Emersee Nooherdee being called by the Cauncamma."—Danvers, Letters, i. 24.]
c. 1664.—"Some time after ... she chose for her Kane-saman, that is, her Steward, a certain Persian called Nazerkan, who was a young Omrah, the handsomest and most accomplished of the whole Court."—Bernier, E.T., p. 4; [ed. Constable, p. 13].
1712.—"They were brought by a great circuit on the River to the Chansamma or Steward (Dispenser) of the aforesaid Mahal."—Valentijn, iv. (Suratte) 288.
1759.—"Dustuck or Order, under the Chan Sumaun, or Steward's Seal, for the Honourable Company's holding the King's [i.e. the Great Mogul's] fleet."
* * * * *
"At the back of this is the seal of Zecah al Doulat Tidaudin Caun Bahadour, who is Caun Samaun, or Steward to his Majesty, whose prerogative it is to grant this Order."—R. Owen Cambridge, pp. 231 seq.
1788.—"After some deliberation I asked the Khansaman, what quantity was remaining of the clothes that had been brought from Iran to camp for sale, who answered that there were 15,000 jackets, and 12,000 pairs of long drawers."—Mem. of Khojeh Abdulkurreem, tr. by Gladwin, 55.
1810.—"The Kansamah may be classed with the house-steward, and butler; both of which offices appear to unite in this servant."—Williamson, V. M., i. 199.
1831.—"I have taught my khansama to make very light iced punch."—Jacquemont, Letters, E.T., ii. 104.
COOCH AZO, or AZO simply, n.p. Koch Hājo, a Hindu kingdom on the banks of the Brahmaputra R., to the E. of Koch Bihār, annexed by Jahāngīr's troops in 1637. See Blochmann in J.A.S.B. xli. pt. i. 53, and xlii. pt. i. 235. In Valentijn's map of Bengal (made c. 1660) we have Cos Assam with Azo as capital, and T'Ryk van Asoe, a good way south and east of Silhet.
1753.—"Ceste rivière (Brahmapoutra), en remontant, conduit à Rangamati et à Azoo, qui font la frontière de l'état du Mogol. Azoo est une forteresse que l'Emir Jemla, sous le règne d'Aorengzèbe, reprit {248a}sur le roi d'Asham, comme une dependance de Bengale."—D'Anville, p. 62.
COOCH BEHAR, n.p. Koch Bihār, a native tributary State on the N.E. of Bengal, adjoining Bhotan and the Province of Assam. The first part of the name is taken from that of a tribe, the Koch, apparently a forest race who founded this State about the 15th century, and in the following century obtained dominion of considerable extent. They still form the majority of the population, but, as usual in such circumstances, give themselves a Hindu pedigree, under the name of Rājbansi. [See Risley, Tribes and Castes of Bengal, i. 491 seqq.] The site of the ancient monarchy of Kāmrūp is believed to have been in Koch Bihār, within the limits of which there are the remains of more than one ancient city. The second part of the name is no doubt due to the memory of some important Vihara, or Buddhist Monastery, but we have not found information on the subject. [Possibly the ruins at Kamatapur, for which see Buchanan Hamilton, Eastern India, iii. 426 seqq.]
1585.—"I went from Bengala into the countrey of Couche, which lieth 25 dayes iourny Northwards from Tanda."—R. Fitch, in Hakl. ii. 397.
c. 1596.—"To the north of Bengal is the province of Coach, the Chief of which commands 1,000 horse, and 100,000 foot. Kamroop, which is also called Kamroo and Kamtah (see COMOTAY) makes a part of his dominions."—Ayeen (by Gladwin), ed. 1800, ii. 3; [ed. Jarrett, ii. 117].
1726.—"Cos Bhaar is a Kingdom of itself, the King of which is sometimes subject to the Great Mogol, and sometimes throws his yoke off."—Valentijn, v. 159.
1774.—"The country about Bahar is low. Two kos beyond Bahar we entered a thicket ... frogs, watery insects and dank air ... 2 miles farther on we crossed the river which separates the Kuch Bahar country from that of the Deb Rajah, in sal canoes...."—Bogle, in Markham's Tibet, &c., 14 seq.
(But Mr. Markham spoils all the original spelling. We may be sure Bogle did not write kos, nor "Kuch Bahar," as Mr. M. makes him do.)
1791.—"The late Mr. George Bogle ... travelled by way of Coos-Beyhar, Tassasudon, and Paridrong, to Chanmanning the then residence of the Lama."—Rennell (3rd ed.), 301.
COOJA, s. P. kūza; an earthenware water-vessel (not long-necked, {248b}like the ṣurāḥī—see SERAI). It is a word used at Bombay chiefly, [but is not uncommon among Mahommedans in N. India].
[1611.—"One sack of cusher to make coho."—Danvers, Letters, i. 128.
[1871.—"Many parts of India are celebrated for their coojahs or guglets, but the finest are brought from Bussorah, being light, thin, and porous, made from a whitish clay."—Riddell, Indian Domestic Economy, 7th ed., p. 362.]
1883.—"They (tree-frogs) would perch pleasantly on the edge of the water cooja, or on the rim of a tumbler."—Tribes on my Frontier, 118.
COOK-ROOM, s. Kitchen; in Anglo-Indian establishments always detached from the house.
1758.—"We will not in future admit of any expenses being defrayed by the Company either under the head of cook-rooms, gardens, or other expenses whatever."—The Court's Letter, March 3, in Long, 130.
1878.—"I was one day watching an old female monkey who had a young one by her side to whom she was giving small bits of a piece of bread which she had evidently just received from my cook-room."—Life in the Mofussil, ii. 44.
COOLCURNEE, s. This is the title of the village accountant and writer in some of the central and western parts of India. Mahr. kuḷkaraṇī, apparently from kuḷa, 'tribe,' and karaṇa, writer, &c., the patwārī of N. India (see under CRANNY, CURNUM). [Kula "in the revenue language of the S. appears to be applied especially to families, or individual heads of families, paying revenue" (Wilson).]
c. 1590.—"... in this Soobah (Berar) ... a chowdry they call Deysmuck; a Canoongou with them is Deyspandeh; a Mokuddem ... they style Putiel; and a Putwaree they name Kulkurnee."—Gladwin's Ayeen Akbery, ii. 57; [ed. Jarrett, ii. 228].
[1826.—"You potails, coolcunnies, &c., will no doubt ... contrive to reap tolerable harvests."—Pandurang Hari, ed. 1873, ii. 47.]
COOLICOY, s. A Malay term, properly kulit-kayu, 'skin-wood,' explained in the quotation:
1784.—"The coolitcayo or coolicoy.... This is a bark procured from some particular trees. (It is used for matting the sides of houses, and by Europeans as dunnage in pepper cargoes.)"—Marsden's H. of Sumatra, 2nd ed. 51.
COOLIN, adj. A class of Brāhmans of Bengal Proper, who make extraordinary claims to purity of caste and exclusiveness. Beng. kulīnas, from Skt. kula, 'a caste or family,' kulīna, 'belonging to a noble family.' They are much sought in marriage for the daughters of Brāhmans of less exalted pretensions, and often take many brides for the sake of the presents they receive. The system is one of the greatest abuses in Bengali Hinduism. [Risley, Tribes and Castes of Bengal, i. 146 seqq.]
1820.—"Some inferior Koolēēnŭs marry many wives; I have heard of persons having 120; many have 15 or 20, and others 40 and 50 each. Numbers procure a subsistence by this excessive polygamy...."—Ward, i. 81.
COOLUNG, COOLEN, and in W. India CULLUM, s. Properly the great grey crane (Grus cinerea), H. kulang (said by the dictionaries to be Persian, but Jerdon gives Mahr. kallam, and Tel. kulangi, kolangi, which seem against the Persian origin), [and Platts seems to connect it with Skt. kurankara, the Indian crane, Ardea Sibirica (Williams)]. Great companies of these are common in many parts of India, especially on the sands of the less frequented rivers; and their clanging, trumpet-like call is often heard as they pass high overhead at night.
"Ille gruum ...
Clamor in aetheriis dispersus nubibus austri."
(Lucr. iv. 182 seq.).
The name, in the form Coolen, is often misapplied to the Demoiselle Crane (Anthropoides virgo, L.), which is one of the best of Indian birds for the table (see Jerdon, ed. 1877, ii. 667, and last quotation below). The true Coolung, though inferior, is tolerably good eating. This bird, which is now quite unknown in Scotland, was in the 15th century not uncommon there, and was a favourite dish at great entertainments (see Accts. of L. H. Treasurer of Scotland, i. ccv.).
1698.—"Peculiarly Brand-geese, Colum, and Serass, a species of the former."—Fryer, 117.
c. 1809.—"Large flocks of a crane called Kolong, and of another called Saros (Ardea Antigone—see CYRUS), frequent this district in winter.... They come from the north in the beginning of the cold season, and retire when the heats commence."—Buchanan's Rungpoor, in Eastern India, iii. 579.
1813.—"Peacocks, partridges, quails, doves, and green-pigeons supplied our table, and with the addition of two stately birds, called the Sahras and cullum, added much to the animated beauty of the country."—Forbes, Or. Mem. ii. 29; [2nd ed. i. 331].
1883.—"Not being so green as I was, I let the tempting herd of antelopes pass, but the kullum I cannot resist. They are feeding in thousands at the other end of a large field, and to reach them it will only be necessary to crawl round behind the hedge for a quarter of a mile or so. But what will one not do with roast kullum looming in the vista of the future?"—Tribes on my Frontier, p. 162.
"*** N.B.—I have applied the word kullum, as everybody does, to the demoiselle crane, which, however, is not properly the kullum but the Koonja."—Ibid. p. 171.
COOLY, s. A hired labourer, or burden-carrier; and, in modern days especially, a labourer induced to emigrate from India, or from China, to labour in the plantations of Mauritius, Réunion, or the West Indies, sometimes under circumstances, especially in French colonies, which have brought the cooly's condition very near to slavery. In Upper India the term has frequently a specific application to the lower class of labourer who carries earth, bricks, &c., as distinguished from the skilled workman, and even from the digger.
The original of the word appears to have been a nomen gentile, the name (Kolī) of a race or caste in Western India, who have long performed such offices as have been mentioned, and whose savagery, filth, and general degradation attracted much attention in former times, [see Hamilton, Descr. of Hindostan (1820), i. 609]. The application of the word would thus be analogous to that which has rendered the name of a Slav, captured and made a bondservant, the word for such a bondservant in many European tongues. According to Dr. H. V. Carter the Kolīs proper are a true hill-people, whose especial locality lies in the Western Ghāts, and in the northern extension of that range, between 18° and 24° N. lat. They exist in large numbers in Guzerat, and in the Konkan, and in the adjoining districts of the Deccan, but not beyond these limits (see Ind. Antiquary, ii. 154). [But they are possibly kinsfolk of the Kols, an important Dravidian race in Bengal and the {250a}N.W.P. (see Risley, T. and C. of Bengal, ii. 101; Crooke, T. C. of N.W.P. iii. 294).] In the Rās Mālā [ed. 1878, p. 78 seqq.] the Koolies are spoken of as a tribe who lived long near the Indus, but who were removed to the country of the Null (the Nal, a brackish lake some 40 m. S.W. of Ahmedabad) by the goddess Hinglāj.
Though this explanation of the general use of the term Cooly is the most probable, the matter is perplexed by other facts which it is difficult to trace to the same origin. Thus in S. India there is a Tamil and Can. word kūli in common use, signifying 'hire' or 'wages,' which Wilson indeed regards as the true origin of Cooly. [Oppert (Orig. Inhab. of Bharatavarsa, p. 131) adopts the same view, and disputing the connection of Cooly with Koli or Kol, regards the word as equivalent to 'hired servant' and originating in the English Factories on the E. coast.] Also in both Oriental and Osmanli Turkish kol is a word for a slave, whilst in the latter also kūleh means 'a male slave, a bondsman' (Redhouse). Khol is in Tibetan also a word for a servant or slave (Note from A. Schiefner; see also Jäschke's Tibetan Dict., 1881, p. 59). But with this the Indian term seems to have no connection. The familiar use of Cooly has extended to the Straits Settlements, Java, and China, as well as to all tropical and sub-tropical colonies, whether English or foreign.
In the quotations following, those in which the race is distinctly intended are marked with an *.
*1548.—"And for the duty from the Colés who fish at the sea-stakes and on the river of Bacaim...."—S. Botelho, Tombo, 155.
*1553.—"Soltan Badur ... ordered those pagans to be seized, and if they would not become Moors, to be flayed alive, saying that was all the black-mail the Collijs should get from Champanel."—Barros, Dec. IV. liv. v. cap. 7.
*1563.—"These Colles ... live by robbing and thieving at this day."—Garcia, f. 34.
*1584.—"I attacked and laid waste nearly fifty villages of the Kolís and Grassias, and I built forts in seven different places to keep these people in check."—Ṭabaḳāt-i-Akbarī, in Elliot, v. 447.
*1598.—"Others that yet dwell within the countrie called Colles: which Colles ... doe yet live by robbing and stealing...."—Linschoten, ch. xxvii.; [Hak. Soc. i. 166].
*1616.—"Those who inhabit the country villages are called Coolees; these till the ground and breed up cattle."—Terry, in Purchas; [ed. 1777, p. 180].
*"The people called Collees or Quillees."—In Purchas, i. 436.
1630.—"The husbandmen or inferior sort of people called the Coulies."—Lord's Display, &c., ch. xiii.
1638.—"He lent us horses to ride on, and Cowlers (which are Porters) to carry our goods."—W. Bruton, in Hakl. v. 49.
In this form there was perhaps an indefinite suggestion of the cowl-staff used in carrying heavy loads.
1644.—"In these lands of Damam the people who dwell there as His Majesty's Vassals are heathen, whom they call Collis, and all the Padres make great complaints that the owners of the aldeas do not look with favour on the conversion of these heathen Collis, nor do they consent to their being made Christians, lest there thus may be hindrance to the greater service which is rendered by them when they remain heathen."—Bocarro (Port. MS.).
*1659.—"To relate how I got away from those Robbers, the Koullis ... how we became good Friends by the means of my Profession of Physick ... I must not insist upon to describe."—Bernier, E.T., p. 30; [ed. Constable, 91].
*c. 1666.—"Nous rencontrâmes quantité de Colys, qui sont gens d'une Caste ou tribut des Gentils, qui n'ont point d'habitation arrêtée, mais qui vont de village en village et portent avec eux tout leur ménage."—Thevenot, v. 21.
*1673.—"The Inhabitants of Ramnagur are the Salvages called Coolies...."—Fryer, 161.
" "Coolies, Frasses, and Holencores, are the Dregs of the People."—Ibid. 194.
1680.—"... It is therefore ordered forthwith that the drum be beat to call all coolies, carpenters...."—Official Memo. in Wheeler, i. 129.
*c. 1703.—"The Imperial officers ... sent ... ten or twelve sardārs, with 13,000 or 14,000 horse, and 7,000 or 8,000 trained Kolís of that country."—Khāfī Khān, in Elliot, vii. 375.
1711.—"The better sort of people travel in Palankeens, carry'd by six or eight Cooleys, whose Hire, if they go not far from Town, is threepence a Day each."—Lockyer, 26.
1726.—"Coeli's. Bearers of all sorts of Burdens, goods, Andols (see ANDOR) and Palankins...."—Valentijn, vol. v., Names, &c., 2.
*1727.—"Goga ... has had some Mud Wall Fortifications, which still defend them from the Insults of their Neighbours the Coulies."—A. Hamilton, i. 141; [ed. 1744, i. 142].
1755.—"The Families of the Coolies sent to the Negrais complain that Mr. Brook {251a}has paid to the Head Cooley what money those who died there left behind them."—In Long, 54.
1785.—"... the officers were obliged to have their baggage transported upon men's heads over an extent of upwards of 800 miles, at the rate of 5l. per month for every couley or porter employed."—Carraccioli's L. of Clive, i. 243 seq.
1789.—"If you should ask a common cooly or porter, what cast he is of, he will answer, the same as Master, pariar-cast."—Munro's Narrative, 29.
1791.—"... deux relais de vigoreux coulis, ou porteurs, de quatre hommes chacun...."—B. de St. Pierre, La Chaumière Indienne, 15.
[1798.—"The Resident hopes all distinctions between the Cooley and Portuguese inhabitants will be laid aside."—Procl. in Logan, Malabar, iii. 302.]
*1813.—"Gudgerah, a large populous town surrounded by a wall, to protect it from the depredations of the Coolees, who are a very insolent set among the numerous and probably indigenous tribes of freebooters, and robbers in this part of India."—Forbes, Orient. Mem. iii. 63; [2nd ed. ii. 160; also see i. 146].
1817.—"These (Chinese) emigrants are usually employed as coolees or labourers on their first arrival (in Java)."—Raffles, H. of Java, i. 205.
*1820.—"In the profession of thieving the Koolees may be said to act con amore. A Koolee of this order, meeting a defenceless person in a lane about dusk, would no more think of allowing him to pass unplundered than a Frenchman would a woman without bowing to her; it may be considered a point of honour of the caste."—Tr. Lit. Soc. Bo. iii. 335.
*1825.—"The head man of the village said he was a Kholee, the name of a degenerate race of Rajpoots in Guzerat, who from the low occupations in which they are generally employed have (under the corrupt name of Coolie) given a name, probably through the medium of the Portuguese, to bearers of burdens all over India."—Heber, ed. 1844, ii. 92.
1867.—"Bien que de race différente les Coolies et les Chinois sont comportés à peu-près de même."—Quatrefages, Rapport sur le Progrès de l'Anthropologie, 219.
1871.—"I have hopes for the Coolies in British Guiana, but it will be more sure and certain when the immigration system is based on better laws."—Jenkins, The Coolie.
1873.—"The appellant, the Hon. Julian Pauncefote, is the Attorney-General for the Colony (Hong Kong) and the respondent Hwoka-Sing is a Coolie or labourer, and a native of China."—Report of Case before Jud. Com. of Privy Council.
" "A man (Col. Gordon) who had wrought such wonders with means so modest as a levy of Coolies ... needed, we may {251b}be sure, only to be put to the highest test to show how just those were who had marked him out in his Crimean days as a youth whose extraordinary genius for war could not be surpassed in the army that lay before Sebastopol."—Sat. Review, Aug. 16, 203.
1875.—"A long row of cottages, evidently pattern-built ... announced the presence of Coolies, Indian or Chinese."—Palgrave, Dutch Guiana, ch. i.
The word Cooly has passed into English thieves' jargon in the sense of 'a soldier' (v. Slang Dict.).
COOMKEE, adj., used as sub. This is a derivative from P. kumak, 'aid,' and must have been widely diffused in India, for we find it specialised in different senses in the extreme West and East, besides having in both the general sense of 'auxiliary.'
[(a) In the Moghul army the term is used for auxiliary troops.
[c. 1590.—"Some troops are levied occasionally to strengthen the munsubs, and they are called Kummeky (or auxiliaries)."—Gladwin, Ayeen Akbery, ed. 1800, i. 188; in Blochmann, i. 232, Kumakis.