[1858.—"The great landholders despise them (the ordinary levies) but respect the Komukee corps...."—Sleeman, Journey through Oudh, i. 30.]
(b) Kumakī, in N. and S. Canara, is applied to a defined portion of forest, from which the proprietor of the village or estate has the privilege of supplying himself with wood for house-building, &c. (except from the reserved kinds of wood), with leaves and twigs for manure, fodder, &c. (See COOMRY). [The system is described by Sturrock, Man. S. Canara, i. 16, 224 seqq.]
(c). Koomkee, in Bengal, is the technical name of the female elephant used as a decoy in capturing a male.
1807.—"When an elephant is in a proper state to be removed from the Keddah, he is conducted either by koomkies (i.e. decoy females) or by tame males."—Williamson, Oriental Field Sports, folio ed., p. 30.
[1873.—"It was an interesting sight to see the captive led in between two khoonkies or tame elephants."—Cooper, Mishmee Hills, 88.
[1882.—"Attached to each elephant hunting party there must be a number of tame elephants, or Koonkies, to deal with the wild elephants when captured."—Sanderson, Thirteen Years, 70.]
COOMRY, s. [Can. kumari, from Mahr. kumbarī, 'a hill slope of poor soil.'] Kumari cultivation is the S. Indian (especially in Canara), [Sturrock, S. Canara Man. i. 17], appellation of that system pursued by hill-people in many parts of India and its frontiers, in which a certain tract of forest is cut down and burnt, and the ground planted with crops for one or two seasons, after which a new site is similarly treated. This system has many names in different regions; in the east of Bengal it it known as jhūm (see JHOOM); in Burma as tounggyan; [in parts of the N.W.P. dahya, Skt. daha, 'burning'; ponam in Malabar; ponacaud in Salem]. We find kumried as a quasi-English participle in a document quoted by the High Court, Bombay, in a judgment dated 27th January, 1879, p. 227.
1883.—"Kumaki (Coomkee) and Kumari privileges stand on a very different platform. The former are perfectly reasonable, and worthy of a civilised country.... As for Kumari privileges, they cannot be defended before the tribunal of reason as being really good for the country, but old custom is old custom, and often commands the respect of a wise government even when it is indefensible."—Mr. Grant Duff's Reply to an Address at Mangalore, 15th October.
COONOOR, n.p. A hill-station in the Neilgherries. Kuṇṇur, 'Hill-Town.' [The Madras Gloss. gives Can. Kunnūru, Skt. kunna, 'small,' Can. ūru, 'village.']
COORG, n.p. A small hill State on the west of the table-land of Mysore, in which lies the source of the Cauvery, and which was annexed to the British Government, in consequence of cruel misgovernment in 1834. The name is a corruption of Kŏḍagu, of which Gundert says: "perhaps from koḍu, 'steep,' or Tamil kaḍaga, 'west.'" [For various other speculations on the derivation, see Oppert, Original Inhabit., 162 seqq. The Madras Gloss. seems to refer it to Skt. kroḍadeśa, 'hog-land,' from "the tradition that the inhabitants had nails on hands and feet like a boar."] Coorg is also used for a native of the country, in which case it stands for Kŏḍaga.
COORSY, s. H.—from Ar.—kursī [which is used for the stand on which the Koran is laid]. It is the word {252b}usually employed in Western India for 'a chair,' and is in the Bengal Presidency a more dignified term than chaukī (see CHOKY). Kursī is the Arabic form, borrowed from the Aramaic, in which the emphatic state is kursĕyā. But in Hebrew the word possesses a more original form with ss for rs (kisse, the usual word in the O. T. for 'a throne'). The original sense appears to be 'a covered seat.'
1781.—"It happened, at this time, that the Nawaub was seated on his koorsi, or chair, in a garden, beneath a banyan tree."—Hist. of Hydur Naik, 452.
COOSUMBA, s. H. kusum, kusumbha, Safflower, q.v. But the name is applied in Rajputana and Guzerat to the tincture of opium, which is used freely by Rājputs and others in those territories; also (according to Shakespear) to an infusion of Bang (q.v.).
[1823.—"Several of the Rajpoot Princes West of the Chumbul seldom hold a Durbar without presenting a mixture of liquid opium, or, as it is termed, 'kusoombah,' to all present. The minister washes his hands in a vessel placed before the Rawul, after which some liquid opium is poured into the palm of his right hand. The first in rank who may be present then approaches and drinks the liquid."—Malcolm, Mem. of Central India, 2d ed. ii. 146, note.]
COOTUB, THE, n.p. The Ḳuṭb Minār, near Delhi, one of the most remarkable of Indian architectural antiquities, is commonly so called by Europeans. It forms the minaret of the Great Mosque, now long in ruins, which Ḳuṭb-uddīn Ībak founded A.D. 1191, immediately after the capture of Delhi, and which was built out of the materials of numerous Hindu temples, as is still manifest. According to the elaborate investigation of Gen. A. Cunningham [Arch. Rep. i. 189 seqq.], the magnificent Minār was begun by Ḳuṭb-uddīn Ībak about 1200, and completed by his successor Shamsuddīn Iyaltimish about 1220. The tower has undergone, in its upper part, various restorations. The height as it now stands is 238 feet 1 inch. The traditional name of the tower no doubt had reference to the name of its founder, but also there may have been a reference to the contemporary Saint, Ḳuṭb-uddīn Ūshī, whose tomb is close by; and perhaps also to the meaning of the name Ḳuṭb-uddīn, 'The Pole or {253a}Axle of the Faith,' as appropriate to such a structure.
c. 1330.—"Attached to the mosque (of Delhi) is a tower for the call to prayer which has no equal in the whole world. It is built of red stone, with about 360 steps. It is not square, but has a great number of angles, is very massive at the base, and very lofty, equalling the Pharos of Alexandria."—Abulfeda, in Gildemeister, 190.
c. 1340.—"In the northern court of the mosque stands the minaret (al-ṣauma'a), which is without a parallel in all the countries of Islām.... It is of surpassing height; the pinnacle is of milk-white marble, and the globes which decorate it are of pure gold. The aperture of the staircase is so wide that elephants can ascend, and a person on whom I could rely told me that when the minaret was a-building, he saw an elephant ascend to the very top with a load of stones."—Ibn Batuta, iii. 151.
The latter half of the last quotation is fiction.
1663.—"At two Leagues off the City on Agra's side, in a place by the Mahumetans called Koja Kotubeddine, there is a very ancient Edifice which hath been a Temple of Idols...."—Bernier, E.T. 91.
It is evident from this that Bernier had not then visited the Ḳuṭb. [Constable in his tr. reads "Koia Kotub-eddine," by which he understands Koh-i-Ḳuṭab-uddīn, the hill or eminence of the Saint, p. 283.]
1825.—"I will only observe that the Cuttab Minar ... is really the finest tower I have ever seen, and must, when its spire was complete, have been still more beautiful."—Heber, ed. 1844, i. 308.
COPECK, s. This is a Russian coin, 1⁄100 of a ruble. The degeneration of coin denominations is often so great that we may suspect this name to preserve that of the dīnār Kopekī often mentioned in the histories of Timur and his family. Kopek is in Turki, 'dog,' and Charmoy explains the term as equivalent to Abū-kalb, 'Father of a dog,' formerly applied in Egypt to Dutch crowns (Löwenthaler) bearing a lion. There could not be Dutch coins in Timur's time, but some other Frank coin bearing a lion may have been so called, probably Venetian. A Polish coin with a lion on it was called by a like name (see Macarius, quoted below, p. 169). Another etymology of kopek suggested (in Chaudoir, Aperçu des Monnaies Russes) is from Russ. kopié, kopyé, a pike, many old Russian coins representing the Prince on horseback with a spear. [This is accepted by the N.E.D.] Kopeks are mentioned in {253b}the reign of Vassili III., about the middle of the 15th century, but only because regularly established in the coinage c. 1536. [See TANGA.]
1390.—(Timour resolved) "to visit the venerated tomb of Sheikh Maslahat ... and with that intent proceeded to Tāshkand ... he there distributed as alms to worthy objects, 10,000 dīnārs kopakī...."—Sharīfuddīn, in Extracts by M. Charmoy, Mem. Acad. St. P., vi. S., tome iii. p. 363, also note, p. 135.
1535.—"It was on this that the Grand Duchess Helena, mother of Ivan Vassilievitch, and regent in his minority, ordered, in 1535, that these new Dengui should be melted down and new ones struck, at the rate of 300 dengui, or 3 Roubles of Moscow à la grivenka, in Kopeks.... From that time accounts continued to be kept in Roubles, Kopeks, and Dengui."—Chaudoir, Aperçu.
c. 1655.—"The pension in lieu of provisions was, for our Lord the Patriarch 25 copecks daily."—Travels of the Patriarch Macarius, Or. Tr. Fund, i. 281.
1783.—"The Copeck of Russia, a copper coin, in name and apparently in value, is the same which was current in Tartary during the reign of Timur."—Forster's Journey, ed. 1808, ii. 332.
COPPERSMITH, s. Popular name both in H. (tambayat) and English of the crimson-breasted barbet (Xantholaema indica, Latham). See the quotation from Jerdon.
1862.—"It has a remarkably loud note, which sounds like took-took-took, and this it generally utters when seated on the top of some tree, nodding its head at each call, first to one side and then to another.... This sound and the motion of its head, accompanying it, have given origin to the name of 'Coppersmith.'..."—Jerdon, ed. 1877, i. 316.
1879.—
"... In the mango-sprays
The sun-birds flashed; alone at his green forge
Toiled the loud Coppersmith...."
The Light of Asia, p. 20.
1883.—"For the same reason mynas seek the tope, and the 'blue jay,' so-called, and the little green coppersmith hooting ventriloquistically."—Tribes on my Frontier, 154.
COPRAH, s. The dried kernel of the coco-nut, much used for the expression of its oil, and exported largely from the Malabar ports. The Portuguese probably took the word from the Malayāl. koppara, which is, however, apparently borrowed from the H. khoprā, of the same meaning. The {254a}latter is connected by some with khapnā, 'to dry up.' Shakespear however, more probably, connects khoprā, as well as khoprī, 'a skull, a shell,' and khappar, 'a skull,' with Skt. kharpara, having also the meaning of 'skull.' Compare with this a derivation which we have suggested (s.v.) as possible of coco from old Fr. and Span. coque, coco, 'a shell'; and with the slang use of coco there mentioned.
1563.—"And they also dry these cocos ... and these dried ones they call copra, and they carry them to Ormuz, and to the Balaghat."—Garcia, Colloq. f. 68b.
1578.—"The kernel of these cocos is dried in the sun, and is called copra.... From this same copra oil is made in presses, as we make it from olives."—Acosta, 104.
1584.—"Chopra, from Cochin and Malabar...."—Barret, in Hakl. ii. 413.
1598.—"The other Oyle is prest out of the dried Cocus, which is called Copra...."—Linschoten, 101. See also (1602), Couto, Dec. I. liv. iv. cap. 8; (1606) Gouvea, f. 62b; [(1610) Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. ii. 384 (reading kuppara for suppara);] (c. 1690) Rumphius, Herb. Amb. i. 7.
1727.—"That tree (coco-nut) produceth ... Copera, or the Kernels of the Nut dried, and out of these Kernels there is a very clear Oil exprest."—A. Hamilton, i. 307; [ed. 1744, i. 308].
1860.—"The ordinary estimate is that one thousand full-grown nuts of Jaffna will yield 525 pounds of Copra when dried, which in turn will produce 25 gallons of cocoa-nut oil."—Tennent, Ceylon, ii. 531.
1878.—It appears from Lady Brassey's Voyage in the Sunbeam (5th ed. 248) that this word is naturalised in Tahiti.
1883.—"I suppose there are but few English people outside the trade who know what copra is; I will therefore explain:—it is the white pith of the ripe cocoa-nut cut into strips and dried in the sun. This is brought to the trader (at New Britain) in baskets varying from 3 to 20 lbs. in weight; the payment ... was a thimbleful of beads for each pound of copra.... The nut is full of oil, and on reaching Europe the copra is crushed in mills, and the oil pressed from it ... half the oil sold as 'olive-oil' is really from the cocoa-nut."—Wilfred Powell, Wanderings in a Wild Country, p. 37.
CORAL-TREE, s. Erythrina indica, Lam., so called from the rich scarlet colour of its flowers.
[1860.—"There are ... two or three species of the genus Erythrina or Coral Tree. A small species of Erythrina, with reddish flowers, is famous in Buddhist mythology as the tree around which the Devas dance till they are intoxicated in {254b}Sudra's (? Indra's) heaven." Mason's Burmah, p. 531.—McMahon, Karens of the Golden Chersonese, p. 11.]
CORCOPALI, s. This is the name of a fruit described by Varthema, Acosta, and other old writers, the identity of which has been the subject of much conjecture. It is in reality the Garcinia indica, Choisy (N. O. Guttiferae), a tree of the Concan and Canara, which belongs to the same genus as the mangosteen, and as the tree affording the gamboge (see CAMBOJA) of commerce. It produces an agreeable, acid, purple fruit, which the Portuguese call brindões. From the seeds a fatty oil is drawn, known as kokun butter. The name in Malayāl. is koḍukka, and this possibly, with the addition of puli, 'acid,' gave rise to the name before us. It is stated in the English Cyclopaedia (Nat. Hist. s.v. Garcinia) that in Travancore the fruit is called by the natives gharka pulli, and in Ceylon goraka. Forbes Watson's 'List of Indian Productions' gives as synonyms of the Garcinia cambogia tree 'karka-puliemaram?' Tam.; 'kurka-pulie,' Mal.; and 'goraka-gass,' Ceyl.  The Cyclopædia also contains some interesting particulars regarding the uses in Ceylon of the goraka. But this Ceylon tree is a different species (G. Gambogia, Desrous). Notwithstanding its name it does not produce gamboge; its gum being insoluble in water. A figure of G. indica is given in Beddome's Flora Sylvatica, pl. lxxxv. [A full account of Kokam butter will be found in Watt, Econ. Dict. iii. 467 seqq.]
1510.—"Another fruit is found here fashioned like a melon, and it has divisions after that manner, and when it is cut, three or four grains which look like grapes, or birdcherries, are found inside. The tree which bears this fruit is of the height of a quince tree, and forms its leaves in the same manner. This fruit is called Corcopal; it is extremely good for eating, and excellent as a medicine."—Varthema (transl. modified from), Hak. Soc. 167.
1578.—"Carcapuli is a great tree, both lofty and thick; its fruit is in size and aspect like an orange without a rind, all divided in lobes...."—Acosta, Tractado, 357.
(This author gives a tolerable cut of the {255a}fruit; there is an inferior plate in Debry, iv. No. xvii.).
1672.—"The plant Carcapuli is peculiar to Malabar.... The ripe fruit is used as ordinary food; the unripe is cut in pieces and dried in the sun, and is then used all the year round to mix in dishes, along with tamarind, having an excellent flavour, of a tempered acidity, and of a very agreeable and refreshing odour. The form is nearly round, of the size of an apple, divided into eight equal lobes of a yellow colour, fragrant and beautiful, and with another little fruitlet attached to the extremity, which is perfectly round," &c., &c.—P. Vincenzo Maria, 356.
CORGE, COORGE, &c., s. A mercantile term for 'a score.' The word is in use among the trading Arabs and others, as well as in India. It is established in Portuguese use apparently, but the Portuguese word is almost certainly of Indian origin, and this is expressly asserted in some Portuguese Dictionaries (e.g. Lacerda's, Lisbon, 1871). Koṛī is used exactly in the same way by natives all over Upper India. Indeed, the vulgar there in numeration habitually say do koṛī, tīn koṛī, for 40, 60, and so forth. The first of our quotations shows the word in a form very closely allied to this, and explaining the transition. Wilson gives Telugu khorjam, "a bale or lot of 20 pieces, commonly called a corge." [The Madras Gloss. gives Can. korji, Tel. khorjam, as meaning either a measure of capacity, about 44 maunds, or a Madras town cloth measure of 20 pieces.] But, unless a root can be traced, this may easily be a corruption of the trade-word. Littré explains corge or courge as "Paquet de toile de coton des Indes"; and Marcel Devic says: "C'est vraisemblablement l'Arabe khordj"—which means a saddlebag, a portmanteau. Both the definition and the etymology seem to miss the essential meaning of corge, which is that of a score, and not that of a packet or bundle, unless by accident.
1510.—"If they be stuffs, they deal by curia, and in like manner if they be jewels. By a curia is understood twenty."—Varthema, 170.
1525.—"A corjá dos quotonyas grandes vale (250) tamgas."—Lembrança, das Cousas da India, 48.
1554.—"The nut and mace when gathered were bartered by the natives for common kinds of cloth, and for each korja of these ... they gave a bahar of mace ... and seven bahars of the nut."—Castanheda, vi. 8.
[1605-6.—"Note the cody or corge is a bondell or set nomber of 20 pieces."—Birdwood, First Letter Book, 80.]
1612.—"White callicos from twentie to fortie Royals the Corge (a Corge being twentie pieces), a great quantitie."—Capt. Saris, in Purchas, i. 347.
1612-13.—"They returning brought doune the Mustraes of everie sort, and the prices demanded for them per Corge."—Dounton, in Purchas, i. 299.
1615.—
| "6 pec. whit baftas of 16 and 17 Rs. | corg. |
| 6 pec. blew byrams, of 15 Rs. | corg. |
| 6 pec. red zelas, of 12 Rs. | corg." |
| Cocks's Diary, i. 75. |
1622.—Adam Denton ... admits that he made "90 corge of Pintadoes" in their house at Patani, but not at their charge.—Sainsbury, iii. 42.
1644.—"To the Friars of St. Francis for their regular yearly allowance, a cow every week, 24 candies of wheat, 15 sacks of rice girasol, 2 sacks of sugar, half a candy of sero (qu. sevo, 'tallow,' 'grease,'?) ½ candy of coco-nut oil, 6 maunds of butter, 4 corjas of cotton stuffs, and 25,920 rés for dispensary medicines (mezinhas de bottica)."—Bocarro, MS. f. 217.
c. 1670.—"The Chites ... which are made at Lahor ... are sold by Corges, every Corge consisting of twenty pieces...."—Tavernier, On the Commodities of the Domns. of the Great Mogul, &c., E.T. p. 58; [ed. Ball, ii. 5].
1747.—"Another Sett of Madrass Painters ... being examined regarding what Goods were Remaining in their hands upon the Loss of Madrass, they acknowledge to have had 15 Corge of Chints then under their Performance, and which they acquaint us is all safe ... but as they have lost all their Wax and Colours, they request an Advance of 300 Pagodas for the Purchase of more...."—Consns. Fort St. David, Aug. 13. MS. Records in India Office.
c. 1760.—"At Madras ... 1 gorge is 22 pieces."—Grose, i. 284.
" "No washerman to demand for 1 corge of pieces more than 7 pun of cowries."—In Long, 239.
1784.—In a Calcutta Lottery-list of prizes we find "55 corge of Pearls."—In Seton-Karr, i. 33.
[c. 1809.—"To one korj or 20 pieces of Tunzebs ... 50 rs."—Buchanan Hamilton, Eastern India, i. 398.]
1810.—"I recollect about 29 years back, when marching from Berhampore to Cawnpore with a detachment of European recruits, seeing several coarges (of sheep) bought for their use, at 3 and 3½ rupees! at the latter rate 6 sheep were purchased for a rupee ... five pence each."—Williamson, V. M. i. 293.
1813.—"Corge is 22 at Judda."—Milburn, i. 93.
CORINGA, n.p. Koringa; probably a corruption of Kalinga [see KLING]. [The Madras Gloss. gives the Tel. korangi, 'small cardamoms.'] The name of a seaport in Godāvari Dist. on the northern side of the Delta. ["The only place between Calcutta and Trincomalee where large vessels used to be docked."—Morris, Godavery Man., p. 40.]
CORLE, s. Singh. kōrale, a district.
1726.—"A Coraal is an overseer of a Corle or District...."—Valentijn, Names of Native Officers in the Villages of Ceylon, 1.
CORNAC, s. This word is used, by French writers especially, as an Indian word, and as the equivalent of Mahout (q.v.), or driver of the elephant. Littré defines: "Nom qu'on donne dans les Indes au conducteur d'un éléphant," &c., &c., adding: "Etym. Sanskrit karnikin, éléphant." "Dans les Indes" is happily vague, and the etymology worthless. Bluteau gives Cornâca, but no etymology. In Singhalese Kūrawa = 'Elephant Stud.' (It is not in the Singhalese Dict., but it is in the official Glossary of Terms, &c.), and our friend Dr. Rost suggests Kūrawa-nāyaka, 'Chief of the Kūrawa' as a probable origin. This is confirmed by the form Cournakea in Valentijn, and by another title which he gives as used for the head of the Elephant Stable at Matura, viz. Gaginaicke (Names, &c., p. 11), i.e. Gaji-nāyaka, from Gaja, 'an elephant.' [The N.E.D. remarks that some authorities give for the first part of the word Skt. kari, 'elephant.']
1672.—"There is a certain season of the year when the old elephant discharges an oil at the two sides of the head, and at that season they become like mad creatures, and often break the neck of their carnac or driver."—Baldaeus, Germ. ed. 422. (See MUST.)
1685.—"O cornaca q̃ estava de baixo delle tinha hum laço que metia em hũa das mãos ao bravo."—Ribeiro, f. 49b.
1712.—"The aforesaid author (P. Fr. Gaspar de S. Bernardino in his Itinerary), relates that in the said city (Goa), he saw three Elephants adorned with jewels, adoring the most Holy Sacrament at the Sè Gate on the Octave of Easter, on which day in India they make the procession of Corpus Domini, because of the calm weather. I doubt not that the Cornacas of these animals had taught them to perform these acts of apparent adoration. But at {256b}the same time there appears to be Religion and Piety innate in the Elephant."[84]—In Bluteau, s.v. Elephante.
1726.—"After that (at Mongeer) one goes over a great walled area, and again through a gate, which is adorned on either side with a great stone elephant with a Carnak on it."—Valentijn, v. 167.
" "Cournakeas, who stable the new-caught elephants, and tend them."—Valentijn, Names, &c., 5 (in vol. v.).
1727.—"As he was one Morning going to the River to be washed, with his Carnack or Rider on his Back, he chanced to put his Trunk in at the Taylor's Window."—A. Hamilton, ii. 110; [ed. 1744, ii. 109]. This is the only instance of English use that we know (except Mr. Carl Bock's; and he is not an Englishman, though his book is in English). It is the famous story of the Elephant's revenge on the Tailor.
[1831.—"With the same judgment an elephant will task his strength, without human direction. 'I have seen,' says M. D'Obsonville, 'two occupied in beating down a wall which their cornacs (keepers) had desired them to do....'"—Library of Entertaining Knowledge, Quadrupeds, ii. 157.]
1884.—"The carnac, or driver, was quite unable to control the beast, which roared and trumpeted with indignation."—C. Bock, Temples and Elephants, p. 22.
COROMANDEL, n.p. A name which has been long applied by Europeans to the Northern Tamil Country, or (more comprehensively) to the eastern coast of the Peninsula of India from Pt. Calimere northward to the mouth of the Kistna, sometimes to Orissa. It corresponds pretty nearly to the Maabar of Marco Polo and the Mahommedan writers of his age, though that is defined more accurately as from C. Comorin to Nellore.
Much that is fanciful has been written on the origin of this name. Tod makes it Kūrū-mandala, the Realm of the Kūrūs (Trans. R. As. Soc. iii. 157). Bp. Caldwell, in the first edition of his Dravidian Grammar, suggested that European traders might have taken this familiar name from that of Karumaṇal ('black sand'), the name of a small village on the coast north of Madras, which is habitually pronounced and written Coromandel by European residents at Madras. [The same suggestion was made earlier (see Wilks, Hist. Sketches, ed. 1869, i. 5, {257a}note)]. The learned author, in his second edition, has given up this suggestion, and has accepted that to which we adhere. But Mr. C. P. Brown, the eminent Telugu scholar, in repeating the former suggestion, ventures positively to assert: "The earliest Portuguese sailors pronounced this Coromandel, and called the whole coast by this name, which was unknown to the Hindus";[85] a passage containing in three lines several errors. Again, a writer in the Ind. Antiquary (i. 380) speaks of this supposed origin of the name as "pretty generally accepted," and proceeds to give an imaginative explanation of how it was propagated. These etymologies are founded on a corrupted form of the name, and the same remark would apply to Khara-maṇḍalam, the 'hot country,' which Bp. Caldwell mentions as one of the names given, in Telugu, to the eastern coast. Padre Paolino gives the name more accurately as Ciola (i.e. Chola) maṇḍalam, but his explanation of it as meaning the Country of Cholam (or juwārī—Sorghum vulgare, Pers.) is erroneous. An absurd etymology is given by Teixeira (Relacion de Harmuz, 28; 1610). He writes: "Choromãdel or Choro Bãdel, i.e. Rice Port, because of the great export of rice from thence." He apparently compounds H. chaul, chāwal, 'cooked rice' (!) and bandel, i.e. bandar (q.v.) 'harbour.' This is a very good type of the way etymologies are made by some people, and then confidently repeated.
The name is in fact Chôṛamaṇḍala, the Realm of Chôṛa; this being the Tamil form of the very ancient title of the Tamil Kings who reigned at Tanjore. This correct explanation of the name was already given by D'Anville (see Éclaircissemens, p. 117), and by W. Hamilton in 1820 (ii. 405), by Ritter, quoting him in 1836 (Erdkunde, vi. 296); by the late M. Reinaud in 1845 (Relation, &c., i. lxxxvi.); and by Sir Walter Elliot in 1869 (J. Ethnol. Soc. N.S. i. 117). And the name occurs in the forms Cholamaṇḍalam or Solamaṇḍalam on the great Temple inscription of Tanjore (11th century), and in an inscription of A.D. 1101 at a temple {257b}dedicated to Varāhasvāmi near the Seven Pagodas. We have other quite analogous names in early inscriptions, e.g. Īlamaṇḍalam (Ceylon), Cheramaṇḍalam, Tondaimaṇḍalam, &c.
Chola, as the name of a Tamil people and of their royal dynasty appears as Choḍa in one of Asoka's inscriptions, and in the Telugu inscriptions of the Chālukya dynasty. Nor can we doubt that the same name is represented by Σῶρα of Ptolemy who reigned at Ἀρκατοῦ (Arcot), Σώρ-ναξ who reigned at Ὄρθουρα (Wariūr), and the Σῶραι νομάδες who dwelt inland from the site of Madras.[86]
The word Soli, as applied to the Tanjore country, occurs in Marco Polo (Bk. iii. ch. 20), showing that Chola in some form was used in his day. Indeed Soli is used in Ceylon.[87] And although the Choromandel of Baldaeus and other Dutch writers is, as pronounced in their language, ambiguous or erroneous, Valentijn (1726) calls the country Sjola, and defines it as extending from Negapatam to Orissa, saying that it derived its name from a certain kingdom, and adding that mandalam is 'kingdom.'[88] So that this respectable writer had already distinctly indicated the true etymology of Coromandel.
Some old documents in Valentijn speak of the 'old city of Coromandel.' It is not absolutely clear what place was so called (probably by the Arabs in their fashion of calling a chief town by the name of the country), but the indications point almost certainly to Negapatam.[89]
The oldest European mention of the name is, we believe, in the Roteiro de Vasco da Gama, where it appears as Chomandarla. The short Italian narrative of Hieronymo da Sto. Stefano is, however, perhaps earlier still, and he curiously enough gives the name in exactly the modern form "Coromandel," though perhaps his C {258a}had originally a cedilla (Ramusio, i. f. 345v.). These instances suffice to show that the name was not given by the Portuguese. Da Gama and his companions knew the east coast only by hearsay, and no doubt derived their information chiefly from Mahommedan traders, through their "Moorish" interpreter. That the name was in familiar Mahommedan use at a later date may be seen from Rowlandson's Translation of the Tohfat-ul-Mujāhidīn, where we find it stated that the Franks had built fortresses "at Meelapoor (i.e. Mailapur or San Tomé) and Nagapatam, and other ports of Solmundul," showing that the name was used by them just as we use it (p. 153). Again (p. 154) this writer says that the Mahommedans of Malabar were cut off from extra-Indian trade, and limited "to the ports of Guzerat, the Concan, Solmondul, and the countries about Kaeel." At page 160 of the same work we have mention of "Coromandel and other parts," but we do not know how this is written in the original Arabic. Varthema (1510) has Ciormandel, i.e. Chormandel, but which Eden in his translation (1577, which probably affords the earliest English occurrence of the name) deforms into Cyromandel (f. 396b). [Albuquerque in his Cartas (see p. 135 for a letter of 1513) has Choromandell passim.] Barbosa has in the Portuguese edition of the Lisbon Academy, Charamandel; in the Span. MS. translated by Lord Stanley of Alderley, Cholmendel and Cholmender. D'Alboquerque's Commentaries (1557), Mendez Pinto (c. 1550) and Barros (1553) have Choromandel, and Garcia De Orta (1563) Charamandel. The ambiguity of the ch, soft in Portuguese and Spanish, but hard in Italian, seems to have led early to the corrupt form Coromandel, which we find in Parkes's Mendoza (1589), and Coromandyll, among other spellings, in the English version of Castanheda (1582). Cesare Federici has in the Italian (1587) Chiaramandel (probably pronounced soft in the Venetian manner), and the translation of 1599 has Coromandel. This form thenceforward generally prevails in English books, but not without exceptions. A Madras document of 1672 in Wheeler has Cormandell, and so have the early Bengal records in the India Office; Dampier (1689) has {258b}Coromondel (i. 509); Lockyer (1711) has "the Coast of Cormandel"; A. Hamilton (1727) Chormondel (i. 349); ed. 1744, i. 351; and a paper of about 1759, published by Dalrymple, has "Choromandel Coast" (Orient. Repert. i. 120-121). The poet Thomson has Cormandel:
"all that from the tract
Of woody mountains stretch'd through gorgeous Ind
Fall on Cormandel's Coast or Malabar."
Summer.
The Portuguese appear to have adhered in the main to the correcter form Choromandel: e.g. Archivio Port. Oriental, fasc. 3, p. 480, and passim. A Protestant Missionary Catechism, printed at Tranquebar in 1713 for the use of Portuguese schools in India has: "na costa dos Malabaros que se chama Cormandel." Bernier has "la côte de Koromandel" (Amst. ed. ii. 322). W. Hamilton says it is written Choramandel in the Madras Records until 1779, which is substantially correct. In the MS. "List of Persons in the Service of the Rt. Honble. E. I. Company in Fort St. George and other places on the Coast of Choromandell," preserved in the Indian Office, that spelling continues down to 1778. In that year it is changed to Coromandel. In the French translation of Ibn Batuta (iv. 142) we find Coromandel, but this is only the perverse and misleading manner of Frenchmen, who make Julius Caesar cross from "France" to "England." The word is Ma'bar in the original. [Alboquerque (Comm. Hak. Soc. i. 41) speaks of a violent squall under the name of vara de Coromandel.]
CORPORAL FORBES, s. A soldier's grimly jesting name for Cholera Morbus.
1829.—"We are all pretty well, only the regiment is sickly, and a great quantity are in hospital with the Corporal Forbes, which carries them away before they have time to die, or say who comes there."—In Shipp's Memoirs, ii. 218.
CORRAL, s. An enclosure as used in Ceylon for the capture of wild elephants, corresponding to the Keddah of Bengal. The word is Sp. corral, 'a court,' &c., Port. curral, 'a cattle-pen, a paddock.' The Americans have the same word, direct from the Spanish, {259a}in common use for a cattle-pen; and they have formed a verb 'to corral,' i.e. to enclose in a pen, to pen. The word kraal applied to native camps and villages at the Cape of Good Hope appears to be the same word introduced there by the Dutch. The word corral is explained by Bluteau: "A receptacle for any kind of cattle, with railings round it and no roof, in which respect it differs from Corte, which is a building with a roof." Also he states that the word is used especially in churches for septum nobilium feminarum, a pen for ladies.
c. 1270.—"When morning came, and I rose and had heard mass, I proclaimed a council to be held in the open space (corral) between my house and that of Montaragon."—Chron. of James of Aragon, tr. by Foster, i. 65.
1404.—"And this mosque and these chapels were very rich, and very finely wrought with gold and azure, and enamelled tiles (azulejos); and within there was a great corral, with trees and tanks of water."—Clavijo, § cv. Comp. Markham, 123.
1672.—"About Mature they catch the Elephants with Coraals" (Coralen, but sing. Coraal).—Baldaeus, Ceylon, 168.
1860.—In Emerson Tennent's Ceylon, Bk. VIII. ch. iv. the corral is fully described.
1880.—"A few hundred pounds expended in houses, and the erection of coralls in the neighbourhood of a permanent stream will form a basis of operations." (In Colorado.)—Fortnightly Rev., Jan., 125.
CORUNDUM, s. This is described by Dana under the species Sapphire, as including the grey and darker coloured opaque crystallised specimens. The word appears to be Indian. Shakespear gives Hind. kuranḍ, Dakh. kurund. Littré attributes the origin to Skt. kuruvinda, which Williams gives as the name of several plants, but also as 'a ruby.' In Telugu we have kuruvindam, and in Tamil kurundam for the substance in present question; the last is probably the direct origin of the term.
c. 1666.—"Cet emeri blanc se trouve par pierres dans un lieu particulier du Roiaume, et s'apelle Corind en langue Telengui."—Thevenot, v. 297.
COSMIN, n.p. This name is given by many travellers in the 16th and 17th centuries to a port on the western side of the Irawadi Delta, which must have been near Bassein, if not identical {259b}with it. Till quite recently this was all that could be said on the subject, but Prof. Forchhammer of Rangoon has now identified the name as a corruption of the classical name formerly borne by Bassein, viz. Kusima or Kusumanagara, a city founded about the beginning of the 5th century. Kusima-maṇḍala was the western province of the Delta Kingdom which we know as Pegu. The Burmese corrupted the name of Kusuma into Kusmein and Kothein, and Alompra after his conquest of Pegu in the middle of the 18th century, changed it to Bathein. So the facts are stated substantially by Forchhammer (see Notes on Early Hist. and Geog. of Br. Burma, No. 2, p. 12); though familiar and constant use of the word Persaim, which appears to be a form of Bassein, in the English writings of 1750-60, published by Dalrymple (Or. Repertory, passim), seems hardly consistent with this statement of the origin of Bassein. [Col. Temple (Ind. Ant. xxii. 19 seqq.; J. R. A. S. 1893, p. 885) disputes the above explanation. According to him the account of the change of name by Alompra is false history; the change from initial p to k is not isolated, and the word Bassein itself does not date beyond 1780.]
The last publication in which Cosmin appears is the "Draught of the River Irrawaddy or Irabatty," made in 1796, by Ensign T. Wood of the Bengal Engineers, which accompanies Symes's Account (London, 1800). This shows both Cosmin, and Persaim or Bassein, some 30 or 40 miles apart. But the former was probably taken from an older chart, and from no actual knowledge.
c. 1165.—"Two ships arrived at the harbour Kusuma in Aramana, and took in battle and laid waste country from the port Sapattota, over which Kurttipurapam was governor."—J.A.S. Bengal, vol. xli. pt. i. p. 198.
1516.—"Anrique Leme set sail right well equipped, with 60 Portuguese. And pursuing his voyage he captured a junk belonging to Pegu merchants, which he carried off towards Martaban, in order to send it with a cargo of rice to Malaca, and so make a great profit. But on reaching the coast he could not make the port of Martaban, and had to make the mouth of the River of Pegu.... Twenty leagues from the bar there is another city called Cosmim, in which merchants buy and sell and do business...."—Correa, ii. 474.
1545.—"... and 17 persons only out of 83 who were on board, being saved in the boat, made their way for 5 days along the coast; intending to put into the river of Cosmim, in the kingdom of Pegu, there to embark for India (i.e. Goa) in the king's lacker ship...."—F. M. Pinto, ch. cxlvii.
1554.—"Cosmym ... the currency is the same in this port that is used in Peguu, for this is a seaport by which one goes to Peguu."—A. Nunez, 38.
1566.—"In a few days they put into Cosmi, a port of Pegu, where presently they gave out the news, and then all the Talapoins came in haste, and the people who were dwelling there."—Couto, Dec. viii. cap. 13.
c. 1570.—"They go it vp the riuer in foure daies ... with the flood, to a City called Cosmin ... whither the Customer of Pegu comes to take the note or markes of euery man.... Nowe from Cosmin to the citie Pegu ... it is all plaine and a goodly Country, and in 8 dayes you may make your voyage."—Cæsar Frederike, in Hakl. ii. 366-7.
1585.—"So the 5th October we came to Cosmi, the territory of which, from side to side is full of woods, frequented by parrots, tigers, boars, apes, and other like creatures."—G. Balbi, f. 94.
1587.—"We entered the barre of Negrais, which is a braue barre, and hath 4 fadomes water where it hath least. Three dayes after we came to Cosmin, which is a very pretie towne, and standeth very pleasantly, very well furnished with all things ... the houses are all high built, set vpon great high postes ... for feare of the Tygers, which be very many."—R. Fitch, in Hakl. ii. 390.
1613.—"The Portuguese proceeded without putting down their arms to attack the Banha Dela's (position), and destroyed it entirely, burning his factory and compelling him to flee to the kingdom of Prom, so that there now remained in the whole realm of Pegu only the Banho of Cosmim (a place adjoining Negrais) calling himself vassal of the King of Arracan."—Bocarro, 132.
COSPETIR, n.p. This is a name which used greatly to perplex us on the 16th and 17th century maps of India, e.g. in Blaeu's Atlas (c. 1650), appearing generally to the west of the Ganges Delta. Considering how the geographical names of different ages and different regions sometimes get mixed up in old maps, we at one time tried to trace it to the Κασπάτυρος of Herodotus, which was certainly going far afield! The difficulty was solved by the sagacity of the deeply-lamented Prof. Blochmann, who has pointed out {260b}(J. As. Soc. Beng., xlii. pt. i. 224) that Cospetir represents the Bengali genitive of Gajpati, 'Lord of Elephants,' the traditional title of the Kings of Orissa. The title Gajpati was that one of the Four Great Kings who, according to Buddhist legend, divided the earth among them in times when there was no Chakravartti, or Universal Monarch (see CHUCKERBUTTY). Gajapati rules the South; Aśvapati (Lord of Horses) the North; Chhatrapati (Lord of the Umbrella) the West; Narapati (Lord of Men) the East. In later days these titles were variously appropriated (see Lassen, ii. 27 seq.). And Akbar, as will be seen below, adopted these names, with others of his own devising, for the suits of his pack of cards. There is a Raja Gajpati, a chief Zamindar of the country north of Patna, who is often mentioned in the wars of Akbar (see Elliot, v. 399 and passim, vi. 55, &c.) who is of course not to be confounded with the Orissa Prince.
c. 700 (?).—"In times when there was no Chakravartti King ... Chen-pu (Samba-dvīpa) was divided among four lords. The southern was the Lord of Elephants (Gajapati), &c...."—Introd. to Si-yu-ki (in Pèlerins Bouddh.), ii. lxxv.
1553.—"On the other or western side, over against the Kingdom of Orixa, the Bengalis (os Bengalos) hold the Kingdom of Cospetir, whose plains at the time of the risings of the Ganges are flooded after the fashion of those of the River Nile."—Barros, Dec. IV. ix. cap. I.
This and the next passage compared show that Barros was not aware that Cospetir and Gajpati were the same.
" "Of this realm of Bengala, and of other four realms its neighbours, the Gentoos and Moors of those parts say that God has given to each its peculiar gift: to Bengala infantry numberless; to the Kingdom of Orixa elephants; to that of Bisnaga men most skilful in the use of sword and shield; to the Kingdom of Dely multitudes of cities and towns; and to Cou a vast number of horses. And so naming them in this order they give them these other names, viz.: Espaty, Gaspaty, Noropaty, Buapaty, and Coapaty."—Barros, ibid. [These titles appear to be Aśvapati, "Lord of Horses"; Gajapati; Narapati, "Lord of Men"; Bhūpati, "Lord of Earth"; Gopati, "Lord of Cattle."]
c. 1590.—"His Majesty (Akbar) plays with the following suits of cards. 1st. Ashwapati, the lord of horses. The highest card represents a King on horseback, resembling the King of Dihli.... 2nd. Gajpati, the King whose power lies in the number of his elephants, as the ruler of Oṛisah.... 3rd. {261a}Narpati, a King whose power lies in his infantry, as is the case with the rulers of Bijápúr," &c.—Āīn, i. 306.
c. 1590.—"Orissa contains one hundred and twenty-nine brick forts, subject to the command of Gujeputty."—Ayeen (by Gladwin), ed. 1800, ii. 11; [ed. Jarrett, ii. 126].
1753.—"Herodote fait aussi mention d'une ville de Caspatyrus située vers le haut du fleuve Indus, ce que Mercator a cru correspondre à une denomination qui existe dans la Géographie moderne, sans altération marquée, savoir Cospetir. La notion qu'on a de Cospetir se tire de l'historien Portugais Jean de Barros ... la situation n'est plus celle qui convient à Caspatyrus."—D'Anville, 4 seq.
COSS, s. The most usual popular measure of distance in India, but like the mile in Europe, and indeed like the mile within the British Islands up to a recent date, varying much in different localities.
The Skt. word is krośa, which also is a measure of distance, but originally signified 'a call,' hence the distance at which a man's call can be heard.[90]
In the Pali vocabulary called Abhidhānappadīpīkā, which is of the 12th century, the word appears in the form koss; and nearly this, kos, is the ordinary Hindi. Kuroh is a Persian form of the word, which is often found in Mahommedan authors and in early travellers. These latter (English) often write course. It is a notable circumstance that, according to Wrangell, the Yakuts of N. Siberia reckon distance by kiosses (a word which, considering the Russian way of writing Turkish and Persian words, must be identical with kos). With them this measure is "indicated by the time necessary to cook a piece of meat." Kioss is = to about 5 versts, or 1⅔ miles, in hilly or marshy country, but on plain ground to 7 versts, or 2⅓ miles.[91]  The suggestion arises whether the form kos may not have come with the {261b}Mongols into India, and modified the previous krośa? But this is met by the existence of the word kos in Pali, as mentioned above.
In ancient Indian measurement, or estimation, 4 krośas went to the yojana. Sir H. M. Elliot deduced from distances in the route of the Chinese pilgrim Fa-hian that the yojana of his age was as nearly as possible 7 miles. Cunningham makes it 7½ or 8, Fergusson 6; but taking Elliot's estimate as a mean, the ancient kos would be 1¾ miles.
The kos as laid down in the Āīn [ed. Jarrett, iii. 414] was of 5000 gaz [see GUDGE]. The official decision of the British Government has assigned the length of Akbar's Ilāhī gaz as 33 inches, and this would make Akbar's kos = 2 m. 4 f. 183⅓ yards. Actual measurement of road distances between 5 pair of Akbar's kos-minārs,[92] near Delhi, gave a mean of 2 m. 4 f. 158 yards.
In the greater part of the Bengal Presidency the estimated kos is about 2 miles, but it is much less as you approach the N.W. In the upper part of the Doab, it is, with fair accuracy, 1¼ miles. In Bundelkhand again it is nearly 3 m. (Carnegy), or, according to Beames, even 4 m. [In Madras it is 2¼ m., and in Mysore the Sultānī kos is about 4 m.] Reference may be made on this subject to Mr. Thomas's ed. of Prinsep's Essays, ii. 129; and to Mr. Beames's ed. of Elliot's Glossary ("The Races of the N.-W. Provinces," ii. 194). The latter editor remarks that in several parts of the country there are two kinds of kos, a pakkā and a kachchā kos, a double system which pervades all the weights and measures of India; and which has prevailed also in many other parts of the world [see PUCKA].
c. 500.—"A gavyūtih (or league—see GOW) is two krosas."—Amarakosha, ii. 2, 18.
c. 600.—"The descendant of Kukulstha (i.e. Rāma) having gone half a krośa...."—Raghuvamsā, xiii. 79.
c. 1340.—"As for the mile it is called among the Indians al-Kurūh."—Ibn Batuta, iii. 95.
" "The Sultan gave orders to assign me a certain number of villages.... {262a}They were at a distance of 16 Kurūhs from Dihli."—Ibn Batuta, 388.
c. 1470.—"The Sultan sent ten viziers to encounter him at a distance of ten Kors (a kor is equal to 10 versts)...."—Ath. Nikitin, 26, in India in the XVth Cent.
" "From Chivil to Jooneer it is 20 Kors; from Jooneer to Beder 40; from Beder to Kulongher, 9 Kors; from Beder to Koluberg, 9."—Ibid. p. 12.
1528.—"I directed Chikmâk Beg, by a writing under the royal hand and seal, to measure the distance from Agra to Kâbul; that at every nine kos he should raise a minâr or turret, twelve gez in height, on the top of which he was to construct a pavilion...."—Baber, 393.
1537.—"... that the King of Portugal should hold for himself and all his descendants, from this day forth for aye, the Port of the City of Mangualor (in Guzerat) with all its privileges, revenues, and jurisdiction, with 2½ coucees round about...."—Treaty in S. Botelho, Tombo, 225.
c. 1550.—"Being all unmanned by their love of Raghoba, they had gone but two Kos by the close of day, then scanning land and water they halted."—Rāmāyana of Tulsī Dās, by Growse, 1878, p. 119.
[1604.—"At the rate of four coss (Coces) the league by the calculation of the Moors."—Couto, Dec. XII., Bk. I. cap. 4.]
1616.—"The three and twentieth arrived at Adsmeere, 219 Courses from Brampoore, 418 English miles, the Courses being longer than towards the Sea."—Sir T. Roe, in Purchas, i. 541; [Hak. Soc. i. 105].
" "The length of these forenamed Provinces is North-West to South-East, at the least 1000 Courses, every Indian Course being two English miles."—Terry, in Purchas, ii. 1468.
1623.—"The distance by road to the said city they called seven cos, or corū, which is all one; and every cos or corū is half a ferseng or league of Persia, so that it will answer to a little less than two Italian [English] miles."—P. della Valle, ii. 504; [Hak. Soc. i. 23].
1648.—"... which two Coss are equivalent to a Dutch mile."—Van Twist, Gen. Beschrijv. 2.
1666.—"... une cosse qui est la mesure des Indes pour l'espace des lieux, est environ d'une demi-lieue."—Thevenot, v. 12.
COSSACK, s. It is most probable that this Russian term for the military tribes of various descent on what was the S. frontier of the Empire has come originally from ḳazzāḳ, a word of obscure origin, but which from its adoption in Central Asia we may venture to call Turki. [Schuyler, Turkistan, i. 8.] It appears in Pavet de Courteille's Dict. Turk-Oriental as {262b}"vagabond; aventurier ...; onagre que ses compagnons chassent loin d'eux." But in India it became common in the sense of 'a predatory horseman' and freebooter.
1366.—"On receipt of this bad news I was much dispirited, and formed to myself three plans; 1st. That I should turn Cossack, and never pass 24 hours in one place, and plunder all that came to hand."—Mem. of Timūr, tr. by Stewart, p. 111.
[1609.—In a Letter from the Company to the factors at Bantam mention is made of one "Sophony Cosuke," or as he is also styled in the Court Minutes "the Russe."—Birdwood, First Letter Book, 288.]
1618.—"Cossacks (Cosacchi) ... you should know, is not the name of a nation, but of a collection of people of various countries and sects (though most of them Christians) who without wives or children, and without horses, acknowledge obedience to no prince; but dwelling far from cities in fastnesses among the woods or mountains, or rivers ... live by the booty of their swords ... employ themselves in perpetual inroads and cruisings by land and sea to the detriment of their nearest enemies, i.e. of the Turks and other Mahometans.... As I have heard from them, they promise themselves one day the capture of Constantinople, saying that Fate has reserved for them the liberation of that country, and that they have clear prophecies to that effect."—P. della Valle, i. 614 seq.
c. 1752.—"His kuzzaks ... were likewise appointed to surround and plunder the camp of the French...."—Hist. of Hydur Naik, tr. by Miles, p. 36.
1813.—"By the bye, how do Clarke's friends the Cossacks, who seem to be a band of Circassians and other Sarmatians, come to be called by a name which seems to belong to a great Toorkee tribe on the banks of the Jaxartes? Kuzzauk is used about Delhi for a highwayman. Can it be (as I have heard) an Arabic Mobaligh (exaggeration) from kizk (plunder) applied to all predatory tribes?"—Elphinstone, in Life, i. 264.
1819.—"Some dashing leader may ... gather a predatory band round his standard, which, composed as it would be of desperate adventurers, and commanded by a professional Kuzzauk, might still give us an infinite deal of trouble."—Ibid. ii. 68.
c. 1823.—"The term Cossack is used because it is the one by which the Mahrattas describe their own species of warfare. In their language the word Cossâkee (borrowed like many more of their terms from the Moghuls) means predatory."—Malcolm, Central India, 3d ed. i. 69.
COSSID, s. A courier or running messenger; Arab. ḳāṣid.
1682.—"I received letters by a Cossid from Mr. Johnson and Mr. Catchpoole, {263a}dated ye 18th instant from Muxoodavad, Bulchund's residence."—Hedges, Diary, Dec. 20th; [Hak. Soc. i. 58].
[1687.—"Haveing detained the Cossetts 4 or 5 Daies."—Ibid. ii. lxix.]
1690.—"Therefore December the 2d. in the evening, word was brought by the Broker to our President, of a Cosset's Arrival with Letters from Court to the Vacinavish, injoyning our immediate Release."—Ovington, 416.
1748.—"The Tappies [ḍâk runners] on the road to Ganjam being grown so exceedingly indolent that he has called them in, being convinced that our packets may be forwarded much faster by Cassids [mounted postmen[93]]."—In Long, p. 3.
c. 1759.—"For the performance of this arduous ... duty, which required so much care and caution, intelligencers of talent, and Kasids or messengers, who from head to foot were eyes and ears ... were stationed in every quarter of the country."—H. of Hydur Naik, 126.
1803.—"I wish that you would open a communication by means of cossids with the officer commanding a detachment of British troops in the fort of Songhur."—Wellington, ii. 159.
COSSIMBAZAR, n.p. Properly Kāsimbāzār. A town no longer existing, which closely adjoined the city of Murshīdābād, but preceded the latter. It was the site of one of the most important factories of the East India Company in their mercantile days, and was indeed a chief centre of all foreign trade in Bengal during the 17th century. ["In 1658 the Company established a factory at Cossimbazaar, 'Castle Bazaar.'"—(Birdwood Rep. on Old Rec. 219.)] Fryer (1673) calls it Castle Buzzar (p. 38).
1665.—"That evening I arrived at Casen-Basar, where I was welcom'd by Menheir Arnold van Wachtendonk, Director of all Holland-Factories in Bengal."—Tavernier, E.T., ii. 56; [ed. Ball, i. 131. Bernier (E.T. p. 141; ed. Constable, 440) has Kassem-Bazar; in the map, p. 454, Kasembazar.]
1676.—"Kassembasar, a Village in the Kingdom of Bengala, sends abroad every year two and twenty thousand Bales of Silk; every Bale weighing a hunder'd pound."—Tavernier, E.T. ii. 126; [Ball, ed. ii. 2].
[1678.—"Cassumbazar." See quotation under DADNY.]
COSSYA, n.p. More properly Kāsia, but now officially Khāsi; in the language of the people themselves {263b}kī-Kāsī, the first syllable being a prefix denoting the plural. The name of a hill people of Mongoloïd character, occupying the mountains immediately north of Silhet in Eastern Bengal. Many circumstances in relation to this people are of high interest, such as their practice, down to our own day, of erecting rude stone monuments of the menhir and dolmen kind, their law of succession in the female line, &c. Shillong, the modern seat of administration of the Province of Assam, and lying midway between the proper valley of Assam and the plain of Silhet, both of which are comprehended in that government, is in the Kāsia country, at a height of 4,900 feet above the sea. The Kāsias seem to be the people encountered near Silhet by Ibn Batuta as mentioned in the quotation:
c. 1346.—"The people of these mountains resemble Turks (i.e. Tartars), and are very strong labourers, so that a slave of their race is worth several of another nation."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 216. [See KHASYA.]
1780.—"The first thing that struck my observation on entering the arena was the similarity of the dresses worn by the different tribes of Cusseahs or native Tartars, all dressed and armed agreeable to the custom of the country or mountain from whence they came."—Hon. R. Lindsay, in Lives of the Lindsays, iii. 182.
1789.—"We understand the Cossyahs who inhabit the hills to the north-westward of Sylhet, have committed some very daring acts of violence."—In Seton-Karr, ii. 218.
1790.—"Agreed and ordered, that the Trade of Sylhet ... be declared entirely free to all the natives ... under the following Regulations:—1st. That they shall not supply the Cossyahs or other Hill-people with Arms, Ammunition or other articles of Military store...."—In Seton-Karr, ii. 31.
COSTUS. (See PUTCHOCK.)
COT, s. A light bedstead. There is a little difficulty about the true origin of this word. It is universal as a sea-term, and in the South of India. In Northern India its place has been very generally taken by charpoy (q.v.), and cot, though well understood, is not in such prevalent European use as it formerly was, except as applied to barrack furniture, and among soldiers and their families. Words with this last characteristic have very frequently been introduced {264a}from the south. There are, however, both in north and south, vernacular words which may have led to the adoption of the term cot in their respective localities. In the north we have H. khāṭ and khaṭwā, both used in this sense, the latter also in Sanskrit; in the south, Tam. and Malayāl. kaṭṭil, a form adopted by the Portuguese. The quotations show, however, no Anglo-Indian use of the word in any form but cot.
The question of origin is perhaps further perplexed by the use of quatre as a Spanish term in the West Indies (see Tom Cringle below). A Spanish lady tells us that catre, or catre de tigera ("scissors-cot") is applied to a bedstead with X-trestles. Catre is also common Portuguese for a wooden bedstead, and is found as such in a dictionary of 1611. These forms, however, we shall hold to be of Indian origin; unless it can be shown that they are older in Spain and Portugal than the 16th century. The form quatre has a curious analogy (probably accidental) to chārpāī.
1553.—"The Camarij (Zamorin) who was at the end of a house, placed on a bedstead, which they call catle...."—De Barros, Dec. I. liv. iv. cap. viii.
1557.—"The king commanded his men to furnish a tent on that spot, where the interview was to take place, all carpeted inside with very rich tapestries, and fitted with a sofa (catle) covered over with a silken cloth."—Alboquerque, Hak. Soc. ii. 204.
1566.—"The king was set on a catel (the name of a kind of field bedstead) covered with a cloth of white silk and gold...."—Damian de Goës, Chron. del R. Dom Emanuel, 48.
1600.—"He retired to the hospital of the sick and poor, and there had his cell, the walls of which were of coarse palm-mats. Inside there was a little table, and on it a crucifix of the wood of St. Thomé, covered with a cloth, and a breviary. There was also a catre of coir, with a stone for pillow; and this completes the inventory of the furniture of that house."—Lucena, V. do P. F. Xavier, 199.
[1613.—"Here hired a catele and 4 men to have carried me to Agra."—Danvers, Letters, i. 277.
[1634.—"The better sort sleepe upon cots, or Beds two foot high, matted or done with girth-web."—Sir T. Herbert, Trav. 149. N.E.D.]
1648.—"Indian bedsteads or Cadels."—Van Twist, 64.
1673.—"... where did sit the King in State on a Cott or Bed."—Fryer, 18.
1678.—"Upon being thus abused the said Serjeant Waterhouse commanded the corporal Edward Short, to tie Savage down on his cot."—In Wheeler, i. 106.
1685.—"I hired 12 stout fellows ... to carry me as far as Lar in my cott (Palankeen fashion)...."—Hedges, Diary, July 29; [Hak. Soc. i. 203].
1688.—"In the East Indies, at Fort St. George, also Men take their Cotts or little Field-Beds and put them into the Yards, and go to sleep in the Air."—Dampier's Voyages, ii. Pt. iii.
1690.—"... the Cot or Bed that was by ...."—Ovington, 211.
1711.—In Canton Price Current: "Bamboo Cotts for Servants each ... 1 mace."—Lockyer, 150.
1768-71.—"We here found the body of the deceased, lying upon a kadel, or couch."—Stavorinus, E.T., i. 442.
1794.—"Notice is hereby given that sealed proposals will be received ... for supplying ... the different General Hospitals with clothing, cotts, and bedding."—In Seton-Karr, ii. 115.
1824.—"I found three of the party insisted upon accompanying me the first stage, and had despatched their camp-cots."—Seely, Ellora, ch. iii.
c. 1830.—"After being ... furnished with food and raiment, we retired to our quatres, a most primitive sort of couch, with a piece of canvas stretched over it."—Tom Cringle's Log, ed. 1863, p. 100.
1872.—"As Badan was too poor to have a khāt, that is, a wooden bedstead with tester frames and mosquito curtains."—Govinda Samanta, i. 140.
COTAMALUCO, n.p. The title by which the Portuguese called the kings of the Golconda Dynasty, founded, like the other Mahommedan kingdoms of S. India, on the breaking up of the Bāhmani kingdom of the Deccan. It was a corruption of Ḳuṭb-ul-Mulk, the designation of the founder, retained as the style of the dynasty by Mahommedans as well as Portuguese (see extract from Akbar-nāma under IDALCAN).
1543.—"When Idalcan heard this reply he was in great fear ... and by night made his escape with some in whom he trusted (very few they were), and fled in secret, leaving his family and his wives, and went to the territories of the Izam Maluco (see NIZAMALUCO), his neighbour and friend ... and made matrimonial ties with the Izam Maluco, marrying his daughter, on which they arranged together; and there also came into this concert the Madremaluco, and Cotamaluco, and the {265a}Verido, who are other great princes, marching with Izam Maluco, and connected with him by marriage."—Correa, iv. 313 seq.
1553.—"The Captains of the Kingdom of the Decan added to their proper names other honorary ones which they affected more, one calling himself Iniza Malmulco, which is as much as to say 'Spear of the State,' Cota Malmulco, i.e. 'Fortress of the State,' Adelchan, 'Lord of Justice'; and we, corrupting these names, call them Nizamaluco, Cotamaluco, and Hidalchan."—Barros, IV. iv. 16; [and see Linschoten, Hak. Soc. i. 172]. These same explanations are given by Garcia de Orta (Colloquios, f. 36v), but of course the two first are quite wrong. Iniza Malmulco, as Barros here writes it, is Ar. An-Niẓām ul Mulk, "The Administrator of the State," not from P. neza, "a spear." Cotamaluco is Ḳuṭb-ul-Mulk, Ar. "the Pivot (or Pole-star) of the State," not from H. koṭā, "a fort."
COTIA, s. A fast-sailing vessel, with two masts and lateen sails, employed on the Malabar coast. Koṭṭiya is used in Malayāl.; [the Madras Gloss. writes the word kotyeh, and says that it comes from Ceylon;] yet the word hardly appears to be Indian. Bluteau however appears to give it as such (iii. 590).
1552.—"Among the little islands of Goa he embarked on board his fleet, which consisted of about a dozen cotias, taking with him a good company of soldiers."—Castanheda, iii. 25. See also pp. 47, 48, 228, &c.
c. 1580.—"In the gulf of Naguná ... I saw some Cutiás."—Primor e Honra, &c., f. 73.
1602.—"... embarking his property on certain Cotias, which he kept for that purpose."—Couto, Dec. IV. liv. i. cap. viii.
COTTA, s. H. kaṭṭhā. A small land-measure in use in Bengal and Bahar, being the twentieth part of a Bengal bīghā (see BEEGAH), and containing eighty square yards.
[1767.—"The measurement of land in Bengal is thus estimated: 16 Gundas make 1 Cotta; 20 Cottas, 1 Bega, or about 16,000 square feet."—Verelst, View of Bengal, 221, note.]
1784.—"... An upper roomed House standing upon about 5 cottahs of ground...."—Seton-Karr, i. 34.
COTTON, s. We do not seem to be able to carry this familiar word further back than the Ar. ḳuṭn, ḳuṭun, or ḳuṭunn, having the same meaning, whence Prov. coton, Port. cotão, It. cotone, Germ. Kattun. The Sp. keeps the Ar. article, algodon, whence old Fr. {265b}auqueton and hoqueton, a coat quilted with cotton. It is only by an odd coincidence that Pliny adduces a like-sounding word in his account of the arbores lanigerae: "ferunt mali cotonei amplitudine cucurbitas, quae maturitate ruptae ostendunt lanuginis pilas, ex quibus vestes pretioso linteo faciunt"—xii. 10 (21). [On the use and cultivation of cotton in the ancient world, see the authorities collected by Frazer, Pausanias, iii. 470, seqq.]
[1830.—"The dress of the great is on the Persian model; it consists of a shirt of kuttaun (a kind of linen of a wide texture, the best of which is imported from Aleppo, and the common sort from Persia)...."—Elphinstone's Caubul, i. 351.]
COTTON-TREE, SILK. (See SEEMUL.)
COTWAL, CUTWAUL, s. A police-officer; superintendent of police; native town magistrate. P. kotwāl, 'a seneschal, a commandant of a castle or fort.' This looks as if it had been first taken from an Indian word, koṭwālā; [Skt. koṭha- or koshṭha pālā 'castle-porter']; but some doubt arises whether it may not have been a Turki term. In Turki it is written kotāul, kotāwal, and seems to be regarded by both Vambéry and Pavet de Courteille as a genuine Turki word. V. defines it as: "Ketaul, garde de forteresse, chef de la garnison; nom d'un tribu d'Ozbegs;" P. "kotāwal, kotāwāl, gardien d'une citadelle." There are many Turki words of analogous form, as ḳarāwal, 'a vidette,' baḳāwal, 'a table-steward,' yasāwal, 'a chamberlain,' tangāwal, 'a patrol,' &c. In modern Bokhara Kataul is a title conferred on a person who superintends the Amir's buildings (Khanikoff, 241). On the whole it seems probable that the title was originally Turki, but was shaped by Indian associations.
[The duties of the Kotwāl, as head of the police, are exhaustively laid down in the Āīn (Jarrett, ii. 41). Amongst other rules: "He shall amputate the hand of any who is the pot-companion of an executioner, and the finger of such as converse with his family."] The office of Kotwāl in Western and Southern India, technically speaking, ceased about 1862, when the new police system (under Act, India, V. of 1861, and corresponding local {266a}Acts) was introduced. In Bengal the term has been long obsolete. [It is still in use in the N.W.P. to designate the chief police officer of one of the larger cities or cantonments.]
c. 1040.—"Bu-Ali Kotwal (of Ghazni) returned from the Khilj expedition, having adjusted matters."—Baihaki, in Elliot, ii. 151.
1406-7.—"They fortified the city of Astarābād, where Abul Leïth was placed with the rank of Kotwal."—Abdurrazāk, in Not. et Extr. xiv. 123.
1553.—"The message of the Camorij arriving, Vasco da Gama landed with a dozen followers, and was received by a noble person whom they called Catual...."—Barros, Dec. I. liv. iv. ch. viii.
1572.—
"Na praya hum regedor do Regno estava
Que na sua lingua Catual se chama."
Camões, vii. 44.
By Burton:
"There stood a Regent of the Realm ashore,
a chief, in native parlance 'Cat'ual' hight."
also the plural:
"Mas aquelles avaros Catuais
Que o Gentilico povo governavam."
Ibid. viii. 56.
1616.—Roe has Cutwall passim; [e.g. Hak. Soc. i. 90. &c.].
1727.—"Mr. Boucher being bred a Druggist in his youth, presently knew the Poison, and carried it to the Cautwaul or Sheriff, and showed it."—A. Hamilton, ii. 199. [In ed. 1744, ii. 199, cautwal].
1763.—"The Catwal is the judge and executor of justice in criminal cases."—Orme (ed. 1803), i. 26.
1812.—"... an officer retained from the former system, denominated cutwal, to whom the general police of the city and regulation of the market was entrusted."—Fifth Report, 44.
1847.—"The Kutwal ... seems to have done his duty resolutely and to the best of his judgment."—G. O. by Sir C. Napier, 121.
[1880.—"The son of the Raja's Kotwal was the prince's great friend."—Miss Stokes, Indian Fairy Tales, 209.]
COUNSILLEE, s. This is the title by which the natives in Calcutta generally designate English barristers. It is the same use as the Irish one of Counsellor, and a corruption of that word.
COUNTRY, adj. This term is used colloquially, and in trade, as an adjective to distinguish articles produced {266b}in India (generally with a sub-indication of disparagement), from such as are imported, and especially imported from Europe. Indeed Europe (q.v.) was, and still occasionally is, used as the contrary adjective. Thus, 'country harness' is opposed to 'Europe harness'; 'country-born' people are persons of European descent, but born in India; 'country horses' are Indian-bred in distinction from Arabs, Walers (q.v.), English horses, and even from 'stud-breds,' which are horses reared in India, but from foreign sires; 'country ships' are those which are owned in Indian ports, though often officered by Europeans; country bottled beer is beer imported from England in cask and bottled in India; ['country-wound' silk is that reeled in the crude native fashion]. The term, as well as the H. desī, of which country is a translation, is also especially used for things grown or made in India as substitutes for certain foreign articles. Thus the Cicca disticha in Bombay gardens is called 'Country gooseberry'; Convolvulus batatas, or sweet potato, is sometimes called the 'country potato.' It was, equally with our quotidian root which has stolen its name, a foreigner in India, but was introduced and familiarised at a much earlier date. Thus again desī bādām, or 'country almond,' is applied in Bengal to the nut of the Terminalia Catappa. On desī, which is applied, among other things, to silk, the great Ritter (dormitans Homerus) makes the odd remark that desī is just Seide reversed! But it would be equally apposite to remark that Trigon-ometry is just Country-ometry reversed!
Possibly the idiom may have been taken up from the Portuguese, who also use it, e.g. 'açafrao da terra,' 'country saffron,' i.e. safflower, otherwise called bastard saffron, the term being sometimes applied to turmeric. But the source of the idiom is general, as the use of desī shows. Moreover the Arabic baladī, having the same literal meaning, is applied in a manner strictly analogous, including the note of disparagement, insomuch that it has been naturalised in Spanish as indicating 'of little or no value.' Illustrations of the mercantile use of beledi (i.e. baladī) will be found in a note to Marco Polo, 2nd ed. ii. 370. For the Spanish use we may quote the Dict. {267a}of Cobarruvias (1611): "Baladi, the thing which is produced at less cost, and is of small duration and profit." (See also Dozy and Engelmann, 232 seq.)
1516.—"Beledyn ginger grows at a distance of two or three leagues all round the city of Calicut.... In Bengal there is also much ginger of the country (Gengivre Beledi)."—Barbosa, 221 seq.
[1530.—"I at once sent some of these country men (homeens valadis) to the Thanas."—Alboquerque, Cartas, p. 148.]
1582.—"The Nayres maye not take anye Countrie women, and they also doe not marrie."—Castañeda, (by N. L.), f. 36.
[1608.—"The Country here are at dissension among themselves."—Danvers, Letters, i. 20.]
1619.—"The twelfth in the morning Master Methwold came from Messalipatam in one of the Countrey Boats."—Pring, in Purchas, i. 638.
1685.—"The inhabitants of the Gentoo Town, all in arms, bringing with them also elephants, kettle-drums, and all the Country music."—Wheeler, i. 140.
1747.—"It is resolved and ordered that a Serjeant with two Troopers and a Party of Country Horse, to be sent to Markisnah Puram to patroll...."—Ft. St. David Council of War, Dec. 25. MS. Records in India Office.
1752.—"Captain Clive did not despair ... and at ten at night sent one Shawlum, a serjeant who spoke the country languages, with a few sepoys to reconnoitre."—Orme, i. 211 (ed. 1803).
1769.—"I supped last night at a Country Captain's; where I saw for the first time a specimen of the Indian taste."—Teignmouth, Mem. i. 15.
1775.—"The Moors in what is called Country ships in East India, have also their chearing songs; at work in hoisting, or in their boats a rowing."—Forrest, V. to N. Guinea, 305.
1793.—"The jolting springs of country-made carriages, or the grunts of country-made carriers, commonly called palankeen-boys."—Hugh Boyd, 146.
1809.—"The Rajah had a drawing of it made for me, on a scale, by a country Draftsman of great merit."—Ld. Valentia, i. 356.
" "... split country peas...."—Maria Graham, 25.
1817.—"Since the conquest (of Java) a very extensive trade has been carried on by the English in country ships."—Raffles, H. of Java, i. 210.
[1882.—"There was a country-born European living in a room in the bungalow."—Sanderson, Thirteen Years, 256.]
COUNTRY-CAPTAIN, s. This is in Bengal the name of a peculiar dry {267b}kind of curry, often served as a breakfast dish. We can only conjecture that it was a favourite dish at the table of the skippers of 'country ships,' who were themselves called 'country captains,' as in our first quotation. In Madras the term is applied to a spatchcock dressed with onions and curry stuff, which is probably the original form. [Riddell says: "Country-captain.—Cut a fowl in pieces; shred an onion small and fry it brown in butter; sprinkle the fowl with fine salt and curry powder and fry it brown; then put it into a stewpan with a pint of soup; stew it slowly down to a half and serve it with rice" (Ind. Dom. Econ. 176).]
1792.—"But now, Sir, a Country Captain is not to be known from an ordinary man, or a Christian, by any certain mark whatever."—Madras Courier, April 26.
c. 1825.—"The local name for their business was the 'Country Trade,' the ships were 'Country Ships,' and the masters of them 'Country Captains.' Some of my readers may recall a dish which was often placed before us when dining on board these vessels at Whampoa, viz. 'Country Captain.'—The Fankwae at Canton (1882), p. 33.
COURSE, s. The drive usually frequented by European gentlemen and ladies at an Indian station.
1853.—"It was curious to Oakfield to be back on the Ferozepore course, after a six months' interval, which seemed like years. How much had happened in these six months!"—Oakfield, ii. 124.
COURTALLUM, n.p. The name of a town in Tinnevelly [used as an European sanatorium (Stuart, Man. of Tinnevelly, 96)]; written in vernacular Kuttālam. We do not know its etymology. [The Madras Gloss. gives Trikūtāchala, Skt., the 'Three-peaked Mountain.']
COVENANTED SERVANTS. This term is specially applied to the regular Civil Service of India, whose members used to enter into a formal covenant with the East India Company, and do now with the Secretary of State for India. Many other classes of servants now go out to India under a variety of contracts and covenants, but the term in question continues to be appropriated as before. [See CIVILIAN.]
1757.—"There being a great scarcity of covenanted servants in Calcutta, we have entertained Mr. Hewitt as a monthly writer ... and beg to recommend him to be covenanted upon this Establishment."—Letter in Long, 112.
COVID, s. Formerly in use as the name of a measure, varying much locally in value, in European settlements not only in India but in China, &c. The word is a corruption, probably an Indo-Portuguese form, of the Port. covado, a cubit or ell.
[1612.—"A long covad within 1 inch of our English yard, wherewith they measure cloth, the short covad is for silks, and containeth just as the Portuguese covad."—Danvers, Letters, i. 241.
[1616.—"Clothes of gould: ... were worth 100 rupies a cobde."—Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. i. 203.
[1617.—Cloth "here affoorded at a rupie and two in a cobdee vnder ours."—Ibid. ii. 409.]
1672.—"Measures of Surat are only two; the Lesser and the Greater Coveld [probably misprint for Coveed], the former of 27 inches English, the latter of 36 inches English."—Fryer, 206.
1720.—"Item. I leave 200 pagodas for a tomb to be erected in the burial place in form as follows. Four large pillars, each to be six covids high, and six covids distance one from the other; the top to be arched, and on each pillar a cherubim; and on the top of the arch the effigy of Justice."—Testament of Charles Davers, Merchant, in Wheeler, ii. 338.
[1726.—"Cobidos." See quotation under LOONGHEE.]
c. 1760.—According to Grose the covid at Surat was 1 yard English [the greater coveed of Fryer], at Madras ½ a yard; but he says also: "At Bengal the same as at Surat and Madras."
1794.—"To be sold, on very reasonable terms, About 3000 covits of 2-inch Calicut Planks."—Bombay Courier, July 19.
The measure has long been forgotten under this name in Bengal, though used under the native name hāth. From Milburn (i. 334, 341, &c.) it seems to have survived on the West Coast in the early part of last century, and possibly may still linger.
[1612.—"½ corge of pintados of 4 hastas the piece."—Danvers, Letters, i. 232.]
COVIL, s. Tam. kō-v-il, 'God-house,' a Hindu temple; and also (in Malabar) a palace, [also in the form Colghum, for Kovilagam]. In colloquial {268b}use in S. India and Ceylon. In S. India it is used, especially among the French, for 'a church'; also among the uneducated English.
[1796.—"I promise to use my utmost endeavours to procure for this Raja the colghum of Pychi for his residence...."—Treaty, in Logan, Malabar, iii. 254.]
COWCOLLY, n.p. The name of a well-known lighthouse and landmark at the entrance of the Hoogly, in Midnapur District. Properly, according to Hunter, Geonkhālī. In Thornton's English Pilot (pt. iii. p. 7, of 1711) this place is called Cockoly.
COW-ITCH, s. The irritating hairs on the pod of the common Indian climbing herb Mucuna pruriens, D.C., N. O. Leguminosae, and the plant itself. Both pods and roots are used in native practice. The name is doubtless the Hind. kewānch (Skt. kapi-kachchhu), modified in Hobson-Jobson fashion, by the 'striving after meaning.'
[1773.—"Cow-itch. This is the down found on the outside of a pod, which is about the size and thickness of a man's little finger, and of the shape of an Italian S."—Ives, 494.]
COWLE, s. A lease, or grant in writing; a safe-conduct, amnesty, or in fact any written engagement. The Emperor Sigismund gave Cowle to John Huss—and broke it. The word is Ar. ḳaul, 'word, promise, agreement,' and it has become technical in the Indian vernaculars, owing to the prevalence of Mahommedan Law.
[1611.—"We desired to have a cowl of the Shahbunder to send some persons aland."—Danvers, Letters, i. 133.
[1613.—"Procured a cowl for such ships as should come."—Foster, Letters, ii. 17.]
1680.—"A Cowle granted by the Right Worshipful Streynsham Master, Esq., Agent and Governour for affairs of the Honorable East India Company in ffort St. George at Chinapatnam, by and with the advice of his Councell to all the Pegu Ruby Marchants...."—Fort St. George Cons. Feb. 23, in Notes and Extracts, No. iii. p. 10.
1688.—"The President has by private correspondence procured a Cowle for renting the Town and customs of S. Thomé."—Wheeler, i. 176.
1758.—"The Nawaub ... having mounted some large guns on that hill ... sent to the Killadar a Kowl-nama, or a summons and terms for his surrender."—H. of Hydur Naik, 123.
1780.—"This Caoul was confirmed by another King of Gingy ... of the Bramin Caste."—Dunn, New Directory, 140.
Sir A. Wellesley often uses the word in his Indian letters. Thus:
1800.—"One tandah of brinjarries ... has sent to me for cowle...."—Wellington Desp. (ed. 1837), i. 59.
1804.—"On my arrival in the neighbourhood of the pettah I offered cowle to the inhabitants."—Ibid. ii. 193.
COWRY, s. Hind. kauṛī (kauḍī), Mahr. kavaḍī, Skt. kaparda, kapardika. The small white shell, Cypraea moneta, current as money extensively in parts of S. Asia and of Africa.
By far the most ancient mention of shell currency comes from Chinese literature. It is mentioned in the famous "Tribute of Yü" (or Yü-Kung); in the Shu-King (about the 14th cent. B.C.); and in the "Book of Poetry" (Shi-King), in an ode of the 10th cent. B.C. The Chinese seem to have adopted the use from the aborigines in the East and South; and they extended the system to tortoise-shell, and to other shells, the cowry remaining the unit. In 338 B.C., the King of Tsin, the supply of shells failing, suppressed the cowry currency, and issued copper coin, already adopted in other States of China. The usurper Wang Mang, who ruled A.D. 9-23, tried to revive the old systems, and issued rules instituting, in addition to the metallic money, ten classes of tortoise-shell and five of smaller shells, the value of all based on the cowry, which was worth 3 cash.[94] [Cowries were part of the tribute paid by the aborigines of Puanit to Metesouphis I. (Maspero, Dawn of Civ., p. 427).]
The currency of cowries in India does not seem to be alluded to by any Greek or Latin author. It is mentioned by Maṣ'ūdī (c. 943), and their use for small change in the Indo-Chinese countries is repeatedly spoken of by Marco Polo, who calls them pourcelaines, the name by which this kind of shell was known in Italy (porcellane) and France. When the Mahommedans conquered Bengal, early in the 13th century, they found the ordinary currency composed exclusively of cowries, and in some remote districts {269b}this continued to the beginning of the last century. Thus, up to 1801, the whole revenue of the Silhet District, amounting then to Rs. 250,000, was collected in these shells, but by 1813 the whole was realised in specie. Interesting details in connection with this subject are given by the Hon. Robert Lindsay, who was one of the early Collectors of Silhet (Lives of the Lindsays, iii. 170).
The Sanskrit vocabulary called Trikāṇḍaśesha (iii. 3, 206) makes 20 kapardika (or kauṛīs) = ¼ paṇa; and this value seems to have been pretty constant. The cowry table given by Mr. Lindsay at Silhet, circa 1778, exactly agrees with that given by Milburn as in Calcutta use in the beginning of last century, and up to 1854 or thereabouts it continued to be the same:
| 4 | kauṛis | = 1 ganda |
| 20 | gandas | = 1 paṇ |
| 4 | paṇ | = 1 āna |
| 4 | ānas | = 1 kāhan, or about ¼ rupee. |
This gives about 5120 cowries to the Rupee. We have not met with any denomination of currency in actual use below the cowry, but it will be seen that, in a quotation from Mrs. Parkes, two such are indicated. It is, however, Hindu idiosyncracy to indulge in imaginary submultiples as well as imaginary multiples. (See a parallel under LACK).
In Bastar, a secluded inland State between Orissa and the Godavery, in 1870, the following was the prevailing table of cowry currency, according to Sir W. Hunter's Gazetteer:
| 28 | kauṛis | = 1 borī |
| 12 | boris | = 1 dugānī |
| 12 | dugānīs | = 1 Rupee, i.e. 2880 cowries. |
Here we may remark that both the paṇ in Bengal, and the dugānī in this secluded Bastar, were originally the names of pieces of money, though now in the respective localities they represent only certain quantities of cowries. (For paṇ, see under FANAM; and as regards dugānī, see Thomas's Patan Kings of Delhī, pp. 218 seq.). ["Up to 1865 bee-a or cowries were in use in Siam; the value of these was so small that from 800 to 1500 went to a fuang (7½ cents.)."—Hallett, A Thousand Miles on an Elephant, p. 164. Mr. Gray has an interesting note on cowries in {270a}his ed. of Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 236 seqq.]
Cowries were at one time imported into England in considerable quantities for use in the African slave-trade. "For this purpose," says Milburn, "they should be small, clean, and white, with a beautiful gloss" (i. 273). The duty on this importation was £53, 16s. 3d. per cent. on the sale value, with ⅓ added for war-tax. In 1803, 1418 cwt. were sold at the E. I. auctions, fetching £3,626; but after that few were sold at all. In the height of slave-trade, the great mart for cowries was at Amsterdam, where there were spacious warehouses for them (see the Voyage, &c., quoted 1747).
c. A.D. 943.—"Trading affairs are carried on with cowries (al-wada'), which are the money of the country."—Maṣ'ūdī, i. 385.
c. 1020.—"These isles are divided into two classes, according to the nature of their chief products. The one are called Dewa-Kauḍha, 'the Isles of the Cowries,' because of the Cowries that they collect on the branches of coco-trees planted in the sea."—Albirūnī, in J. As., Ser. IV. tom. iv. 266.
c. 1240.—"It has been narrated on this wise that as in that country (Bengal), the kauṛi [shell] is current in place of silver, the least gift he used to bestow was a lak of kauṛis. The Almighty mitigate his punishment [in hell]!"—Ṭabaḳāt-i-Nāṣiri, by Raverty, 555 seq.
c. 1350.—"The money of the Islanders (of the Maldives) consists of cowries (al-wada'). They so style creatures which they collect in the sea, and bury in holes dug on the shore. The flesh wastes away, and only a white shell remains. 100 of these shells are called siyāh, and 700 fāl; 12,000 they call kutta; and 100,000 bustū. Bargains are made with these cowries at the rate of 4 bustū for a gold dīnār. [This would be about 40,000 for a rupee.] Sometimes the rate falls, and 12 bustū are exchanged for a gold dīnār. The islanders barter them to the people of Bengal for rice, for they also form the currency in use in that country.... These cowries serve also for barter with the negroes in their own land. I have seen them sold at Mālī and Gūgū [on the Niger] at the rate of 1150 for a gold dīnār."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 122.
c. 1420.—"A man on whom I could rely assured me that he saw the people of one of the chief towns of the Said employ as currency, in the purchase of low-priced articles of provision, kaudas, which in Egypt are known as wada, just as people in Egypt use fals."—Makrizi, S. de Sacy, Chrest. Arabe, 2nd ed. i. 252.
[1510.—Mr. Whiteway writes: "In an abstract of an unpublished letter of Alboquerque which was written about 1510, and abstracted in the following year, occurs this sentence:—'The merchandize which they {270b}carry from Cairo consists of snails (caracoes) of the Twelve Thousand Islands.' He is speaking of the internal caravan-trade of Africa, and these snails must be cowries."]
1554.—At the Maldives: "Cowries 12,000 make one cota; and 4½ cotas of average size weigh one quintal; the big ones something more."—A. Nunes, 35.
 7.
1561.—"Which vessels (Gundras, or palm-wood boats from the Maldives) come loaded with coir and caury, which are certain little white shells found among the Islands in such abundance that whole vessels are laden with them, and which make a great trade in Bengala, where they are current as money."—Correa, I. i. 341.
1586.—"In Bengal are current those little shells that are found in the islands of Maldiva, called here courim, and in Portugal Buzio."—Sassetti, in De Gubernatis, 205.
[c. 1590.—"Four kos from this is a well, into which if the bone of any animal be thrown it petrifies, like a cowrie shell, only smaller."—Āīn, ed. Jarrett, ii. 229.]
c. 1610.—"Les marchandises qu'ils portent le plus souvent sont ces petites coquilles des Maldives, dont ils chargent tous les ans grand nombre de nauires. Ceux des Maldives les appellent Boly, et les autres Indiens Caury."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 517; see also p. 165; [Hak. Soc. i. 438; also comp. i. 78, 157, 228, 236, 240, 250, 299; Boly is Singh. bella, a cowry].
c. 1664.—"... lastly, it (Indostan) wants those little Sea-cockles of the Maldives, which serve for common Coyne in Bengale, and in some other places...."—Bernier, E.T. 63; [ed. Constable, 204].
[c. 1665.—"The other small money consists of shells called Cowries, which have the edges inverted, and they are not found in any other part of the world save only the Maldive Islands.... Close to the sea they give up to 80 for the paisa, and that diminishes as you leave the sea, on account of carriage; so that at Agra you receive but 50 or 55 for the paisa."—Tavernier, ed. Ball, i. 27 seq.]
1672.—"Cowreys, like sea-shells, come from Siam, and the Philippine Islands."—Fryer, 86.
1683.—"The Ship Britannia—from the Maldiva Islands, arrived before the Factory ... at their first going ashore, their first salutation from the natives was a shower of Stones and Arrows, whereby 6 of their Men were wounded, which made them immediately return on board, and by ye mouths of their Guns forced them to a complyance, and permission to load what Cowries they would at Markett Price; so that in a few days time they sett sayle from thence for Surrat with above 60 Tunn of Cowryes."—Hedges, Diary, July 1; [Hak. Soc. i. 96].
1705.—"... Coris, qui sont des petits coquillages."—Luillier, 245.
1727.—"The Couries are caught by putting Branches of Cocoa-nut trees with their Leaves on, into the Sea, and in five or six Months the little Shell-fish stick to those leaves in Clusters, which they take off, and digging Pits in the Sand, put them in and cover them up, and leave them two or three Years in the Pit, that the Fish may putrefy, and then they take them out of the Pit, and barter them for Rice, Butter, and Cloth, which Shipping bring from Ballasore in Orisa near Bengal, in which Countries Couries pass for Money from 2500 to 3000 for a Rupee, or half a Crown English."—A. Hamilton [ed. 1744], i. 349.
1747.—"Formerly 12,000 weight of these cowries would purchase a cargo of five or six hundred Negroes: but those lucrative times are now no more; and the Negroes now set such a value on their countrymen, that there is no such thing as having a cargo under 12 or 14 tuns of cowries.
"As payments of this kind of specie are attended with some intricacy, the Negroes, though so simple as to sell one another for shells, have contrived a kind of copper vessel, holding exactly 108 pounds, which is a great dispatch to business."—A Voyage to the Id. of Ceylon on board a Dutch Indiaman in the year 1747, &c. &c. Written by a Dutch Gentleman. Transl. &c. London, 1754, pp. 21 seq.
1749.—"The only Trade they deal in is Cowries (or Blackamoor's Teeth as they call them in England), the King's sole Property, which the sea throws up in great abundance."—The Boscawen's Voyage to Bombay, by Philalethes (1750), p. 52.
1753.—"Our Hon'ble Masters having expressly directed ten tons of couries to be laden in each of their ships homeward bound, we ordered the Secretary to prepare a protest against Captain Cooke for refusing to take any on board the Admiral Vernon."—In Long, 41.
1762.—"The trade of the salt and butty wood in the Chucla of Sillett, has for a long time been granted to me, in consideration of which I pay a yearly rent of 40,000 caouns[95] of cowries...."—Native Letter to Nabob, in Van Sittart, i. 203.
1770.—"... millions of millions of lires, pounds, rupees, and cowries."—H. Walpole's Letters, v. 421.
1780.—"We are informed that a Copper Coinage is now on the Carpet ... it will be of the greatest utility to the Public, and will totally abolish the trade of Cowries, which for a long time has formed so extensive a field for deception and fraud. A greviance (sic) the poor has long groan'd under."—Hicky's Bengal Gazette, April 29.
1786.—In a Calcutta Gazette the rates of payment at Pultah Ferry are stated in Rupees, Annas, Puns, and Gundas (i.e. of Cowries, see above).—In Seton-Karr, i. 140.
1791.—"Notice is hereby given, that on or before the 1st November next, sealed proposals of Contract for the remittance in Dacca of the cowries received on account of the Revenues of Sylhet ... will be received at the Office of the Secretary to the Board of Revenue.... All persons who may deliver in proposals, are desired to specify the rates per cowan or cowans of cowries (see kāhan above) at which they will engage to make the remittance proposed."—In Seton-Karr, ii. 53.
1803.—"I will continue to pay, without demur, to the said Government, as my annual peshkush or tribute, 12,000 kahuns of cowries in three instalments, as specified herein below."—Treaty Engagement by the Rajah of Kitta Keonghur, a Tributary subordinate to Cuttack, 16th December, 1803.
1833.—"May 1st. Notice was given in the Supreme Court that Messrs. Gould and Campbell would pay a dividend at the rate of nine gundahs, one cowrie, one cawg, and eighteen teel, in every sicca rupee, on and after the 1st of June. A curious dividend, not quite a farthing in the rupee!"[96]—The Pilgrim (by Fanny Parkes), i. 273.
c. 1865.—"Strip him stark naked, and cast him upon a desert island, and he would manage to play heads and tails for cowries with the sea-gulls, if land-gulls were not to be found."—Zelda's Fortune, ch. iv.
1883.—"Johnnie found a lovely cowrie two inches long, like mottled tortoise-shell, walking on a rock, with its red fleshy body covering half its shell, like a jacket trimmed with chenille fringe."—Letter (of Miss North's) from Seychelle Islands, in Pall Mall Gazette, Jan. 21, 1884.
COWRY, s. Used in S. India for the yoke to carry burdens, the Bangy (q.v.) of N. India. In Tamil, &c., kāvaḍi, [kāvu, 'to carry on the shoulder,' tadi, 'pole'].
[1853.—"Cowrie baskets ... a circular ratan basket, with a conical top, covered with green oil-cloth, and secured by a brass padlock."—Campbell, Old Forest Ranger, 3rd ed. 178.]
COWTAILS, s. The name formerly in ordinary use for what we now more euphoniously call chowries (q.v.).
c. 1664.—"These Elephants have then also ... certain Cow-tails of the great Tibet, white and very dear, hanging at their {272a}Ears like great Mustachoes...."—Bernier, E.T., 84; [ed. Constable, 261].
1665.—"Now that this King of the Great Tibet knows, that Aureng-Zebe is at Kachemire, and threatens him with War, he hath sent to him an Ambassador, with Presents of the Countrey, as Chrystal, and those dear White Cow-tails...."—Ibid. 135; [ed. Constable, 422].
1774.—"To send one or more pair of the cattle which bear what are called cowtails."—Warren Hastings, Instruction to Bogle, in Markham's Tibet, 8.
" "There are plenty of cowtailed cows (!), but the weather is too hot for them to go to Bengal."—Bogle, ibid. 52. 'Cowtailed cows' seem analogous to the 'dismounted mounted infantry' of whom we have recently heard in the Suakin campaign.
1784.—In a 'List of Imports probable from Tibet,' we find "Cow Tails."—In Seton-Karr, i. 4.
" "From the northern mountains are imported a number of articles of commerce.... The principal ... are ... musk, cowtails, honey...."—Gladwin's Ayeen Akbery (ed. 1800) ii. 17; [ed. Jarrett, ii. 172].
CRAN, s. Pers. krān. A modern Persian silver coin, worth about a franc, being the tenth part of a Tomaun.
1880.—"A couple of mules came clattering into the courtyard, driven by one muleteer. Each mule carried 2 heavy sacks ... which jingled pleasantly as they were placed on the ground. The sacks were afterwards opened in my presence, and contained no less than 35,000 silver krans. The one muleteer without guard had brought them across the mountains, 170 miles or so, from Tehran."—MS. Letter from Col. Bateman-Champain, R.E.
[1891.—"I on my arrival took my servants' accounts in tomauns and kerans, afterwards in kerans and shaies, and at last in kerans and puls."—Wills, Land of the Lion, 63.]
CRANCHEE, s. Beng. H. karānchī. This appears peculiar to Calcutta, [but the word is also used in N. India]. A kind of ricketty and sordid carriage resembling, as Bp. Heber says below, the skeleton of an old English hackney-coach of 1800-35 (which no doubt was the model), drawn by wretched ponies, harnessed with rope, and standing for native hire in various parts of the city.
1823.—"... a considerable number of 'caranchies,' or native carriages, each drawn by two horses, and looking like the skeletons of hackney coaches in our own country."—Heber, i. 28 (ed. 1844).
1834.—"As Lady Wroughton guided her horse through the crowd to the right, a kuranchy, or hackney-coach, suddenly passed her at full speed."—The Baboo, i. 228.
CRANGANORE, n.p. Properly (according to Dr. Gundert), Koḍuṅrīlūr, more generally Koduṅgalūr; [the Madras Gloss. gives Mal. Kotannallūr, kota, 'west,' kovil, 'palace,' ūr, 'village']. An ancient city and port of Malabar, identical with the Mūyiri-kkoḍu of an ancient copper-plate inscription,[97] with the Μουζιρὶς of Ptolemy's Tables and the Periplus, and with the Muziris primum emporium Indiae of Pliny (Bk. vi. cap. 23 or 26) [see Logan, Malabar, i. 80]. "The traditions of Jews, Christians, Brahmans, and of the Kérala Ulpatti (legendary History of Malabar) agree in making Kodungalūr the residence of the Perumāls (ancient sovereigns of Malabar), and the first resort of Western shipping" (Dr. Gundert in Madras Journal, vol. xiii. p. 120). It was apparently the earliest settlement of Jew and Christian immigrants. It is prominent in all the earlier narratives of the 16th century, especially in connection with the Malabar Christians; and it was the site of one of the seven churches alleged in the legends of the latter to have been founded by St. Thomas.[98] Cranganor was already in decay when the Portuguese arrived. They eventually established themselves there with a strong fort (1523), which the Dutch took from them in 1662. This fort was dismantled by Tippoo's troops in 1790, and there is now hardly a trace left of it. In Baldaeus (Malabar und Coromandel, p. 109, Germ. ed.) there are several good views of Cranganore as it stood in the 17th century. [See SHINKALI.]
c. 774. A.D.—"We have given as eternal possession to Iravi Corttan, the lord of the town, the brokerage and due customs ... namely within the river-mouth of Codangalur."—Copper Charter, see Madr. Journ. xiii. And for the date of the inscription, Burnell, in Ind. Antiq. iii. 315.
(Before 1500, see as in above quotation, p. 334.).—"I Erveh Barmen ... sitting this day in Canganúr...." (Madras Journal, xiii. pt. ii. p. 12). This is from an old Hebrew translation of the 8th century copper-grant to the Jews, in which the Tamil has "The {273a}king ... Sri Bhaskara Ravi Varman ... on the day when he was pleased to sit in Muyiri-kódu...."—thus identifying Muyiri or Muziris with Cranganore, an identification afterwards verified by tradition ascertained on the spot by Dr. Burnell.
1498.—"Quorongoliz belongs to the Christians, and the king is a Christian; it is 3 days distant from Calecut by sea with fair wind; this king could muster 4,000 fighting men; here is much pepper...."—Roteiro de Vasco da Gama, 108.
1503.—"Nostra autem regio in qua Christiani commorantur Malabar appellatur, habetque xx circiter urbes, quarum tres celebres sunt et firmæ, Carongoly, Palor, et Colom, et aliæ illis proximæ sunt."—Letter of Nestorian Bishops on mission to India, in Assemani, iii. 594.
1516.—"... a place called Crongolor, belonging to the King of Calicut ... there live in it Gentiles, Moors, Indians, and Jews, and Christians of the doctrine of St. Thomas."—Barbosa, 154.
c. 1535.—"Crancanor fu antichamente honorata, e buon porto, tien molte genti ... la città e grande, ed honorata con grã traffico, auãti che si facesse Cochin, cõ la venuta di Portoghesi, nobile."—Sommario de' Regni, &c. Ramusio, i. f. 332v.
1554.—"Item ... paid for the maintenance of the boys in the College, which is kept in Cranguanor, by charter of the King our Lord, annually 100 000 reis...."—S. Botelho, Tombo, &c., 27.
c. 1570.—"... prior to the introduction of Islamism into this country, a party of Jews and Christians had found their way to a city of Malabar called Cadungaloor."—Tohfat-ul-Mujahideen, 47.
1572.—
"A hum Cochin, e a outro Cananor,
A qual Chale, a qual a ilha da pimenta,
A qual Coulão, a qual dá Cranganor,
E os mais, a quem o mais serve e contenta...."
Camões, vii. 35.
1614.—"The Great Samorine's Deputy came aboord ... and ... earnestly persuaded vs to stay a day or two, till he might send to the Samorine, then at Crangelor, besieging a Castle of the Portugals."—Peyton, in Purchas, i. 531.
c. 1806.—"In like manner the Jews of Kranghír (Cranganore), observing the weakness of the Sámuri ... made a great many Mahomedans drink the cup of martyrdom...."—Muhabbat Khán (writing of events in 16th century), in Elliot, viii. 388.
CRANNY, s. In Bengal commonly used for a clerk writing English, and thence vulgarly applied generically to the East Indians, or half-caste class, from among whom English copyists are chiefly recruited. The original is Hind. karānī, kirānī, which Wilson derives from Skt. karan, 'a doer.' {273b}Karaṇa is also the name of one of the (so-called) mixt castes of the Hindus, sprung from a Sudra mother and Vaisya father, or (according to some) from a pure Kshatriya mother by a father of degraded Kshatriya origin. The occupation of the members of this mixt caste is that of writers and accountants; [see Risley, Tribes and Castes of Bengal, i. 424 seqq.].
The word was probably at one time applied by natives to the junior members of the Covenanted Civil Service—"Writers," as they were designated. See the quotations from the "Seir Mutaqherin" and from Hugh Boyd. And in our own remembrance the "Writers' Buildings" in Calcutta, where those young gentlemen were at one time quartered (a range of apartments which has now been transfigured into a splendid series of public offices, but, wisely, has been kept to its old name), was known to the natives as Karānī kī Bārik.
c. 1350.—"They have the custom that when a ship arrives from India or elsewhere, the slaves of the Sultan ... carry with them complete suits ... for the Rabban or skipper, and for the kirānī, who is the ship's clerk."—Ibn Batuta, ii. 198.
" "The second day after our arrival at the port of Kailūkari, the princess escorted the nakhodāh (or skipper), the kirānī, or clerk...."—Ibid. iv. 250.
c. 1590.—"The Karrání is a writer who keeps the accounts of the ship, and serves out the water to the passengers."—Āīn (Blochmann), i. 280.
c. 1610.—"Le Secretaire s'apelle carans...."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 152; [Hak. Soc. i. 214].
[1611.—"Doubt you not but it is too true, howsoever the Cranny flatters you with better hopes."—Danvers, Letters, i. 117, and see also i. 190.
[1684.—"Ye Noceda and Cranee."—Pringle, Diary of Ft. St. George, iii. 111.]
c. 1781.—"The gentlemen likewise, other than the Military, who are in high offices and employments, have amongst themselves degrees of service and work, which have not come minutely to my knowledge; but the whole of them collectively are called Carranis."—Seir Mutaqherin, ii. 543.
1793.—"But, as Gay has it, example gains where precept fails. As an encouragement therefore to my brother crannies, I will offer an instance or two, which are remembered as good Company's jokes."—Hugh Boyd, The Indian Observer, 42.
1810.—"The Cranny, or clerk, may be either a native Armenian, a native Portuguese, or a Bengallee."—Williamson, V. M. i. 209.
1834.—"Nazir, see bail taken for 2000 rupees. The Crany will write your evidence, Captain Forrester."—The Baboo, i. 311.
It is curious to find this word explained by an old French writer, in almost the modern application to East Indians. This shows that the word was used at Goa in something of its Hindu sense of one of mixt blood.
1653.—"Les karanes sont engendrez d'vn Mestis, et d'vne Indienne, lesquels sont oliaustres. Ce mot de Karanes vient a mon advis de Kara, qui signifie en Turq la terre, ou bien la couleur noire, comme si l'on vouloit dire par karanes les enfans du païs, ou bien les noirs: ils ont les mesmes aduantages dans leur professions que les autres Mestis."—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, p. 226. Compare in M. Polo, Bk. I., ch. 18, his statement about the Caraonas, and note thereon.
CRAPE, s. This is no Oriental word, though crape comes from China. It is the French crêpe, i.e. crespe, Lat. crispus, meaning frizzed or minutely curled. As the word is given in a 16th century quotation by Littré, it is probable that the name was first applied to a European texture. [Its use in English dates from 1633, according to the N.E.D.]
"I own perhaps I might desire
Some shawls of true Cashmere—
Some narrowy crapes of China silk,
Like wrinkled skins, or scalded milk."
O. W. Holmes, 'Contentment.'
CREASE, CRIS, &c., s. A kind of dagger, which is the characteristic weapon of the Malay nations; from the Javanese name of the weapon, adopted in Malay, krīs, kirīs, or kres (see Favre, Dict. Javanais-Français, 137b, Crawfurd's Malay Dict. s.v., Jansz, Javaansch-Nederl. Woordenboek, 202). The word has been generalised, and is often applied to analogous weapons of other nations, as 'an Arab crease,' &c. It seems probable that the H. word kirich, applied to a straight sword, and now almost specifically to a sword of European make, is identical with the Malay word krīs. See the form of the latter word in Barbosa, almost exactly kirich. Perhaps Turki kīlīch is the original. [Platts gives Skt. kṛiti, 'a sort of knife or dagger.'] If Reinaud is right in his translation of the Arab Relations of the 9th and 10th centuries, in correcting a reading, otherwise unintelligible, to khrī, we {274b}shall have a very early adoption of this word by Western travellers. It occurs, however, in a passage relating to Ceylon.
c. 910.—"Formerly it was common enough to see in this island a man of the country walk into the market grasping in his hand a khrī, i.e. a dagger peculiar to the country, of admirable make, and sharpened to the finest edge. The man would lay hands on the wealthiest of the merchants that he found, take him by the throat, brandish his dagger before his eyes, and finally drag him outside of the town...."—Relation, &c., par Reinaud, p. 156; and see Arabic text, p. 120, near bottom.
It is curious to find the cris adopted by Alboquerque as a piece of state costume. When he received the ambassadors of Sheikh Ismael, i.e. the Shāh of Persia, Ismael Sūfī, at Ormuz, we read:
1515.—"For their reception there was prepared a dais of three steps ... which was covered with carpets, and the Governor seated thereon in a decorated chair, arrayed in a tunic and surcoat of black damask, with his collar, and his golden cris, as I described before, and with his big, long snow-white beard; and at the back of the dais the captains and gentlemen, handsomely attired, with their swords girt, and behind them their pages with lances and targets, and all uncovered."—Correa, ii. 423.
The portrait of Alboquerque in the 1st vol. of Mr. Birch's Translation of the Commentaries, realises the snow-white beard, tunic, and black surcoat, but the cris is missing. [The Malay Creese is referred to in iii. 85.]
1516.—"They are girt with belts, and carry daggers in their waists, wrought with rich inlaid work, these they call querix."—Barbosa, 193.
1552.—"And the quartermaster ran up to the top, and thence beheld the son of Timuta raja to be standing over the Captain Major with a cris half drawn."—Castanheda, ii. 363.
1572.—
"... assentada
Lá no gremio da Aurora, onde nasceste,
Opulenta Malaca nomeada!
As settas venenosas que fizeste!
Os crises, com que já te vejo armáda...."
Camões, x. 44.
By Burton:
"... so strong thy site
there on Aurora's bosom, whence they rise,
thou Home of Opulence, Malacca hight!
The poysoned arrows which thine art supplies,
the krises thirsting, as I see, for fight...."
1580.—A vocabulary of "Wordes of the naturall language of Iaua" in the voyage of {275a}Sir Fr. Drake, has Cricke, 'a dagger.'—Hakl. iv. 246.
[1584.—"Crise." See quotation under A MUCK.]
1586-88.—"The custom is that whenever the King (of Java) doth die ... the wives of the said King ... every one with a dagger in her hand (which dagger they call a crese, and is as sharp as a razor) stab themselves to the heart."—Cavendish, in Hakl. iv. 337.
1591.—"Furthermore I enjoin and order in the name of our said Lord ... that no servant go armed whether it be with staves or daggers, or crisses."—Procl. of Viceroy Mathias d'Alboquerque in Archiv. Port. Oriental, fasc. 3, p. 325.
1598.—"In the Western part of the Island (Sumatra) is Manancabo where they make Poinyards, which in India are called Cryses, which are very well accounted and esteemed of."—Linschoten, 33; [with some slight differences of reading, Hak. Soc. i. 110].
1602.—"... Chinesische Dolchen, so sie Cris nennen."—Hulsius, i. 33.
c. 1610.—"Ceux-là ont d'ordinaire à leur costé vn poignard ondé qui s'apelle cris, et qui vient d'Achen en Sumatra, de Iaua, et de la Chine."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 121; [Hak. Soc. i. 164]; also see ii. 101; [ii. 162, 170].
1634.—"Malayos crises, Arabes alfanges."—Malaca Conquistada, ix. 32.
1686.—"The Cresset is a small thing like a Baggonet which they always wear in War or Peace, at Work or Play, from the greatest of them to the poorest or meanest person."—Dampier, i. 337.
1690.—"And as the Japanners ... rip up their Bowels with a Cric...."—Ovington, 173.
1727.—"A Page of twelve Years of Age ... (said) that he would shew him the Way to die, and with that he took a Cress, and ran himself through the body."—A. Hamilton, ii. 99; [ed. 1744, ii. 98].
1770.—"The people never go without a poniard which they call cris."—Raynal (tr. 1777), i. 97.
c. 1850-60.—"They (the English) chew hashish, cut themselves with poisoned creases ... taste every poison, buy every secret."—Emerson, English Traits [ed. 1866, ii. 59].
The Portuguese also formed a word crisada, a blow with a cris (see Castanheda, iii. 379). And in English we find a verb to 'crease'; see in Purchas, i. 532, and this:
1604.—"This Boyhog we tortured not, because of his confession, but crysed him."—Scot's Discourse of Iava, in Purchas, i. 175.
[1704.—"At which our people ... were most of them creezed."—Yule, Hedges' Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. cccxxxvii.]
Also in Braddel's Abstract of the Sijara Malayu:
"He was in consequence creased at the shop of a sweetmeat seller, his blood flowed on the ground, but his body disappeared miraculously."—Sijara Malayu, in J. Ind. Arch. v. 318.
CREDERE, DEL. An old mercantile term.
1813.—"Del credere, or guaranteeing the responsibility of persons to whom goods were sold—commission ¾ per cent."—Milburn, i. 235.
CREOLE, s. This word is never used by the English in India, though the mistake is sometimes made in England of supposing it to be an Anglo-Indian term. The original, so far as we can learn, is Span. criollo, a word of uncertain etymology, whence the French créole, a person of European blood but colonial birth. See Skeat, who concludes that criollo is a negro corruption of criadillo, dim. of criado, and is = 'little nursling.' Criados, criadas, according to Pyrard de Laval, [Hak. Soc. ii. 89 seq.] were used at Goa for male and female servants. And see the passage quoted under NEELAM from Correa, where the words 'apparel and servants' are in the original 'todo o fato e criados.'
1782.—"Mr. Macintosh being the son of a Scotch Planter by a French Creole, of one of the West India Islands, is as swarthy and ill-looking a man as is to be seen on the Portugueze Walk on the Royal Exchange."—Price's Observations, &c. in Price's Tracts, i. 9.
CROCODILE, s. This word is seldom used in India; alligator (q.v.) being the term almost invariably employed.
c. 1328.—"There be also coquodriles, which are vulgarly called calcatix [Lat. calcatrix, 'a cockatrice'].... These animals be like lizards, and have a tail stretched over all like unto a lizard's," &c.—Friar Jordanus, p. 19.
1590.—"One Crocodile was so huge and greedy that he devoured an Alibamba, that is a chained company of eight or nine slaves; but the indigestible Iron paid him his wages, and murthered the murtherer."—Andrew Battel (West Africa), in Purchas, ii. 985.
[1870.—"... I have been compelled to amputate the limbs of persons seized by crocodiles (Mugger).... The Alligator (gharial) sometimes devours children...."—Chevers, Med. Jurispr. in India, 366 seq.].
CRORE, s. One hundred lakhs, i.e. 10,000,000. Thus a crore of rupees was for many years almost the exact equivalent of a million sterling. It had once been a good deal more, and has now been for some years a good deal less. The H. is karoṛ, Skt. koṭi.
c. 1315.—"Kales Dewar, the ruler of Ma'bar, enjoyed a highly prosperous life.... His coffers were replete with wealth, insomuch that in the city of Mardī (Madura) there were 1200 crores of gold deposited, every crore being equal to a thousand laks, and every lak to one hundred thousand dinārs."—Wassāf, in Elliot, iii. 52. N.B.—The reading of the word crore is however doubtful here (see note by Elliot in loco). In any case the value of crore is misstated by Wassāf.
c. 1343.—"They told me that a certain Hindu farmed the revenue of the city and its territories (Daulatābād) for 17 karōr ... as for the karōr it is equivalent to 100 laks, and the lak to 100,000 dīnārs."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 49.
c. 1350.—"In the course of three years he had misappropriated about a kror of tankas from the revenue."—Ziā-uddīn-Barnī, in Elliot, iii. 247.
c. 1590.—"Zealous and upright men were put in charge of the revenues, each over one Krōr of dams." (These, it appears, were called krōris.)—Āīn-i-Akbari, i. 13.
1609.—"The King's yeerely Income of his Crowne Land is fiftie Crou of Rupias, every Crou is an hundred Leckes, and every Lecke is an hundred thousand Rupias."—Hawkins, in Purchas, i. 216.
1628.—"The revenue of all the territories under the Emperors of Delhi amounts, according to the Royal registers, to six arbs and thirty krors of dāms. One arb is equal to a hundred krors (a kror being ten millions) and a hundred Krors of dāms are equivalent to two krors and fifty lacs of rupees."—Muhammad Sharīf Hanafi, in Elliot, vii. 138.
1690.—"The Nabob or Governour of Bengal was reputed to have left behind him at his Death, twenty Courous of Roupies: A kourou is an hundred thousand lacks."—Ovington, 189.
1757.—"In consideration of the losses which the English Company have sustained ... I will give them one crore of rupees."—Orme, ii. 162 (ed. 1803).
c. 1785.—"The revenues of the city of Decca, once the capital of Bengal, at a low estimation amount annually to two kherore."—Carraccioli's Life of Clive, i. 172.
1797.—"An Englishman, for H. E.'s amusement, introduced the elegant European diversion of a race in sacks by old women: the Nabob was delighted beyond measure, and declared that though he had spent a crore of rupees ... in procuring amusement, he had never found one so pleasing to him."—Teignmouth, Mem. i. 407.
1879.—
"'Tell me what lies beyond our brazen gates.'
Then one replied, 'The city first, fair Prince!
* * * * * *
And next King Bimbasâra's realm, and then
The vast flat world with crores on crores of folk.'"
Sir E. Arnold, The Light of Asia, iii.
[CRORI, s. "The possessor or collector of a kror, or ten millions, of any given kind of money; it was especially applied as an official designation, under the Mohammedan government, to a collector of revenue to the extent of a kror of dāms, or 250,000 rupees, who was also at various times invested with the general superintendence of the lands in his district, and the charge of the police." (Wilson.)
[c. 1590.—See quotation under CRORE.
[1675.—"Nor does this exempt them from pishcashing the Nabob's Crewry or Governour."—Yule, Hedges' Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. ccxxxix.]
[CROTCHEY, KURACHEE,> properly Karāchi, the sea-port and chief town of the province of Sind, which is a creation of the British rule, no town appearing to have existed on the site before 1725. In As Suyūti's History of the Caliphs (E.T. p. 229) the capture of Kīrakh or Kīraj is mentioned. Sir H. M. Elliot thinks that this place was probably situated in if not named from Kachh. Jarrett (Āīn, ii. 344, note) supposes this to be Karāchi, which Elliot identified with the Krokala of Arrian. Here, according to Curtius, dwelt the Arabioi or Arabitai. The harbour of Karāchi was possibly the Porus Alexandri, where Nearchus was detained by the monsoon for twenty-four days (see McCrindle, Ancient India, 167, 262).
[1812.—"From Crotchey to Cape Monze the people call themselves Balouches."—Morier, Journey through Persia, p. 5.
[1839.—"... spices of all kinds, which are carried from Bombay ... to Koratchee or other ports in Sind."—Elphinstone's Caubul, i. 384.]
CROW-PHEASANT, s. The popular Anglo-Indian name of a somewhat ignoble bird (Fam. Cuculidae), common all over the plains of India, in Burma, and the Islands, viz. {277a}Centropus rufipennis, Illiger. It is held in India to give omens.
1878.—"The crow-pheasant stalks past with his chestnut wings drooping by his side."—Phil. Robinson, In My Indian Garden, 7.
1883.—"There is that ungainly object the coucal, crow-pheasant, jungle-crow, or whatever else you like to call the miscellaneous thing, as it clambers through a creeper-laden bush or spreads its reddish-bay wings and makes a slow voyage to the next tree. To judge by its appearance only it might be a crow developing for a peacock, but its voice seems to have been borrowed from a black-faced monkey."—Tribes on my Frontier, 155.
CUBEB, s. The fruit of the Piper Cubeba, a climbing shrub of the Malay region. [Its Hind. name kabāb chīnī marks its importation from the East by Chinese merchants.] The word and the articles were well known in Europe in the Middle Ages, the former being taken directly from the Arab. kabābah. It was used as a spice like other peppers, though less common. The importation into Europe had become infinitesimal, when it revived in last century, owing to the medicinal power of the article having become known to our medical officers during the British occupation of Java (1811-15). Several particulars of interest will be found in Hanbury and Flückiger's Pharmacog. 526, and in the notes to Marco Polo, ii. 380.
c. 943.—"The territories of this Prince (the Maharaja of the Isles) produce all sorts of spices and aromatics.... The exports are camphor, lign-aloes, clove, sandal-wood, betel-nut, nutmeg, cardamom, cubeb (al-kabābah)...."—Maṣ'ūdi, i. 341 seq.
13th cent.—
"Theo canel and the licoris
And swete savoury meynte I wis,
Theo gilofre, quybibe and mace...."
King Alesaunder, in Weber's Metr. Rom., i. 279.
1298.—"This Island (Java) is of surpassing wealth, producing black pepper, nutmegs, spikenard, galingale, cubebs, cloves...."—Marco Polo, ii. 254.
c. 1328.—"There too (in Jaua) are produced cubebs, and nutmegs, and mace, and all the other finest spices except pepper."—Friar Jordanus, 31.
c. 1340.—"The following are sold by the pound. Raw silk; saffron; clove-stalks and cloves; cubebs; lign-aloes...."—Pegolotti, in Cathay, &c., p. 305.
" "Cubebs are of two kinds, i.e. domestic and wild, and both should be entire and light, and of good smell; and the domestic are known from the wild in this {277b}way, that the former are a little more brown than the wild; also the domestic are round, whilst the wild have the lower part a little flattened underneath like flattened buttons."—Pegolotti, in Cathay, &c.; in orig. 374 seq.
c. 1390.—"Take fresh pork, seethe it, chop it small, and grind it well; put to it hard yolks of eggs, well mixed together, with dried currants, powder of cinnamon, and maces, cubebs, and cloves whole."—Recipe in Wright's Domestic Manners, 350.
1563.—"R. Let us talk of cubebs; although, according to Sepulveda, we seldom use them alone, and only in compounds.
"O. 'Tis not so in India; on the contrary they are much used by the Moors soaked in wine ... and in their native region, which is Java, they are habitually used for coldness of stomach; you may believe me they hold them for a very great medicine."—Garcia, f. 80-80v.
1572.—"The Indian physicians use Cubebs as cordials for the stomach...."—Acosta, p. 138.
1612.—"Cubebs, the pound ... xvi. s."—Rates and Valuatioun (Scotland).
1874.—"In a list of drugs to be sold in the ... city of Ulm, A.D. 1596, cubebs are mentioned ... the price for half an ounce being 8 kreuzers."—Hanb. & Flück. 527.
CUBEER BURR, n.p. This was a famous banyan-tree on an island of the Nerbudda, some 12 m. N.E. of Baroch, and a favourite resort of the English there in the 18th century. It is described by Forbes in his Or. Mem. i. 28; [2nd ed. i. 16, and in Pandurang Hari, ed. 1873, ii. 137 seqq.]. Forbes says that it was thus called by the Hindus in memory of a favourite saint (no doubt Kabīr). Possibly, however, the name was merely the Ar. kabīr, 'great,' given by some Mahommedan, and misinterpreted into an allusion to the sectarian leader.
[1623.—"On an other side of the city, but out of the circuit of the houses, in an open place, is seen a great and fair tree, of that kind which I saw in the sea coasts of Persia, near Ormuz, called there Lul, but here Ber."—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. i. 35. Mr. Grey identifies this with the CUBEER BURR.]
1818.—"The popular tradition among the Hindus is that a man of great sanctity named Kubeer, having cleaned his teeth, as is practised in India, with a piece of stick, stuck it into the ground, that it took root, and became what it now is."—Copland, in Tr. Lit. Soc. Bo. i. 290.
CUCUYA, CUCUYADA, s. A cry of alarm or warning; Malayāl. kūkkuya, 'to cry out'; not used by English, but found among Portuguese writers, who formed cucuyada from the native {278a}word, as they did Crisada from kris (see CREASE). See Correa, Lendas, ii. 2. 926. See also quotation from Tennent, under COSS, and compare Australian cooey.
1525.—"On this immediately some of his Nairs who accompanied him, desired to smite the Portuguese who were going through the streets; but the Regedor would not permit it; and the Caimal approaching the King's palace, without entering to speak to the King, ordered those cries of theirs to be made which they call cucuyadas, and in a few minutes there gathered together more than 2000 Nairs with their arms...."—Correa, ii. 926.
1543.—"At the house of the pagod there was a high enclosure-wall of stone, where the Governor collected all his people, and those of the country came trooping with bows and arrows and a few matchlocks, raising great cries and cucuyadas, such as they employ to call each other to war, just like cranes when they are going to take wing."—Ibid. iv. 327.
CUDDALORE, n.p. A place on the marine backwater 16 m. S. of Pondicherry, famous in the early Anglo-Indian history of Coromandel. It was settled by the Company in 1682-3, and Fort St. David's was erected there soon after. Probably the correct name is Kaḍal-ūr, 'Sea-Town.' [The Madras Gloss. gives Tam. kūḍal, 'junction,' ūr, 'village,' because it stands on the confluence of the Kadilam and Paravanar Rivers.]
[1773.—"Fort St. David is ... built on a rising ground, about a mile from the Black-Town, which is called Cuddalore."—Ives, p. 18.]
CUDDAPAH, n.p. Tel. kaḍapa, ['threshold,' said to take its name from the fact that it is situated at the opening of the pass which leads to the holy town of Tripatty (Gribble, Man. of Cuddapah, p. 3); others connect it with Skt. kṛipa, 'pity,' and the Skt. name is Kripanagara]. A chief town and district of the Madras Presidency. It is always written Kurpah in Kirkpatrick's Translation of Tippoo's Letters, [and see Wilks, Mysore, ed. 1869, i. 303]. It has been suggested as possible that it is the ΚΑΡΙΓΗ (for ΚΑΡΙΠΗ) of Ptolemy's Tables. [Kurpah indigo is quoted on the London market.]
1768.—"The chiefs of Shanoor and Kirpa also followed the same path."—H. of Hydur Naik, 189.
CUDDOO, s. A generic name for pumpkins, [but usually applied to the musk-melon, cucurbita moschata (Watt, Econ. Dict. ii. 640)]. Hind. Kaddū.
[1870.—"Pumpkin, Red and White—Hind. Kuddoo. This vegetable grows in great abundance in all parts of the Deccan."—Riddell, Ind. Dom. Econ. 568.]
CUDDY, s. The public or captain's cabin of an Indiaman or other passenger ship. We have not been able to trace the origin satisfactorily. It must, however, be the same with the Dutch and Germ. kajute, which has the same signification. This is also the Scandinavian languages, Sw. in kajuta, Dan. kahyt, and Grimm quotes kajute, "Casteria," from a vocabulary of Saxon words used in the first half of 15th century. It is perhaps originally the same with the Fr. cahute, 'a hovel,' which Littré quotes from 12th century as quahute. Ducange has L. Latin cahua, 'casa, tugurium,' but a little doubtfully. [Burton (Ar. Nights, xi. 169) gives P. kadah, 'a room,' and compares Cumra. The N.E.D. leaves the question doubtful.]
1726.—"Neither will they go into any ship's Cayuyt so long as they see any one in the Skipper's cabin or on the half-deck."—Valentijn, Chorom. (and Pegu), 134.
1769.—"It was his (the Captain's) invariable practice on Sunday to let down a canvas curtain at one end of the cuddy ... and to read the church service,—a duty which he considered a complete clearance of the sins of the preceding week."—Life of Lord Teignmouth, i. 12.
1848.—"The youngsters among the passengers, young Chaffers of the 150th, and poor little Ricketts, coming home after his third fever, used to draw out Sedley at the cuddy-table, and make him tell prodigious stories about himself and his exploits against tigers and Napoleon."—Vanity Fair, ed. 1867, ii. 255.
CULGEE, s. A jewelled plume surmounting the sirpesh or aigrette upon the turban. Shakespear gives kalghī as a Turki word. [Platts gives kalghā, kalghī, and refers it to Skt. kalaśa, 'a spire.']
c. 1514.—"In this manner the people of Bârân catch great numbers of herons. The Kilki-saj ['Plumes worn on the cap or turban on great occasions.' Also see Punjab Trade Report, App., p. ccxv.] are of the heron's feathers."—Baber, 154.
1715.—"John Surman received a vest and Culgee set with precious stones."—Wheeler, ii. 246.
1759.—"To present to Omed Roy, viz.:—
| 1 Culgah | 1200 | 0 | 0 | |
| 1 Surpage (sirpesh, or aigrette) | 600 | 0 | 0 | |
| 1 Killot (see Killut) | 250 | 0 | 0 | " |
—Expenses of Nabob's Entertainment. In Long, 193.
1786.—"Three Kulgies, three Surpaishes (see Sirpech), and three Puduks (?) [padak, H. 'a badge, a flat piece of gold, a neck ornament'] of the value of 36,320 rupees have been despatched to you in a casket."—Tippoo's Letters, 263.
[1892.—Of a Banjara ox—"Over the beast's forehead is a shaped frontlet of cotton cloth bordered with patterns in colour with pieces of mirror sewn in, and crowned by a kalgi or aigrette of peacock feather tips."—L. Kipling, Beast and Man in India, 147.
[The word was also applied to a rich silk cloth imported from India.
[1714.—In a list of goods belonging to sub-governors of the South Sea C.—"A pair of culgee window curtains."—2 ser. Notes & Q. VI. 244.]
CULMUREEA, KOORMUREEA, s. Nautical H. kalmarīya, 'a calm,' taken direct from Port. calmaria (Roebuck).
CULSEY, s. According to the quotation a weight of about a candy (q.v.). We have traced the word, which is rare, also in Prinsep's Tables (ed. Thomas, p. 115), as a measure in Bhūj, kalsī. And we find R. Drummond gives it: "Kulsee or Culsy (Guz.). A weight of sixteen maunds" (the Guzerat maunds are about 40 lbs., therefore kalsi = about 640 lbs.). [The word is probably Skt. kalaśi, 'a water jar,' and hence a grain measure. The Madras Gloss. gives Can. kalasi as a measure of capacity holding 14 Seers.]
1813.—"So plentiful are mangos ... that during my residence in Guzerat they were sold in the public markets for one rupee the culsey; or 600 pounds in English weight."—Forbes, Orient. Mem. i. 30; [2d. ed. i. 20].
CUMBLY, CUMLY, CUMMUL, s. A blanket; a coarse woollen cloth. Skt. kambala, appearing in the vernaculars in slightly varying forms, e.g. H. kamlī. Our first quotation shows a curious attempt to connect this word with the Arab. ḥammāl, 'a porter' (see HUMMAUL), and with the camel's hair of John Baptist's raiment. The word is introduced into Portuguese as cambolim, 'a cloak.'
c. 1350.—"It is customary to make of those fibres wet-weather mantles for those rustics whom they call camalls,[99] whose business it is to carry burdens, and also to carry men and women on their shoulders in palankins (lecticis).... A garment, such as I mean, of this camall cloth (and not camel cloth) I wore till I got to Florence.... No doubt the raiment of John the Baptist was of that kind. For, as regards camel's hair, it is, next to silk, the softest stuff in the world, and never could have been meant...."—John Marignolli, in Cathay, 366.
1606.—"We wear nothing more frequently than those cambolins."—Gouvea, f. 132.
[c. 1610.—"Of it they make also good store of cloaks and capes, called by the Indians Mansaus, and by the Portuguese 'Ormus cambalis.'"—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. ii. 240.]
1673.—"Leaving off to wonder at the natives quivering and quaking after Sunset wrapping themselves in a combly or Hair-Cloth."—Fryer, 54.
1690.—"Camlees, which are a sort of Hair Coat made in Persia...."—Ovington, 455.
1718.—"But as a body called the Cammul-poshes, or blanket wearers, were going to join Qhandaoran, their commander, they fell in with a body of troops of Mahratta horse, who forbade their going further."—Seir Mutaqherin, i. 143.
1781.—"One comley as a covering ... 4 fanams, 6 dubs, 0 cash."—Prison Expenses of Hon. J. Lindsay, Lives of Lindsays, iii.
1798.—"... a large black Kummul, or blanket."—G. Forster, Travels, i. 194.
1800.—"One of the old gentlemen, observing that I looked very hard at his cumly, was alarmed lest I should think he possessed numerous flocks of sheep."—Letter of Sir T. Munro, in Life, i. 281.
1813.—Forbes has cameleens.—Or. Mem. i. 195; [2d. ed. i. 108].
CUMMERBUND, s. A girdle. H. from P. kamar-band, i.e. 'loin-band.' Such an article of dress is habitually worn by domestic servants, peons, and irregular troops; but any waist-belt is so termed.
[1534.—"And tying on a cummerbund (camarabando) of yellow silk."—Correa, iii. 588. Camarabandes in Dalboquerque, Comm., Hak. Soc. iv. 104.]
1552.—"The Governor arriving at Goa received there a present of a rich cloth of Persia which is called comarbãdos, being of gold and silk."—Castanheda, iii. 396.
1616.—"The nobleman of Xaxma sent to have a sample of gallie pottes, jugges, podingers, lookinglasses, table bookes, chint bramport, and combarbands, with the prices."—Cocks's Diary, i. 147.
1638.—"Ils serrent la veste d'vne ceinture, qu'ils appellent Commerbant."—Mandelslo, 223.
1648.—"In the middle they have a well adjusted girdle, called a Commerbant."—Van Twist, 55.
1727.—"They have also a fine Turband, embroidered Shoes, and a Dagger of Value, stuck into a fine Cummerband, or Sash."—A. Hamilton, i. 229; [ed. 1744, ii. 233].
1810.—"They generally have the turbans and cummer-bunds of the same colour, by way of livery."—Williamson, V. M. i. 274.
[1826.—"My white coat was loose, for want of a kumberbund."—Pandurang Hari, ed. 1873, i. 275.]