C (part 2)

The game is now quite extinct in Persia and Western Asia, surviving only in certain regions adjoining India, as is specified under Polo. But for many centuries it was the game of kings and courts over all Mahommedan Asia. The earliest Mahommedan historians represent the game of chaugān as familiar to the Sassanian kings; Ferdusi puts the chaugān-stick into the hands of Siāwūsh, the father of Kai Khusrū or Cyrus; many famous kings were devoted to the game, among whom may be mentioned Nūruddīn the Just, Atābek of Syria and the great enemy of the Crusaders. He was so fond of the game that he used (like Akbar in after days) to play it by lamp-light, and was severely rebuked by a devout Mussulman for being so devoted to a mere amusement. Other zealous chaugān-players were the great Saladin, Jalāluddīn Mankbarni of Khwārizm, and Malik Bībars, Marco Polo's "Bendocquedar Soldan of Babylon," who was said more than once to have played chaugān at Damascus and at Cairo within the same week. Many illustrious persons also are mentioned in Asiatic history as having met their death by accidents in the maidān, as the chaugān-field was especially called; e.g. Ḳutbuddīn Ībak of Delhi, who was killed by such a fall at Lahore in (or about) 1207. In Makrizi (I. i. 121) we read of an Amīr at the Mameluke Court called Husāmuddīn Lajīn 'Azīzī the Jukāndār (or Lord High Polo-stick).

It is not known when the game was conveyed to Constantinople, but it must have been not later than the beginning of the 8th century. The fullest description of the game as played there is given by Johannes Cinnamus (c. 1190), who does not however give the barbarian name:

"The winter now being over and the gloom cleared away, he (the Emperor Manuel Comnenus) devoted himself to a certain sober exercise which from the first had been the custom of the Emperors and their sons to practise. This is the manner thereof. A party of young men divide into two equal bands, and in a flat space which has been measured out purposely they cast a leather ball in size somewhat like an apple; and setting this in the middle as if it were a prize to be contended for they rush into the contest at full speed, each grasping in his right hand a stick of moderate length which comes suddenly to a broad rounded end, the middle of which is closed by a network of dried catgut. Then each party strives who shall first send the ball beyond the goal planted conspicuously on the opposite side, for whenever the ball is struck by the netted sticks through the goal at either side, that gives the victory to the other side. This is the kind of game, evidently a slippery and dangerous one. For a player must be continually throwing himself right back, or bending to one side or the other, as he turns his horse short, or suddenly dashes off at speed, with such strokes and twists as are needed to follow up the ball.... And thus as the Emperor was rushing round in furious fashion in this game, it so happened that the horse which he rode came violently to the ground. He was prostrate below the horse, and as he struggled vainly to extricate himself from its incumbent weight his thigh and hand were crushed beneath the saddle and much injured...."—In Bonn ed. pp. 263-264.

We see from this passage that at Byzantium the game was played with a kind of racket, and not with a polo-stick.

We have not been able to find an instance of the medieval French chicane in this sense, nor does Littré's Dictionary give any. But Ducange states positively that in his time the word in this sense survived in Languedoc, and there could be no better evidence. From Henschel's Ducange also we borrow a quotation which shows chuca, used for some game of ball, in French-Latin, surely a form of chaugān or chicane.

The game of chaugān, the ball (gū or gavī) and the playing-ground (maidān) afford constant metaphors in Persian literature.

c. 820.—"If a man dream that he is on horseback along with the King himself, or some great personage, and that he strikes the ball home, or wins the chukān (ἤτοι τζυκανίζει) he shall find grace and favour thereupon, conformable to the success of his ball and the dexterity of his horse." Again: "If the King dream that he has won in the chukān (ὅτι ἐτζυκανίζεν) he shall find things prosper with him."—The Dream Judgments of Achmet Ibn Seirim, from a MS. Greek version quoted by Ducange in Gloss. Graecitatis.

c. 940.—Constantine Porphyrogenitus, speaking of the rapids of the Danapris or Dnieper, says: "ὁ δὲ τούτο φραγμὸς τοσοῦτον ἐστι στενὸς ὅσον τὸ πλάτος τοῦ τζυκανιστηρίου ("The defile in this case is as narrow as the width of the chukan-ground.")—De Adm. Imp., cap. ix. (Bonn ed. iii. 75).

969.—"Cumque inquisitionis sedicio non modica petit pro Constantino ... ex ea parte qua Zucanistri magnitudo portenditur, Constantinus crines solutus per cancellos caput exposuit, suaque ostensione populi mox tumultum sedavit."—Liudprandus, in Pertz, Mon. Germ., iii. 333.

"... he selected certain of his medicines and drugs, and made a goff-stick (jaukan?) [Burton, 'a bat'] with a hollow handle, into which he introduced them; after which ... he went again to the King ... and directed him to repair to the horse-course, and to play with the ball and goff-stick...."—Lane's Arabian Nights, i. 85-86; [Burton, i. 43].

c. 1030-40.—"Whenever you march ... you must take these people with you, and you must ... not allow them to drink wine or to play at chaughān."—Baihaki, in Elliot, ii. 120.

1416.—"Bernardus de Castro novo et nonnulli alii in studio Tholosano studentes, ad ludum lignobolini sive Chucarum luderunt pro vino et volema, qui ludus est quasi ludus billardi," &c.—MS. quoted in Henschel's Ducange.

c. 1420.—"The Τζυκανιστήριον was founded by Theodosius the Less ... Basilius the Macedonian extended and levelled the Τζυκανιστήριον."—Georgius Codinus de Antiq. Constant., Bonn ed. 81-82.

1516.—Barbosa, speaking of the Mahommedans of Cambay, says: "Saom tam ligeiros e manhosos na sela que a cavalo jogaom ha choqua, ho qual joguo eles tem antre sy na conta em que nos temos ho das canas"—(Lisbon ed. 271); i.e. "They are so swift and dexterous in the saddle that they play choca on horseback, a game which they hold in as high esteem as we do that of the canes" (i.e. the jereed).

1560.—"They (the Arabs) are such great riders that they play tennis on horseback" (que jogão a choca a cavallo).—Tenreiro, Itinerario, ed. 1762, p. 359.

c. 1590.—"His Majesty also plays at chaugán in dark nights ... the balls which are used at night are set on fire.... For the sake of adding splendour to the games ... His Majesty has knobs of gold and silver fixed to the tops of the chaugán sticks. If one of them breaks, any player that gets hold of the pieces may keep them."—Āīn-i-Akbarī, i. 298; [ii. 303].

1837.—"The game of choughan mentioned by Baber is still played everywhere in Tibet; it is nothing but 'hockey on horseback,' and is excellent fun."—Vigne, in J. A. S. Bengal, vi. 774.

In the following I would say, in justice to the great man whose words are quoted, that chicane is used in the quasi-military sense of taking every possible advantage of the ground in a contest:

1761.—"I do suspect that some of the great Ones have had hopes given to them that the Dutch may be induced to join us in this war against the Spaniards,—if such an Event should take place I fear some sacrifices will be made in the East Indies—I pray God my suspicions may be without foundation. I think Delays and Chicanery is allowable against those who take Advantage of the times, our Distresses, and situation."—Unpublished Holograph Letter from Lord Clive, in India Office Records. Dated Berkeley Square, and indorsed 27th Decr. 1761.

1881.—"One would at first sight be inclined to derive the French chic from the English 'cheek'; but it appears that the English is itself the derived word, chic being an old Romance word signifying finesse, or subtlety, and forming the root of our own word chicanery."—Sat. Rev., Sept. 10, p. 326 (Essay on French Slang).

CHICK, s.

a. H.—P. chik; a kind of screen-blind made of finely-split bamboo, laced with twine, and often painted on the outer side. It is hung or framed in doorways or windows, both in houses and in tents. The thing [which is described by Roe,] may possibly have come in with the Mongols, for we find in Kovalefski's Mongol Dict. (2174) "Tchik = Natte." The Āīn (i. 226) has chigh. Chicks are now made in London, as well as imported from China and Japan. Chicks are described by Clavijo in the tents of Timour's chief wife:

1404.—"And this tent had two doors, one in front of the other, and the first doors were of certain thin coloured wands, joined one to another like in a hurdle, and covered on the outside with a texture of rose-coloured silk, and finely woven; and these doors were made in this fashion, in order that when shut the air might yet enter, whilst those within could see those outside, but those outside could not see those who were within."—§ cxxvi.

[1616.—His wives "whose Curiositye made them breake little holes in a grate of reede that hung before it to gaze on mee."—Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. ii. 321.]

1673.—"Glass is dear, and scarcely purchaseable ... therefore their Windows are usually folding doors, screened with Cheeks or latises."—Fryer, 92.

The pron. cheek is still not uncommon among English people:—"The Coach where the Women were was covered with cheeks, a sort of hanging Curtain, made with Bents variously coloured with Lacker, and Checquered with Packthred so artificially that you see all without, and yourself within unperceived."—Fryer, 83.

1810.—"Cheeks or Screens to keep out the glare."—Williamson, V. M. ii. 43.

1825.—"The check of the tent prevents effectually any person from seeing what passes within...."—Heber (ed. 1844), i. 192.

b. Short for chickeen, a sum of four rupees. This is the Venetian zecchino, cecchino, or sequin, a gold coin long current on the shores of India, and which still frequently turns up in treasure-trove, and in hoards. In the early part of the 15th century Nicolo Conti mentions that in some parts of India, Venetian ducats, i.e. sequins, were current (p. 30). And recently, in fact in our own day, chick was a term in frequent Anglo-Indian use, e.g. "I'll bet you a chick."

The word zecchino is from the Zecca, or Mint at Venice, and that name is of Arabic origin, from sikka, 'a coining die.' The double history of this word is curious. We have just seen how in one form, and by what circuitous secular journey, through Egypt, Venice, India, it has gained a place in the Anglo-Indian Vocabulary. By a directer route it has also found a distinct place in the same repository under the form Sicca (q.v.), and in this shape it still retains a ghostly kind of existence at the India Office. It is remarkable how first the spread of Saracenic power and civilisation, then the spread of Venetian commerce and coinage, and lastly the spread of English commerce and power, should thus have brought together two words identical in origin, after so widely divergent a career.

The sequin is sometimes called in the South shānārcash, because the Doge with his sceptre is taken for the Shānār, or toddy-drawer climbing the palm-tree! [See Burnell, Linschoten, i. 243.] (See also VENETIAN.)

We apprehend that the gambling phrases 'chicken-stakes' and 'chicken-hazard' originate in the same word.

1583.—"Chickinos which be pieces of Golde woorth seuen shillings a piece sterling."—Caesar Frederici, in Hakl. ii. 343.

1608.—"When I was there (at Venice) a chiquiney was worth eleven livers and twelve sols."—Coryat's Crudities, ii. 68.

1609.—"Three or four thousand chequins were as pretty a proportion to live quietly on, and so give over."—Pericles, P. of Tyre, iv. 2.

1612.—"The Grand Signiors Custome of this Port Moha is worth yearly unto him 1500 chicquenes."—Saris, in Purchas, i. 348.

[1616.—"Shee tooke chickenes and royalls for her goods."—Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. i. 228.]

1623.—"Shall not be worth a chequin, if it were knock'd at an outcry."—Beaum. & Flet., The Maid in the Mill, v. 2.

1689.—"Four Thousand Checkins he privately tied to the flooks of an Anchor under Water."—Ovington, 418.

1711.—"He (the Broker) will charge 32 Shahees per Chequeen when they are not worth 31½ in the Bazar."—Lockyer, 227.

1727.—"When my Barge landed him, he gave the Cockswain five Zequeens, and loaded her back with Poultry and Fruit."—A. Hamilton, i. 301; ed. 1744, i. 303.

1767.—

"Received....

"Chequins 5 at 5. Arcot Rs. 25 0 0"

Lord Clive's Account of his Voyage to India,

in Long, 497.

1866.—

"Whenever master spends a chick,

I keep back two rupees, Sir."

Trevelyan, The Dawk Bungalow.

1875.—"'Can't do much harm by losing twenty chicks,' observed the Colonel in Anglo-Indian argot."—The Dilemma, ch. x.

CHICKEN, s. Embroidery; Chickenwalla, an itinerant dealer in embroidered handkerchiefs, petticoats, and such like. P. chikin or chikīn, 'art needlework.' [At Lucknow, the chief centre of the manufacture, this embroidery was formerly done in silk; the term is now applied to hand-worked flowered muslin. (See Hoey, Monograph, 88, Yusuf Ali, 69.)]

CHICKORE, s. The red-legged partridge, or its close congener Caccabis chukor, Gray. It is common in the Western Himālaya, in the N. Punjab, and in Afghanistan. The francolin of Moorcroft's Travels is really the chickore. The name appears to be Skt. chakora, and this disposes of the derivation formerly suggested by one of the present writers, as from the Mongol tsokhor, 'dappled or pied' (a word, moreover, which the late Prof. Schiefner informed us is only applied to horses). The name is sometimes applied to other birds. Thus, according to Cunningham, it is applied in Ladak to the Snow-cock (Tetraogallus Himalayensis, Gray), and he appears to give chá-kor as meaning 'white-bird' in Tibetan. Jerdon gives 'snow chukor' and 'strath-chukor' as sportsmen's names for this fine bird. And in Bengal Proper the name is applied, by local English sportsmen, to the large handsome partridge (Ortygornis gularis, Tem.) of Eastern Bengal, called in H. kaiyah or ban-tītar ('forest partridge'). See Jerdon, ed. 1877, ii. 575. Also the birds described in the extract from Mr. Abbott below do not appear to have been caccabis (which he speaks of in the same journal as 'red-legged partridge'). And the use of the word by Persians (apparently) is notable; it does not appear in Persian dictionaries. There is probably some mistake. The birds spoken of may have been the Large Sand-grouse (Pterocles arenarius, Pal.), which in both Persia and Afghanistan is called by names meaning 'Black-breast.'

The belief that the chickore eats fire, mentioned in the quotation below, is probably from some verbal misconception (quasi ātish-khōr?). [This is hardly probable as the idea that the partridge drinks the moonbeams is as old as the Brahma Vaivarta Purāna: "O Lord, I drink in with the partridges of my eyes thy face full of nectar, which resembles the full moon of autumn." Also see Katha Sarit Sāgara, tr. by Mr. Tawney (ii. 243), who has kindly given the above references.] Jerdon states that the Afghans call the bird the 'Fire-eater.'

c. 1190.—"... plantains and fruits, Koils, Chakors, peacocks, Sarases, beautiful to behold."—The Prithirája Rásan of Chand Bardáī, in Ind. Ant. i. 273.

In the following passage the word cator is supposed by the editor to be a clerical error for çacor or chacor.

1298.—"The Emperor has had several little houses erected in which he keeps in mew a huge number of cators, which are what we call the Great Partridge."—Marco Polo (2nd ed.), i. 287.

1520.—"Haidar Alemdâr had been sent by me to the Kafers. He met me below the Pass of Bâdîj, accompanied by some of their chiefs, who brought with them a few skins of wine. While coming down the Pass, he saw prodigious numbers of Chikûrs."—Baber, 282.

1814.—"... partridges, quails, and a bird which is called Cupk by the Persians and Afghauns, and the hill Chikore by the Indians, and which I understand is known in Europe by the name of the Greek Partridge."—Elphinstone's Caubool, ed. 1839, i. 192; ["the same bird which is called Chicore by the natives and fire-eater by the English in Bengal."—Ibid. ii. 95].

c. 1815.—"One day in the fort he found a hill-partridge enclosed in a wicker basket.... This bird is called the chuckoor, and is said to eat fire."—Mrs. Sherwood, Autobiog., 440.

1850.—"A flight of birds attracted my attention; I imagine them to be a species of bustard or grouse—black beneath and with much white about the wings—they were beyond our reach; the people called them Chukore."—K. Abbott, Notes during a Journey in Persia, in J. R. Geog. Soc. xxv. 41.

CHILAW, n.p. A place on the west coast of Ceylon, an old seat of the pearl-fishery. The name is a corruption of the Tam. salābham, 'the diving'; in Singhalese it is Halavatta. The name was commonly applied by the Portuguese to the whole aggregation of shoals (Baixos de Chilao) in the Gulf of Manaar, between Ceylon and the coast of Madura and Tinnevelly.

1543.—"Shoals of Chilao." See quotation under BEADALA.

1610.—"La pesqueria de Chilao ... por hazerse antiguamente in un puerto del mismo nombre en la isla de Seylan ... llamado asi por ista causa; por que chilao, en lengua Chengala, ... quiere dezir pesqueria."—Teixeira, Pt. ii. 29.

CHILLUM, s. H. chilam; "the part of the huḳḳa (see HOOKA) which contains the tobacco and charcoal balls, whence it is sometimes loosely used for the pipe itself, or the act of smoking it" (Wilson). It is also applied to the replenishment of the bowl, in the same way as a man asks for "another glass." The tobacco, as used by the masses in the hubble-bubble, is cut small and kneaded into a pulp with goor, i.e. molasses, and a little water. Hence actual contact with glowing charcoal is needed to keep it alight.

1781.—"Dressing a hubble-bubble, per week at 3 chillums a day. fan 0, dubs 3, cash 0."

—Prison Experiences in Captivity of Hon. J. Lindsay, in Lives of Lindsays, iii.

1811.—"They have not the same scruples for the Chillum as for the rest of the Hooka, and it is often lent ... whereas the very proposition for the Hooka gives rise frequently to the most ridiculous quarrels."—Solvyns, iii.

1828.—"Every sound was hushed but the noise of that wind ... and the occasional bubbling of my hookah, which had just been furnished with another chillum."—The Kuzzilbash, i. 2.

1829.—"Tugging away at your hookah, find no smoke; a thief having purloined your silver chelam and surpoose."—John Shipp, ii. 159.

1848.—"Jos however ... could not think of moving till his baggage was cleared, or of travelling until he could do so with his chillum."—Vanity Fair, ii. ch. xxiii.

CHILLUMBRUM, n.p. A town in S. Arcot, which is the site of a famous temple of Siva, properly Shidamburam. Etym. obscure. [Garstin (Man. S. Arcot, 400) gives the name as Chedambram, or more correctly Chittambalam, 'the atmosphere of wisdom.']

1755.—"Scheringham (Seringam), Schalembron, et Gengy m'offroient également la retraite après laquelle je soupirois."—Anquetil du Perron, Zendav. Disc. Prelim. xxviii.

CHILLUMCHEE, s. H. chilamchī, also silfchī, and silpchī, of which chilamchī is probably a corruption. A basin of brass (as in Bengal), or tinned copper (as usually in the West and South) for washing hands. The form of the word seems Turkish, but we cannot trace it.

1715.—"We prepared for our first present, viz., 1000 gold mohurs ... the unicorn's horn ... the astoa (?) and chelumgie of Manilla work...."—In Wheeler, ii. 246.

1833.—"Our supper was a peelaw ... when it was removed a chillumchee and goblet of warm water was handed round, and each washed his hands and mouth."—P. Gordon, Fragment of the Journal of a Tour, &c.

1851.—"When a chillumchee of water sans soap was provided, 'Have you no soap?' Sir C. Napier asked——"—Mawson, Indian Command of Sir C. Napier.

1857.—"I went alone to the Fort Adjutant, to report my arrival, and inquire to what regiment of the Bengal army I was likely to be posted.

"'Army!—regiment!' was the reply. 'There is no Bengal Army; it is all in revolt.... Provide yourself with a camp-bedstead, and a chillumchee, and wait for orders.'

"I saluted and left the presence of my superior officer, deeply pondering as to the possible nature and qualities of a chillumchee, but not venturing to enquire further."—Lt.-Col. Lewin, A Fly on the Wheel, p. 3.

There is an Anglo-Indian tradition, which we would not vouch for, that one of the orators on the great Hastings trial depicted the oppressor on some occasion, as "grasping his chillum in one hand and his chillumchee in the other."

The latter word is used chiefly by Anglo-Indians of the Bengal Presidency and their servants. In Bombay the article has another name. And it is told of a gallant veteran of the old Bengal Artillery, who was full of "Presidential" prejudices, that on hearing the Bombay army commended by a brother officer, he broke out in just wrath: "The Bombay Army! Don't talk to me of the Bombay Army! They call a chillumchee a gindy!——the Beasts!"

CHILLY, s. The popular Anglo-Indian name of the pod of red pepper (Capsicum fruticosum and C. annuum, Nat. Ord. Solanaceae). There can be little doubt that the name, as stated by Bontius in the quotation, was taken from Chili in S. America, whence the plant was carried to the Indian Archipelago, and thence to India.

[1604.—"Indian pepper.... In the language of Cusco, it is called Vchu, and in that of Mexico, chili."—Grimston, tr. D'Acosta, H. W. Indies, I. Bk. iv. 239 (Stanf. Dict.)]

1631.—"... eos addere fructum Ricini Americani, quod lada Chili Malaii vocant, quasi dicas Piper e Chile, Brasiliae contermina regione.'—Jac. Bontii, Dial. V. p. 10.

Again (lib. vi. cap. 40, p. 131) Bontius calls it 'piper Chilensis,' and also 'Ricinus Braziliensis.' But his commentator, Piso, observes that Ricinus is quite improper; "vera Piperis sive Capsici Braziliensis species apparet." Bontius says it was a common custom of natives, and even of certain Dutchmen, to keep a piece of chilly continually chewed, but he found it intolerable.

1848.—"'Try a chili with it, Miss Sharp,' said Joseph, really interested. 'A chili?' said Rebecca, gasping. 'Oh yes!'.... 'How fresh and green they look,' she said, and put one into her mouth. It was hotter than the curry; flesh and blood could bear it no longer."—Vanity Fair, ch. iii.

CHIMNEY-GLASS, s. Gardener's name, on the Bombay side of India, for the flower and plant Allamanda cathartica (Sir G. Birdwood).

CHINA, n.p. The European knowledge of this name in the forms Thinae and Sinae goes back nearly to the Christian era. The famous mention of the Sinim by the prophet Isaiah would carry us much further back, but we fear the possibility of that referring to the Chinese must be abandoned, as must be likewise, perhaps, the similar application of the name Chinas in ancient Sanskrit works. The most probable origin of the name—which is essentially a name applied by foreigners to the country—as yet suggested, is that put forward by Baron F. von Richthofen, that it comes from Jih-nan, an old name of Tongking, seeing that in Jih-nan lay the only port which was open for foreign trade with China at the beginning of our era, and that that province was then included administratively within the limits of China Proper (see Richthofen, China, i. 504-510; the same author's papers in the Trans. of the Berlin Geog. Soc. for 1876; and a paper by one of the present writers in Proc. R. Geog. Soc., November 1882.)

Another theory has been suggested by our friend M. Terrien de la Couperie in an elaborate note, of which we can but state the general gist. Whilst he quite accepts the suggestion that Kiao-chi or Tongking, anciently called Kiao-ti, was the Kattigara of Ptolemy's authority, he denies that Jih-nan can have been the origin of Sinae. This he does on two chief grounds: (l) That Jih-nan was not Kiao-chi, but a province a good deal further south, corresponding to the modern province of An (Nghé Ane, in the map of M. Dutreuil de Rhins, the capital of which is about 2° 17′ in lat. S. of Hanoi). This is distinctly stated in the Official Geography of Annam. An was one of the twelve provinces of Cochin China proper till 1820-41, when, with two others, it was transferred to Tongking. Also, in the Chinese Historical Atlas, Jih-nan lies in Chen-Ching, i.e. Cochin-China. (2) That the ancient pronunciation of Jih-nan, as indicated by the Chinese authorities of the Han period, was Nit-nam. It is still pronounced in Sinico-Annamite (the most archaic of the Chinese dialects) Nhut-nam, and in Cantonese Yat-nam. M. Terrien further points out that the export of Chinese goods, and the traffic with the south and west, was for several centuries B.C. monopolised by the State of Tsen (now pronounced in Sinico-Annamite Chen, and in Mandarin Tien), which corresponded to the centre and west of modern Yun-nan. The She-ki of Sze-ma Tsien (B.C. 91), and the Annals of the Han Dynasty afford interesting information on this subject. When the Emperor Wu-ti, in consequence of Chang-Kien's information brought back from Bactria, sent envoys to find the route followed by the traders of Shuh (i.e. Sze-chuen) to India, these envoys were detained by Tang-Kiang, King of Tsen, who objected to their exploring trade-routes through his territory, saying haughtily: "Has the Han a greater dominion than ours?"

M. Terrien conceives that as the only communication of this Tsen State with the Sea would be by the Song-Koi R., the emporium of sea-trade with that State would be at its mouth, viz. at Kiao-ti or Kattigara. Thus, he considers, the name of Tsen, this powerful and arrogant State, the monopoliser of trade-routes, is in all probability that which spread far and wide the name of Chīn, Sīn, Sinae, Thinae, and preserved its predominance in the mouths of foreigners, even when, as in the 2nd century of our era, the great Empire of the Han has extended over the Delta of the Song-Koi.

This theory needs more consideration than we can now give it. But it will doubtless have discussion elsewhere, and it does not disturb Richthofen's identification of Kattigara.

[Prof. Giles regards the suggestions of Richthofen and T. de la Couperie as mere guesses. From a recent reconsideration of the subject he has come to the conclusion that the name may possibly be derived from the name of a dynasty, Ch'in or Ts'in, which flourished B.C. 255-207, and became widely known in India, Persia, and other Asiatic countries, the final a being added by the Portuguese.]

c. A.D. 80-89.—"Behind this country (Chrysē) the sea comes to a termination somewhere in Thin, and in the interior of that country, quite to the north, there is a very great city called Thinae, from which raw silk and silk thread and silk stuffs are brought overland through Bactria to Barygaza, as they are on the other hand by the Ganges River to Limyricē. It is not easy, however, to get to this Thin, and few and far between are those who come from it...."—Periplus Maris Erythraei; see Müller, Geog. Gr. Min. i. 303.

c. 150—"The inhabited part of our earth is bounded on the east by the Unknown Land which lies along the region occupied by the easternmost races of Asia Minor, the Sinae and the natives of Sericē...."—Claudius Ptolemy, Bk. vii. ch. 5.

c. 545.—"The country of silk, I may mention, is the remotest of all the Indies, lying towards the left when you enter the Indian Sea, but a vast distance further off than the Persian Gulf or that island which the Indians call Selediba, and the Greeks Taprobane. Tzinitza (elsewhere Tzinista) is the name of the Country, and the Ocean compasses it round to the left, just as the same Ocean compasses Barbari (i.e. the Somāli Country) round to the right. And the Indian philosophers called Brachmans tell you that if you were to stretch a straight cord from Tzinitza through Persia to the Roman territory, you would just divide the world in halves."—Cosmas, Topog. Christ., Bk. II.

c. 641.—"In 641 the King of Magadha (Behar, &c.) sent an ambassador with a letter to the Chinese Court. The emperor ... in return directed one of his officers to go to the King ... and to invite his submission. The King Shiloyto (Siladitya) was all astonishment. 'Since time immemorial,' he asked his officer, 'did ever an ambassador come from Mohochintan?'.... The Chinese author remarks that in the tongue of the barbarians the Middle Kingdom is called Mohochintan (Mahā-Chīna-sthāna)."—From Cathay, &c., lxviii.

781.—"Adam Priest and Bishop and Pope of Tzinesthan.... The preachings of our Fathers to the King of Tzinia."—Syriac Part of the Inscription of Singanfu.

11th Century.—The "King of China" (Shinattarashan) appears in the list of provinces and monarchies in the great Inscription of the Tanjore Pagoda.

1128.—"Chīna and Mahāchīna appear in a list of places producing silk and other cloths, in the Abhilashitārthachintāmani of the Chālukya King."—Somesvaradiva (MS.) Bk. III. ch. 6.

1298.—"You must know the Sea in which lie the Islands of those parts is called the Sea of Chin.... For, in the language in those Isles, when they say Chin, 'tis Manzi they mean."—Marco Polo, Bk. III. ch. iv.

c. 1300.—"Large ships, called in the language of Chin 'junks,' bring various sorts of choice merchandize and cloths...."—Rashíduddín, in Elliot, i. 69.

1516.—"... there is the Kingdom of China, which they say is a very extensive dominion, both along the coast of the sea, and in the interior...."—Barbosa, 204.

1563.—"R. Then Ruelius and Mathiolus of Siena say that the best camphor is from China, and that the best of all Camphors is that purified by a certain barbarian King whom they call King (of) China.

"O. Then you may tell Ruelius and Mathiolus of Siena that though they are so well acquainted with Greek and Latin, there's no need to make such a show of it as to call every body 'barbarians' who is not of their own race, and that besides this they are quite wrong in the fact ... that the King of China does not occupy himself with making camphor, and is in fact one of the greatest Kings known in the world."—Garcia De Orta, f. 45b.

c. 1590.—"Near to this is Pegu, which former writers called Cheen, accounting this to be the capital city."—Ayeen, ed. 1800, ii. 4; [tr. Jarrett, ii. 119]. (See MACHEEN.)

CHINA, s. In the sense of porcelain this word (Chīnī, &c.) is used in Asiatic languages as well as in English. In English it does not occur in Minshew (2nd ed. 1627), though it does in some earlier publications. [The earliest quotation in N.E.D. is from Cogan's Pinto, 1653.] The phrase China-dishes as occurring in Drake and in Shakspere, shows how the word took the sense of porcelain in our own and other languages. The phrase China-dishes as first used was analogous to Turkey-carpets. But in the latter we have never lost the geographical sense of the adjective. In the word turquoises, again, the phrase was no doubt originally pierres turquoises, or the like, and here, as in china dishes, the specific has superseded the generic sense. The use of arab in India for an Arab horse is analogous to china. The word is used in the sense of a china dish in Lane's Arabian Nights, iii. 492; [Burton, I. 375].

851.—"There is in China a very fine clay with which they make vases transparent like bottles; water can be seen inside of them. These vases are made of clay."—Reinaud, Relations, i. 34.

c. 1350.—"China-ware (al-fakhkhār al-Sīnīy) is not made except in the cities of Zaītūn and of Sīn Kalān...."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 256.

c. 1530.—"I was passing one day along a street in Damascus, when I saw a slave-boy let fall from his hands a great China dish (ṣaḥfat min al-bakhkhār al-Sīnīy) which they call in that country sahn. It broke, and a crowd gathered round the little Mameluke."—Ibn Batuta, i. 238.

c. 1567.—"Le mercantie ch'andauano ogn'anno da Goa a Bezeneger erano molti caualli Arabi ... e anche pezze di China, zafaran, e scarlatti."—Cesare de' Federici, in Ramusio, iii. 389.

1579.—"... we met with one ship more loaden with linnen, China silke, and China dishes...."—Drake, World Encompassed, in Hak. Soc. 112.

c. 1580.—"Usum vasorum aureorum et argenteorum Aegyptii rejecerunt, ubi murrhina vasa adinvenere; quae ex India afferuntur, et ex ea regione quam Sini vocant, ubi conficiuntur ex variis lapidibus, praecipueque ex jaspide."—Prosp. Alpinus, Pt. I. p. 55.

c. 1590.—"The gold and silver dishes are tied up in red cloths, and those in Copper and China (chīnī) in white ones."—Āīn, i. 58.

c. 1603.—"... as it were in a fruit-dish, a dish of some threepence, your honours have seen such dishes; they are not China dishes, but very good dishes."—Measure for Measure, ii. 1.

1608-9.—"A faire China dish (which cost ninetie Rupias, or forty-five Reals of eight) was broken."—Hawkins, in Purchas, i. 220.

1609.—"He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose, or to watch when ladies are gone to the China-house, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance and give them presents...."

"Ay, sir: his wife was the rich China-woman, that the courtiers visited so often."—Ben Jonson, Silent Woman, i. 1.

1615.—

"... Oh had I now my Wishes,

Sure you should learn to make their China Dishes."

Doggrel prefixed to Coryat's Crudities.

c. 1690.—Kaempfer in his account of the Persian Court mentions that the department where porcelain and plate dishes, &c., were kept and cleaned was called Chīn-khāna, 'the China-closet'; and those servants who carried in the dishes were called Chīnīkash.—Amoen. Exot., p. 125.

1711.—"Purselaine, or China-ware is so tender a Commodity that good Instructions are as necessary for Package as Purchase."—Lockyer, 126.

1747.—"The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy; which far Exceeds any Thing of the Kind yet Published. By a Lady. London. Printed for the Author, and Sold by Mrs. Asburn a China Shop Woman, Corner of Fleet Ditch, MDCCXLVII." This the title of the original edition of Mrs. Glass's Cookery, as given by G. A. Sala, in Illd. News, May 12, 1883.

1876.—"Schuyler mentions that the best native earthenware in Turkistan is called Chīnī, and bears a clumsy imitation of a Chinese mark."—(see Turkistan, i. 187.)

For the following interesting note on the Arabic use we are indebted to Professor Robertson Smith:—

Ṣīnīya is spoken of thus in the Latāifo'l-ma'ārif of al-Th'ālibī, ed. De Jong, Leyden, 1867, a book written in A.D. 990. "The Arabs were wont to call all elegant vessels and the like Sīnīya (i.e. Chinese), whatever they really were, because of the specialty of the Chinese in objects of vertu; and this usage remains in the common word ṣawānā (pl. of ṣīnīya) to the present day."

So in the Tajāribo'l-Omam of Ibn Maskowaih (Fr. Hist. Ar. ii. 457), it is said that at the wedding of Mamūn with Būrān "her grandmother strewed over her 1000 pearls from a sīnīya of gold." In Egypt the familiar round brass trays used to dine off, are now called ṣīnīya (vulgo ṣanīya), [the ṣīnī, ṣenī of N. India] and so is a European saucer.

The expression ṣīnīyat al ṣīn, "A Chinese ṣīnīya," is quoted again by De Goeje from a poem of Abul-shibl Agānī, xiii. 27. [See SNEAKER.]

[CHINA-BEER, s. Some kind of liquor used in China, perhaps a variety of saké.

[1615.—"I carid a jarr of China Beare."—Cocks's Diary, i. 34.]

CHINA-BUCKEER, n.p. One of the chief Delta-mouths of the Irawadi is so called in marine charts. We have not been able to ascertain the origin of the name, further than that Prof. Forchhammer, in his Notes on the Early Hist. and Geog. of Br. Burma (p. 16), states that the country between Rangoon and Bassein, i.e. on the west of the Rangoon River, bore the name of Pokhara, of which Buckeer is a corruption. This does not explain the China.

CHINA-ROOT, s. A once famous drug, known as Radix Chinae and Tuber Chinae, being the tuber of various species of Smilax (N. O. Smilaceae, the same to which sarsaparilla belongs). It was said to have been used with good effect on Charles V. when suffering from gout, and acquired a great repute. It was also much used in the same way as sarsaparilla. It is now quite obsolete in England, but is still held in esteem in the native pharmacopœias of China and India.

1563.—"R. I wish to take to Portugal some of the Root or Wood of China, since it is not a contraband drug....

"O. This wood or root grows in China, an immense country, presumed to be on the confines of Muscovy ... and because in all these regions, both in China and in Japan, there exists the morbo napolitano, the merciful God hath willed to give them this root for remedy, and with it the good physicians there know well the treatment."—Garcia, f. 177.

c. 1590.—"Sircar Silhet is very mountainous.... China-Root (chob-chīnī) is produced here in great plenty, which was but lately discovered by some Turks."—Ayeen Akb., by Gladwin, ii. 10; [ed. Jarrett, ii. 124].

1598.—"The roote of China is commonlie vsed among the Egyptians ... specially for a consumption, for the which they seeth the roote China in broth of a henne or cocke, whereby they become whole and faire of face."—Dr. Paludanus, in Linschoten, 124, [Hak. Soc. ii. 112].

c. 1610.—"Quant à la verole.... Ils la guerissent sans suer avec du bois d'Eschine...."—Pyrard de Laval, ii. 9 (ed. 1679); [Hak. Soc. ii. 13; also see i. 182].

[c. 1690.—"The caravans returned with musk, China-wood (bois de Chine)."—Bernier, ed. Constable, p. 425.]

CHINAPATAM, n.p. A name sometimes given by the natives to Madras. The name is now written Shennai-Shenna-ppatanam, Tam., in Tel. Chennapattanamu, and the following is the origin of that name according to the statement given in W. Hamilton's Hindostan.

On "this part of the Coast of Coromandel ... the English ... possessed no fixed establishment until A.D. 1639, in which year, on the 1st of March, a grant was received from the descendants of the Hindoo dynasty of Bijanagur, then reigning at Chandergherry, for the erection of a fort. This document from Sree Rung Rayeel expressly enjoins, that the town and fort to be erected at Madras shall be called after his own name, Sree Runga Rayapatam; but the local governor or Naik, Damerla Vencatadri, who first invited Mr. Francis Day, the chief of Armagon, to remove to Madras, had previously intimated to him that he would have the new English establishment founded in the name of his father Chennappa, and the name of Chenappapatam continues to be universally applied to the town of Madras by the natives of that division of the south of India named Dravida."—(Vol. ii. p. 413).

Dr. Burnell doubted this origin of the name, and considered that the actual name could hardly have been formed from that of Chenappa. It is possible that some name similar to Chinapatan was borne by the place previously. It will be seen under MADRAS that Barros curiously connects the Chinese with St. Thomé. To this may be added this passage from the English translation of Mendoza's China, the original of which was published in 1585, the translation by R. Parke in 1588:—

"... it is plainely seene that they did come with the shipping vnto the Indies ... so that at this day there is great memory of them in the Ilands Philippinas and on the cost of Coromande, which is the cost against the Kingdome of Norsinga towards the sea of Bengala (misprinted Cengala); whereas is a town called vnto this day the Soile of the Chinos for that they did reedifie and make the same."—(i. 94).

I strongly suspect that this was Chinapatam, or Madras. [On the other hand, the popular derivation is accepted in the Madras Gloss., p. 163. The gold plate containing the grant of Sri Ranga Rāja is said to have been kept by the English for more than a century, till its loss in 1746 at the capture of Madras by the French.—(Wheeler, Early Rec., 49).]

1780.—"The Nawaub sent him to Cheena Pattun (Madras) under the escort of a small party of light Cavalry."—H. of Hydur Naik, 395.

CHINCHEW, CHINCHEO, n.p. A port of Fuhkien in China. Some ambiguity exists as to the application of the name. In English charts the name is now attached to the ancient and famous port of Chwan-chau-fu (Thsiouan-chéou-fou of French writers), the Zayton of Marco Polo and other medieval travellers. But the Chincheo of the Spaniards and Portuguese to this day, and the Chinchew of older English books, is, as Mr. G. Phillips pointed out some years ago, not Chwan-chau-fu, but Chang-chau-fu, distant from the former some 80 m. in a direct line, and about 140 by navigation. The province of Fuhkien is often called Chincheo by the early Jesuit writers. Changchau and its dependencies seem to have constituted the ports of Fuhkien with which Macao and Manilla communicated, and hence apparently they applied the same name to the port and the province, though Chang-chau was never the official capital of Fukhien (see Encyc. Britann., 9th ed. s.v. and references there). Chincheos is used for "people of Fuhkien" in a quotation under COMPOUND.

1517.—"... in another place called Chincheo, where the people were much richer than in Canton (Cantão). From that city used every year, before our people came to Malaca, to come to Malaca 4 junks loaded with gold, silver, and silk, returning laden with wares from India."—Correa, ii. 529.

CHIN-CHIN. In the "pigeon English" of Chinese ports this signifies 'salutation, compliments,' or 'to salute,' and is much used by Englishmen as slang in such senses. It is a corruption of the Chinese phrase ts'ing-ts'ing, Pekingese ch'ing-ch'ing, a term of salutation answering to 'thank-you,' 'adieu.' In the same vulgar dialect chin-chin joss means religious worship of any kind (see JOSS). It is curious that the phrase occurs in a quaint story told to William of Rubruck by a Chinese priest whom he met at the Court of the Great Kaan (see below). And it is equally remarkable to find the same story related with singular closeness of correspondence out of "the Chinese books of Geography" by Francesco Carletti, 350 years later (in 1600). He calls the creatures Zinzin (Ragionamenti di F. C., pp. 138-9).

1253.—"One day there sate by me a certain priest of Cathay, dressed in a red cloth of exquisite colour, and when I asked him whence they got such a dye, he told me how in the eastern parts of Cathay there were lofty cliffs on which dwelt certain creatures in all things partaking of human form, except that their knees did not bend.... The huntsmen go thither, taking very strong beer with them, and make holes in the rocks which they fill with this beer.... Then they hide themselves and these creatures come out of their holes and taste the liquor, and call out 'Chin Chin.'"—Itinerarium, in Rec. de Voyages, &c., iv. 328.

Probably some form of this phrase is intended in the word used by Pinto in the following passage, which Cogan leaves untranslated:—

c. 1540.—"So after we had saluted one another after the manner of the Country, they went and anchored by the shore" (in orig. "despois de se fazerem as suas e as nossas salvas a Charachina como entre este gente se custuma.")—In Cogan, p. 56; in orig. ch. xlvii.

1795.—"The two junior members of the Chinese deputation came at the appointed hour.... On entering the door of the marquee they both made an abrupt stop, and resisted all solicitation to advance to chairs that had been prepared for them, until I should first be seated; in this dilemma, Dr. Buchanan, who had visited China, advised me what was to be done; I immediately seized on the foremost, whilst the Doctor himself grappled with the second; thus we soon fixed them in their seats, both parties during the struggle, repeating Chin Chin, Chin Chin, the Chinese term of salutation."—Symes, Embassy to Ava, 295.

1829.—"One of the Chinese servants came to me and said, 'Mr. Talbot chin-chin you come down.'"—The Fankwae at Canton, p. 20.

1880.—"But far from thinking it any shame to deface our beautiful language, the English seem to glory in its distortion, and will often ask one another to come to 'chow-chow' instead of dinner; and send their 'chin-chin,' even in letters, rather than their compliments; most of them ignorant of the fact that 'chow-chow' is no more Chinese than it is Hebrew; that 'chin-chin,' though an expression used by the Chinese, does not in its true meaning come near to the 'good-bye, old fellow,' for which it is often used, or the compliments for which it is frequently substituted."—W. Gill, River of Golden Sand, i. 156; [ed. 1883, p. 41].

CHINSURA, n.p. A town on the Hoogly River, 26 miles above Calcutta, on the west bank, which was the seat of a Dutch settlement and factory down to 1824, when it was ceded to us by the Treaty of London, under which the Dutch gave up Malacca and their settlements in continental India, whilst we withdrew from Sumatra. [The place gave its name to a kind of cloth, Chinechuras (see PIECE-GOODS).]

1684.—"This day between 3 and 6 o'clock in the Afternoon, Capt. Richardson and his Sergeant, came to my house in ye Chinchera, and brought me this following message from ye President...."—Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. i. 166.

1705.—"La Loge appellée Chamdernagor est une très-belle Maison située sur le bord d'un des bras du fleuve de Gange.... À une lieue de la Loge il y a une grande Ville appellée Chinchurat...."—Luillier, 64-65.

1726.—"The place where our Lodge (or Factory) is is properly called Sinternu [i.e. Chinsura] and not Hoogli (which is the name of the village)."—Valentijn, v. 162.

1727.—"Chinchura, where the Dutch Emporium stands ... the Factors have a great many good Houses standing pleasantly on the River-Side; and all of them have pretty Gardens."—A. Hamilton, ii. 20; ed. 1744, ii. 18.

[1753.—"Shinshura." See quotation under CALCUTTA.]

CHINTS, CHINCH, s. A bug. This word is now quite obsolete both in India and in England. It is a corruption of the Portuguese chinche, which again is from cimex. Mrs. Trollope, in her once famous book on the Domestic Manners of the Americans, made much of a supposed instance of affected squeamishness in American ladies, who used the word chintses instead of bugs. But she was ignorant of the fact that chints was an old and proper name for the objectionable exotic insect, 'bug' being originally but a figurative (and perhaps a polite) term, 'an object of disgust and horror' (Wedgwood). Thus the case was exactly the opposite of what she chose to imagine; chints was the real name, bug the more or less affected euphonism.

1616.—"In the night we were likewise very much disquieted with another sort, called Musqueetoes, like our Gnats, but some-what less; and in that season we were very much troubled with Chinches, another sort of little troublesome and offensive creatures, like little Tikes: and these annoyed us two wayes; as first by their biting and stinging, and then by their stink."—Terry, ed. 1665, p. 372; [ed. 1777, p. 117].

1645.—"... for the most part the bedsteads in Italy are of forged iron gilded, since it is impossible to keepe the wooden ones from the chimices."—Evelyn's Diary, Sept. 29.

1673.—"... Our Bodies broke out into small fiery Pimples ... augmented by Muskeetoe-Bites, and Chinces raising Blisters on us."—Fryer, 35.

" "Chints are venomous, and if squeezed leave a most Poysonous Stench."—Ibid. 189.

CHINTZ, s. A printed or spotted cotton cloth; Port. chita; Mahr. chīt, and H. chīṇt. The word in this last form occurs (c. 1590) in the Āīn-i-Akbarī (i. 95). It comes apparently from the Skt. chitra, 'variegated, speckled.' The best chintzes were bought on the Madras coast, at Masulipatam and Sadras. The French form of the word is chite, which has suggested the possibility of our sheet being of the same origin. But chite is apparently of Indian origin, through the Portuguese, whilst sheet is much older than the Portuguese communication with India. Thus (1450) in Sir T. Cumberworth's will he directs his "wreched body to be beryd in a chitte with owte any kyste" (Academy, Sept. 27, 1879, p. 230). The resemblance to the Indian forms in this is very curious.

1614.—"... chintz and chadors...."—Peyton, in Purchas, i. 530.

[1616.—"3 per Chint bramport."—Cocks's Diary, i. 171.

[1623.—"Linnen stamp'd with works of sundry colours (which they call cit)."—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. i. 45.]

1653.—"Chites en Indou signifie des toilles imprimeés."—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1647, p. 536.

c. 1666.—"Le principal trafic des Hollandois à Amedabad, est de chites, qui sont de toiles peintes."—Thevenot, v. 35. In the English version (1687) this is written schites (iv. ch. v.).

1676.—"Chites or Painted Calicuts, which they call Calmendar, that is done with a pencil, are made in the Kingdom of Golconda, and particularly about Masulipatam."—Tavernier, E.T., p. 126; [ed. Ball, ii. 4].

1725.—"The returns that are injurious to our manufactures, or growth of our own country, are printed calicoes, chintz, wrought silks, stuffs, of herba, and barks."—Defoe, New Voyage round the World. Works, Oxford, 1840, p. 161.

1726.—"The Warehouse Keeper reported to the Board, that the chintzes, being brought from painting, had been examined at the sorting godown, and that it was the general opinion that both the cloth and the paintings were worse than the musters."—In Wheeler, ii. 407.

c. 1733.—

"No, let a charming chintz and Brussels lace

Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face."

Pope, Moral Essays, i. 248.

"And, when she sees her friend in deep despair,

Observes how much a Chintz exceeds Mohair...."

Ibid. ii. 170.

1817.—"Blue cloths, and chintzes in particular, have always formed an extensive article of import from Western India."—Raffles, H. of Java, i. 86; [2nd ed. i. 95, and comp. i. 190].

In the earlier books about India some kind of chintz is often termed pintado (q.v.). See the phraseology in the quotation from Wheeler above.

This export from India to Europe has long ceased. When one of the present writers was Sub-Collector of the Madras District (1866-67), chintzes were still figured by an old man at Sadras, who had been taught by the Dutch, the cambric being furnished to him by a Madras Chetty (q.v.). He is now dead, and the business has ceased; in fact the colours for the process are no longer to be had. The former chintz manufactures of Pulicat are mentioned by Correa, Lendas, ii. 2, p. 567. Havart (1693) mentions the manufacture at Sadras (i. 92), and gives a good description of the process of painting these cloths, which he calls chitsen (iii. 13). There is also a very complete account in the Lettres Édifiantes, xiv. 116 seqq.

In Java and Sumatra chintzes of a very peculiar kind of marbled pattern are still manufactured by women, under the name of bātik.

CHIPE, s. In Portuguese use, from Tamil shippi, 'an oyster.' The pearl-oysters taken in the pearl-fisheries of Tuticorin and Manār.

[1602.—"And the fishers on that coast gave him as tribute one day's oysters (hum dia de chipo), that is the result of one day's pearl fishing."—Couto, Dec. 7, Bk. VIII. ch. ii.]

1685.—"The chipe, for so they call those oysters which their boats are wont to fish."—Ribeiro, f. 63.

1710.—"Some of these oysters or chepîs, as the natives call them, produce pearls, but such are rare, the greater part producing only seed pearls (aljofres) [see ALJOFAR]."—Sousa, Oriente Conquist. ii. 243.

CHIRETTA, s. H. chirāītā, Mahr. kirāītā. A Himalayan herbaceous plant of the order Gentianaceae (Swertia Chirata, Ham.; Ophelia Chirata, Griesbach; Gentiana Chirayita, Roxb.; Agathetes chirayta, Don.), the dried twigs of which, infused, afford a pure bitter tonic and febrifuge. Its Skt. name kirāta-tikta, 'the bitter plant of the Kirātas,' refers its discovery to that people, an extensively-diffused forest tribe, east and north-east of Bengal, the Κιῤῥάδαι of the Periplus, and the people of the Κιῤῥάδια of Ptolemy. There is no indication of its having been known to G. de Orta.

[1773.—"Kol Meg in Bengal; Creat in Bombay.... It is excessively bitter, and given as a stomachic and vermifuge."—Ives, 471.]

1820.—"They also give a bitter decoction of the neem (Melia azadirachta) and chereeta."—Acc. of the Township of Luny, in Trans. Lit. Soc. of Bombay, ii. 232.

1874.—"Chiretta has long been held in esteem by the Hindus.... In England it began to attract some attention about 1829; and in 1839 was introduced into the Edinburgh Pharmacopœia. The plant was first described by Roxburgh in 1814."—Hanbury and Flückiger, 392.

CHIT, CHITTY, s. A letter or note; also a certificate given to a servant, or the like; a pass. H. chiṭṭhī; Mahr. chiṭṭī. [Skt. chitra, 'marked.'] The Indian Portuguese also use chito for escrito (Bluteau, Supplement). The Tamil people use shīt for a ticket, or for a playing-card.

1673.—"I sent one of our Guides, with his Master's Chitty, or Pass, to the Governnor, who received it kindly."—Fryer, 126.

[1757.—"If Mr. Ives is not too busie to honour this chitt which nothing but the greatest uneasiness could draw from me."—Ives, 134.]

1785.—".... Those Ladies and Gentlemen who wish to be taught that polite Art (drawing) by Mr. Hone, may know his terms by sending a Chit...."—In Seton-Karr, i. 114.

1786.—"You are to sell rice, &c., to every merchant from Muscat who brings you a chitty from Meer Kâzim."—Tippoo's Letters, 284.

1787.—"Mrs. Arend ... will wait upon any Lady at her own house on the shortest notice, by addressing a chit to her in Chattawala Gully, opposite Mr. Motte's old house, Tiretta's bazar."—Advt. in Seton-Karr, i. 226.

1794.—"The petty but constant and universal manufacture of chits which prevails here."—Hugh Boyd, 147.

1829.—"He wanted a chithee or note, for this is the most note-writing country under heaven; the very Drum-major writes me a note to tell me about the mails."—Mem. of Col. Mountain, 2nd ed., 80.

1839.—"A thorough Madras lady ... receives a number of morning visitors, takes up a little worsted work; goes to tiffin with Mrs. C., unless Mrs. D. comes to tiffin with her, and writes some dozens of chits.... These incessant chits are an immense trouble and interruption, but the ladies seem to like them."—Letters from Madras, 284.

CHITCHKY, s. A curried vegetable mixture, often served and eaten with meat curry. Properly Beng. chhechkī.

1875.—"... Chhenchki, usually called tarkāri in the Vardhamāna District, a sort of hodge-podge consisting of potatoes, brinjals, and tender stalks...."—Govinda Samanta, i. 59.

CHITTAGONG, n.p. A town, port, and district of Eastern Bengal, properly written Chatgānw (see PORTO PIQUENO). Chittagong appears to be the City of Bengala of Varthema and some of the early Portuguese. (See BANDEL, BENGAL).

c. 1346.—"The first city of Bengal that we entered was Sudkāwān, a great place situated on the shore of the great Sea."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 212.

1552.—"In the mouths of the two arms of the Ganges enter two notable rivers, one on the east, and one on the west side, both bounding this kingdom (of Bengal); the one of these our people call the River of Chatigam, because it enters the Eastern estuary of the Ganges at a city of that name, which is the most famous and wealthy of that Kingdom, by reason of its Port, at which meets the traffic of all that Eastern region."—De Barros, Dec. IV. liv. ix. cap. i.

[1586.—"Satagam." See quotation under HING.]

1591.—"So also they inform me that Antonio de Sousa Goudinho has served me well in Bemgualla, and that he has made tributary to this state the Isle of Sundiva, and has taken the fortress of Chataguão by force of arms."—King's Letter, in Archivio Port. Orient., fasc. iii. 257.

1598.—"From this River Eastward 50 miles lyeth the towne of Chatigan, which is the chief towne of Bengala."—Linschoten, ch. xvi.; [Hak. Soc. i. 94].

c. 1610.—Pyrard de la Val has Chartican, i. 234; [Hak. Soc. i. 326].

1727.—"Chittagoung, or, as the Portuguese call it, Xatigam, about 50 Leagues below Dacca."—A. Hamilton, ii. 24; ed. 1744, ii. 22.

17—.—"Chittigan" in Orme (reprint), ii. 14.

1786.—"The province of Chatigan (vulgarly Chittagong) is a noble field for a naturalist. It is so called, I believe, from the chatag, which is the most beautiful little bird I ever saw."—Sir W. Jones, ii. 101.

Elsewhere (p. 81) he calls it a "Montpelier." The derivation given by this illustrious scholar is more than questionable. The name seems to be really a form of the Sanskrit Chaturgrāma (= Tetrapolis), [or according to others of Saptagrāma, 'seven villages'], and it is curious that near this position Ptolemy has a Pentapolis, very probably the same place. Chaturgrāma is still the name of a town in Ceylon, lat. 6°, long. 81°.

CHITTLEDROOG, n.p. A fort S.W. of Bellary; properly Chitra Durgam, Red Hill (or Hill-Fort, or 'picturesque fort']) called by the Mahommedans Chītaldurg (C. P. B.).

CHITTORE, n.p. Chītor, or Chītorgaṛh, a very ancient and famous rock fortress in the Rajput State of Mewār. It is almost certainly the Τιάτουρα of Ptolemy (vii. 1).

1533.—"Badour (i.e. Bahādur Shāh) ... in Champanel ... sent to carry off a quantity of powder and shot and stores for the attack on Chitor, which occasioned some delay because the distance was so great."—Correa, iii. 506.

1615.—"The two and twentieth (Dec.), Master Edwards met me, accompanied with Thomas Coryat, who had passed into India on foote, fiue course to Cytor, an ancient Citie ruined on a hill, but so that it appeares a Tombe (Towne?) of wonderfull magnificence...."—Sir Thomas Roe, in Purchas, i. 540; [Hak. Soc. i. 102; "Cetor" in i. 111, "Chytor" in ii. 540].

[1813.—"... a tribute ... imposed by Muhadajee Seendhiya for the restitution of Chuetohrgurh, which he had conquered from the Rana."—Broughton, Letters, ed. 1892, p. 175.]

CHOBDAR, s. H. from P. chobdār, 'a stick-bearer.' A frequent attendant of Indian nobles, and in former days of Anglo-Indian officials of rank. They are still a part of the state of the Viceroy, Governors, and Judges of the High Courts. The chobdārs carry a staff overlaid with silver.

1442.—"At the end of the hall stand tchobdars ... drawn up in line."—Abdur-Razzāk, in India in the XV. Cent. 25.

1673.—"If he (the President) move out of his Chamber, the Silver Staves wait on him."—Fryer, 68.

1701.—"... Yesterday, of his own accord, he told our Linguists that he had sent four Chobdars and 25 men, as a safeguard."—In Wheeler, i. 371.

1788.—"Chubdár.... Among the Nabobs he proclaims their praises aloud, as he runs before their palankeens."—Indian Vocabulary (Stockdale's).

1793.—"They said a Chubdar, with a silverstick, one of the Sultan's messengers of justice, had taken them from the place, where they were confined, to the public Bazar, where their hands were cut off."—Dirom, Narrative, 235.

1798.—"The chief's Chobedar ... also endeavoured to impress me with an ill opinion of these messengers."—G. Forster's Travels, i. 222.

1810.—"While we were seated at breakfast, we were surprised by the entrance of a Choabdar, that is, a servant who attends on persons of consequence, runs before them with a silver stick, and keeps silence at the doors of their apartments, from which last office he derives his name."—Maria Graham, 57.

This usually accurate lady has been here misled, as if the word were chup-dār, 'silence-keeper,' a hardly possible hybrid.

CHOBWA, s. Burmese Tsaubwa, Siamese Chao, 'prince, king,' also Chaohpa (compounded with hpa, 'heaven'), and in Cushing's Shan Dicty. and cacography, sow, 'lord, master,' sowhpa, a 'hereditary prince.' The word chu-hu, for 'chief,' is found applied among tribes of Kwang-si, akin to the Shans, in A.D. 1150 (Prof. T. de la Couperie). The designation of the princes of the Shan States on the east of Burma, many of whom are (or were till lately) tributary to Ava.

1795.—"After them came the Chobwaas, or petty tributary princes: these are personages who, before the Birmans had extended their conquests over the vast territories which they now possess, had held small independent sovereignties which they were able to maintain so long as the balance of power continued doubtful between the Birmans, Peguers, and Siamese."—Symes, 366.

1819.—"All that tract of land ... is inhabited by a numerous nation called Sciam, who are the same as the Laos. Their kingdom is divided into small districts under different chiefs called Zaboà, or petty princes."—Sangermano, 34.

1855.—"The Tsaubwas of all these principalities, even where most absolutely under Ava, retain all the forms and appurtenances of royalty."—Yule, Mission to Ava, 303.

[1890.—"The succession to the throne primarily depends upon the person chosen by the court and people being of princely descent—all such are called chow or prince."—Hallet, A Thousand Miles on an Elephant, p. 32.]

CHOGA, s. Turki choghā. A long sleeved garment, like a dressing-gown (a purpose for which Europeans often make use of it). It is properly an Afghan form of dress, and is generally made of some soft woollen material, and embroidered on the sleeves and shoulders. In Bokhara the word is used for a furred robe. ["In Tibetan ch'uba; in Turki juba. It is variously pronounced chuba, juba or chogha in Asia, and shuba or shubka in Russia" (J.R.A.S., N.S. XXIII. 122)].

1883.—"We do not hear of 'shirt-sleeves' in connection with Henry (Lawrence), so often as in John's case; we believe his favourite dishabille was an Afghan choga, which like charity covered a multitude of sins."—Qu. Review, No. 310, on Life of Lord Lawrence, p. 303.

CHOKIDAR, s. A watchman. Derivative in Persian form from Choky. The word is usually applied to a private watchman; in some parts of India he is generally of a thieving tribe, and his employment may be regarded as a sort of blackmail to ensure one's property. [In N. India the village Chaukīdār is the rural policeman, and he is also employed for watch and ward in the smaller towns.]

1689.—"And the Day following the Chocadars, or Souldiers were remov'd from before our Gates."—Ovington, 416.

1810.—"The chokey-dar attends during the day, often performing many little offices, ... at night parading about with his spear, shield, and sword, and assuming a most terrific aspect, until all the family are asleep; when HE GOES TO SLEEP TOO."—Williamson, V. M. i. 295.

c. 1817.—"The birds were scarcely beginning to move in the branches of the trees, and there was not a servant excepting the chockedaurs, stirring about any house in the neighbourhood, it was so early."—Mrs. Sherwood's Stories, &c. (ed. 1873), 243.

1837.—"Every village is under a potail, and there is a pursau or priest, and choukeednop (sic!) or watchman."—Phillips, Million of Facts, 320.

1864.—The church book at Peshawar records the death there of "The Revd. I—— L——l, who on the night of the —th ——, 1864, when walking in his veranda was shot by his own chokidar"—to which record the hand of an injudicious friend has added: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant!" (The exact words will now be found in the late Mr. E. B. Eastwick's Panjáb Handbook, p. 279).

CHOKRA, s. Hind. chhokrā, 'a boy, a youngster'; and hence, more specifically, a boy employed about a household, or a regiment. Its chief use in S. India is with the latter. (See CHUCKAROO.)

[1875.—"He was dubbed 'the chokra,' or simply 'boy.'"—Wilson, Abode of Snow, 136.]

CHOKY, s. H. chaukī, which in all its senses is probably connected with Skt. chatur, 'four'; whence chatushka, 'of four,' 'four-sided,' &c.

a. (Perhaps first a shed resting on four posts); a station of police; a lock-up; also a station of palankin bearers, horses, &c., when a post is laid; a customs or toll-station, and hence, as in the first quotation, the dues levied at such a place; the act of watching or guarding.

[1535.—"They only pay the choqueis coming in ships from the Moluccas to Malacca, which amounts to 3 parts in 10 for the owner of the ship for choque, which is freight; that which belongs to His Highness pays nothing when it comes in ships. This choque is as far as Malacca, from thence to India is another freight as arranged between the parties. Thus when cloves are brought in His Highness's ships, paying the third and the choquies, there goes from every 30 bahars 16 to the King, our Lord."—Arrangement made by Nuno da Cunha, quoted in Botelho, Tombo, p. 113. On this Mr. Whiteway remarks: "By this arrangement the King of Portugal did not ship any cloves of his own at the Moluccas, but he took one-third of every shipment free, and on the balance he took one-third as Choky, which is, I imagine, in lieu of customs."]

c. 1590.—"Mounting guard is called in Hindi Chauki."—Āīn, i. 257.

1608.—"The Kings Custome called Chukey, is eight bagges upon the hundred bagges."—Saris, in Purchas, i. 391.

1664.—"Near this Tent there is another great one, which is called Tchaukykane, because it is the place where the Omrahs keep guard, every one in his turn, once a week twenty-four hours together."—Bernier, E.T., 117; [ed. Constable, 363].

1673.—"We went out of the Walls by Broach Gate ... where, as at every gate, stands a Chocky, or Watch to receive Toll for the Emperor...."—Fryer, 100.

" "And when they must rest, if they have no Tents, they must shelter themselves under Trees ... unless they happen on a Chowkie, i.e., a Shed where the Customer keeps a Watch to take Custom."—Ibid. 410.

1682.—"About 12 o'clock Noon we got to ye Chowkee, where after we had shown our Dustick and given our present, we were dismissed immediately."—Hedges, Diary, Dec. 17; [Hak. Soc. i. 58].

1774.—"Il più difficile per viaggiare nell' Indostan sono certi posti di guardie chiamate Cioki ... questi Cioki sono insolentissimi."—Della Tomba, 33.

1810.—"... Chokies, or patrol stations."—Williamson, V. M., i. 297.

This word has passed into the English slang vocabulary in the sense of 'prison.'

b. A chair. This use is almost peculiar to the Bengal Presidency. Dr. John Muir [Orig. Skt. Texts, ii. 5] cites it in this sense, as a Hindi word which has no resemblance to any Skt. vocable. Mr. Growse, however, connects it with chatur, 'four' (Ind. Antiq., i. 105). See also beginning of this article. Chau is the common form of 'four' in composition, e.g. chaubandi, (i.e. 'four fastening') the complete shoeing of a horse; chaupahra ('four watches') all night long; chaupār, 'a quadruped'; chaukaṭ and chaukhaṭ ('four timber'), a frame (of a door, &c.). So chaukī seems to have been used for a square-framed stool, and thence a chair.

1772.—"Don't throw yourself back in your burra chokey, and tell me it won't do...."—W. Hastings to G. Vansittart, in Gleig, i. 238.

c. 1782.—"As soon as morning appeared he (Haidar) sat down on his chair (chaukī) and washed his face."—H. of Hydur Naik, 505.

CHOLERA, and CHOLERA MORBUS, s. The Disease. The term 'cholera,' though employed by the old medical writers, no doubt came, as regards its familiar use, from India. Littré alleges that it is a mistake to suppose that the word cholera (χολέρα) is a derivative from χολή 'bile,' and that it really means 'a gutter,' the disease being so called from the symptoms. This should, however, rather be ἀπὸ τῶν χολάδων, the latter word being anciently used for the intestines (the etym. given by the medical writer, Alex. Trallianus). But there is a discussion on the subject in the modern ed. of Stephani Thesaurus, which indicates a conclusion that the derivation from χολὴ is probably right; it is that of Celsus (see below). [The N.E.D. takes the same view, but admits that there is some doubt.] For quotations and some particulars in reference to the history of this terrible disease, see under MORT-DE-CHIEN.

c. A.D. 20.—"Primoque facienda mentio est cholerae; quia commune id stomachi atque intestinorum vitium videri potest ... intestina torquentur, bilis supra infraque erumpit, primum aquae similis: deinde ut in eâ recens caro tota esse videatur, interdum alba, nonnunquam nigra vel varia. Ergo eo nomine morbum hunc χολέραν Graeci nominârunt...." &c.—A. C. Celsi Med. Libri VIII. iv. xi.

c. A.D. 100.—"ΠΕΡῚ ΧΟΛΈΡΗΣ ... θάνατος ἐπῶδυνος καὶ οἴκτιστος σπασμῷ καὶ πνιγὶ καὶ ἐμέσῳ κενῷ."—Aretaeus, De Causis et signis acutorum morborum, ii. 5.

Also Θεραπεία Χολερῆς, in De Curatione Morb. Ac. ii. 4.

1563.—"R. Is this disease the one which kills so quickly, and from which so few recover? Tell me how it is called among us, and among them, and its symptoms, and the treatment of it in use?

"O. Among us it is called Collerica passio...."—Garcia, f. 74v.

[1611.—"As those ill of Colera."—Couto, Dialogo de Soldado Pratico, p. 5.]

1673.—"The Diseases reign according to the Seasons.... In the extreme Heats, Cholera Morbus."—Fryer, 113-114.

1832.—"Le Choléra Morbus, dont vous me parlez, n'est pas inconnu à Cachemire."—Jacquemont, Corresp. ii. 109.

CHOLERA HORN. See COLLERY.

CHOOLA, s. H. chūlhā, chūlhī, chūlā, fr. Skt. chulli. The extemporized cooking-place of clay which a native of India makes on the ground to prepare his own food; or to cook that of his master.

1814.—"A marble corridor filled up with choolas, or cooking-places, composed of mud, cowdung, and unburnt bricks."—Forbes, Or. Mem. iii. 120; [2nd ed. ii. 193].

CHOOLIA, s. Chūliā is a name given in Ceylon and in Malabar to a particular class of Mahommedans, and sometimes to Mahommedans generally. There is much obscurity about the origin and proper application of the term. [The word is by some derived from Skt. chūḍa, the top-knot which every Hindu must wear, and which is cut off on conversion to Islam. In the same way in the Punjab, choṭīkaṭ, 'he that has had his top-knot cut off,' is a common form of abuse used by Hindus to Musulman converts; see Ibbetson, Panjab Ethnog. p. 240.] According to Sonnerat (i. 109), the Chulias are of Arab descent and of Shīa profession. [The Madras Gloss. takes the word to be from the kingdom of Chola and to mean a person of S. India.]

c. 1345.—"... the city of Kaulam, which is one of the finest of Malibār. Its bazars are splendid, and its merchants are known by the name of Ṣūlia (i.e. Chūlia)."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 99.

1754.—"Chowlies are esteemed learned men, and in general are merchants."—Ives, 25.

1782.—"We had found ... less of that foolish timidity, and much more disposition to intercourse in the Choliars of the country, who are Mahommedans and quite distinct in their manners...."—Hugh Boyd, Journal of a Journey of an Embassy to Candy, in Misc. Works (1800), i. 155.

1783.—"During Mr. Saunders's government I have known Chulia (Moors) vessels carry coco-nuts from the Nicobar Islands to Madras."—Forrest, Voyage to Mergui, p. v.

" "Chulias and Malabars (the appellations are I believe synonymous)."—Ibid. 24.

1836.—"Mr. Boyd ... describes the Moors under the name of Cholias, and Sir Alexander Johnston designates them by the appellation Lubbies (see LUBBYE). These epithets are, however, not admissible, for the former is only confined to a particular sect among them, who are rather of an inferior grade; and the latter to the priests who officiate."—Casie Chitty, in J. R. A. Soc. iii. 338.

1879.—"There are over 15,000 Klings, Chuliahs, and other natives of India."—Miss Bird, Golden Chersonese, 254.

CHOP, s. Properly a seal-impression, stamp, or brand; H. chhāp; the verb (chhāpnā) being that which is now used in Hindustani to express the art of printing (books).

The word chhāp seems not to have been traced back with any accuracy beyond the modern vernaculars. It has been thought possible (at least till the history should be more accurately traced) that it might be of Portuguese origin. For there is a Port. word chapa, 'a thin plate of metal,' which is no doubt the original of the Old English chape for the metal plate on the sheath of a sword or dagger. The word in this sense is not in the Portuguese Dictionaries; but we find 'homem chapado,' explained as 'a man of notable worth or excellence,' and Bluteau considers this a metaphor 'taken from the chapas or plates of metal on which the kings of India caused their letters patent to be engraven.' Thus he would seem to have regarded, though perhaps erroneously, the chhāpā and the Portuguese chapa as identical. On the other hand, Mr. Beames entertains no doubt that the word is genuine Hindi, and connects it with a variety of other words signifying striking, or pressing. And Thompson in his Hindi Dictionary says that chhāppā is a technical term used by the Vaishnavas to denote the sectarial marks (lotus, trident, &c.), which they delineate on their bodies. Fallon gives the same meaning, and quotes a Hindi verse, using it in this sense. We may add that while chhāpā is used all over the N.W.P. and Punjab for printed cloths, Drummond (1808) gives chhāpānīya, chhapārā, as words for 'Stampers or Printers of Cloth' in Guzerati, and that the passage quoted below from a Treaty made with an ambassador from Guzerat by the Portuguese in 1537, uses the word chapada for struck or coined, exactly as the modern Hindi verb chhāpnā might be used. Chop, in writers prior to the last century, is often used for the seal itself. "Owen Cambridge says the Mohr was the great seal, but the small or privy seal was called a 'chop' or 'stamp.'" (C. P. Brown).

The word chop is hardly used now among Anglo-Indians in the sense of seal or stamp. But it got a permanent footing in the 'Pigeon English' of the Chinese ports, and thence has come back to England and India, in the phrase "first-chop," i.e. of the first brand or quality.

The word chop (chāp) is adopted in Malay [with the meanings of seal-impression, stamp, to seal or stamp, though there is, as Mr. Skeat points out, a pure native word tera or tra, which is used in all these senses;] and chop has acquired the specific sense of a passport or licence. The word has also obtained a variety of applications, including that just mentioned, in the lingua franca of foreigners in the China seas. Van Braam applies it to a tablet bearing the Emperor's name, to which he and his fellow envoys made kotow on their first landing in China (Voyage, &c., Paris, An vi., 1798, i. 20-21). Again, in the same jargon, a chop of tea means a certain number of chests of tea, all bearing the same brand. Chop-houses are customs stations on the Canton River, so called from the chops, or seals, used there (Giles, Glossary). Chop-dollar is a dollar chopped, or stamped with a private mark, as a guarantee of its genuineness (ibid.). (Dollars similarly marked had currency in England in the first quarter of last century, and one of the present writers can recollect their occasional occurrence in Scotland in his childhood). The grand chop is the port clearance granted by the Chinese customs when all dues have been paid (ibid.). All these have obviously the same origin; but there are other uses of the word in China not so easily explained, e.g. chop, for 'a hulk'; chop-boat for a lighter or cargo-boat.

In Captain Forrest's work, quoted below, a golden badge or decoration, conferred on him by the King of Achin, is called a chapp (p. 55). The portrait of Forrest, engraved by Sharp, shows this badge, and gives the inscription, translated: "Capt. Thomas Forrest, Orancayo [see ORANKAY] of the Golden Sword. This chapp was conferred as a mark of honour in the city of Atcheen, belonging to the Faithful, by the hands of the Shabander [see SHAHBUNDER] of Atcheen, on Capt. Thomas Forrest."

[1534.—"The Governor said that he would receive nothing save under his chapa." "Until he returned from Badur with his reply and the chapa required."—Correa, iii. 585.]

1537.—"And the said Nizamamede Zamom was present and then before me signed, and swore on his Koran (moçafo) to keep and maintain and fulfil this agreement entirely ... and he sealed it with his seal" (e o chapo de sua chapa).—Treaty above quoted, in S. Botelho, Tombo, 228.

1552.—"... ordered ... that they should allow no person to enter or to leave the island without taking away his chapa.... And this chapa was, as it were, a seal."—Castanheda, iii. 32.

1614.—"The King (of Achen) sent us his Chop."—Milward, in Purchas, i. 526.

1615.—"Sailed to Acheen; the King sent his Chope for them to go ashore, without which it was unlawful for any one to do so."—Sainsbury, i. 445.

[ " "2 chistes plate ... with the rendadors chape upon it."—Cocks's Diary, i. 219.]

1618.—"Signed with my chop, the 14th day of May (sic), in the Yeare of our Prophet Mahomet 1027."—Letter from Gov. of Mocha, in Purchas, i. 625.

1673.—"The Custom-house has a good Front, where the chief Customer appears certain Hours to chop, that is to mark Goods outward-bound."—Fryer, 98.

1678.—"... sending of our Vuckeel this day to Compare the Coppys with those sent, in order to ye Chaup, he refused it, alledging that they came without ye Visiers Chaup to him...."—Letter (in India Office) from Dacca Factory to Mr. Matthias Vincent (Ft. St. George?).

1682.—"To Rajemaul I sent ye old Duan ...'s Perwanna, Chopt both by the Nabob and new Duan, for its confirmation."—Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. i. 37.

1689.—"Upon their Chops as they call them in India, or Seals engraven, are only Characters, generally those of their Name."—Ovington, 251.

1711.—"This (Oath at Acheen) is administered by the Shabander ... lifting, very respectfully, a short Dagger in a Gold Case, like a Scepter, three times to their Heads; and it is called receiving the Chop for Trade."—Lockyer, 35.

1715.—"It would be very proper also to put our chop on the said Books."—In Wheeler, ii. 224.

c. 1720.—"Here they demanded tax and toll; felt us all over, not excepting our mouths, and when they found nothing, stamped a chop upon our arms in red paint; which was to serve for a pass."—Zesteen Jaarige Reize ... door Jacob de Bucquoy, Haarlem, 1757.

1727.—"On my Arrival (at Acheen) I took the Chap at the great River's Mouth, according to Custom. This Chap is a Piece of Silver about 8 ounces Weight, made in Form of a Cross, but the cross Part is very short, that we ... put to our Fore-head, and declare to the Officer that brings the Chap, that we come on an honest Design to trade."—A. Hamilton, ii. 103.

1771.—"... with Tiapp or passports."—Osbeck, i. 181.

1782.—"... le Pilote ... apporte avec lui leur chappe, ensuite il adore et consulte son Poussa, puis il fait lever l'ancre."—Sonnerat, ii. 233.

1783.—"The bales (at Acheen) are immediately opened; 12 in the hundred are taken for the king's duty, and the remainder being marked with a certain mark (chapp) may be carried where the owner pleases."—Forrest, V. to Mergui, 41.

1785.—"The only pretended original produced was a manifest forgery, for it had not the chop or smaller seal, on which is engraved the name of the Mogul."—Carraccioli's Clive, i. 214.

1817.—"... and so great reluctance did he (the Nabob) show to the ratification of the Treaty, that Mr. Pigot is said to have seized his chop, or seal, and applied it to the paper."—Mill's Hist. iii. 340.

1876.—"'First chop! tremendously pretty too,' said the elegant Grecian, who had been paying her assiduous attention."—Daniel Deronda, Bk. I. ch. x.

1882.—"On the edge of the river facing the 'Pow-shan' and the Creek Hongs, were Chop houses, or branches of the Hoppo's department, whose duty it was to prevent smuggling, but whose interest it was to aid and facilitate the shipping of silks ... at a considerable reduction on the Imperial tariff."—The Fankwae at Canton, p. 25.

The writer last quoted, and others before him, have imagined a Chinese origin for chop, e.g., as "from chah, 'an official note from a superior,' or chah, 'a contract, a diploma, &c.,' both having at Canton the sound chăp, and between them covering most of the 'pigeon' uses of chop" (Note by Bishop Moule). But few of the words used by Europeans in Chinese trade are really Chinese, and we think it has been made clear that chop comes from India.

CHOP-CHOP. Pigeon-English (or -Chinese) for 'Make haste! look sharp!' This is supposed to be from the Cantonese, pron. kăp-kăp, of what is in the Mandarin dialect kip-kip. In the Northern dialects kwai-kwai, 'quick-quick' is more usual (Bishop Moule). [Mr. Skeat compares the Malay chepat-chepat, 'quick-quick.']

CHOPPER.

a. H. chhappar, 'a thatched roof.'

[1773.—"... from their not being provided with a sufficient number of boats, there was a necessity for crouding a large party of Sepoys into one, by which the chuppar, or upper slight deck broke down."—Ives, 174.]

1780.—"About 20 Days ago a Villian was detected here setting fire to Houses by throwing the Tickeea of his Hooka on the Choppers, and was immediately committed to the Phouzdar's Prison.... On his tryal ... it appering that he had more than once before committed the same Nefarieus and abominable Crime, he was sentenced to have his left Hand, and right Foot cut off.... It is needless to expatiate on the Efficacy such exemplary Punishments would be of to the Publick in general, if adopted on all similar occasions...."—Letter from Moorshedabad, in Hicky's Bengal Gazette, May 6.

1782.—"With Mr. Francis came the Judges of the Supreme Court, the Laws of England, partial oppression, and licentious liberty. The common felons were cast loose, ... the merchants of the place told that they need not pay duties ... and the natives were made to know that they might erect their chappor huts in what part of the town they pleased."—Price, Some Observations, 61.

1810.—"Chuppers, or grass thatches."—Williamson, V. M. i. 510.

c. 1817.—"These cottages had neat choppers, and some of them wanted not small gardens, fitly fenced about."—Mrs. Sherwood's Stories, ed. 1873, 258.

[1832.—"The religious devotee sets up a chupha-hut without expence."—Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali, ii. 211.]

[b. In Persia, a corr. of P. chār-pā, 'on four feet, a quadruped' and thence a mounted post and posting.

1812.—"Eight of the horses belong to the East India Company, and are principally employed in carrying choppers or couriers to Shiraz."—Morier, Journey through Persia, &c., p. 64.

1883.—"By this time I had begun to pique myself on the rate I could get over the ground 'en chuppar.'"—Wills, In the Land of the Lion and the Sun, ed. 1891, p. 259.]

CHOPPER-COT, a. Much as this looks like a European concoction, it is a genuine H. term, chhappar khāṭ, 'a bedstead with curtains.'

1778.—"Leito com armação. Châpâr cátt."—Grammatica Indostana, 128.

c. 1809.—"Bedsteads are much more common than in Puraniya. The best are called Palang, or Chhapar Khat ... they have curtains, mattrasses, pillows, and a sheet...."—Buchanan, Eastern India, ii. 92.

c. 1817.—"My husband chanced to light upon a very pretty chopper-cot, with curtains and everything complete."—Mrs. Sherwood's Stories, ed. 1873, 161. (See COT.)

CHOPSTICKS, s. The sticks used in pairs by the Chinese in feeding themselves. The Chinese name of the article is 'kwai-tsz,' 'speedy-ones.' "Possibly the inventor of the present word, hearing that the Chinese name had this meaning, and accustomed to the phrase chop-chop for 'speedily,' used chop as a translation" (Bishop Moule). [Prof. Giles writes: "The N.E.D. gives incorrectly kwai-tze, i.e. 'nimble boys,' 'nimble ones.' Even Sir H. Yule is not without blemish. He leaves the aspirate out of kwai, of which the official orthography is now k'uai-k'uai-tzŭ, 'hasteners,' the termination -ers bringing out the value of tzŭ, an enclitic particle, better than 'ones.' Bishop Moule's suggestion is on the right track. I think, however, that chopstick came from a Chinaman, who of course knew the meaning of k'uai and applied it accordingly, using the 'pidgin' word chop as the, to him, natural equivalent."]

c. 1540.—"... his young daughters, with their brother, did nothing but laugh to see us feed ourselves with our hands, for that is contrary to the custome which is observed throughout the whole empire of China, where the Inhabitants at their meat carry it to their mouthes with two little sticks made like a pair of Cizers" (this is the translator's folly; it is really com duos paos feitos como fusos—"like spindles")."—Pinto, orig. cap. lxxxiii., in Cogan, p. 103.

[1598.—"Two little peeces of blacke woode made round ... these they use instead of forkes."—Linschoten, Hak. Soc. i. 144.]

c. 1610.—"... ont comme deux petites spatules de bois fort bien faites, qu'ils tiennent entre leurs doigts, et prennent avec cela ce qu'ils veulent manger, si dextrement, que rien plus."—Mocquet, 346.

1711.—"They take it very dexterously with a couple of small Chopsticks, which serve them instead of Forks."—Lockyer, 174.

1876.—"Before each there will be found a pair of chopsticks, a wine-cup, a small saucer for soy ... and a pile of small pieces of paper for cleaning these articles as required."—Giles, Chinese Sketches, 153-4.

CHOTA-HAZRY, s. H. chhoṭī hāẓirī, vulg. hāẓrī, 'little breakfast'; refreshment taken in the early morning, before or after the morning exercise. The term (see HAZREE) was originally peculiar to the Bengal Presidency. In Madras the meal is called 'early tea.' Among the Dutch in Java, this meal consists (or did consist in 1860) of a large cup of tea, and a large piece of cheese, presented by the servant who calls one in the morning.

1853.—"After a bath, and hasty ante-breakfast (which is called in India 'a little breakfast') at the Euston Hotel, he proceeded to the private residence of a man of law."—Oakfield, ii. 179.

1866.—"There is one small meal ... it is that commonly known in India by the Hindustani name of chota-hāziri, and in our English colonies as 'Early Tea.'..."—Waring, Tropical Resident, 172.

1875.—"We took early tea with him this morning."—The Dilemma, ch. iii.

CHOUL, CHAUL, n.p. A seaport of the Concan, famous for many centuries under various forms of this name, Cheṅwal properly, and pronounced in Konkani Tseṁwal (Sinclair, Ind. Ant. iv. 283). It may be regarded as almost certain that this was the Σίμυλλα of Ptolemy's Tables, called by the natives, as he says, Τίμουλα. It may be fairly conjectured that the true reading of this was Τιίμουλα, or Τιέμουλα. We find the sound ch of Indian names apparently represented in Ptolemy by τι (as it is in Dutch by tj). Thus Τιάτουρα = Chitor, Τιάστανης = Chashṭaṇa; here Τίμουλα = Cheṅwal; while Τιάγουρα and Τιαύσπα probably stand for names like Chagara and Chauspa. Still more confidently Cheṅwal may be identified with the Ṣaimur (Chaimur) or Jaimur of the old Arab. Geographers, a port at the extreme end of Lār or Guzerat. At Choul itself there is a tradition that its antiquity goes back beyond that of Suali (see SWALLY), Bassein, or Bombay. There were memorable sieges of Choul in 1570-71, and again in 1594, in which the Portuguese successfully resisted Mahommedan attempts to capture the place. Dr. Burgess identifies the ancient Σήμυλλα rather with a place called Chembur, on the island of Trombay, which lies immediately east of the island of Bombay; but till more evidence is adduced we see no reason to adopt this. Choul seems now to be known as Revadaṇḍa. Even the name is not to be found in the Imperial Gazetteer. Rewadaṇḍa has a place in that work, but without a word to indicate its connection with this ancient and famous port. Mr. Gerson d'Acunha has published in the J. Bo. Br. As. Soc., vol. xii., Notes on the H. and Ant. of Chaul.

A.D. c. 80-90.—"Μετὰ δὲ Καλλιέναν ἄλλα ἐμπόρια τοπικὰ, Σήμυλλα, καὶ Μανδαγόρα...."—Periplus.

A.D. c. 150.—"Σίμυλλα ἐμπόριον (καλούμενον ὑπὸ τῶν ἐγχωρίων Τίμουλα)."—Ptol. i. cap. 17.

A.D. 916. "The year 304 I found myself in the territory of Ṣaimūr (or Chaimūr), belonging to Hind and forming part of the province of Lār.... There were in the place about 10,000 Mussulmans, both of those called baiāsirah (half-breeds), and of natives of Sirāf, Omān, Basrah, Bagdad, &c."—Maṣ'ūdi, ii. 86.

[1020.—"Jaimúr." See quotation under LAR.]

c. 1150.—"Saimūr, 5 days from Sindān, is a large, well-built town."—Edrisi, in Elliot, i. .

c. 1470.—"We sailed six weeks in the taca till we reached Chivil, and left Chivil on the seventh week after the great day. This is an Indian country."—Ath. Nikitin, 9, in India in XVth. Cent.

1510.—"Departing from the said city of Combeia, I travelled on until I arrived at another city named Cevul (Chevul) which is distant from the above-mentioned city 12 days' journey, and the country between the one and the other of these cities is called Guzerati."—Varthema, 113.

1546.—Under this year D'Acunha quotes from Freire d'Andrada a story that when the Viceroy required 20,000 pardaos (q.v.) to send for the defence of Diu, offering in pledge a wisp of his mustachio, the women of Choul sent all their earrings and other jewellery, to be applied to this particular service.

1554.—"The ports of Mahaim and Sheúl belong to the Deccan."—The Mohit, in J.A.S.B., v. 461.

1584.—"The 10th of November we arrived at Chaul which standeth in the firme land. There be two townes, the one belonging to the Portugales, and the other to the Moores."—R. Fitch, in Hakl. ii. 384.

c. 1630.—"After long toil ... we got to Choul; then we came to Daman."—Sir T. Herbert, ed. 1665, p. 42.

1635.—"Chíval, a seaport of Deccan."—Sádik Isfaháni, 88.

1727.—"Chaul, in former Times, was a noted Place for Trade, particularly for fine embroidered Quilts; but now it is miserably poor."—A. Hamilton, i. 243.

1782.—"That St. Lubin had some of the Mahratta officers on board of his ship, at the port of Choul ... he will remember as long as he lives, for they got so far the ascendancy over the political Frenchman, as to induce him to come into the harbour, and to land his cargo of military stores ... not one piece of which he ever got back again, or was paid sixpence for."—Price's Observations on a Late Publication, &c., 14. In Price's Tracts, vol. i.

CHOULTRY, s. Peculiar to S. India, and of doubtful etymology; Malayāl. chāwaṭī, Tel. chāwaḍi, [tsāvaḍi, chau, Skt. chatur, 'four,' vāṭa, 'road,' a place where four roads meet]. In W. India the form used is chowry or chowree (Dakh. chāoṛī). A hall, a shed, or a simple loggia, used by travellers as a resting-place, and also intended for the transaction of public business. In the old Madras Archives there is frequent mention of the "Justices of the Choultry." A building of this kind seems to have formed the early Court-house.

1673.—"Here (at Swally near Surat) we were welcomed by the Deputy President ... who took care for my Entertainment, which here was rude, the place admitting of little better Tenements than Booths stiled by the name of Choultries."—Fryer, 82.

" "Maderas ... enjoys some Choultries for Places of Justice."—Ibid. 39.

1683.—"... he shall pay for every slave so shipped ... 50 pagodas to be recovered of him in the Choultry of Madraspattanam."—Order of Madras Council, in Wheeler, i. 136.

1689.—"Within less than half a Mile, from the Sea (near Surat) are three Choultries or Convenient Lodgings made of Timber."—Ovington, 164.

1711.—"Besides these, five Justices of the Choultry, who are of the Council, or chief Citizens, are to decide Controversies, and punish offending Indians."—Lockyer, 7.

1714.—In the MS. List of Persons in the Service, &c. (India Office Records), we have:—

"Josiah Cooke ffactor Register of the Choultry, £15."

1727.—"There are two or three little Choulteries or Shades built for Patients to rest in."—A. Hamilton, ch. ix.; [i. 95].

[1773.—"A Choltre is not much unlike a large summer-house, and in general is little more than a bare covering from the inclemency of the weather. Some few indeed are more spacious, and are also endowed with a salary to support a servant or two, whose business is to furnish all passengers with a certain quantity of rice and fresh water."—Ives, 67.]

1782.—"Les fortunes sont employées à bâtir des Chauderies sur les chemins."—Sonnerat, i. 42.

1790.—"On ne rencontre dans ces voyages aucune auberge ou hôtellerie sur la route; mais elles sont remplacées par des lieux de repos appelées schultris (chauderies), qui sont des bâtimens ouverts et inhabités, où les voyageurs ne trouvent, en général, qu'un toit...."—Haafner, ii. 11.

1809.—"He resides at present in an old Choultry which has been fitted up for his use by the Resident."—Ld. Valentia, i. 356.

1817.—"Another fact of much importance is, that a Mahomedan Sovereign was the first who established Choultries."—Mill's Hist. ii. 181.

1820.—"The Chowree or town-hall where the public business of the township is transacted, is a building 30 feet square, with square gable-ends, and a roof of tile supported on a treble row of square wooden posts."—Acc. of Township of Loony, in Tr. Lit. Soc. Bombay, ii. 181.

1833.—"Junar, 6th Jan. 1833.... We at first took up our abode in the Chawadī, but Mr. Escombe of the C. S. kindly invited us to his house."—Smith's Life of Dr. John Wilson, 156.

1836.—"The roads are good, and well supplied with choultries or taverns"(!)—Phillips, Million of Facts, 319.

1879.—"Let an organised watch ... be established in each village ... armed with good tulwars. They should be stationed each night in the village chouri."—Overland Times of India, May 12, Suppl. 7b.

See also CHUTTRUM.

CHOULTRY PLAIN, n.p. This was the name given to the open country formerly existing to the S.W. of Madras. Choultry Plain was also the old designation of the Hd. Quarters of the Madras Army; equivalent to "Horse Guards" in Westminster (C. P. B. MS.).

1780.—"Every gentleman now possessing a house in the fort, was happy in accommodating the family of his friend, who before had resided in Choultry Plain. Note. The country near Madras is a perfect flat, on which is built, at a small distance from the fort, a small choultry."—Hodges, Travels, 7.

CHOUSE, s. and v. This word is originally Turk. chāush, in former days a sergeant-at-arms, herald, or the like. [Vambéry (Sketches, 17) speaks of the Tchaush as the leader of a party of pilgrims.] Its meaning as 'a cheat,' or 'to swindle' is, apparently beyond doubt, derived from the anecdote thus related in a note of W. Gifford's upon the passage in Ben Jonson's Alchemist, which is quoted below. "In 1609 Sir Robert Shirley sent a messenger or chiaus (as our old writers call him) to this country, as his agent, from the Grand Signor and the Sophy, to transact some preparatory business. Sir Robert followed him, at his leisure, as ambassador from both these princes; but before he reached England, his agent had chiaused the Turkish and Persian merchants here of 4000l., and taken his flight, unconscious perhaps that he had enriched the language with a word of which the etymology would mislead Upton and puzzle Dr. Johnson."—Ed. of Ben Jonson, iv. 27. "In Kattywar, where the native chiefs employ Arab mercenaries, the Chaus still flourishes as an officer of a company. When I joined the Political Agency in that Province, there was a company of Arabs attached to the Residency under a Chaus." (M.-Gen. Keatinge). [The N.E.D. thinks that "Gifford's note must be taken with reserve." The Stanf. Dict. adds that Gifford's note asserts that two other Chiauses arrived in 1618-1625. One of the above quotations proves his accuracy as to 1618. Perhaps, however, the particular fraud had little to do with the modern use of the word. As Jonson suggests, chiaus may have been used for 'Turk' in the sense of 'cheat'; just as Cataian stood for 'thief' or 'rogue.' For a further discussion of the word see N. & Q., 7 ser. vi. 387; 8 ser. iv. 129.]

1560.—"Cum vero me taederet inclusionis in eodem diversorio, ago cum meo Chiauso (genus id est, ut tibi scripsi alias, multiplicis apud Turcas officii, quod etiam ad oratorum custodiam extenditur) ut mihi liceat aere meo domum conducere...."—Busbeq. Epist. iii. p. 149.

1610.—"Dapper.... What do you think of me, that I am a chiaus?

Face. What's that?

Dapper. The Turk was here.
As one would say, do you think I am a Turk?

Face. Come, noble doctor, pray thee let's prevail;
This is the gentleman, and he's no chiaus."
Ben. Jonson, The Alchemist, Act I. sc. i.

1638.—

"Fulgoso. Gulls or Moguls,

Tag, rag, or other, hogen-mogen, vanden,

Ship-jack or chouses. Whoo! the brace are flinched.

The pair of shavers are sneak'd from us, Don...."

Ford, The Lady's Trial, Act II. sc. i.

1619.—"Con gli ambasciatori stranieri che seco conduceva, cioè l'Indiano, di Sciah Selim, un ciausc Turco ed i Moscoviti...."—P. della Valle, ii. 6.

1653.—"Chiaoux en Turq est vn Sergent du Diuan, et dans la campagne la garde d'vne Karauane, qui fait le guet, se nomme aussi Chiaoux, et cet employ n'est pas autrement honeste."—Le Gouz, ed. 1657, p. 536.

1659.—

"Conquest. We are

In a fair way to be ridiculous.

What think you? Chiaus'd by a scholar."

Shirley, Honoria & Mammon, Act II. sc. iii.

1663.—"The Portugals have choused us, it seems, in the Island of Bombay in the East Indys; for after a great charge of our fleets being sent thither with full commission from the King of Portugal to receive it, the Governour by some pretence or other will not deliver it to Sir Abraham Shipman."—Pepys, Diary, May 15; [ed. Wheatley iii. 125].

1674.—

"When geese and pullen are seduc'd

And sows of sucking pigs are chows'd."

Hudibras, Pt. II. canto 3.

1674.—

"Transform'd to a Frenchman by my art;

He stole your cloak, and pick'd your pocket,

Chows'd and caldes'd ye like a blockhead."

Ibid.

1754.—"900 chiaux: they carried in their hand a baton with a double silver crook on the end of it; ... these frequently chanted moral sentences and encomiums on the Shah, occasionally proclaiming also his victories as he passed along."—Hanway, i. 170.

1762.—"Le 27e d'Août 1762 nous entendîmes un coup de canon du chateau de Kâhira, c'étoit signe qu'un Tsjaus (courier) étoit arrivé de la grande caravane."—Niebuhr, Voyage, i. 171.

1826.—"We started at break of day from the northern suburb of Ispahan, led by the chaoushes of the pilgrimage...."—Hajji Baba, ed. 1835, p. 6.

CHOW-CHOW, s. A common application of the Pigeon-English term in China is to mixed preserves; but, as the quotation shows, it has many uses; the idea of mixture seems to prevail. It is the name given to a book by Viscountess Falkland, whose husband was Governor of Bombay. There it seems to mean 'a medley of trifles.' Chow is in 'pigeon' applied to food of any kind. ["From the erroneous impression that dogs form one of the principal items of a Chinaman's diet, the common variety has been dubbed the 'chow dog'" (Ball, Things Chinese, p. 179).] We find the word chow-chow in Blumentritt's Vocabular of Manilla terms: "Chau-chau, a Tagal dish so called."

1858.—"The word chow-chow is suggestive, especially to the Indian reader, of a mixture of things, 'good, bad, and indifferent,' of sweet little oranges and bits of bamboo stick, slices of sugar-cane and rinds of unripe fruit, all concocted together, and made upon the whole into a very tolerable confection....

"Lady Falkland, by her happy selection of a name, to a certain extent deprecates and disarms criticism. We cannot complain that her work is without plan, unconnected, and sometimes trashy, for these are exactly the conditions implied in the word chow-chow."—Bombay Quarterly Review, January, p. 100.

1882.—"The variety of uses to which the compound word 'chow-chow' is put is almost endless.... A 'No. 1 chow-chow' thing signifies utterly worthless, but when applied to a breakfast or dinner it means 'unexceptionably good.' A 'chow-chow' cargo is an assorted cargo; a 'general shop' is a 'chow-chow' shop ... one (factory) was called the 'chow-chow,' from its being inhabited by divers Parsees, Moormen, or other natives of India."—The Fankwae, p. 63.

CHOWDRY, s. H. chaudharī, lit. 'a holder of four'; the explanation of which is obscure: [rather Skt. chakra-dharin, 'the bearer of the discus as an ensign of authority']. The usual application of the term is to the headman of a craft in a town, and more particularly to the person who is selected by Government as the agent through whom supplies, workmen, &c., are supplied for public purposes. [Thus the Chaudharī of carters provides carriage, the Chaudharī of Kahārs bearers, and so on.] Formerly, in places, to the headman of a village; to certain holders of lands; and in Cuttack it was, under native rule, applied to a district Revenue officer. In a paper of 'Explanations of Terms' furnished to the Council at Fort William by Warren Hastings, then Resident at Moradbagh (1759), chowdrees are defined as "Landholders in the next rank to Zemindars." (In Long, p. 176.) [Comp. VENDU-MASTER.] It is also an honorific title given by servants to one of their number, usually, we believe, to the mālī [see MOLLY], or gardener—as khalīfa to the cook and tailor, jama'dār to the bhishtī, mehtar to the sweeper, sirdār to the bearer.

c. 1300.—"... The people were brought to such a state of obedience that one revenue officer would string twenty ... chaudharis together by the neck, and enforce payment by blows."—Ziā-ud-dīn Barnī, in Elliot, iii. 183.

c. 1343.—"The territories dependent on the capital (Delhi) are divided into hundreds, each of which has a Jautharī, who is the Sheikh or chief man of the Hindus."—Ibn Batuta, iii. 388.

[1772.—"Chowdrahs, land-holders, in the next rank to Zemeendars."—Verelst, View of Bengal, Gloss. s.v.]

1788.—"Chowdry.—A Landholder or Farmer. Properly he is above the Zemindar in rank; but, according to the present custom of Bengal, he is deemed the next to the Zemindar. Most commonly used as the principal purveyor of the markets in towns or camps."—Indian Vocabulary (Stockdale's).

CHOWK, s. H. chauk. An open place or wide street in the middle of a city where the market is held, [as, for example, the Chāndnī Chauk of Delhi]. It seems to be adopted in Persian, and there is an Arabic form Sūḳ, which, it is just possible, may have been borrowed and Arabized from the present word. The radical idea of chauk seems to be "four ways" [Skt. chatushka], the crossing of streets at the centre of business. Compare Carfax, and the Quattro Cantoni of Palermo. In the latter city there is a market place called Piazza Ballarò, which in the 16th century a chronicler calls Seggeballarath, or as Amari interprets, Sūḳ-Balharā.

[1833.—"The Chandy Choke, in Delhi ... is perhaps the broadest street in any city in the East."—Skinner, Excursions in India, i. 49.]

CHOWNEE, s. The usual native name, at least in the Bengal Presidency, for an Anglo-Indian cantonment (q.v.). It is H. chhāonī, 'a thatched roof,' chhāonā, chhānā, v. 'to thatch.'

[1829.—"The Regent was at the chaoni, his standing camp at Gagrown, when this event occurred."—Tod, Annals (Calcutta reprint), ii. 611.]

CHOWRINGHEE, n.p. The name of a road and quarter of Calcutta, in which most of the best European houses stand; Chaurangī.

1789.—"The houses ... at Chowringee also will be much more healthy."—Seton-Karr, ii. 205.

1790.—"To dig a large tank opposite to the Cheringhee Buildings."—Ibid. 13.

1791.—"Whereas a robbery was committed on Tuesday night, the first instant, on the Chowringhy Road."—Ibid. 54.

1792.—"For Private Sale. A neat, compact and new built garden house, pleasantly situated at Chouringy, and from its contiguity to Fort William, peculiarly well calculated for an officer; it would likewise be a handsome provision for a native lady, or a child. The price is 1500 sicca rupees."—Ibid. ii. 541.

1803.—"Chouringhee, an entire village of palaces, runs for a considerable length at right angles with it, and altogether forms the finest view I ever beheld in any city."—Ld. Valentia, i. 236.

1810.—"As I enjoyed Calcutta much less this time ... I left it with less regret. Still, when passing the Chowringhee road the last day, I—

'Looked on stream and sea and plain

As what I ne'er might see again.'"

Elphinstone, in Life, i. 231.

1848.—"He wished all Cheltenham, all Chowringhee, all Calcutta, could see him in that position, waving his hand to such a beauty, and in company with such a famous buck as Rawdon Crawley, of the Guards."—Vanity Fair, ed. 1867, i. 237.

CHOWRY, s.

(a.) See CHOULTRY.

(b.) H. chaṅwar, chauṅrī; from Skt. chamara, chāmara. The bushy tail of the Tibetan Yak (q.v.), often set in a costly decorated handle to use as a fly-flapper, in which form it was one of the insignia of ancient Asiatic royalty. The tail was also often attached to the horse-trappings of native warriors; whilst it formed from remote times the standard of nations and nomad tribes of Central Asia. The Yak-tails and their uses are mentioned by Aelian, and by Cosmas (see under YAK). Allusions to the chāmara, as a sign of royalty, are frequent in Skt. books and inscriptions, e.g. in the Poet Kalidāsa (see transl. by Dr. Mill in J. As. Soc. Beng. i. 342; the Amarakosha, ii. 7, 31, &c.). The common Anglo-Indian expression in the 18th century appears to have been "Cow-tails" (q.v.). And hence Bogle in his Journal, as published by Mr. Markham, calls Yaks by the absurd name of "cow-tailed cows" though "horse-tailed cows" would have been more germane!

c. A.D. 250.—"Βοῶν δε γένη δύο, δρομικούς τε καὶ ἄλλους ἀγρίους δεινῶς· ἐκ τουτῶν γε τῶν βοῶν καὶ τὰς μυιοσόβας ποιοῦνται, καὶ τὸ μὲν σῶμα παμμέλανες εῖσιν οἵδε· τὰς δὲ οὐρὰς ἔχουσι λευκὰς ἰσχυρῶς."—Aelian. de Nat. An. xv. 14.

A.D. 634-5.—"... with his armies which were darkened by the spotless chāmaras that were waved over them."—Aihole Inscription.

c. 940.—"They export from this country the hair named al-zamar (or al-chamar) of which those fly-flaps are made, with handles of silver or ivory, which attendants held over the heads of kings when giving audience."—Maṣ'ūdī, i. 385. The expressions of Maṣ'ūdī are aptly illustrated by the Assyrian and Persepolitan sculptures. (See also Marco Polo, bk. iii. ch. 18; Nic. Conti, p. 14, in India in the XVth Century).

1623.—"For adornment of their horses they carried, hung to the cantles of their saddles, great tufts of a certain white hair, long and fine, which they told me were the tails of certain wild oxen found in India."—P. della Valle, ii. 662; [Hak. Soc. ii. 260].

1809.—"He also presented me in trays, which were as usual laid at my feet, two beautiful chowries."—Lord Valentia, i. 428.

1810.—"Near Brahma are Indra and Indranee on their elephant, and below is a female figure holding a chamara or chowree."—Maria Graham, 56.

1827.—"A black female slave, richly dressed, stood behind him with a chowry, or cow's tail, having a silver handle, which she used to keep off the flies."—Sir W. Scott, The Surgeon's Daughter, ch. x.

CHOWRYBURDAR, s. The servant who carries the Chowry. H. P. chauṅrī-bardār.

1774.—"The Deb-Rajah on horseback ... a chowra-burdar on each side of him."—Bogle, in Markham's Tibet, 24.

[1838.—"... the old king was sitting in the garden with a chowrybadar waving the flies from him."—Miss Eden, Up the Country, i. 138.]

CHOWT, CHOUT, s. Mahr. chauth, 'one fourth part.' The blackmail levied by the Mahrattas from the provincial governors as compensation for leaving their districts in immunity from plunder. The term is also applied to some other exactions of like ratio (see Wilson).

[1559.—Mr. Whiteway refers to Couto (Dec. VII. bk. 6, ch. 6), where this word is used in reference to payments made in 1559 in the time of D. Constantine de Bragança, and in papers of the early part of the 17th century the King of the Chouteas is frequently mentioned.]

1644.—"This King holds in our lands of Daman a certain payment which they call Chouto, which was paid him long before they belonged to the Portuguese, and so after they came under our power the payment continued to be made, and about these exactions and payments there have risen great disputes and contentions on one side and another."—Bocarro (MS.).

1674.—"Messengers were sent to Bassein demanding the chout of all the Portuguese territory in these parts. The chout means the fourth part of the revenue, and this is the earliest mention we find of the claim."—Orme's Fragments, p. 45.

1763-78.—"They (the English) were ... not a little surprised to find in the letters now received from Balajerow and his agent to themselves, and in stronger terms to the Nabob, a peremptory demand of the Chout or tribute due to the King of the Morattoes from the Nabobship of Arcot."—Orme, ii. 228-9.

1803.—"The Peshwah ... cannot have a right to two choutes, any more than to two revenues from any village in the same year."—Wellington Desp. (ed. 1837), ii. 175.

1858.—"... They (the Mahrattas) were accustomed to demand of the provinces they threatened with devastation a certain portion of the public revenue, generally the fourth part; and this, under the name of the chout, became the recognized Mahratta tribute, the price of the absence of their plundering hordes."—Whitney, Oriental and Ling. Studies, ii. 20-21.

CHOYA, CHAYA, CHEY, s. A root, [generally known as chayroot,] (Hedyotis umbellata, Lam., Oldenlandia umb., L.) of the Nat. Ord. Cinchonaceae, affording a red dye, sometimes called 'India Madder,' ['Dye Root,' 'Rameshwaram Root']; from Tam. shāyaver, Malayāl. chāyaver (chāya, 'colour,' ver, 'root'). It is exported from S. India, and was so also at one time from Ceylon. There is a figure of the plant in Lettres Edif. xiv. 164.

c. 1566.—"Also from S. Tome they layd great store of red yarne, of bombast died with a roote which they call saia, as aforesayd, which colour will never out."—Caesar Frederike, in Hakl. [ii. 354].

1583.—"Ne vien anchora di detta saia da un altro luogo detto Petopoli, e se ne tingono parimente in S. Thomè."—Balbi, f. 107.

1672.—"Here groweth very good Zaye."—Baldaeus, Ceylon.

[1679.—"... if they would provide mustors of Chae and White goods...."—Memoriall of S. Master, in Kistna Man., p. 131.]

1726.—"Saya (a dye-root that is used on the Coast for painting chintzes)."—Valentijn, Chor. 45.

1727.—"The Islands of Diu (near Masulipatam) produce the famous Dye called Shaii. It is a Shrub growing in Grounds that are overflown with the Spring tides."—A. Hamilton, i. 370; [ed. 1744, i. 374].

1860.—"The other productions that constituted the exports of the Island were sapan-wood to Persia; and choya-roots, a substitute for Madder, collected at Manaar ... for transmission to Surat."—Tennent's Ceylon, ii. 54-55. See also Chitty's Ceylon Gazetteer (1834), p. 40.

CHUCKAROO, s. English soldier's lingo for Chokra (q.v.)

CHUCKER. From H. chakar, chakkar, chakrā, Skt. chakra, 'a wheel or circle.'

(a.) s. A quoit for playing the English game; but more properly the sharp quoit or discus which constituted an ancient Hindu missile weapon, and is, or was till recently, carried by the Sikh fanatics called Akālī (see AKALEE), generally encircling their peaked turbans. The thing is described by Tavernier (E. T. ii. 41: [ed. Ball, i. 82]) as carried by a company of Mahommedan Fakīrs whom he met at Sherpūr in Guzerat. See also Lt.-Col. T. Lewin, A Fly, &c., p. 47: [Egerton, Handbook, Pl. 15, No. 64].

1516.—"In the Kingdom of Dely ... they have some steel wheels which they call chacarani, two fingers broad, sharp outside like knives, and without edge inside; and the surface of these is the size of a small plate. And they carry seven or eight of these each, put on the left arm; and they take one and put it on the finger of the right hand, and make it spin round many times, and so they hurl it at their enemies."—Barbosa, 100-101.

1630.—"In her right hand shee bare a chuckerey, which is an instrument of a round forme, and sharp-edged in the superficies thereof ... and slung off, in the quickness of his motion, it is able to deliuer or conuey death to a farre remote enemy."—Lord, Disc. of the Banian Religion, 12.

(b.) v. and s. To lunge a horse. H. chakarnā or chakar karnā. Also 'the lunge.'

1829.—"It was truly tantalizing to see those fellows chuckering their horses, not more than a quarter of a mile from our post."—John Shipp, i. 153.

[(c.) In Polo, a 'period.'

[1900.—"Two bouts were played to-day.... In the opening chukker Capt. —— carried the ball in."—Overland Mail, Aug. 13.]

CHUCKERBUTTY, n.p. This vulgarized Bengal Brahman name is, as Wilson points out, a corruption of chakravarttī, the title assumed by the most exalted ancient Hindu sovereigns, an universal Emperor, whose chariot-wheels rolled over all (so it is explained by some).

c. 400.—"Then the Bikshuni Uthala began to think thus with herself, 'To-day the King, ministers, and people are all going to meet Buddha ... but I—a woman—how can I contrive to get the first sight of him?' Buddha immediately, by his divine power, changed her into a holy Chakravartti Raja."—Travels of Fah-hian, tr. by Beale, p. 63.

c. 460.—"On a certain day (Asoka), having ... ascertained that the supernaturally gifted ... Nága King, whose age extended to a Kappo, had seen the four Buddhas ... he thus addressed him: 'Beloved, exhibit to me the person of the omniscient being of infinite wisdom, the Chakkawatti of the doctrine.'"—The Mahawanso, p. 27.

1856.—"The importance attached to the possession of a white elephant is traceable to the Buddhist system. A white elephant of certain wonderful endowments is one of the seven precious things, the possession of which marks the Maha Chakravartti Raja ... the holy and universal sovereign, a character which appears once in a cycle."—Mission to the Court of Ava (Major Phayre's), 1858, p. 154.

CHUCKLAH, s. H. chaklā, [Skt. chakra, 'a wheel']. A territorial subdivision under the Mahommedan government, thus defined by Warren Hastings, in the paper quoted under CHOWDRY:

1759.—"The jurisdiction of a Phojdar (see FOUJDAR), who receives the rents from the Zemindars, and accounts for them with the Government."

1760.—"In the treaty concluded with the Nawáb Meer Mohummud Cásim Khán, on the 27th Sept. 1760, it was agreed that ... the English army should be ready to assist him in the management of all affairs, and that the lands of the chuklahs (districts) of Burdwan, Midnapore and Chittagong, should be assigned for all the charges of the company and the army...."—Harington's Analysis of the Laws and Regulations, vol. i. Calcutta, 1805-1809, p. 5.

CHUCKLER, s. Tam. and Malayāl. shakkili, the name of a very low caste, members of which are tanners or cobblers, like the Chamārs (see CHUMAR) of Upper India. But whilst the latter are reputed to be a very dark caste, the Chucklers are fair (see Elliot's Gloss. by Beames, i. 71, and Caldwell's Gram. 574). [On the other hand the Madras Gloss. (s.v.) says that as a rule they are of "a dark black hue."] Colloquially in S. India Chuckler is used for a native shoemaker.

c. 1580.—"All the Gentoos (Gentios) of those parts, especially those of Bisnaga, have many castes, which take precedence one of another. The lowest are the Chaquivilis, who make shoes, and eat all unclean flesh...."—Primor e Honra, &c., f. 95.

1759.—"Shackelays are shoemakers, and held in the same despicable light on the Coromandel Coast as the Niaddes and Pullies on the Malabar."—Ives, 26.

c. 1790.—"Aussi n'est-ce que le rébut de la classe méprisée des parrias; savoir les tschakelís ou cordonniers et les vettians ou fossoyeurs, qui s'occupent de l'enterrement et la combustion des morts."—Haafner, ii. 60.

[1844.—"... the chockly, who performs the degrading duty of executioner...."—Society, Manners, &c., of India, ii. 282.]

1869.—"The Komatis or mercantile caste of Madras by long established custom, are required to send an offering of betel to the chucklers, or shoemakers, before contracting their marriages."—Sir W. Elliot, in J. Ethn. Soc., N. S. vol. i. 102.

CHUCKMUCK, s. H. chakmak. 'Flint and steel.' One of the titles conferred on Haidar 'Ali before he rose to power was 'Chakmak Jang,' 'Firelock of War'? See H. of Hydur Naik, 112.

CHUCKRUM, s. An ancient coin once generally current in the S. of India, Malayāl. chakram, Tel. chakramu; from Skt. chakra (see under CHUCKER). It is not easy to say what was its value, as the statements are inconsistent: nor do they confirm Wilson's, that it was equal to one-tenth of a pagoda. [According to the Madras Gloss. (s.v.) it bore the same relation to the gold Pagoda that the Anna does to the Rupee, and under it again was the copper Cash, which was its sixteenth.] The denomination survives in Travancore, [where 28½ go to one rupee. (Ibid.)]

1554.—"And the fanoms of the place are called chocrões, which are coins of inferior gold; they are worth 12½ or 12¼ to the pardao of gold, reckoning the pardao at 360 reis."—A. Nunez, Livro dos Pesos, 36.

1711.—"The Enemy will not come to any agreement unless we consent to pay 30,000 chuckrums, which we take to be 16,600 and odd pagodas."—In Wheeler, ii. 165.

1813.—Milburn, under Tanjore, gives the chuckrum as a coin equal to 20 Madras, or ten gold fanams. 20 Madras fanams would be 4⁄9 of a pagoda.

[From the difficulty of handling these coins, which are small and round, they are counted on a chuckrum board as in the case of the Fanam (q.v.).]

CHUDDER, s. H. chādar, a sheet, or square piece of cloth of any kind; the ample sheet commonly worn as a mantle by women in N. India. It is also applied to the cloths spread over Mahommedan tombs. Barbosa (1516) and Linschoten (1598) have chautars, chautares, as a kind of cotton piece-goods, but it is certain that this is not the same word. Chowtars occur among Bengal piece-goods in Milburn, ii. 221. [The word is chautár, 'anything with four threads,' and it occurs in the list of cotton cloths in the Āīn (i. 94). In a letter of 1610 we have "Chautares are white and well requested" (Danvers, Letters, i. 75); "Chauters of Agra" (Foster, Letters, ii. 45); Cocks has "fine Casho or Chowter" (Diary, i. 86); and in 1615 they are called "Cowter" (Foster, iv. 51).]

1525.—"Chader of Cambaya."—Lembrança, 56.

[c. 1610.—"From Bengal comes another sort of hanging, of fine linen painted and ornamented with colours in a very agreeable fashion; these they call iader."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 222.]

1614.—"Pintados, chints and chadors."—Peyton, in Purchas, i. 530.

1673.—"The habit of these water-nymphs was fine Shudders of lawn embroidered on the neck, wrist, and skirt with a border of several coloured silks or threads of gold."—Herbert, 3rd ed. 191.

1832.—"Chuddur ... a large piece of cloth or sheet, of one and a half or two breadths, thrown over the head, so as to cover the whole body. Men usually sleep rolled up in it."—Herklots, Qanoon-e-Islam, xii.-xiii.

1878.—"Two or three women, who had been chattering away till we appeared, but who, on seeing us, drew their 'chadders' ... round their faces, and retired to the further end of the boat."—Life in the Mofussil, i. 79.

The Rampore Chudder is a kind of shawl, of the Tibetan shawl-wool, of uniform colour without pattern, made originally at Rāmpur on the Sutlej; and of late years largely imported into England: [(see the Panjab Mono. on Wool, p. 9). Curiously enough a claim to the derivation of the title from Rāmpur, in Rohilkhand, N.W.P. is made in the Imperial Gazetteer, 1st ed. (s.v.).]

CHUL! CHULLO! v. in imperative; 'Go on! Be quick.' H. chalo! imper. of chalnā, to go, go speedily. [Another common use of the word in Anglo-Indian slang is—"It won't chul," 'it won't answer, succeed.']

c. 1790.—"Je montai de très-bonne heure dans mon palanquin.—Tschollo (c'est-à-dire, marche), crièrent mes coulis, et aussitôt le voyage commença."—Haafner, ii. 5.

[CHUMAR, s. H. Chamār, Skt. charma-kāra, 'one who works in leather,' and thus answering to the Chuckler of S. India; an important caste found all through N. India, whose primary occupation is tanning, but a large number are agriculturists and day labourers of various kinds.

[1823.—"From this abomination, beef-eating ... they [the Bheels] only rank above the Choomars, or shoemakers, who feast on dead carcases, and are in Central India, as elsewhere, deemed so unclean that they are not allowed to dwell within the precincts of the village."—Malcolm, Central India, 2nd ed. ii. 179.]

CHUMPUK, s. A highly ornamental and sacred tree (Michelia champaca, L., also M. Rheedii), a kind of magnolia, whose odorous yellow blossoms are much prized by Hindus, offered at shrines, and rubbed on the body at marriages, &c. H. champak, Skt. champaka. Drury strangely says that the name is "derived from Ciampa, an island between Cambogia and Cochin China, where the tree grows." Champa is not an island, and certainly derives its Sanskrit name from India, and did not give a name to an Indian tree. The tree is found wild in the Himālaya from Nepāl, eastward; also in Pegu and Tenasserim, and along the Ghauts to Travancore. The use of the term champaka extends to the Philippine Islands. [Mr. Skeat notes that it is highly prized by Malay women, who put it in their hair.]

1623.—"Among others they showed me a flower, in size and form not unlike our lily, but of a yellowish white colour, with a sweet and powerful scent, and which they call champà [ciampá]."—P. della Valle, ii. 517; [Hak. Soc. i. 40].

1786.—"The walks are scented with blossoms of the champac and nagisar, and the plantations of pepper and coffee are equally new and pleasing."—Sir W. Jones, in Mem., &c., ii. 81.

1810.—"Some of these (birds) build in the sweet-scented champaka and the mango."—Maria Graham, 22.

1819.—

"The wandering airs they faint

On the dark, the silent stream;

And the chumpak's odours fail

Like sweet thoughts in a dream."

Shelley, Lines to an Indian Air.

1821.—

"Some chumpak flowers proclaim it yet divine."

Medwin, Sketches in Hindoostan, 73.

CHUNÁM, s. Prepared lime; also specially used for fine polished plaster. Forms of this word occur both in Dravidian languages and Hind. In the latter chūnā is from Skt. chūrṇa, 'powder'; in the former it is somewhat uncertain whether the word is, or is not, an old derivative from the Sanskrit. In the first of the following quotations the word used seems taken from the Malayāl. chuṇṇāmba, Tam. shuṇṇāmbu.

1510.—"And they also eat with the said leaves (betel) a certain lime made from oyster shells, which they call cionama."—Varthema, 144.

1563.—"... so that all the names you meet with that are not Portuguese are Malabar; such as betre (betel), chuna, which is lime...."—Garcia, f. 37g.

c. 1610.—"... l'vn porte son éventail, l'autre la boëte d'argent pleine de betel, l'autre une boëte ou il y a du chunan, qui est de la chaux."—Pyrard de Laval, ii. 84; [Hak. Soc. ii. 135].

1614.—"Having burnt the great idol into chunah, he mixed the powdered lime with pān leaves, and gave it to the Rājpūts that they might eat the objects of their worship."—Firishta, quoted by Quatremère, Not. et Ext., xiv. 510.

1673.—"The Natives chew it (Betel) with Chinam (Lime of calcined Oyster Shells)."—Fryer, 40.

1687.—"That stores of Brick, Iron, Stones, and Chenam be in readiness to make up any breach."—Madras Consultations, in Wheeler, i. 168.

1689.—"Chinam is Lime made of Cockle-shells, or Lime-stone; and Pawn is the Leaf of a Tree."—Ovington, 123.

1750-60.—"The flooring is generally composed of a kind of loam or stucco, called chunam, being a lime made of burnt shells."—Grose, i. 52.

1763.—"In the Chuckleh of Silet for the space of five years ... my phoasdar and the Company's gomastah shall jointly prepare chunam, of which each shall defray all expenses, and half the chunam so made shall be given to the Company, and the other half shall be for my use."—Treaty of Mir Jaffir with the Company, in Carraccioli's L. of Clive, i. 64.

1809.—"The row of chunam pillars which supported each side ... were of a shining white."—Ld. Valentia, i. 61.

CHUNÁM, TO, v. To set in mortar; or, more frequently, to plaster over with chunam.

1687.—"... to get what great jars he can, to put wheat in, and chenam them up, and set them round the fort curtain."—In Wheeler, i. 168.

1809.—"... having one ... room ... beautifully chunammed."—Ld. Valentia, i. 386.

Both noun and verb are used also in the Anglo-Chinese settlements.

CHUNÁRGURH, n.p. A famous rock-fort on the Ganges, above Benares, and on the right bank. The name is believed to be a corr. of Charana-giri, 'Foot Hill,' a name probably given from the actual resemblance of the rock, seen in longitudinal profile, to a human foot. [There is a local legend that it represents the foot of Vishnu. A native folk etymology makes it a corr. of Chandālgaṛh, from some legendary connection with the Bhangi tribe (see CHANDAUL). (See Crooke, Tribes and Castes, i. 263.)]

[1768.—"Sensible of the vast importance of the fort of Chunar to Sujah al Dowlah ... we have directed Col. Barker to reinforce the garrison...."—Letter to Court of Directors, in Verelst, App. 78.

[1785.—"Chunar, called by the natives Chundalghur...."—Forbes, Or. Mem. 2nd ed. ii. 442.]

CHUPATTY, s. H. chapātī, an unleavened cake of bread (generally of coarse wheaten meal), patted flat with the hand, and baked upon a griddle; the usual form of native bread, and the staple food of Upper India. (See HOPPER).

1615.—Parson Terry well describes the thing, but names it not: "The ordinary sort of people eat bread made of a coarse grain, but both toothsome and wholesome and hearty. They make it up in broad cakes, thick like our oaten cakes; and then bake it upon small round iron hearths which they carry with them."—In Purchas, ii. 1468.

1810.—"Chow-patties, or bannocks."—Williamson, V. M. ii. 348.

1857.—"From village to village brought by one messenger and sent forward by another passed a mysterious token in the shape of one of those flat cakes made from flour and water, and forming the common bread of the people, which in their language, are called chupatties."—Kaye's Sepoy War, i. 570. [The original account of this by the Correspondent of the 'Times,' dated "Bombay, March 3, 1857," is quoted in 2 ser. N. & Q. iii. 365.]

There is a tradition of a noble and gallant Governor-General who, when compelled to rough it for a day or two, acknowledged that "chuprassies and masaulchies were not such bad diet," meaning Chupatties and Mussalla.

CHUPKUN, s. H. chapkan. The long frock (or cassock) which is the usual dress in Upper India of nearly all male natives who are not actual labourers or indigent persons. The word is probably of Turki or Mongol origin, and is perhaps identical with the chakman of the Āīn (i. 90), a word still used in Turkistan. [Vambéry, (Sketches, 121 seqq.) describes both the Tchapan or upper coat and the Tchekmen or gown.] Hence Beames's connection of chapkan with the idea of chap as meaning compressing or clinging [Platts chapaknā, 'to be pressed'], "a tightly-fitting coat or cassock," is a little fanciful. (Comp. Gram. i. 212 seq.) Still this idea may have shaped the corruption of a foreign word.

1883.—"He was, I was going to say, in his shirt-sleeves, only I am not sure that he wore a shirt in those days—I think he had a chupkun, or native under-garment."—C. Raikes, in L. of Ld. Lawrence, i. 59.

CHUPRA, n.p. Chaprā, [or perhaps rather Chhaprā, 'a collection of straw huts,' (see CHOPPER),] a town and head-quarter station of the District Sāran in Bahār, on the north bank of the Ganges.

1665.—"The Holland Company have a House there (at Patna) by reason of their trade in Salt Peter, which they refine at a great Town called Choupar ... 10 leagues above Patna."—Tavernier, E. T. ii. 53; [ed. Ball, i. 122].

1726.—"Sjoppera (Chupra)."—Valentijn, Chorom., &c., 147.

CHUPRASSY, s. H. chaprāsī, the bearer of a chaprās, i.e. a badge-plate inscribed with the name of the office to which the bearer is attached. The chaprāsī is an office-messenger, or henchman, bearing such a badge on a cloth or leather belt. The term belongs to the Bengal Presidency. In Madras Peon is the usual term; in Bombay Puttywalla, (H. paṭṭīwālā), or "man of the belt." The etymology of chaprās is obscure; [the popular account is that it is a corr. of P. chap-o-rāst, 'left and right']; but see Beames (Comp. Gram. i. 212), who gives buckle as the original meaning.

1865.—"I remember the days when every servant in my house was a chuprassee, with the exception of the Khansaumaun and a Portuguese Ayah."—The Dawk Bungalow, p. 389.

c. 1866.—

"The big Sahib's tent has gone from under the Peepul tree,

With his horde of hungry chuprassees, and oily sons of the quill—

I paid them the bribe they wanted, and Sheitan will settle the bill."

Sir A. C. Lyall, The Old Pindaree.

1877.—"One of my chuprassies or messengers ... was badly wounded."—Meadows Taylor, Life, i. 227.

1880.—"Through this refractory medium the people of India see their rulers. The Chuprassie paints his master in colours drawn from his own black heart. Every lie he tells, every insinuation he throws out, every demand he makes, is endorsed with his master's name. He is the arch-slanderer of our name in India."—Ali Baba, 102-3.

CHURR, s. H. char, Skt. char, 'to move.' "A sand-bank or island in the current of a river, deposited by the water, claims to which were regulated by the Bengal Reg. xi. 1825" (Wilson). A char is new alluvial land deposited by the great rivers as the floods are sinking, and covered with grass, but not necessarily insulated. It is remarkable that Mr. Marsh mentions a very similar word as used for the same thing in Holland. "New sandbank land, covered with grasses, is called in Zeeland schor" (Man and Nature, p. 339). The etymologies are, however, probably quite apart.

1878.—"In the dry season all the various streams ... are merely silver threads winding among innumerable sandy islands, the soil of which is specially adapted for the growth of Indigo. They are called Churs."—Life in the Mofussil, ii. 3 seq.

CHURRUCK, s. A wheel or any rotating machine; particularly applied to simple machines for cleaning cotton. Pers. charkh, 'the celestial sphere,' 'a wheel of any kind,' &c. Beng. charak is apparently a corruption of the Persian word, facilitated by the nearness of the Skt. chakra, &c.

—— POOJAH. Beng. charak-pūjā (see POOJA). The Swinging Festival of the Hindus, held on the sun's entrance into Aries. The performer is suspended from a long yard, traversing round on a mast, by hooks passed through the muscle over the blade-bones, and then whirled round so as to fly out centrifugally. The chief seat of this barbarous display is, or latterly was, in Bengal, but it was formerly prevalent in many parts of India. [It is the Shirry (Ca. and Tel. sidi, Tam. shedil, Tel. sidi, 'a hook') of S. India.] There is an old description in Purchas's Pilgrimage, p. 1000; also (in Malabar) in A. Hamilton, i. 270; [at Ikkeri, P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. ii. 259]; and (at Calcutta) in Heber's Journal, quoted below.

c. 1430.—"Alii ad ornandos currus perforato latere, fune per corpus immisso se ad currum suspendunt, pendentesque et ipsi exanimati idolum comitantur; id optimum sacrificium putant et acceptissimum deo."—Conti, in Poggius, De Var. Fortunae, iv.

[1754.—See a long account of the Bengal rite in Ives, 27 seqq.].

1824.—"The Hindoo Festival of 'Churruck Poojah' commenced to-day, of which, as my wife has given an account in her journal, I shall only add a few particulars."—Heber, ed. 1844, i. 57.

CHURRUS, s.

a. H. charas. A simple apparatus worked by oxen for drawing water from a well, and discharging it into irrigation channels by means of pulley ropes, and a large bag of hide (H. charsā, Skt. charma). [See the description in Forbes, Or. Mem. 2nd ed. i. 153. Hence the area irrigated from a well.]

[1829.—"To each Churrus, chursa, or skin of land, there is attached twenty-five beeghas of irrigated land."—Tod, Annals (Calcutta repr.), ii. 688.]

b. H. charas, [said to be so called because the drug is collected by men who walk with leather aprons through the field]. The resinous exudation of the hemp-plant (Cannabis Indica), which is the basis of intoxicating preparations (see BANG, GUNJA).

[1842.—"The Moolah sometimes smoked the intoxicating drug called Chirs."—Elphinstone, Caubul, i. 344.]

CHUTKARRY, CHATTAGAR, in S. India, a half-caste; Tam. shaṭṭi-kar, 'one who wears a waistcoat' (C. P. B).

CHUTNY, s. H. chatnī. A kind of strong relish, made of a number of condiments and fruits, &c., used in India, and more especially by Mahommedans, and the merits of which are now well known in England. For native chutny recipes, see Herklots, Qanoon-e-Islam, 2nd ed. xlvii. seqq.

1813.—"The Chatna is sometimes made with cocoa-nut, lime-juice, garlic, and chillies, and with the pickles is placed in deep leaves round the large cover, to the number of 30 or 40."—Forbes, Or. Mem. ii. 50 seq.; [2nd ed. i. 348].

1820.—"Chitnee, Chatnee, some of the hot spices made into a paste, by being bruised with water, the 'kitchen' of an Indian peasant."—Acc. of Township of Loony, in Tr. Lit. Soc. Bombay, ii. 194.

CHUTT, s. H. chhat. The proper meaning of the vernacular word is 'a roof or platform.' But in modern Anglo-Indian its usual application is to the coarse cotton sheeting, stretched on a frame and whitewashed, which forms the usual ceiling of rooms in thatched or tiled houses; properly chādar-chhat, 'sheet-ceiling.'

CHUTTANUTTY, n.p. This was one of the three villages purchased for the East India Company in 1686, when the agents found their position in Hugli intolerable, to form the settlement which became the city of Calcutta. The other two villages were Calcutta and Govindpūr. Dr. Hunter spells it Sūtanatī, but the old Anglo-Indian orthography indicates Chatānatī as probable. In the letter-books of the Factory Council in the India Office the earlier letters from this establishment are lost, but down to 27th March, 1700, they are dated from "Chuttanutte; on and after June 8th, from "Calcutta"; and from August 20th in the same year from "Fort William" in Calcutta. [See Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. lix.] According to Major Ralph Smyth, Chatānatī occupied "the site of the present native town," i.e. the northern quarter of the city. Calcutta stood on what is now the European commercial part; and Govindpūr on the present site of Fort William.

1753.—"The Hoogly Phousdar demanding the payment of the ground rent for 4 months from January, namely:—

R. A. P.

Sootaloota, Calcutta 325 0 0

Govindpoor, Picar 70 0 0

Govindpoor, Calcutta 33 0 0

Buxies 1 8 0

Agreed that the President do pay the same out of cash."—Consn. Ft. William, April 30, in Long, 43.

CHUTTRUM, s. Tam. shattiram, which is a corruption of Skt. sattra, 'abode.' In S. India a house where pilgrims and travelling members of the higher castes are entertained and fed gratuitously for a day or two. [See CHOULTRY, DHURMSALLA.]

1807.—"There are two distinct kinds of buildings confounded by Europeans under the name of Choultry. The first is that called by the natives Chaturam, and built for the accommodation of travellers. These ... have in general pent roofs ... built in the form of a square enclosing a court.... The other kind are properly built for the reception of images, when these are carried in procession. These have flat roofs, and consist of one apartment only, and by the natives are called Mandapam.... Besides the Chaturam and the Mandapam, there is another kind of building which by Europeans is called Choultry; in the Tamul language it is called Tany Pundal, or Water Shed ... small buildings where weary travellers may enjoy a temporary repose in the shade, and obtain a draught of water or milk."—F. Buchanan, Mysore, i. 11, 15.

CINDERELLA'S SLIPPER. A Hindu story on the like theme appears among the Hala Kanara MSS. of the Mackenzie Collection:—

"Suvarṇadevi having dropped her slipper in a reservoir, it was found by a fisherman of Kusumakesari, who sold it to a shopkeeper, by whom it was presented to the King Ugrabáhu. The Prince, on seeing the beauty of the slipper, fell in love with the wearer, and offered large rewards to any person who should find and bring her to him. An old woman undertook the task, and succeeded in tracing the shoe to its owner...."—Mackenzie Collection, by H. H. Wilson, ii. 52. [The tale is not uncommon in Indian folk-lore. See Miss Cox, Cinderella (Folk-lore Soc.), ii. 91, 183, 465, &c.]

CINTRA ORANGES. See ORANGE and SUNGTARA.

CIRCARS, n.p. The territory to the north of the Coromandel Coast, formerly held by the Nizam, and now forming the districts of Kistna, Godávari, Vizagapatam, Ganjám, and a part of Nellore, was long known by the title of "The Circars," or "Northern Circars" (i.e. Governments), now officially obsolete. The Circars of Chicacole (now Vizagapatam Dist.), Rajamandri and Ellore (these two embraced now in Godávari Dist.), with Condapilly (now embraced in Kistna Dist.), were the subject of a grant from the Great Mogul, obtained by Clive in 1765, confirmed by treaty with the Nizam in 1766. Gantūr (now also included in Kistna Dist.) devolved eventually by the same treaty (but did not come permanently under British rule till 1803). [For the history see Madras Admin. Man. i. 179.] C. P. Brown says the expression "The Circars" was first used by the French, in the time of Bussy. [Another name for the Northern Circars was the Carling or Carlingo country, apparently a corr. of Kalinga (see KLING), see Pringle, Diary, &c., of Ft. St. George, 1st ser. vol. 2, p. 125. (See SIRCAR.)]

1758.—"Il est à remarquer qu'après mon départ d'Ayder Abad, Salabet Zingue a nommé un Phosdar, ou Gouverneur, pour les quatres Cerkars."—Mémoire, by Bussy, in Lettres de MM. de Bussy, de Lally et autres, Paris, 1766, p. 24.

1767.—"Letter from the Chief and Council at Masulipatam ... that in consequence of orders from the President and Council of Fort St. George for securing and sending away all vagrant Europeans that might be met with in the Circars, they have embarked there for this place...."—Fort William Consn., in Long, 476 seq.

1789.—"The most important public transaction ... is the surrender of the Guntoor Circar to the Company, by which it becomes possessed of the whole Coast, from Jaggernaut to Cape Comorin. The Nizam made himself master of that province, soon after Hyder's invasion of the Carnatic, as an equivalent for the arrears of peshcush, due to him by the Company for the other Circars."—Letter of T. Munro, in Life by Gleig, i. 70.

1823.—"Although the Sirkárs are our earliest possessions, there are none, perhaps, of which we have so little accurate knowledge in everything that regards the condition of the people."—Sir T. Munro, in Selections, &c., by Sir A. Arbuthnot, i. 204.

We know from the preceding quotation what Munro's spelling of the name was.

1836.—"The district called the Circars, in India, is part of the coast which extends from the Carnatic to Bengal.... The domestic economy of the people is singular; they inhabit villages (!!), and all labour is performed by public servants paid from the public stock."—Phillips, Million of Facts, 320.

1878.—"General Sir J. C., C.B., K.C.S.I. He entered the Madras Army in 1820, and in 1834, according to official despatches, displayed 'active zeal, intrepidity, and judgment' in dealing with the savage tribes in Orissa known as the Circars"(!!!).—Obituary Notice in Homeward Mail, April 27.

CIVILIAN, s. A term which came into use about 1750-1770, as a designation of the covenanted European servants of the E. I. Company, not in military employ. It is not used by Grose, c. 1760, who was himself of such service at Bombay. [The earliest quotation in the N.E.D. is of 1766 from Malcolm's L. of Clive, 54.] In Anglo-Indian parlance it is still appropriated to members of the covenanted Civil Service [see COVENANTED SERVANTS]. The Civil Service is mentioned in Carraccioli's L. of Clive, (c. 1785), iii. 164. From an early date in the Company's history up to 1833, the members of the Civil Service were classified during the first five years as Writers (q.v.), then to the 8th year as Factors (q.v.); in the 9th and 11th as Junior Merchants; and thenceforward as Senior Merchants. These names were relics of the original commercial character of the E. I. Company's transactions, and had long ceased to have any practical meaning at the time of their abolition in 1833, when the Charter Act (3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 85), removed the last traces of the Company's commercial existence.

1848.—(Lady O'Dowd's) "quarrel with Lady Smith, wife of Minos Smith the puisne Judge, is still remembered by some at Madras, when the Colonel's lady snapped her fingers in the Judge's lady's face, and said she'd never walk behind ever a beggarly civilian."—Vanity Fair, ed. 1867, ii. 85.

1872.—"You bloated civilians are never satisfied, retorted the other."—A True Reformer, i. 4.

CLASSY, CLASHY, s. H. khalāṣī, usual etym. from Arab khalāṣ. A tent-pitcher; also (because usually taken from that class of servants) a man employed as chain-man or staff-man, &c., by a surveyor; a native sailor; or Matross (q.v.). Khalāṣ is constantly used in Hindustani in the sense of 'liberation'; thus, of a prisoner, a magistrate says 'khalāṣ karo,' 'let him go.' But it is not clear how khalāṣī got its ordinary Indian sense. It is also written khalāshī, and Vullers has an old Pers. word khalāsha for 'a ship's rudder.' A learned friend suggests that this may be the real origin of khalāṣī in its Indian use. [Khalāṣ also means the 'escape channel of a canal,' and khalāṣī may have been originally a person in charge of such a work.]

1785.—"A hundred clashies have been sent to you from the presence."—Tippoo's Letters, 171.

1801.—"The sepoys in a body were to bring up the rear. Our left flank was to be covered by the sea, and our right by Gopie Nath's men. Then the clashies and other armed followers."—Mt. Stewart Elphinstone, in Life, i. 27.

1824.—"If the tents got dry, the clashees (tent-pitchers) allowed that we might proceed in the morning prosperously."—Heber, ed. 1844, i. 194.

CLEARING NUT, WATER FILTER NUT, s. The seed of Strychnos potatorum, L.; a tree of S. India; [known in N. India as nirmalā, nirmalī, 'dirt-cleaner']. It is so called from its property of clearing muddy water, if well rubbed on the inside of the vessel which is to be filled.

CLOVE, s. The flower-bud of Caryophyllum aromaticum, L., a tree of the Moluccas. The modern English name of this spice is a kind of ellipsis from the French clous de girofles, 'Nails of Girofles,' i.e. of garofala, caryophylla, &c., the name by which this spice was known to the ancients; the full old English name was similar, 'clove gillofloure,' a name which, cut in two like a polypus, has formed two different creatures, the clove (or nail) being assigned to the spice, and the 'gillyflower' to a familiar clove-smelling flower. The comparison to nails runs through many languages. In Chinese the thing is called ting-hiang, or 'nail-spice'; in Persian mekhak, 'little nails,' or 'nailkins,' like the German Nelken, Nägelchen, and Gewürtz-nagel (spice nail).

[1602-3.—"Alsoe be carefull to gett together all the cloues you can."—Birdwood, First Letter Book, 36.]

COAST, THE, n.p. This term in books of the 18th century means the 'Madras or Coromandel Coast,' and often 'the Madras Presidency.' It is curious to find Παραλία, "the Shore," applied in a similar specific way, in Ptolemy, to the coast near Cape Comorin. It will be seen that the term "Coast Army," for "Madras Army," occurs quite recently. The Persian rendering of Coast Army by Bandarī below is curious.

1781.—"Just imported from the Coast ... a very fine assortment of the following cloths."—India Gazette, Sept. 15.

1793.—"Unseduced by novelty, and uninfluenced by example, the belles of the Coast have courage enough to be unfashionable ... and we still see their charming tresses flow in luxuriant ringlets."—Hugh Boyd, 78.

1800.—"I have only 1892 Coast and 1200 Bombay sepoys."—Wellington, i. 227.

1802.—"From Hydurabád also, Colonels Roberts and Dalrymple, with 4000 of the Bunduri or coast sipahees."—H. of Reign of Tipú Sultán, E. T. by Miles, p. 253.

1879.—"Is it any wonder then, that the Coast Army has lost its ancient renown, and that it is never employed, as an army should be, in fighting the battles of its country, or its employers?"—Pollok, Sport in Br. Burmah, &c., i. 26.

COBANG. See KOBANG.

COBILY MASH, s. This is the dried bonito (q.v.), which has for ages been a staple of the Maldive Islands. It is still especially esteemed in Achin and other Malay countries. The name is explained below by Pyrard as 'black fish,' and he is generally to be depended on. But the first accurate elucidation has been given by Mr. H. C. P. Bell, of the Ceylon C. S., in the Indian Antiquary for Oct. 1882, p. 294; see also Mr. Bell's Report on Maldive Islands, Colombo, 1882, p. 93, where there is an account of the preparation. It is the Maldive kalu-bili-mās, 'black-bonito-fish.' The second word corresponds to the Singhalese balayā.

c. 1345.—"Its flesh is red, and without fat, but it smells like mutton. When caught each fish is cut in four, slightly boiled, and then placed in baskets of palm-leaf, and hung in the smoke. When perfectly dry it is eaten. From this country it is exported to India, China, and Yemen. It is called Kolb-al-mās."—Ibn Batuta (on Maldives), iv. 112, also 311.

1578.—"... They eat it with a sort of dried fish, which comes from the Islands of Maledivia, and resembles jerked beef, and it is called Comalamasa."—Acosta, 103.

c. 1610.—"Ce poisson qui se prend ainsi, s'apelle generalement en leur langue cobolly masse, c'est à dire du poisson noir.... Ils le font cuire en de l'eau de mer, et puis le font secher au feu sur des clayes, en sorte qu'estant sec il se garde fort long-temps."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 138; see also 141; [Hak. Soc. i. 190 (with Gray's note) and 194].

1727.—"The Bonetta is caught with Hook and Line, or with nets ... they cut the Fish from the Back-bone on each Side, and lay them in a Shade to dry, sprinkling them sometimes with Sea Water. When they are dry enough ... they wrap them up in Leaves of Cocoa-nut Trees, and put them a Foot or two under the Surface of the Sand, and with the Heat of the Sun, they become baked as hard as Stock-fish, and Ships come from Atcheen ... and purchase them with Gold-dust. I have seen Comelamash (for that is their name after they are dried) sell at Atcheen for 8L. Sterl. per 1000."—A. Hamilton, i. 347; [ed. 1744, i. 350].

1783.—"Many Maldivia boats come yearly to Atcheen, and bring chiefly dried bonnetta in small pieces about two or three ounces; this is a sort of staple article of commerce, many shops in the Bazar deal in it only, having large quantities piled up, put in matt bags. It is when properly cured, hard like horn in the middle; when kept long the worm gets to it."—Forrest, V. to Mergui, 45.

1813.—"The fish called Commel mutch, so much esteemed in Malabar, is caught at Minicoy."—Milburn, i. 321, also 336.

1841.—"The Sultan of the Maldiva Islands sends an agent or minister every year to the government of Ceylon with presents consisting of ... a considerable quantity of dried fish, consisting of bonitos, albicores, and fish called by the inhabitants of the Maldivas the black fish, or comboli mas."—J. R. As. Soc. vi. 75.

The same article contains a Maldivian vocabulary, in which we have "Bonito or goomulmutch ... kannelimas" (p. 49). Thus we have in this one paper three corrupt forms of the same expression, viz. comboli mas, kanneli mas, and goomulmutch, all attempts at the true Maldivian term kalu-bili-mās, 'black bonito fish.'

COBRA DE CAPELLO, or simply COBRA, s. The venomous snake Naja tripudians. Cobra [Lat. colubra] is Port. for 'snake'; cobra de capello, 'snake of (the) hood.' [In the following we have a curious translation of the name: "Another sort, which is called Chapel-snakes, because they keep in Chapels or Churches, and sometimes in Houses" (A Relation of Two Several Voyages made into the East Indies, by Christopher Fryke, Surg.... London, 1700, p. 291).]

1523.—"A few days before, cobras de capello had been secretly introduced into the fort, which bit some black people who died thereof, both men and women; and when this news became known it was perceived that they must have been introduced by the hand of some one, for since the fort was made never had the like been heard of."—Correa, ii. 776.

1539.—"Vimos tãbẽ aquy grande soma de cobras de capello, da grossura da coxa de hũ homẽ, e tão peçonhentas em tanto estremo, que dizião os negros que se chegarão cõ a baba da boca a qualquer cousa viva, logo em proviso cahia morta em terra...."—Pinto, cap. xiv.

" "... Adders that were copped on the crowns of their heads, as big as a man's thigh, and so venomous, as the Negroes of the country informed us, that if any living thing came within the reach of their breath, it dyed presently...."—Cogan's Transl., p. 17.

1563.—"In the beautiful island of Ceylon ... there are yet many serpents of the kind which are vulgarly called Cobras de capello; and in Latin we may call them regulus serpens."—Garcia, f. 156.

1672.—"In Jafnapatam, in my time, there lay among others in garrison a certain High German who was commonly known as the Snake-Catcher; and this man was summoned by our Commander ... to lay hold of a Cobre Capel that was in his Chamber. And this the man did, merely holding his hat before his eyes, and seizing it with his hand, without any damage.... I had my suspicions that this was done by some devilry ... but he maintained that it was all by natural means...."—Baldaeus (Germ. ed.), 25.

Some forty-nine or fifty years ago a staff-sergeant at Delhi had a bull-dog that used to catch cobras in much the same way as this High-Dutchman did.

1710.—"The Brother Francisco Rodriguez persevered for the whole 40 days in these exercises, and as the house was of clay, and his cell adjoined the garden, it was invaded by cobra de capelo, and he made report of this inconvenience to the Father-Rector. But his answer was that these were not the snakes that did spiritual harm; and so left the Brother in the same cell. This and other admirable instances have always led me to doubt if S. Paul did not communicate to his Paulists in India the same virtue as of the tongues of S. Paul, for the snakes in these parts are so numerous and so venomous, and though our Missionaries make such long journeys through wild uncultivated places, there is no account to this day that any Paulist was ever bitten."—F. de Souza, Oriente Conquistado, Conq. i. Div. i. cap. 73.

1711.—Bluteau, in his great Port. Dict., explains Cobra de Capello as a "reptile (bicho) of Brazil." But it is only a slip; what is further said shows that he meant to say India.

c. 1713.—"En secouant la peau de cerf sur laquelle nous avons coutume de nous asseoir, il en sortit un gros serpent de ceux qu'on appelle en Portugais Cobra-Capel."—Lettres Edif., ed. 1781, xi. 83.

1883.—"In my walks abroad I generally carry a strong, supple walking cane.... Armed with it, you may rout and slaughter the hottest-tempered cobra in Hindustan. Let it rear itself up and spread its spectacled head-gear and bluster as it will, but one rap on the side of its head will bring it to reason."—Tribes on my Frontier, 198-9.

COBRA LILY, s. The flower Arum campanulatum, which stands on its curving stem exactly like a cobra with a reared head.

COBRA MANILLA, or MINELLE, s. Another popular name in S. India for a species of venomous snake, perhaps a little uncertain in its application. Dr. Russell says the Bungarus caeruleus was sent to him from Masulipatam, with the name Cobra Monil, whilst Günther says this name is given in S. India to the Daboia Russellii, or Tic-Polonga (q.v.) (see Fayrer's Thanatophidia, pp. 11 and 15). [The Madras Gloss. calls it the chain-viper, Daboia elegans.] One explanation of the name is given in the quotation from Lockyer. But the name is really Mahr. maṇer, from Skt. maṇi, 'a jewel.' There are judicious remarks in a book lately quoted, regarding the popular names and popular stories of snakes, which apply, we suspect, to all the quotations under the following heading:

"There are names in plenty ... but they are applied promiscuously to any sort of snake, real or imaginary, and are therefore of no use. The fact is, that in real life, as distinguished from romance, snakes are so seldom seen, that no one who does not make a study of them can know one from the other."—Tribes on my Frontier, 197.

1711.—"The Cobra Manilla has its name from a way of Expression common among the Nears on the Malabar Coast, who speaking of a quick Motion ... say, in a Phrase peculiar to themselves, Before they can pull a Manilla from their Hands. A Person bit with this Snake, dies immediately; or before one can take a Manilla off. A Manilla is a solid piece of Gold, of two or three ounces Weight, worn in a Ring round the Wrist."—Lockyer, 276.

[1773.—"The Covra Manilla, is a small bluish snake of the size of a man's little finger, and about a foot long, often seen about old walls."—Ives, 43.]

1780.—"The most dangerous of those reptiles are the coverymanil and the green snake. The first is a beautiful little creature, very lively, and about 6 or 7 inches long. It creeps into all private corners of houses, and is often found coiled up betwixt the sheets, or perhaps under the pillow of one's bed. Its sting is said to inflict immediate death, though I must confess, for my own part, I never heard of any dangerous accident occasioned by it."—Munro's Narrative, 34.

1810.—"... Here, too, lurks the small bright speckled Cobra manilla, whose fangs convey instant death."—Maria Graham, 23.

1813.—"The Cobra minelle is the smallest and most dangerous; the bite occasions a speedy and painful death."—Forbes, Or. Mem. i. 42; [2nd ed. i. 27].

COCHIN, n.p. A famous city of Malabar, Malayāl. Kochchī, ['a small place'] which the nasalising, so usual with the Portuguese, converted into Cochim or Cochin. We say "the Portuguese" because we seem to owe so many nasal terminations of words in Indian use to them; but it is evident that the real origin of this nasal was in some cases anterior to their arrival, as in the present case (see the first quotations), and in that of Acheen (q.v.). Padre Paolino says the town was called after the small river "Cocci" (as he writes it). It will be seen that Conti in the 15th century makes the same statement.

c. 1430.—"Relictâ Coloënâ ad urbem Cocym, trium dierum itinere transiit, quinque millibus passuum ambitu supra ostium fluminis, a quo et nomen."—N. Conti in Poggius, de Variet. Fortunae, iv.

1503.—"Inde Franci ad urbem Cocen profecti, castrum ingens ibidem construxere, et trecentis praesidiariis viris bellicosis munivere...."—Letter of Nestorian Bishops from India, in Assemani, iii. 596.

1510.—"And truly he (the K. of Portugal) deserves every good, for in India and especially in Cucin, every fête day ten and even twelve Pagans and Moors are baptised."—Varthema, 296.

[1562.—"Cochym." See under BEADALA.]

1572.—

"Vereis a fortaleza sustentar-se

De Cananor con pouca força e gente

E vereis em Cochin assinalar-se

Tanto hum peito soberbo, e insolente

Que cithara ja mais cantou victoria,

Que assi mereça eterno nome e gloria."

Camões, ii. 52.

By Burton:

"Thou shalt behold the Fortalice hold out

of Cananor with scanty garrison

shalt in Cochin see one approv'd so stout,

who such an arr'gance of the sword hath shown,

no harp of mortal sang a similar story,

digne of e'erlasting name, eternal glory."

[1606.—"Att Cowcheen which is a place neere Callicutt is stoare of pepper...."—Birdwood, First Letter Book, 84.

[1610.—"Cochim bow worth in Surat as sceala and kannikee."—Danvers, Letters, i. 74.]

1767.—"From this place the Nawaub marched to Koochi-Bundur, from the inhabitants of which he exacted a large sum of money."—H. of Hydur Naik, 186.

COCHIN-CHINA, n.p. This country was called by the Malays Kuchi, and apparently also, to distinguish it from Kuchi of India (or Cochin), Kuchi-China, a term which the Portuguese adopted as Cauchi-China; the Dutch and English from them. Kuchi occurs in this sense in the Malay traditions called Sijara Malayu (see J. Ind. Archip., v. 729). In its origin this word Kuchi is no doubt a foreigner's form of the Annamite Kuu-chön (Chin. Kiu-Ching, South Chin. Kau-Chen), which was the ancient name of the province Thanh'-hoa, in which the city of Huë has been the capital since 1398.

1516.—"And he (Fernão Peres) set sail from Malaca ... in August of the year 516, and got into the Gulf of Concam china, which he entered in the night, escaping by miracle from being lost on the shoals...."—Correa, ii. 474.

[1524.—"I sent Duarte Coelho to discover Canchim China."—Letter of Albuquerque to the King, India Office MSS., Corpo Chronologico, vol. i.]

c. 1535.—"This King of Cochinchina keeps always an ambassador at the court of the King of China; not that he does this of his own good will, or has any content therein, but because he is his vassal."—Sommario de' Regni, in Ramusio, i. 336v.

c. 1543.—"Now it was not without much labour, pain, and danger, that we passed these two Channels, as also the River of Ventinau, by reason of the Pyrats that usually are encountred there, nevertheless we at length arrived at the Town of Manaquilen, which is scituated at the foot of the Mountains of Chomay (Comhay in orig.), upon the Frontiers of the two Kingdoms of China, and Cauchenchina (da China e do Cauchim in orig.), where the Ambassadors were well received by the Governor thereof."—Pinto, E. T., p. 166 (orig. cap. cxxix.).

c. 1543.—"Capitulo CXXX. Do recebimento que este Rey da Cauchenchina fez ao Embaixador da Tartaria na villa de Fanau grem."—Pinto, original.

1572.—

"Ves, Cauchichina esta de oscura fama,

E de Ainão vê a incognita enseada."

Camões, x. 129.

By Burton:

"See Cauchichina still of note obscure

and of Ainam yon undiscovered Bight."

1598.—"This land of Cauchinchina is devided into two or three Kingdomes, which are vnder the subiection of the King of China, it is a fruitfull countrie of all necessarie prouisiouns and Victuals."—Linschoten, ch. 22; [Hak. Soc. i. 124].

1606.—"Nel Regno di Coccincina, che ... è alle volte chiamato dal nome di Anan, vi sono quattordici Provincie piccole...."—Viaggi di Carletti, ii. 138.

[1614.—"The Cocchichinnas cut him all in pieces."—Foster, Letters, ii. 75.

[1616.—"27 pecull of lignum aloes of Cutcheinchenn."—Ibid. iv. 213.]

1652.—"Cauchin-China is bounded on the West with the Kingdomes of Brama; on the East, with the Great Realm of China; on the North extending towards Tartary; and on the South, bordering on Camboia."—P. Heylin, Cosmographie, iii. 239.

1727.—"Couchin-china has a large Sea-coast of about 700 Miles in Extent ... and it has the Conveniency of many good Harbours on it, tho' they are not frequented by Strangers."—A. Hamilton, ii. 208; [ed. 1744].

COCHIN-LEG. A name formerly given to elephantiasis, as it prevailed in Malabar. [The name appears to be still in use (Boswell, Man. of Nellore, 33). Linschoten (1598) describes it in Malabar (Hak. Soc. i. 288), and it was also called "St. Thomas's leg" (see an account with refs. in Gray, Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 392).]

1757.—"We could not but take notice at this place (Cochin) of the great number of the Cochin, or Elephant legs."—Ives, 193.

1781.—"... my friend Jack Griskin, enclosed in a buckram Coat of the 1745, with a Cochin Leg, hobbling the Allemand...."—Letter from an Old Country Captain, in India Gazette, Feb. 24.

1813.—"Cochin-Leg, or elephantiasis."—Forbes, Or. Mem. i. 327; [2nd ed. i. 207].

COCKATOO, s. This word is taken from the Malay kākātūwa. According to Crawfurd the word means properly 'a vice,' or 'gripe,' but is applied to the bird. It seems probable, however, that the name, which is asserted to be the natural cry of the bird, may have come with the latter from some remoter region of the Archipelago, and the name of the tool may have been taken from the bird. This would be more in accordance with usual analogy. [Mr. Skeat writes: "There is no doubt that Sir H. Yule is right here and Crawfurd wrong. Kakak tuwa (or tua) means in Malay, if the words are thus separated, 'old sister,' or 'old lady.' I think it is possible that it may be a familiar Malay name for the bird, like our 'Polly.' The final k in kakak is a mere click, which would easily drop out."]

1638.—"Il y en a qui sont blancs ... et sont coeffés d'vne houpe incarnate ... l'on les appelle kakatou, à cause de ce mot qu'ils prononcent en leur chant assez distinctement."—Mandelslo (Paris, 1669), 144.

1654.—"Some rarities of naturall things, but nothing extraordinary save the skin of a jaccall, a rarely colour'd jacatoo or prodigious parrot...."—Evelyn's Diary, July 11.

1673.—"... Cockatooas and Newries (see LORY) from Bantem."—Fryer, 116.

1705.—"The Crockadore is a Bird of various Sizes, some being as big as a Hen, and others no bigger than a Pidgeon. They are in all Parts exactly of the shape of a Parrot.... When they fly wild up and down the Woods they will call Crockadore, Crockadore; for which reason they go by that name."—Funnel, in Dampier, iv. 265-6.

1719.—"Maccaws, Cokatoes, plovers, and a great variety of other birds of curious colours."—Shelvocke's Voyage, 54-55.

1775.—"At Sooloo there are no Loories, but the Cocatores have yellow tufts."—Forrest, V. to N. Guinea, 295.

[1843.—"... saucy Krocotoas, and gaudy-coloured Loris."—Belcher, Narr. of Voyage of Samarang, i. 15.]

COCKROACH, s. This objectionable insect (Blatta orientalis) is called by the Portuguese cacalacca, for the reason given by Bontius below; a name adopted by the Dutch as kakerlak, and by the French as cancrelat. The Dutch also apply their term as a slang name to half-castes. But our word seems to have come from the Spanish cucaracha. The original application of this Spanish name appears to have been to a common insect found under water-vessels standing on the ground, &c. (apparently Oniscus, or woodlouse); but as cucaracha de Indias it was applied to the insect now in question (see Dicc. de la Lengua Castellana, 1729).

1577.—"We were likewise annoyed not a little by the biting of an Indian fly called Cacaroch, a name agreeable to its bad condition; for living it vext our flesh; and being kill'd smelt as loathsomely as the French punaise, whose smell is odious."—Herbert's Travels, 3rd ed., 332-33.

[1598.—"There is a kind of beast that flyeth, twice as big as a Bee, and is called Baratta (Blatta)."—Linschoten, Hak. Soc. i. 304.]

1631.—"Scarabaeos autem hos Lusitani Caca-laccas vocant, quod ova quae excludunt, colorem et laevorem Laccae factitiae (i.e. of sealing-wax) referant."—Jac. Bontii, lib. v. cap 4.

1764.—

"... from their retreats

Cockroaches crawl displeasingly abroad."

Grainger, Bk. i.

c. 1775.—"Most of my shirts, books, &c., were gnawed to dust by the blatta or cockroach, called cackerlakke in Surinam."—Stedman, i. 203.

COCKUP, s. An excellent table-fish, found in the mouths of tidal rivers in most parts of India. In Calcutta it is generally known by the Beng. name of begtī or bhiktī (see BHIKTY), and it forms the daily breakfast dish of half the European gentlemen in that city. The name may be a corruption, we know not of what; or it may be given from the erect sharp spines of the dorsal fin. [The word is a corr. of the Malay (ikan) kakap, which Klinkert defines as a palatable sea-fish, Lates nobilis, the more common form being siyakap.] It is Lates calcarifer (Günther) of the group Percina, family Percidae, and grows to an immense size, sometimes to eight feet in length.

COCO, COCOA, COCOA-NUT, and (vulg.) COKER-NUT, s. The tree and nut Cocos nucifera, L.; a palm found in all tropical countries, and the only one common to the Old and New Worlds.

The etymology of this name is very obscure. Some conjectural origins are given in the passages quoted below. Ritter supposes, from a passage in Pigafetta's Voyage of Magellan, which we cite, that the name may have been indigenous in the Ladrone Islands, to which that passage refers, and that it was first introduced into Europe by Magellan's crew. On the other hand, the late Mr. C. W. Goodwin found in ancient Egyptian the word kuku used as "the name of the fruit of a palm 60 cubits high, which fruit contained water." (Chabas, Mélanges Égyptologiques, ii. 239.) It is hard, however, to conceive how this name should have survived, to reappear in Europe in the later Middle Ages, without being known in any intermediate literature.

The more common etymology is that which is given by Barros, Garcia de Orta, Linschoten, &c., as from a Spanish word coco applied to a monkey's or other grotesque face, with reference to the appearance of the base of the shell with its three holes. But after all may the term not have originated in the old Span. coca, 'a shell' (presumably Lat. concha), which we have also in French coque? properly an egg-shell, but used also for the shell of any nut. (See a remark under COPRAH.)

The Skt. narikila [nārikera, nārikela] has originated the Pers. nārgīl, which Cosmas grecizes into ἀργελλίον, [and H. nāriyal].

Medieval writers generally (such as Marco Polo, Fr. Jordanus, &c.) call the fruit the Indian Nut, the name by which it was known to the Arabs (al jauz-al-Hindī). There is no evidence of its having been known to classical writers, nor are we aware of any Greek or Latin mention of it before Cosmas. But Brugsch, describing from the Egyptian wall-paintings of c. B.C. 1600, on the temple of Queen Hashop, representing the expeditions by sea which she sent to the Incense Land of Punt, says: "Men never seen before, the inhabitants of this divine land, showed themselves on the coast, not less astonished than the Egyptians. They lived on pile-buildings, in little dome-shaped huts, the entrance to which was effected by a ladder, under the shade of cocoa-palms laden with fruit, and splendid incense-trees, on whose boughs strange fowls rocked themselves, and at whose feet herds of cattle peacefully reposed." (H. of Egypt, 2nd ed. i. 353; [Maspero, Struggle of the Nations, 248].)

c. A.D. 70.—"In ipsâ quidem Aethiopiâ fricatur haec, tanta est siccitas, et farinae modo spissatur in panem. Gignitur autem in frutice ramis cubitalibus, folio latiore, pomo rotundo majore quam mali amplitudine, coicas vocant."—Pliny, xiii. § 9.

A.D. 545.—"Another tree is that which bears the Argell, i.e. the great Indian Nut."—Cosmas, in Cathay, &c., clxxvi.

1292.—"The Indian Nuts are as big as melons, and in colour green, like gourds. Their leaves and branches are like those of the date-tree."—John of Monte Corvino, in do., p. 213.

c. 1328.—"First of these is a certain tree called Nargil; which tree every month in the year sends out a beautiful frond like [that of] a [date-] palm tree, which frond or branch produces very large fruit, as big as a man's head.... And both flowers and fruit are produced at the same time, beginning with the first month, and going up gradually to the twelfth.... The fruit is that which we call nuts of India."—Friar Jordanus, 15 seq. The wonder of the coco-palm is so often noticed in this form by medieval writers, that doubtless in their minds they referred it to that "tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruit, and yielded her fruit every month" (Apocal. xxii. 2).

c. 1340.—"Le nargīl, appelé autrement noix d'Inde, auquel on ne peut comparer aucun autre fruit, est vert et rempli d'huile."—Shihābbuddīn Dimishḳī, in Not. et Exts. xiii. 175.

c. 1350.—"Wonderful fruits there are, which we never see in these parts, such as the Nargil. Now the Nargil is the Indian Nut."—John Marignolli, in Cathay, p. 352.

1498-99.—"And we who were nearest boarded the vessel, and found nothing in her but provisions and arms; and the provisions consisted of coquos and of four jars of certain cakes of palm-sugar, and there was nothing else but sand for ballast."—Roteiro de Vasco da Gama, 94.

1510.—Varthema gives an excellent account of the tree; but he uses only the Malayāl. name tenga. [Tam. tennai, ten, 'south' as it was supposed to have been brought from Ceylon.]

1516.—"These trees have clean smooth stems, without any branch, only a tuft of leaves at the top, amongst which grows a large fruit which they call tenga.... We call these fruits quoquos."—Barbosa, 154 (collating Portuguese of Lisbon Academy, p. 346).

1519.—"Cocas (coche) are the fruits of palm-trees, and as we have bread, wine, oil, and vinegar, so in that country they extract all these things from this one tree."—Pigafetta, Viaggio intorno il Mondo, in Ramusio, i. f. 356.

1553.—"Our people have given it the name of coco, a word applied by women to anything with which they try to frighten children; and this name has stuck, because nobody knew any other, though the proper name was, as the Malabars call it, tenga, or as the Canarins call it, narle."—Barros, Dec. III. liv. iii. cap. 7.

c. 1561.—Correa writes coquos.—I. i. 115.

1563.—"... We have given it the name of coco, because it looks like the face of a monkey, or of some other animal."—Garcia, 66b.

"That which we call coco, and the Malabars Temga."—Ibid. 67b.

1578.—"The Portuguese call it coco (because of those three holes that it has)."—Acosta, 98.

1598.—"Another that bears the Indian nuts called Coecos, because they have within them a certain shell that is like an ape; and on this account they use in Spain to show their children a Coecota when they would make them afraid."—English trans. of Pigafetta's Congo, in Harleian Coll. ii. 553.

The parallel passage in De Bry runs: "Illas quoque quae nuces Indicas coceas, id est Simias (intus enim simiae caput referunt) dictas palmas appellant."—i. 29.

Purchas has various forms in different narratives: Cocūs (i. 37); Cokers, a form which still holds its ground among London stall-keepers and costermongers (i. 461, 502); coquer-nuts (Terry, in ii. 1466); coco (ii. 1008); coquo (Pilgrimage, 567), &c.

[c. 1610.—"None, however, is more useful than the coco or Indian nut, which they (in the Maldives) call roul (Malē, rū)."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 113.]

c. 1690.—Rumphius, who has cocus in Latin, and cocos in Dutch, mentions the derivation already given as that of Linschoten and many others, but proceeds:—

"Meo vero judicio verior et certior vocis origo invenienda est, plures enim nationes, quibus hic fructus est notus, nucem appellant. Sic dicitur Arabicè Gauzos-Indi vel Geuzos-Indi, h. e. Nux Indica.... Turcis Cock-Indi eadem significatione, unde sine dubio Ætiopes, Africani, eorumque vicini Hispani ac Portugalli coquo deflexerunt. Omnia vero ista nomina, originem suam debent Hebraicae voci Egoz quae nucem significat."—Herb. Amboin. i. p. 7.

" "... in India Occidentali Kokernoot vocatus...."—Ibid. p. 47.

One would like to know where Rumphius got the term Cock-Indi, of which we can find no trace.

1810.—

"What if he felt no wind? The air was still.

That was the general will

Of Nature....

Yon rows of rice erect and silent stand,

The shadow of the Cocoa's lightest plume

Is steady on the sand."

Curse of Kehama, iv. 4.

1881.—"Among the popular French slang words for 'head' we may notice the term 'coco,' given—like our own 'nut'—on account of the similarity in shape between a cocoa-nut and a human skull:—

"'Mais de ce franc picton de table

Qui rend spirituel, aimable,

Sans vous alourdir le coco,

Je m'en fourre à gogo.'—H. Valère."

Sat. Review, Sept. 10, p. 326.

The Dict. Hist. d'Argot of Lorédan Larchey, from which this seems taken, explains picton as 'vin supérieur.'

COCO-DE-MER, or DOUBLE COCO-NUT, s. The curious twin fruit so called, the produce of the Lodoicea Sechellarum, a palm growing only in the Seychelles Islands, is cast up on the shores of the Indian Ocean, most frequently on the Maldive Islands, but occasionally also on Ceylon and S. India, and on the coasts of Zanzibar, of Sumatra, and some others of the Malay Islands. Great virtues as medicine and antidote were supposed to reside in these fruits, and extravagant prices were paid for them. The story goes that a "country captain," expecting to make his fortune, took a cargo of these nuts from the Seychelles Islands to Calcutta, but the only result was to destroy their value for the future.

The old belief was that the fruit was produced on a palm growing below the sea, whose fronds, according to Malay seamen, were sometimes seen in quiet bights on the Sumatran coast, especially in the Lampong Bay. According to one form of the story among the Malays, which is told both by Pigafetta and by Rumphius, there was but one such tree, the fronds of which rose above an abyss of the Southern Ocean, and were the abode of the monstrous bird Garuda (or Rukh of the Arabs—see ROC). The tree itself was called Pausengi, which Rumphius seems to interpret as a corruption of Buwa-zangi, "Fruit of Zang" or E. Africa. [Mr. Skeat writes: "Rumphius is evidently wrong.... The first part of the word is 'Pau,' or 'Pauh,' which is perfectly good Malay, and is the name given to various species of mango, especially the wild one, so that 'Pausengi' represents (not 'Buwa,' but) 'Pauh Janggi,' which is to this day the universal Malay name for the tree which grows, according to Malay fable, in the central whirlpool or Navel of the Seas. Some versions add that it grows upon a sunken bank (tĕbing runtoh), and is guarded by dragons. This tree figures largely in Malay romances, especially those which form the subject of Malay shadow-plays (vide infra, Pl. 23, for an illustration of the Pauh Janggi and the Crab). Rumphius' explanation of the second part of the name (i.e. Janggi) is, no doubt, quite correct."—Malay Magic, pp. 6 seqq.] They were cast up occasionally on the islands off the S.W. coast of Sumatra; and the wild people of the islands brought them for sale to the Sumatran marts, such as Padang and Priamang. One of the largest (say about 12 inches across) would sell for 150 rix dollars. But the Malay princes coveted them greatly, and would sometimes (it was alleged) give a laden junk for a single nut. In India the best known source of supply was from the Maldive Islands. [In India it is known as Daryāī nāriyal, or 'cocoa-nut of the sea,' and this term has been in Bombay corrupted into jaharī (zahrī) or 'poisonous,' so that the fruit is incorrectly regarded as dangerous to life. The hard shell is largely used to make Fakīrs' water-bowls.]

The medicinal virtues of the nut were not only famous among all the peoples of the East, including the Chinese, but are extolled by Piso and by Rumphius, with many details. The latter, learned and laborious student of nature as he was, believed in the submarine origin of the nut, though he discredited its growing on a great palm, as no traces of such a plant had ever been discovered on the coasts. The fame of the nut's virtues had extended to Europe, and the Emperor Rudolf II. in his later days offered in vain 4000 florins to purchase from the family of Wolfert Hermanszen, a Dutch Admiral, one that had been presented to that commander by the King of Bantam, on the Hollander's relieving his capital, attacked by the Portuguese, in 1602.

It will be seen that the Maldive name of this fruit was Tāva-kārhī. The latter word is 'coco-nut,' but the meaning of tāva does not appear from any Maldive vocabulary. [The term is properly Tāva'karhi, 'the hard-shelled nut,' (Gray, on Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 231).] Rumphius states that a book in 4to (totum opusculum) was published on this nut, at Amsterdam in 1634, by Augerius Clutius, M.D. [In more recent times the nut has become famous as the subject of curious speculations regarding it by the late Gen. Gordon.]

1522.—"They also related to us that beyond Java Major ... there is an enormous tree named Campanganghi, in which dwell certain birds named Garuda, so large that they take with their claws, and carry away flying, a buffalo and even an elephant, to the place of the tree.... The fruit of this tree is called Buapanganghi, and is larger than a water-melon ... it was understood that those fruits which are frequently found in the sea came from that place."—Pigafetta, Hak. Soc. p. 155.

1553.—"... it appears ... that in some places beneath the salt-water there grows another kind of these trees, which gives a fruit bigger than the coco-nut; and experience shows that the inner husk of this is much more efficacious against poison than the Bezoar stone."—Barros, III. iii. 7.

1563.—"The common story is that those islands were formerly part of the continent, but being low they were submerged, whilst these palm-trees continued in situ; and growing very old they produced such great and very hard coco-nuts, buried in the earth which is now covered by the sea.... When I learn anything in contradiction of this I will write to you in Portugal, and anything that I can discover here, if God grant me life; for I hope to learn all about the matter when, please God, I make my journey to Malabar. And you must know that these cocos come joined two in one, just like the hind quarters of an animal."—Garcia, f. 70-71.

1572.—

"Nas ilhas de Maldiva nasce a planta

No profundo das aguas soberana,

Cujo pomo contra o veneno urgente

He tido por antidoto excellente."

Camões, x. 136.

c. 1610.—"Il est ainsi d'vne certaine noix que la mer iette quelques fois à bord, qui est grosse comme la teste d'vn homme qu'on pourroit comparer à deux gros melons ioints ensemble. Ils la nom̃ent Tauarcarré, et ils tiennent que cela vient de quelques arbres qui sont sous la mer ... quand quelqu'vn deuient riche tout à coup et en peu de temps, on dit communement qu'il a trouué du Tauarcarré ou de l'ambre."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 163; [Hak. Soc. i. 230].

? 1650.—In Piso's Mantissa Aromatica, &c., there is a long dissertation, extending to 23 pp., De Tavarcare seu Nuce Medicâ Maldivensium.

1678.—"P.S. Pray remember ye Coquer nutt Shells (doubtless Coco-de-Mer) and long nulls (?) formerly desired for ye Prince."—Letter from Dacca, quoted under CHOP.

c. 1680.—"Hic itaque Calappus marinus non est fructus terrestris qui casu in mare procidit ... uti Garcias ab Orta persuadere voluit, sed fructus est in ipso crescens mari, cujus arbor, quantum scio, hominum oculis ignota et occulta est."—Rumphius, Lib. xii. cap. 8.

1763.—"By Durbar charges paid for the following presents to the Nawab, as per Order of Consultation, the 14th October, 1762.

1 Sea cocoa nut............Rs. 300 0 0."

In Long, 308.

1777.—"Cocoa-nuts from the Maldives, or as they are called the Zee Calappers, are said to be annually brought hither (to Colombo) by certain messengers, and presented, among other things, to the Governor. The kernel of the fruit ... is looked upon here as a very efficacious antidote or a sovereign remedy against the Flux, the Epilepsy and Apoplexy. The inhabitants of the Maldives call it Tavarcare...."—Travels of Charles Peter Thunberg, M.D. (E.T.) iv. 209.

[1833.—"The most extraordinary and valuable production of these islands (Seychelles) is the Coco Do Mar, or Maldivia nut, a tree which, from its singular character, deserves particular mention...."—Owen, Narrative, ii. 166 seqq.]

1882.—"Two minor products obtained by the islanders from the sea require notice. These are ambergris (M. goma, mávaharu) and the so-called 'sea-cocoanut' (M. táva-kárhi) ... rated at so high a value in the estimation of the Maldive Sultans as to be retained as part of their royalties."—H. C. P. Bell (Ceylon C. S.), Report on the Maldive Islands, p. 87.

1883.—"... sailed straight into the coco-de-mer valley, my great object. Fancy a valley as big as old Hastings, quite full of the great yellow stars! It was almost too good to believe.... Dr. Hoad had a nut cut down for me. The outside husk is shaped like a mango.... It is the inner nut which is double. I ate some of the jelly from inside; there must have been enough to fill a soup-tureen—of the purest white, and not bad."—(Miss North) in Pall Mall Gazette, Jan. 21, 1884.

CODAVASCAM, n.p. A region with this puzzling name appears in the Map of Blaeu (c. 1650), and as Ryk van Codavascan in the Map of Bengal in Valentijn (vol. v.), to the E. of Chittagong. Wilford has some Wilfordian nonsense about it, connecting it with the Τοκοσάννα R. of Ptolemy, and with a Touascan which he says is mentioned by the "Portuguese writers" (in such case a criminal mode of expression). The name was really that of a Mahommedan chief, "hum Principe Mouro, grande Senhor," and "Vassalo del Rey de Bengála." It was probably "Khodābakhsh Khān." His territory must have been south of Chittagong, for one of his towns was Chacuriá, still known as Chakirīa on the Chittagong and Arakan Road, in lat. 21° 45′. (See Barros, IV. ii. 8. and IV. ix. 1; and Couto, IV. iv. 10; also Correa, iii. 264-266, and again as below):—

1533.—"But in the city there was the Rumi whose foist had been seized by Dimião Bernaldes; being a soldier (lascarym) of the King's, and seeing the present (offered by the Portuguese) he said: My lord, these are crafty robbers; they get into a country with their wares, and pretend to buy and sell, and make friendly gifts, whilst they go spying out the land and the people, and then come with an armed force to seize them, slaying and burning ... till they become masters of the land.... And this Captain-Major is the same that was made prisoner and ill-used by Codavascão in Chatigão, and he is come to take vengeance for the ill that was done him."—Correa, iii. 479.

COFFEE, s. Arab. ḳahwa, a word which appears to have been originally a term for wine. [So in the Arab. Nights, ii. 158, where Burton gives the derivation as akhá, fastidire fecit, causing disinclination for food. In old days the scrupulous called coffee ḳihwah to distinguish it from ḳahwah, wine.] It is probable, therefore, that a somewhat similar word was twisted into this form by the usual propensity to strive after meaning. Indeed, the derivation of the name has been plausibly traced to Kaffa, one of those districts of the S. Abyssinian highlands (Enarea and Kaffa) which appear to have been the original habitat of the Coffee plant (Coffea arabica, L.); and if this is correct, then Coffee is nearer the original than Ḳahwa. On the other hand, Ḳahwa, or some form thereof, is in the earliest mentions appropriated to the drink, whilst some form of the word Bunn is that given to the plant, and Būn is the existing name of the plant in Shoa. This name is also that applied in Yemen to the coffee-berry. There is very fair evidence in Arabic literature that the use of coffee was introduced into Aden by a certain Sheikh Shihābuddīn Dhabḥānī, who had made acquaintance with it on the African coast, and who died in the year H. 875, i.e. A.D. 1470, so that the introduction may be put about the middle of the 15th century, a time consistent with the other negative and positive data. From Yemen it spread to Mecca (where there arose after some years, in 1511, a crusade against its use as unlawful), to Cairo, to Damascus and Aleppo, and to Constantinople, where the first coffee-house was established in 1554. [It is said to have been introduced into S. India some two centuries ago by a Mahommedan pilgrim, named Bābā Būdan, who brought a few seeds with him from Mecca: see Grigg, Nilagiri Man. 483; Rice, Mysore, i. 162.] The first European mention of coffee seems to be by Rauwolff, who knew it in Aleppo in 1573. [See 1 ser. N. & Q. I. 25 seqq.] It is singular that in the Observations of Pierre Belon, who was in Egypt, 1546-49, full of intelligence and curious matter as they are, there is no indication of a knowledge of coffee.

1558.—Extrait du Livre intitulé: "Les Preuves le plus fortes en faveur de la legitimité de l'usage du Café (Kahwa); par le Scheikh Abd-Alkader Ansari Djézéri Hanbali, fils de Mohammed."—In De Sacy, Chrest. Arabe, 2nd ed. i. 412.

1573.—"Among the rest they have a very good Drink, by them called Chaube, that is almost black as Ink, and very good in Illness, chiefly that of the Stomach; of this they drink in the Morning early in open places before everybody, without any fear or regard, out of China cups, as hot as they can; they put it often to their Lips, but drink but little at a Time, and let it go round as they sit. In the same water they take a Fruit called Bunru, which in its Bigness, Shape, and Colour, is almost like unto a Bay-berry, with two thin Shells ... they agree in the Virtue, Figure, Looks, and Name with the Buncho of Avicen, and Bancha of Rasis ad Almans. exactly; therefore I take them to be the same."—Rauwolff, 92.

c. 1580.—"Arborem vidi in viridario Halydei Turcae, cujus tu iconem nunc spectabis, ex qua semina illa ibi vulgatissima, Bon vel Ban appellata, producuntur; ex his tum Aegyptii tum Arabes parant decoctum vulgatissimum, quod vini loco ipsi potant, venditurque in publicis œnopoliis, non secus quod apud nos vinum: illique ipsum vocant Caova.... Avicenna de his seminibus meminit."—Prosper Alpinus, ii. 36.

1598.—In a note on the use of tea in Japan, Dr. Paludanus says: "The Turkes holde almost the same mañer of drinking of their Chaona (read Chaoua), which they make of a certaine fruit, which is like unto the Bakelaer, and by the Egyptians called Bon or Ban; they take of this fruite one pound and a halfe, and roast them a little in the fire, and then sieth them in twentie poundes of water, till the half be consumed away; this drinke they take everie morning fasting in their chambers, out of an earthen pot, being verie hote, as we doe here drinke aqua composita in the morning; and they say that it strengtheneth them and maketh them warm, breaketh wind, and openeth any stopping."—In Linschoten, 46; [Hak. Soc. i. 157].

c. 1610.—"La boisson la plus commune c'est de l'eau, ou bien du vin de Cocos tiré le mesme iour. On en fait de deux autres sortes plus delicates; l'vne est chaude, composée de l'eau et de mièl de Cocos, avec quantité de poivre (dont ils vsent beaucoup en toutes leurs viandes, et ils le nomment Pasme) et d'vne autre graine appellée Cahoa...."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 128; [Hak. Soc. i. 172].

[1611.—"Buy some coho pots and send me."—Danvers, Letters, i. 122; "coffao pots."—Ibid. i. 124.]

1615.—"They have in steed of it (wine) a certaine drinke called Caahiete as black as Inke, which they make with the barke of a tree(!) and drinke as hot as they can endure it."—Monfart, 28.

" "... passano tutto il resto della notte con mille feste e bagordi; e particolarmente in certi luoghi pubblici ... bevendo di quando in quando a sorsi (per chè è calda che cuoce) più d'uno scodellino di certa loro acqua nera, che chiamano cahue; la quale, nelle conversazioni serve a loro, appunto come a noi il giuoco dello sbaraglino" (i.e. backgammon).—P. della Valle (from Constant.), i. 51. See also pp. 74-76.

[ " "Cohu, blake liquor taken as hotte as may be endured."—Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. i. 32.]

1616.—"Many of the people there (in India), who are strict in their Religion, drink no Wine at all; but they use a Liquor more wholesome than pleasant, they call Coffee; made by a black Seed boyld in water, which turnes it almost into the same colour, but doth very little alter the taste of the water (!): notwithstanding it is very good to help Digestion, to quicken the Spirits, and to cleanse the Blood."—Terry, ed. of 1665, p. 365.

1623.—"Turcae habent etiam in usu herbae genus quam vocant Caphe ... quam dicunt haud parvum praestans illis vigorem, et in animas (sic) et in ingenio; quae tamen largius sumpta mentem movet et turbat...."—F. Bacon, Hist. Vitae et Mortis, 25.

c. 1628.—"They drink (in Persia) ... above all the rest, Coho or Copha: by Turk and Arab called Caphe and Cahua: a drink imitating that in the Stigian lake, black, thick, and bitter: destrain'd from Bunchy, Bunnu, or Bay berries; wholsome they say, if hot, for it expels melancholy ... but not so much regarded for those good properties, as from a Romance that it was invented and brew'd by Gabriel ... to restore the decayed radical Moysture of kind hearted Mahomet...."—Sir T. Herbert, Travels, ed. 1638, p. 241.

[1631.—"Caveah." See quotation under TEA.]

c. 1637.—"There came in my time to the Coll. (Balliol) one Nathaniel Conopios out of Greece, from Cyril the Patriarch of Constantinople.... He was the first I ever saw drink coffee, which custom came not into England till 30 years after."—Evelyn's Diary, [May 10].

1673.—"Every one pays him their congratulations, and after a dish of Coho or Tea, mounting, accompany him to the Palace."—Fryer, 225.

" "Cependant on l'apporta le cavé, le parfum, et le sorbet."—Journal d'Antoine Galland, ii. 124.

[1677.—"Cave." See quotation under TEA.]

1690.—"For Tea and Coffee which are judg'd the privileg'd Liquors of all the Mahometans, as well Turks, as those of Persia, India, and other parts of Arabia, are condemn'd by them (the Arabs of Muscatt) as unlawful Refreshments, and abominated as Bug-bear Liquors, as well as Wine."—Ovington, 427.

1726.—"A certain gentleman, M. Paschius, maintains in his Latin work published at Leipzig in 1700, that the parched corn (1 Sam. xxv. 18) which Abigail presented with other things to David, to appease his wrath, was nought else but Coffi-beans."—Valentijn, v. 192.

COIMBATORE, n.p. Name of a District and town in the Madras Presidency. Koyammutūru; [Kōni, the local goddess so called, muttu, 'pearl,' ūr, 'village'].

COIR, s. The fibre of the coco-nut husk, from which rope is made. But properly the word, which is Tam. kayiru, Malayāl. kāyar, from v. kāyāṛu, 'to be twisted,' means 'cord' itself (see the accurate Al-Birūnī below). The former use among Europeans is very early. And both the fibre and the rope made from it appear to have been exported to Europe in the middle of the 16th century. The word appears in early Arabic writers in the forms ḳānbar and ḳanbār, arising probably from some misreading of the diacritical points (for ḳāiyar, and ḳaiyār). The Portuguese adopted the word in the form cairo. The form coir seems to have been introduced by the English in the 18th century. [The N.E.D. gives coire in 1697; coir in 1779.] It was less likely to be used by the Portuguese because coiro in their language is 'leather.' And Barros (where quoted below) says allusively of the rope: "parece feito de coiro (leather) encolhendo e estendendo a vontade do mar," contracting and stretching with the movement of the sea.

c. 1030.—"The other islands are called Dīva Ḳanbār from the word Ḳanbār signifying the cord plaited from the fibre of the coco-tree with which they stitch their ships together."—Al-Birūnī, in J. As., Ser. iv. tom. viii. 266.

c. 1346.—"They export ... cowries and kanbar; the latter is the name which they give to the fibrous husk of the coco-nut.... They make of it twine to stitch together the planks of their ships, and the cordage is also exported to China, India, and Yemen. This ḳanbar is better than hemp."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 121.

1510.—"The Governor (Alboquerque) ... in Cananor devoted much care to the preparation of cables and rigging for the whole fleet, for what they had was all rotten from the rains in Goa River; ordering that all should be made of coir (cairo), of which there was great abundance in Cananor; because a Moor called Mamalle, a chief trader there, held the whole trade of the Maldive islands by a contract with the kings of the isles ... so that this Moor came to be called the Lord of the Maldives, and that all the coir that was used throughout India had to be bought from the hands of this Moor.... The Governor, learning this, sent for the said Moor, and ordered him to abandon this island trade and to recall his factors.... The Moor, not to lose such a profitable business, ... finally arranged with the Governor that the Isles should not be taken from him, and that he in return would furnish for the king 1000 bahars (barés) of coarse coir, and 1000 more of fine coir, each bahar weighing 4½ quintals; and this every year, and laid down at his own charges in Cananor and Cochym, gratis and free of all charge to the King (not being able to endure that the Portuguese should frequent the Isles at their pleasure)."—Correa, ii. 129-30.

1516.—"These islands make much cordage of palm-trees, which they call cayro."—Barbosa, 164.

c. 1530.—"They made ropes of coir, which is a thread which the people of the country make of the husks which the coco-nuts have outside."—Correa, by Stanley, 133.

1553.—"They make much use of this cairo in place of nails; for as it has this quality of recovering its freshness and swelling in the sea-water, they stitch with it the planking of a ship's sides, and reckon them then very secure."—De Barros, Dec. III. liv. iii. cap. 7.

1563.—"The first rind is very tough, and from it is made cairo, so called by the Malabars and by us, from which is made the cord for the rigging of all kinds of vessels."—Garcia, f. 67v.

1582.—"The Dwellers therein are Moores; which trade to Sofala in great Ships that have no Decks, nor nailes, but are sowed with Cayro."—Castañeda (by N. L.), f. 14b.

c. 1610.—"This revenue consists in ... Cairo, which is the cord made of the coco-tree."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 172; [Hak. Soc. i. 250].

1673.—"They (the Surat people) have not only the Cair-yarn made of the Cocoe for cordage, but good Flax and Hemp."—Fryer, 121.

c. 1690.—"Externus nucis cortex putamen ambiens, quum exsiccatus, et stupae similis ... dicitur ... Malabarice Cairo, quod nomen ubique usurpatur ubi lingua Portugallica est in usu...."—Rumphius, i. 7.

1727.—"Of the Rind of the Nut they make Cayar, which are the Fibres of the Cask that environs the Nut spun fit to make Cordage and Cables for Shipping."—A. Hamilton, i. 296; [ed. 1744, i. 298].

[1773.—"... these they call Kiar Yarns."—Ives, 457.]

COJA, s. P. khojah for khwājah, a respectful title applied to various classes: as in India especially to eunuchs; in Persia to wealthy merchants; in Turkistan to persons of sacred families.

c. 1343.—"The chief mosque (at Kaulam) is admirable; it was built by the merchant Khojah Muhaddhab."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 100.

[1590.—"Hoggia." See quotation under TALISMAN.

[1615.—"The Governor of Suratt is displaced, and Hoyja Hassan in his room."—Foster, Letters, iv. 16.

[1708.—"This grave is made for Hodges Shaughsware, the chiefest servant to the King of Persia for twenty years...."—Inscription on the tomb of "Coya Shawsware, a Persin in St. Botolph's Churchyard, Bishopsgate," New View of London, p. 169.]

1786.—"I also beg to acquaint you I sent for Retafit Ali Khân, the Cojah who has the charge of (the women of Oudh Zenanah) who informs me it is well grounded that they have sold everything they had, even the clothes from their backs, and now have no means to subsist."—Capt. Jaques in Articles of Charge, &c., Burke, vii. 27.

1838.—"About a century back Khan Khojah, a Mohamedan ruler of Kashghar and Yarkand, eminent for his sanctity, having been driven from his dominions by the Chinese, took shelter in Badakhshan."—Wood's Oxus, ed. 1872, p. 161.

COLAO, s. Chin. koh-lao, 'Council Chamber Elders' (Bp. Moule). A title for a Chinese Minister of State, which frequently occurs in the Jesuit writers of the 17th century.

COLEROON, n.p. The chief mouth, or delta-branch, of the Kāveri River (see CAUVERY). It is a Portuguese corruption of the proper name Kŏḷḷiḍam, vulg. Kollaḍam. This name, from Tam. kŏl, 'to receive,' and 'iḍam,' 'place,' perhaps answers to the fact of this channel having been originally an escape formed at the construction of the great Tanjore irrigation works in the 11th century. In full flood the Coleroon is now, in places, nearly a mile wide, whilst the original stream of the Kāveri disappears before reaching the sea. Besides the etymology and the tradition, the absence of notice of the Coleroon in Ptolemy's Tables is (quantum valeat) an indication of its modern origin. As the sudden rise of floods in the rivers of the Coromandel coast often causes fatal accidents, there seems a curious popular tendency to connect the names of the rivers with this fact. Thus Kŏlliḍam, with the meaning that has been explained, has been commonly made into Kolliḍam, 'Killing-place.' [So the Madras Gloss. which connects the name with a tradition of the drowning of workmen when the Srirangam temple was built, but elsewhere (ii. 213) it is derived from Tam. koḷḷāyī, 'a breach in a bank.'] Thus also the two rivers Peṇṇar are popularly connected with piṇam, 'corpse.' Fra Paolino gives the name as properly Colárru, and as meaning 'the River of Wild Boars.' But his etymologies are often wild as the supposed Boars.

1553.—De Barros writes Coloran, and speaks of it as a place (lugar) on the coast, not as a river.—Dec. I. liv. ix. cap. 1.

1672.—"From Trangebar one passes by Trinilivaas to Colderon; here a Sandbank stretches into the sea which is very dangerous."—Baldaeus, 150. (He does not speak of it as a River either.)

c. 1713.—"Les deux Princes ... se liguèrent contre l'ennemi commun, à fin de le contraindre par la force des armes à rompre une digue si préjudiciable à leurs Etats. Ils faisoient déjà de grands préparatifs, lorsque le fleuve Coloran vengea par lui-même (comme on s'exprimoit ici) l'affront que le Roi faisoit a ses eaux en les retenant captives."—Lettres Edifiantes, ed. 1781, xi. 180.

1753.—"... en doublant le Cap Callamedu, jusqu'à la branche du fleuve Caveri qui porte le nom de Colh-ram, et dont l'embouchure est la plus septentrionale de celles du Caveri."—D'Anville, 115.

c. 1760.—"... the same river being written Collarum by M. la Croze, and Collodham by Mr. Ziegenbalg."—Grose, i. 281.

1761.—"Clive dislodged a strong body of the Nabob's troops, who had taken post at Sameavarem, a fort and temple situated on the river Kalderon."—Complete H. of the War in India, from 1749 to 1761 (Tract), p. 12.

1780.—"About 3 leagues north from the river Triminious [? Tirumullavāsel], is that of Coloran. Mr. Michelson calls this river Danecotta."—Dunn, N. Directory, 138.

The same book has "Coloran or Colderoon."

1785.—"Sundah Saheb having thrown some of his wretched infantry into a temple, fortified according to the Indian method, upon the river Kaldaron, Mr. Clive knew there was no danger in investing it."—Carraccioli's Life of Clive, i. 20.

COLLECTOR, s. The chief administrative official of an Indian Zillah or District. The special duty of the office is, as the name intimates, the Collection of Revenue; but in India generally, with the exception of Bengal Proper, the Collector, also holding controlling magisterial powers, has been a small pro-consul, or kind of préfet. This is, however, much modified of late years by the greater definition of powers, and subdivision of duties everywhere. The title was originally no doubt a translation of taḥṣīldār. It was introduced, with the office, under Warren Hastings, but the Collector's duties were not formally settled till 1793, when these appointments were reserved to members of the covenanted Civil Service.

1772.—"The Company having determined to stand forth as dewan, the Supervisors should now be designated Collectors."—Reg. of 14th May, 1772.

1773.—"Do not laugh at the formality with which we have made a law to change their name from supervisors to collectors. You know full well how much the world's opinion is governed by names."—W. Hastings to Josias Dupre, in Gleig, i. 267.

1785.—"The numerous Collectors with their assistants had hitherto enjoyed very moderate allowances from their employers."—Letter in Colebrooke's Life, p. 16.

1838.—"As soon as three or four of them get together they speak about nothing but 'employment' and 'promotion' ... and if left to themselves, they sit and conjugate the verb 'to collect': 'I am a Collector—He was a Collector—We shall be Collectors—You ought to be a Collector—They would have been Collectors.'"—Letters from Madras, 146.

1848.—"Yet she could not bring herself to suppose that the little grateful gentle governess would dare to look up to such a magnificent personage as the Collector of Boggleywallah."—Thackeray, Vanity Fair, ch. iv.

1871.—"There is no doubt a decay of discretionary administration throughout India ... it may be taken for granted that in earlier days Collectors and Commissioners changed their rules far oftener than does the Legislature at present."—Maine, Village Communities, 214.

1876.—"These 'distinguished visitors' are becoming a frightful nuisance; they think that Collectors and Judges have nothing to do but to act as their guides, and that Indian officials have so little work, and suffer so much from ennui, that even ordinary thanks for hospitality are unnecessary; they take it all as their right."—Ext. of a Letter from India.

COLLEGE-PHEASANT, s. An absurd enough corruption of kālij; the name in the Himālaya about Simla and Mussooree for the birds of the genus Gallophasis of Hodgson, intermediate between the pheasants and the Jungle-fowls. "The group is composed of at least three species, two being found in the Himalayas, and one in Assam, Chittagong and Arakan." (Jerdon).

[1880.—"These, with kalege pheasants, afforded me some very fair sport."—Ball, Jungle Life, 538.

[1882.—"Jungle-fowl were plentiful, as well as the black khalege pheasant."—Sanderson, Thirteen Years among Wild Beasts, 147.]

COLLERY, CALLERY, &c. s. Properly Bengali khālāṛī, 'a salt-pan, or place for making salt.'

[1767.—"... rents of the Collaries, the fifteen Dees, and of Calcutta town, are none of them included in the estimation I have laid before you."—Verelst, View of Bengal, App. 223.]

1768.—"... the Collector-general be desired to obtain as exact an account as he possibly can, of the number of colleries in the Calcutta purgunnehs."—In Carraccioli's L. of Clive, iv. 112.

COLLERY, n.p. The name given to a non-Aryan race inhabiting part of the country east of Madura. Tam. kallaṛ, 'thieves.' They are called in Nelson's Madura, [Pt. ii. 44 seqq.] Kallans; Kallan being the singular, Kallar plural.

1763.—"The Polygar Tondiman ... likewise sent 3000 Colleries; these are a people who, under several petty chiefs, inhabit the woods between Trichinopoly and Cape Comorin; their name in their own language signifies Thieves, and justly describes their general character."—Orme, i. 208.

c. 1785.—"Colleries, inhabitants of the woods under the Government of the Tondiman."—Carraccioli, Life of Clive, iv. 561.

1790.—"The country of the Colleries ... extends from the sea coast to the confines of Madura, in a range of sixty miles by fifty-five."—Cal. Monthly Register or India Repository, i. 7.

COLLERY-HORN, s. This is a long brass horn of hideous sound, which is often used at native funerals in the Peninsula, and has come to be called, absurdly enough, Cholera-horn!

[1832.—"Toorree or Toorrtooree, commonly designated by Europeans collery horn, consists of three pieces fixed into one another, of a semi-circular shape."—Herklots, Qanoon-e-Islam, ed. 1863, p. liv. App.]

1879.—"... an early start being necessary, a happy thought struck the Chief Commissioner, to have the Amildar's Cholera-horn men out at that hour to sound the reveillé, making the round of the camp."—Madras Mail, Oct. 7.

COLLERY-STICK, s. This is a kind of throwing-stick or boomerang used by the Colleries.

1801.—"It was he first taught me to throw the spear, and hurl the Collery-stick, a weapon scarcely known elsewhere, but in a skilful hand capable of being thrown to a certainty to any distance within 100 yards."—Welsh's Reminiscences, i. 130.

Nelson calls these weapons "Vallari Thadis or boomerangs."—Madura, Pt. ii. 44. [The proper form seems to be Tam. valai tādi, 'curved stick'; more usually Tam. kallardādi, tādi, 'stick.'] See also Sir Walter Elliot in J. Ethnol. Soc., N. S., i. 112, seq.

COLOMBO, n.p. Properly Kol̤umbu, the modern capital of Ceylon, but a place of considerable antiquity. The derivation is very uncertain; some suppose it to be connected with the adjoining river Kalani-gangi. The name Columbum, used in several medieval narratives, belongs not to this place but to Kaulam (see QUILON).

c. 1346.—"We started for the city of Kalanbū, one of the finest and largest cities of the island of Serendīb. It is the residence of the Wazīr Lord of the Sea (Ḥākim-al-Bahr), Jālastī, who has with him about 500 Habshis."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 185.

1517.—"The next day was Thursday in Passion Week; and they, well remembering this, and inspired with valour, said to the King that in fighting the Moors they would be insensible to death, which they greatly desired rather than be slaves to the Moors.... There were not 40 men in all, whole and sound for battle. And one brave man made a cross on the tip of a cane, which he set in front for standard, saying that God was his Captain, and that was his Flag, under which they should march deliberately against Columbo, where the Moor was with his forces."—Correa, ii. 521.

1553.—"The King, Don Manuel, because ... he knew ... that the King of Columbo, who was the true Lord of the Cinnamon, desired to possess our peace and friendship, wrote to the said Affonso d'Alboquerque, who was in the island in person, that if he deemed it well, he should establish a fortress in the harbour of Columbo, so as to make sure the offers of the King."—Barros, Dec. III. liv. ii. cap. 2.

COLUMBO ROOT, CALUMBA ROOT, is stated by Milburn (1813) to be a staple export from Mozambique, being in great esteem as a remedy for dysentery, &c. It is Jateorhiza palmata, Miers; and the name Kalumb is of E. African origin (Hanbury and Flückiger, 23). [The N.E.D. takes it from Colombo, 'under a false impression that it was supplied from thence.'] The following quotation is in error as to the name:

c. 1779.—"Radix Colombo ... derives its name from the town of Columbo, from whence it is sent with the ships to Europe (?); but it is well known that this root is neither found near Columba, nor upon the whole island of Ceylon...."—Thunberg, Travels, iv. 185.

1782.—"Any person having a quantity of fresh sound Columbia Root to dispose of, will please direct a line...."—India Gazette, Aug. 24.

[1809.—"An Account of the Male Plant, which furnishes the Medicine generally called Columbo or Colomba Root."—Asiat. Res. x. 385 seqq.]

1850.—"Caoutchouc, or India-rubber, is found in abundance ... (near Tette) ... and calumba-root is plentiful.... The India-rubber is made into balls for a game resembling 'fives,' and calumba-root is said to be used as a mordant for certain colours, but not as a dye itself."—Livingstone, Expedition to the Zambezi, &c., p. 32.

COMAR, n.p. This name (Ar. al-Ḳumār), which appears often in the old Arab geographers, has been the subject of much confusion among modern commentators, and probably also among the Arabs themselves; some of the former (e.g. the late M. Reinaud) confounding it with C. Comorin, others with Kāmrūp (or Assam). The various indications, e.g. that it was on the continent, and facing the direction of Arabia, i.e. the west; that it produced most valuable aloes-wood; that it lay a day's voyage, or three days' voyage, west of Ṣanf or Champa (q.v.), and from ten to twenty days' sail from Zābaj (or Java), together with the name, identify it with Camboja, or Khmer, as the native name is (see Reinaud, Rel. des Arabes, i. 97, ii. 48, 49; Gildemeister, 156 seqq.; Ibn Batuta, iv. 240; Abulfeda, Cathay and the Way Thither, 519, 569). Even the sagacious De Orta is misled by the Arabs, and confounds alcomari with a product of Cape Comorin (see Colloquios, f. 120v.).

CÓMATY, s. Telug. and Canar. kōmati, 'a trader,' [said to be derived from Skt. go, 'eye,' mushṭi, 'fist,' from their vigilant habits]. This is a term used chiefly in the north of the Madras Presidency, and corresponding to Chetty, [which the males assume as an affix].

1627.—"The next Tribe is there termed Committy, and these are generally the Merchants of the Place who by themselves or their servants, travell into the Countrey, gathering up Callicoes from the weavers, and other commodities, which they sell againe in greater parcels."—Purchas, Pilgrimage, 997.

[1679.—"There came to us the Factory this day a Dworfe an Indian of the Comitte Cast, he was he said 30 years old ... we measured him by the rule 46 inches high, all his limbs and his body streight and equall proportioned, of comely face, his speech small equalling his stature...."—Streynsham Master, in Kistna Man. 142.

[1869.—"Komatis." See quotation under CHUCKLER.]

COMBACONUM, n.p., written Kumbakoṇam. Formerly the seat of the Chola dynasty. Col. Branfill gives, as the usual derivation, Skt. Kumbhakoṇa, 'brim of a water-pot'; [the Madras Gloss. Skt. kumbha, kona, 'lane'] and this form is given in Williams's Skt. Dict. as 'name of a town.' The fact that an idol in the Saiva temple at Combaconam is called Kumbheśvaram ('Lord of the water-pot') may possibly be a justification of this etymology. But see general remarks on S. Indian names in the Introduction.

COMBOY. A sort of skirt or kilt of white calico, worn by Singhalese of both sexes, much in the same way as the Malay Sarong. The derivation which Sir E. Tennent (Ceylon, i. 612, ii. 107) gives of the word is quite inadmissible. He finds that a Chinese author describes the people of Ceylon as wearing a cloth made of koo-pei, i.e. of cotton; and he assumes therefore that those people call their own dress by a Chinese name for cotton! The word, however, is not real Singhalese; and we can have no doubt that it is the proper name Cambay. Paños de Cãbaya are mentioned early as used in Ceylon (Castanheda, ii. 78), and Cambays by Forrest (Voyage to Mergui, 79). In the Government List of Native Words (Ceylon, 1869) the form used in the Island is actually Kambāya. A picture of the dress is given by Tennent (Ceylon, i. 612). It is now usually of white, but in mourning black is used.

1615.—"Tansho Samme, the Kinges kinsman, brought two pec. Cambaia cloth."—Cocks's Diary, i. 15.

[1674-5.—"Cambaja Brawles."—Invoice in Birdwood, Report on Old Recs., p. 42.]

1726.—In list of cloths purchased at Porto Novo are "Cambayen."—Valentijn, Chorom. 10.

[1727.—"Cambaya Lungies." See quotation under LOONGHEE.]

COMMERCOLLY, n.p. A small but well-known town of Lower Bengal in the Nadiya District; properly Kumār-khālī ['Prince's Creek']. The name is familiar in connection with the feather trade (see ADJUTANT).

COMMISSIONER, s. In the Bengal and Bombay Presidencies this is a grade in the ordinary administrative hierarchy; it does not exist in Madras, but is found in the Punjab, Central Provinces, &c. The Commissioner is over a Division embracing several Districts or Zillahs, and stands between the Collectors and Magistrates of these Districts on the one side, and the Revenue Board (if there is one) and the Local Government on the other. In the Regulation Provinces he is always a member of the Covenanted Civil Service; in Non-Regulation Provinces he may be a military officer; and in these the District officers immediately under him are termed 'Deputy Commissioners.'

COMMISSIONER, CHIEF. A high official, governing a Province inferior to a Lieutenant-Governorship, in direct subordination to the Governor-General in Council. Thus the Punjab till 1859 was under a Chief Commissioner, as was Oudh till 1877 (and indeed, though the offices are united, the Lieut.-Governor of the N.W. Provinces holds also the title of Chief Commissioner of Oudh). The Central Provinces, Assam, and Burma are other examples of Provinces under Chief Commissioners.

COMORIN, CAPE, n.p. The extreme southern point of the Peninsula of India; a name of great antiquity. No doubt Wilson's explanation is perfectly correct; and the quotation from the Periplus corroborates it. He says: "Kumārī, ... a young girl, a princess; a name of the goddess Durgā, to whom a temple dedicated at the extremity of the Peninsula has long given to the adjacent cape and coast the name of Kumārī, corrupted to Comorin...." The Tamil pronunciation is Kumări.

c. 80-90.—"Another place follows called Κομὰρ, at which place is (* * *) and a port; and here those who wish to consecrate the remainder of their life come and bathe, and there remain in celibacy. The same do women likewise. For it is related that the goddess there tarried a while and bathed."—Periplus, in Müller's Geog. Gr. Min. i. 300.

c. 150.—"Κομαρία ἄκρον καὶ πόλις."—Ptol. [viii. 1 § 9].

1298.—"Comari is a country belonging to India, and there you may see something of the North Star, which we had not been able to see from the Lesser Java thus far."—Marco Polo, Bk. III. ch. 23.

c. 1330.—"The country called Ma'bar is said to commence at the Cape Kumhari, a name applied both to a town and a mountain."—Abulfeda, in Gildemeister, 185.

[1514.—"Comedis." See quotation under MALABAR.]

1572.—

"Ves corre a costa celebre Indiana

Para o Sul até o cabo Comori

Ja chamado Cori, que Taprobana

(Que ora he Ceilão) de fronte tem de si."

Camões, v. 107.

Here Camões identifies the ancient Κῶρυ or Κῶλις with Comorin. These are in Ptolemy distinct, and his Kory appears to be the point of the Island of Rāmeśvaram from which the passage to Ceylon was shortest. This, as Kōlis, appears in various forms in other geographers as the extreme seaward point of India, and in the geographical poem of Dionysius it is described as towering to a stupendous height above the waves. Mela regards Colis as the turning point of the Indian coast, and even in Ptolemy's Tables his Kōry is further south than Komaria, and is the point of departure from which he discusses distances to the further East (see Ptolemy, Bk. I. capp. 13, 14; also see Bishop Caldwell's Comp. Grammar, Introd., p. 103). It is thus intelligible how comparative geographers of the 16th century identified Kōry with C. Comorin.

In 1864 the late venerated Bishop Cotton visited C. Comorin in company with two of his clergy (both now missionary bishops). He said that having bathed at Hardwār, one of the most northerly of Hindu sacred places, he should like to bathe at this, the most southerly. Each of the chaplains took one of the bishop's hands as they entered the surf, which was heavy; so heavy that his right-hand aid was torn from him, and had not the other been able to hold fast, Bishop Cotton could hardly have escaped.

[1609.—"... very strong cloth and is called Cacha de Comoree."—Danvers, Letters, i. 29.

[1767.—"The pagoda of the Cunnacomary belonging to Tinnevelly."—Treaty, in Logan, Malabar, iii. 117.]

1817.—

"... Lightly latticed in

With odoriferous woods of Comorin."

Lalla Rookh, Mokanna.

This probably is derived from D'Herbelot, and involves a confusion often made between Comorin and Comar—the land of aloes-wood.

COMOTAY, COMATY, n.p. This name appears prominently in some of the old maps of Bengal, e.g. that embraced in the Magni Mogolis Imperium of Blaeu's great Atlas (1645-50). It represents Kāmata, a State, and Kāmatapur, a city, of which most extensive remains exist in the territory of Koch Bihār in Eastern Bengal (see COOCH BEHAR). These are described by Dr. Francis Buchanan, in the book published by Montgomery Martin under the name of Eastern India (vol. iii. 426 seqq.). The city stood on the west bank of the River Darlā, which formed the defence on the east side, about 5 miles in extent. The whole circumference of the enclosure is estimated by Buchanan at 19 miles, the remainder being formed by a rampart which was (c. 1809) "in general about 130 feet in width at the base, and from 20 to 30 feet in perpendicular height."

1553.—"Within the limits in which we comprehend the kingdom of Bengala are those kingdoms subject to it ... lower down towards the sea the kingdom of Comotaij."—Barros, IV. ix. 1.

[c. 1596.—"Kamtah." See quotation under COOCH BEHAR.]

1873.—"During the 15th century, the tract north of Rangpúr was in the hands of the Rájahs of Kámata.... Kámata was invaded, about 1498 A.D., by Husain Sháh."—Blochmann, in J. As. Soc. Bengal, xiii. pt. i. 240.

COMPETITION-WALLAH, s. A hybrid of English and Hindustani, applied in modern Anglo-Indian colloquial to members of the Civil Service who have entered it by the competitive system first introduced in 1856. The phrase was probably the invention of one of the older or Haileybury members of the same service. These latter, whose nominations were due to interest, and who were bound together by the intimacies and esprit de corps of a common college, looked with some disfavour upon the children of Innovation. The name was readily taken up in India, but its familiarity in England is probably due in great part to the "Letters of a Competition-wala," written by one who had no real claim to the title, Sir G. O. Trevelyan, who was later on member for Hawick Burghs, Chief Secretary for Ireland, and author of the excellent Life of his uncle, Lord Macaulay.

The second portion of the word, wālā, is properly a Hindi adjectival affix, corresponding in a general way to the Latin -arius. Its usual employment as affix to a substantive makes it frequently denote "agent, doer, keeper, man, inhabitant, master, lord, possessor, owner," as Shakespear vainly tries to define it, and as in Anglo-Indian usage is popularly assumed to be its meaning. But this kind of denotation is incidental; there is no real limitation to such meaning. This is demonstrable from such phrases as Kābul-wālā ghoṛā, 'the Kabulian horse,' and from the common form of village nomenclature in the Panjāb, e.g. Mīr-Khān-wālā, Ganda-Singh-wālā, and so forth, implying the village established by Mir-Khan or Ganda-Singh. In the three immediately following quotations, the second and third exhibit a strictly idiomatic use of wālā, the first an incorrect English use of it.

1785.—

"Tho' then the Bostonians made such a fuss,

Their example ought not to be followed by us,

But I wish that a band of good Patriot-wallahs ..."—In Seton-Karr, i. 93.

" In this year Tippoo Sahib addresses a rude letter to the Nawāb of Shānūr (or Savanūr) as "The Shahnoorwâlah."—Select Letters of Tippoo, 184.

1814.—"Gungadhur Shastree is a person of great shrewdness and talent.... Though a very learned shastree, he affects to be quite an Englishman, walks fast, talks fast, interrupts and contradicts, and calls the Peshwa and his ministers 'old fools' and ... 'dam rascals.' He mixes English words with everything he says, and will say of some one (Holkar for instance): Bhot trickswalla tha, laiken barra akulkund, Kukhye tha, ('He was very tricky, but very sagacious; he was cock-eyed')."—Elphinstone, in Life, i. 276.

1853.—"'No, I'm a Suffolk-walla.'"—Oakfield, i. 66.

1864.—"The stories against the Competition-wallahs, which are told and fondly believed by the Haileybury men, are all founded more or less on the want of savoir faire. A collection of these stories would be a curious proof of the credulity of the human mind on a question of class against class."—Trevelyan, p. 9.

1867.—"From a deficiency of civil servants ... it became necessary to seek reinforcements, not alone from Haileybury, ... but from new recruiting fields whence volunteers might be obtained ... under the pressure of necessity, such an exceptional measure was sanctioned by Parliament. Mr. Elliot, having been nominated as a candidate by Campbell Marjoribanks, was the first of the since celebrated list of the Competition-wallahs."—Biog. Notice prefixed to vol. i. of Dowson's Ed. of Elliot's Historians of India, p. xxviii.

The exceptional arrangement alluded to in the preceding quotation was authorised by 7 Geo. IV. cap. 56. But it did not involve competition; it only authorised a system by which writerships could be given to young men who had not been at Haileybury College, on their passing certain test examinations, and they were ranked according to their merit in passing such examinations, but below the writers who had left Haileybury at the preceding half-yearly examination. The first examination under this system was held 29th March, 1827, and Sir H. M. Elliot headed the list. The system continued in force for five years, the last examination being held in April, 1832. In all 83 civilians were nominated in this way, and, among other well-known names, the list included H. Torrens, Sir H. B. Harington, Sir R. Montgomery, Sir J. Cracroft Wilson, Sir T. Pycroft, W. Tayler, the Hon. E. Drummond.

1878.—"The Competition-Wallah, at home on leave or retirement, dins perpetually into our ears the greatness of India.... We are asked to feel awestruck and humbled at the fact that Bengal alone has 66 millions of inhabitants. We are invited to experience an awful thrill of sublimity when we learn that the area of Madras far exceeds that of the United Kingdom."—Sat. Rev., June 15, p. 750.

COMPOUND, s. The enclosed ground, whether garden or waste, which surrounds an Anglo-Indian house. Various derivations have been suggested for this word, but its history is very obscure. The following are the principal suggestions that have been made:—

(a.) That it is a corruption of some supposed Portuguese word.

(b.) That it is a corruption of the French campagne.

(c.) That it is a corruption of the Malay word kampung, as first (we believe) indicated by Mr. John Crawfurd.

(a.) The Portuguese origin is assumed by Bishop Heber in passages quoted below. In one he derives it from campaña (for which, in modern Portuguese at least, we should read campanha); but campanha is not used in such a sense. It seems to be used only for 'a campaign,' or for the Roman Campagna. In the other passage he derives it from campao (sic), but there is no such word.

It is also alleged by Sir Emerson Tennent (infra), who suggests campinho; but this, meaning 'a small plain,' is not used for compound. Neither is the latter word, nor any word suggestive of it, used among the Indo-Portuguese.

In the early Portuguese histories of India (e.g. Castanheda, iii. 436, 442; vi. 3) the words used for what we term compound, are jardim, patio, horta. An examination of all the passages of the Indo-Portuguese Bible, where the word might be expected to occur, affords only horta.

There is a use of campo by the Italian Capuchin P. Vincenzo Maria (Roma, 1672), which we thought at first to be analogous: "Gionti alla porta della città (Aleppo) ... arrivati al Campo de' Francesi; doue è la Dogana...." (p. 475). We find also in Rauwolff's Travels (c. 1573), as published in English by the famous John Ray: "Each of these nations (at Aleppo) have their peculiar Champ to themselves, commonly named after the Master that built it...."; and again: "When ... the Turks have washed and cleansed themselves, they go into their Chappells, which are in the Middle of their great Camps or Carvatschars...." (p. 84 and p. 259 of Ray's 2nd edition). This use of Campo, and Champ, has a curious kind of analogy to compound, but it is probably only a translation of Maidān or some such Oriental word.

(b.) As regards campagne, which once commended itself as probable, it must be observed that nothing like the required sense is found among the seven or eight classes of meaning assigned to the word in Littré.

The word campo again in the Portuguese of the 16th century seems to mean always, or nearly always, a camp. We have found only one instance in those writers of its use with a meaning in the least suggestive of compound, but in this its real meaning is 'site': "queymou a cidade toda ate não ficar mais que ho campo em que estevera." ("They burned the whole city till nothing remained but the site on which it stood"—Castanheda, vi. 130). There is a special use of campo by the Portuguese in the Further East, alluded to in the quotation from Pallegoix's Siam, but that we shall see to be only a representation of the Malay Kampung. We shall come back upon it. [See quotation from Correa, with note, under FACTORY.]

(c.) The objection raised to kampung as the origin of compound is chiefly that the former word is not so used in Java by either Dutch or natives, and the author of Max Havelaar expresses doubt if compound is a Malay or Javanese word at all (pp. 360-361). Erf is the usual word among the Dutch. In Java kampung seems to be used only for a native village, or for a particular ward or quarter of a town.

But it is impossible to doubt that among the English in our Malay settlements compound is used in this sense in speaking English, and kampung in speaking Malay. Kampung is also used by the Malays themselves, in our settlements, in this sense. All the modern dictionaries that we have consulted give this sense among others. The old Dictionarium Malaico-Latinum of David Haex (Romae, 1631) is a little vague:

"Campon, coniunctio, vel conuentus. Hinc viciniae et parua loca, campon etiam appellantur."

Crawfurd (1852): "Kampung ... an enclosure, a space fenced in; a village; a quarter or subdivision of a town."

Favre (1875): "Maison avec un terrain qui l'entoure."

Pijnappel (1875), Maleisch-Hollandisch Woordenboek: "Kampoeng—Omheind Erf, Wijk, Buurt, Kamp," i.e. "Ground hedged round, village, hamlet, camp."

And also, let it be noted, the Javanese Dict. of P. Jansz (Javaansch-Nederlandsch Woordenboek, Samarang, 1876): "Kampoeng—Omheind erf van Woningen; wijk die onder een hoofd staat," i.e. "Enclosed ground of dwellings; village which is under one Headman."

Marre, in his Kata-Kata Malayou (Paris, 1875), gives the following expanded definition: "Village palissadé, ou, dans une ville, quartier séparé et généralement clos, occupé par des gens de même nation, Malays, Siamois, Chinois, Bouguis, &c. Ce mot signifie proprement un enclos, une enciente, et par extension quartier clos, faubourg, ou village palissadé. Le mot Kampong désigne parfois aussi une maison d'une certaine importance avec le terrain clos qui en dépend, et qui l'entoure" (p. 95).

We take Marsden last (Malay Dictionary, 1812) because he gives an illustration: "Kampong, an enclosure, a place surrounded with a paling; a fenced or fortified village; a quarter, district, or suburb of a city; a collection of buildings. Mem-bûat [to make] rumah [house] serta dañgan [together with] kampong-nia [compound thereof], to erect a house with its enclosure ... Ber-Kampong, to assemble, come together; meñgampong, to collect, to bring together." The Reverse Dictionary gives: "Yard, alaman, Kampong." [See also many further references much to the same effect in Scott, Malayan Words, p. 123 seqq.]

In a Malay poem given in the Journal of the Ind. Archipelago, vol i. p. 44, we have these words:—

"Trúsláh ka kampong s'orange Saudágar."

["Passed to the kampong of a Merchant."]

and

"Titáh bágindú rajá sultání

Kámpong śiápá garángun íní."

["Thus said the Prince, the Raja Sultani,

Whose kampong may this be?"]

These explanations and illustrations render it almost unnecessary to add in corroboration that a friend who held office in the Straits for twenty years assures us that the word kampung is habitually used, in the Malay there spoken, as the equivalent of the Indian compound. If this was the case 150 years ago in the English settlements at Bencoolen and elsewhere (and we know from Marsden that it was so 100 years ago), it does not matter whether such a use of kampung was correct or not, compound will have been a natural corruption of it. Mr. E. C. Baber, who lately spent some time in our Malay settlements on his way from China, tells me (H. Y.) that the frequency with which he heard kampung applied to the 'compound,' convinced him of this etymology, which he had before doubted greatly.

It is not difficult to suppose that the word, if its use originated in our Malay factories and settlements, should have spread to the continental Presidencies, and so over India.

Our factories in the Archipelago were older than any of our settlements in India Proper. The factors and writers were frequently moved about, and it is conceivable that a word so much wanted (for no English word now in use does express the idea satisfactorily) should have found ready acceptance. In fact the word, from like causes, has spread to the ports of China and to the missionary and mercantile stations in tropical Africa, East and West, and in Madagascar.

But it may be observed that it was possible that the word kampung was itself originally a corruption of the Port. campo, taking the meaning first of camp, and thence of an enclosed area, or rather that in some less definable way the two words reacted on each other. The Chinese quarter at Batavia—Kampong Tzina—is commonly called in Dutch 'het Chinesche Kamp' or 'het Kamp der Chinezen.' Kampung was used at Portuguese Malacca in this way at least 270 years ago, as the quotation from Godinho de Eredia shows. The earliest Anglo-Indian example of the word compound is that of 1679 (below). In a quotation from Dampier (1688) under Cot, where compound would come in naturally, he says 'yard.'

1613.—(At Malacca). "And this settlement is divided into 2 parishes, S. Thomé and S. Stephen, and that part of S. Thomé called Campon Chelim extends from the shore of the Jaos bazar to N.W., terminating at the Stone Bastion; and in this dwell the Chelis of Coromandel.... And the other part of S. Stephen's, called Campon China, extends from the said shore of the Jaos Bazar, and mouth of the river to the N.E., ... and in this part, called Campon China, dwell the Chincheos ... and foreign traders, and native fishermen."—Godinho de Eredia, i. 6. In the plans given by this writer, we find different parts of the city marked accordingly, as Campon Chelim, Campon China, Campon Bendara (the quarter where the native magistrate, the Bendāra lived). [See also CHELING and CAMPOO.]

1679.—(At Pollicull near Madapollam), "There the Dutch have a Factory of a large Compounde, where they dye much blew cloth, having above 300 jars set in the ground for that work; also they make many of their best paintings there."—Fort St. Geo. Consns. (on Tour), April 14. In Notes and Extracts, Madras, 1871.

1696.—"The 27th we began to unlade, and come to their custom-houses, of which there are three, in a square Compound of about 100 paces over each way.... The goods being brought and set in two Rows in the middle of the square are one by one opened before the Mandareens."—Mr. Bowyear's Journal at Cochin China, dated Foy-Foe, April 30. Dalrymple, Or. Rep. i. 79.

1772.—"Yard (before or behind a house), Aungâun. Commonly called a Compound."—Vocabulary in Hadley's Grammar, 129. (See under MOORS.)

1781.—

"In common usage here a chit

Serves for our business or our wit.

Bankshal's a place to lodge our ropes,

And Mango orchards all are Topes.

Godown usurps the ware-house place,

Compound denotes each walled space.

To Dufterkhanna, Ottor, Tanks,

The English language owes no thanks;

Since Office, Essence, Fish-pond shew

We need not words so harsh and new.

Much more I could such words expose,

But Ghauts and Dawks the list shall close;

Which in plain English is no more

Than Wharf and Post expressed before."

India Gazette, March 3.

" "... will be sold by Public Auction ... all that Brick Dwelling-house, Godowns, and Compound."—Ibid., April 21.

1788.—"Compound—The court-yard belonging to a house. A corrupt word."—The Indian Vocabulary, London, Stockdale.

1793.—"To be sold by Public Outcry ... the House, Out Houses, and Compound," &c.—Bombay Courier, Nov. 2.

1810.—"The houses (at Madras) are usually surrounded by a field or compound, with a few trees or shrubs, but it is with incredible pains that flowers or fruit are raised."—Maria Graham, 124.

" "When I entered the great gates, and looked around for my palankeen ... and when I beheld the beauty and extent of the compound ... I thought that I was no longer in the world that I had left in the East."—An Account of Bengal, and of a Visit to Government House (at Calcutta) by Ibrahim the son of Candu the Merchant, ibid. p. 198. This is a Malay narrative translated by Dr. Leyden. Very probably the word translated compound was kampung, but that cannot be ascertained.

1811.—"Major Yule's attack was equally spirited, but after routing the enemy's force at Campong Malayo, and killing many of them, he found the bridge on fire, and was unable to penetrate further."—Sir S. Auchmuty's Report of the Capture of Fort Cornelis.

c. 1817.—"When they got into the compound, they saw all the ladies and gentlemen in the verandah waiting."—Mrs. Sherwood's Stories, ed. 1863, p. 6.

1824.—"He then proceeded to the rear compound of the house, returned, and said, 'It is a tiger, sir.'"—Seely, Wonders of Ellora, ch. i.

" "... The large and handsome edifices of Garden Reach, each standing by itself in a little woody lawn (a 'compound' they call it here, by an easy corruption from the Portuguese word campaña ...)."—Heber, ed. 1844, i. 28.

1848.—"Lady O'Dowd, too, had gone to her bed in the nuptial chamber, on the ground floor, and had tucked her mosquito curtains round her fair form, when the guard at the gates of the commanding officer's compound beheld Major Dobbin, in the moonlight, rushing towards the house with a swift step."—Vanity Fair, ed. 1867, ii. 93.

1860.—"Even amongst the English, the number of Portuguese terms in daily use is remarkable. The grounds attached to a house are its 'compound,' campinho."—Emerson Tennent, Ceylon, ii. 70.

[1869.—"I obtained the use of a good-sized house in the Campong Sirani (or Christian village)."—Wallace, Malay Archip., ed. 1890, p. 256.]

We have found this word singularly transformed in a passage extracted from a modern novel:

1877.—"When the Rebellion broke out at other stations in India, I left our own compost."—Sat. Review, Feb. 3, p. 148.

A little learning is a dangerous thing!

The following shows the adoption of the word in West Africa.

1880.—From West Afr. Mission, Port Lokkoh, Mr. A. Burchaell writes: "Every evening we go out visiting and preaching the Gospel to our Timneh friends in their compounds."—Proceedings of C. M. Society for 1878-9, p. 14.

COMPRADORE, COMPODORE, &c., s. Port. comprador, 'purchaser,' from comprar, 'to purchase.' This word was formerly in use in Bengal, where it is now quite obsolete; but it is perhaps still remembered in Madras, and it is common in China. In Madras the compradore is (or was) a kind of house-steward, who keeps the household accounts, and purchases necessaries. In China he is much the same as a Butler (q.v.). A new building was to be erected on the Bund at Shanghai, and Sir T. Wade was asked his opinion as to what style of architecture should be adopted. He at once said that for Shanghai, a great Chinese commercial centre, it ought to be Compradoric!

1533.—"Antonio da Silva kept his own counsel about the (threat of) war, because during the delay caused by the exchange of messages, he was all the time buying and selling by means of his compradores."—Correa, iii. 562.

1615.—"I understand that yesterday the Hollanders cut a slave of theirs a-peeces for theft, per order of justice, and thrust their comprador (or cats buyer) out of dores for a lecherous knave...."—Cocks's Diary, i. 19.

1711.—"Every Factory had formerly a Compradore, whose Business it was to buy in Provisions and other Necessarys. But the Hoppos have made them all such Knaves...."—Lockyer, 108.

[1748.—"Compradores." See quotation under BANKSHALL.]

1754.—"Compidore. The office of this servant is to go to market and bring home small things, such as fruit, &c."—Ives, 50.

1760-1810.—"All river-pilots and ships' Compradores must be registered at the office of the Tung-che at Macao."—'Eight Regulations,' from the Fankwae at Canton (1882), p. 28.

1782.—"Le Comprador est celui qui fournit généralement tout ce dont on a besoin, excepté les objets de cargaison; il y en a un pour chaque Nation: il approvisionne la loge, et tient sous lui plusieurs commis chargés de la fourniture des vaisseaux."—Sonnerat (ed. 1782), ii. 236.

1785.—"Compudour ... Sicca Rs. 3."—In Seton-Karr, i. 107 (Table of Wages).

1810.—"The Compadore, or Kurz-burdar, or Butler-Konnah-Sircar, are all designations for the same individual, who acts as purveyor.... This servant may be considered as appertaining to the order of sircars, of which he should possess all the cunning."—Williamson, V. M. i. 270.

See SIRCAR. The obsolete term Kurz-burdar above represents Kharach-bardār "in charge of (daily) expenditure."

1840.—"About 10 days ago ... the Chinese, having kidnapped our Compendor, Parties were sent out to endeavour to recover him."—Mem. Col. Mountain, 164.

1876.—"We speak chiefly of the educated classes, and not of 'boys' and compradores, who learn in a short time both to touch their caps, and wipe their noses in their masters' pocket-handkerchiefs."—Giles, Chinese Sketches, [p. 15].

1876.—

"An' Massa Coe feel velly sore

An' go an' scold he compradore."

Leland, Pidgin English Sing-Song, 26.

1882.—"The most important Chinese within the Factory was the Compradore ... all Chinese employed in any factory, whether as his own 'pursers,' or in the capacity of servants, cooks, or coolies, were the Compradore's own people."—The Fankwae, p. 53.

CONBALINGUA, s. The common pumpkin, [cucurbita pepo. The word comes from the Malayāl., Tel. or Can. kumbalam; kumbalanu, the pumpkin].

1510.—"I saw another kind of fruit which resembled a pumpkin in colour, is two spans in length, and has more than three fingers of pulp ... and it is a very curious thing, and it is called Comolanga, and grows on the ground like melons."—Varthema, 161.

[1554.—"Conbalinguas." See quotation under BRINJAUL.]

[c. 1610.—Couto gives a tradition of the origin of the kingdom of Pegu, from a fisherman who was born of a certain flower; "they also say that his wife was born of a Combalenga, which is an apple (pomo) very common in India of which they make several kinds of preserve, so cold that it is used in place of sugar of roses; and they are of the size and fashion of large melons; and there are some so large that it would be as much as a lad could do to lift one by himself. This apple the Pegús call Sapua."—Dec. xii. liv. v. cap. iii.]

c. 1690.—"In Indiae insulis quaedam quoque Cucurbitae et Cucumeris reperiuntur species ab Europaeis diversae ... harumque nobilissima est Comolinga, quae maxima est species Indicarum cucurbitarum."—Rumphius, Herb. Amb. v. 395.

CONCAN, n.p. Skt. konkaṇa, [Tam. konkaṇam], the former in the Pauranic lists the name of a people; Hind. Konkan and Kokan. The low country of Western India between the Ghauts and the sea, extending, roughly speaking, from Goa northward to Guzerat. But the modern Commissionership, or Civil Division, embraces also North Canara (south of Goa). In medieval writings we find frequently, by a common Asiatic fashion of coupling names, Kokan- or Konkan-Tana; Tana having been a chief place and port of Konkan.

c. 70 A.D.—The Cocondae of Pliny are perhaps the Konkaṇas.

404.—"In the south are Ceylon (Lankâ) ... Konkan ..." &c.—Bṛhat Saṅhita, in J.R.A.S., N.S. v. 83.

c. 1300.—"Beyond Guzerat are Konkan and Tána; beyond them the country of Malíbár."—Rashīduddīn, in Elliot, i. 68.

c. 1335.—"When he heard of the Sultan's death he fled to a Kafir prince called Burabra, who lived in the inaccessible mountains between Daulatabad and Kūkan-Tāna."—Ibn Batuta, iii. 335.

c. 1350.—In the Portulano Mediceo in the Laurentian Library we have 'Cocintana,' and in the Catalan Map of 1375 'Cocintaya.'

1553.—"And as from the Ghauts (Gate) to the Sea, on the west of the Decan, all that strip is called Concan, so also from the Ghauts to the Sea, on the West of Canara (leaving out those forty and six leagues just spoken of, which are also parts of this same Canara), that strip which extends to Cape Comorin ... is called Malabar...."—Barros, I. ix. 1.

[1563.—"Cuncam." See quotation under GHAUT.]

1726.—"The kingdom of this Prince is commonly called Visiapoer, after its capital, ... but it is properly called Cunkan."—Valentijn, iv. (Suratte), 243; [also see under DECCAN].

c. 1732.—"Goa, in the Adel Sháhi Kokan."—Khāfī Khān, in Elliot, vii. 211.

1804.—"I have received your letter of the 28th, upon the subject of the landing of 3 French officers in the Konkan; and I have taken measures to have them arrested."—Wellington, iii. 33.

1813.—"... Concan or Cokun ..."—Forbes, Or. Mem. i. 189; [2nd ed. i. 102].

1819.—Mr. W. Erskine, in his Account of Elephanta, writes Kokan.—Tr. Lit. Soc. Bomb., i. 249.

CONFIRMED, p. Applied to an officer whose hold of an appointment is made permanent. In the Bengal Presidency the popular term is pucka; (q.v.); (also see CUTCHA).

[1805.—"It appears not unlikely that the Government and the Company may confirm Sir G. Barlow in the station to which he has succeeded...."—In L. of Colebrooke, 223.]

1886.—"... one Marsden, who has paid his addresses to my daughter—a young man in the Public Works, who (would you believe it, Mr. Cholmondeley?) has not even been confirmed.

"Cholm. The young heathen!"—Trevelyan, The Dawk Bungalow, p. 220.

CONGEE, s. In use all over India for the water in which rice has been boiled. The article being used as one of invalid diet, the word is sometimes applied to such slops generally. Congee also forms the usual starch of Indian washermen. [A conjee-cap was a sort of starched night-cap, and Mr. Draper, the husband of Sterne's Eliza, had it put on by Mrs. Draper's rival when he took his afternoon nap. (Douglas, Glimpses of Old Bombay, pp. 86, 201.)] It is from the Tamil kanjī, 'boilings.' Congee is known to Horace, though reckoned, it would seem, so costly a remedy that the miser patient would as lief die as be plundered to the extent implied in its use:

"... Hunc medicus multum celer atque fidelis

Excitat hoc pacto ...

... 'Agedum; sume hoc ptisanarium Oryzae.'

'Quanti emptae?' 'Parvo.' 'Quanti ergo.' 'Octussibus.' 'Eheu!

Quid refert, morbo, an furtis pereamve rapinis?'"

Sat. II. iii. 147 seqq.

c. A.D. 70.—(Indi) "maxime quidem oryza gaudent, ex qua tisanam conficiunt quam reliqui mortales ex hordeo."—Pliny, xviii. § 13.

1563.—"They give him to drink the water squeezed out of rice with pepper and cummin (which they call canje)."—Garcia, f. 76b.

1578.—"... Canju, which is the water from the boiling of rice, keeping it first for some hours till it becomes acid...."—Acosta, Tractado, 56.

1631.—"Potus quotidianus itaque sit decoctum oryzae quod Candgie Indi vocant."—Jac. Bontii, Lib. II. cap. iii.

1672.—"... la cangia, ordinaria colatione degl' Indiani ... quale colano del riso mal cotto."—P. Vinc. Maria, 3rd ed., 379.

1673.—"They have ... a great smooth Stone on which they beat their Cloaths till clean; and if for Family use, starch them with Congee."—Fryer, 200.

1680.—"Le dejeûné des noirs est ordinairement du Cangé, qui est une eau de ris epaisse."—Dellon, Inquisition at Goa, 136.

1796.—"Cagni, boiled rice water, which the Europeans call Cangi, is given free of all expenses, in order that the traveller may quench his thirst with a cooling and wholesome beverage."—P. Paulinus, Voyage, p. 70.

"Can't drink as it is hot, and can't throw away as it is Kanji."—Ceylon Proverb, Ind. Ant. i. 59.

CONGEE-HOUSE, CONJEE-HOUSE, s. The 'cells' (or temporary lock-up) of a regiment in India; so called from the traditionary regimen of the inmates; [in N. India commonly applied to a cattle-pound].

1835.—"All men confined for drunkenness should, if possible, be confined by themselves in the Congee-House, till sober."—G. O., quoted in Mawson's Records of the Indian Command of Sir C. Napier, 101 note.

CONGEVERAM, n.p. An ancient and holy city of S. India, 46 m. S.W. of Madras. It is called Kachchi in Tamil literature, and Kachchipuram is probably represented by the modern name. [The Madras Gloss. gives the indigenous name as Cutchy (Kachchi), meaning 'the heart-leaved moon-seed plant,' tinospera cordifolia, from which the Skt. name Kanchipura, 'shining city,' is corrupted.]

c. 1030.—See Kanchi in Al-Birūnī, under MALABAR.

1531.—"Some of them said that the whole history of the Holy House (of St. Thomas) was written in the house of the Pagoda which is called Camjeverão, twenty leagues distant from the Holy House, of which I will tell you hereafter...."—Correa, iii. 424.

1680.—"Upon a report that Podela Lingapa had put a stop to all the Dutch business of Policat under his government, the agent sent Braminy spys to Conjee Voram and to Policat."—Ft. St. Geo. Cons. Aug. 30. In Notes and Exts. No. iii. 32.

CONGO-BUNDER, CONG, n.p. Kung bandar; a port formerly of some consequence and trade, on the north shore of the Persian Gulf, about 100 m. west of Gombroon. The Portuguese had a factory here for a good many years after their expulsion from Ormus, and under treaty with Persia, made in 1625, had a right of pearl-fishing at Bahrein and a claim to half of the customs of Cong. These claims seem to have been gradually disregarded, and to have had no effect after about 1670, though the Portuguese would appear to have still kept up some pretext of monopoly of rights there in 1677 (see Chardin, ed. 1735, i. 348, and Bruce's Annals of the E.I.C., iii. 393). Some confusion is created by the circumstance that there is another place on the same coast, called Kongūn, which possessed a good many vessels up to 1859, when it was destroyed by a neighbouring chief (see Stiffe's P. Gulf Pilot, 128). And this place is indicated by A. Hamilton (below) as the great mart for Bahrein pearls, which Fryer and others assign to what is evidently Cong.

1652.—"Near to the place where the Euphrates falls from Balsara [see BALSORA] into the Sea, there is a little Island, where the Barques generally come to an Anchor.... There we stay'd four days, whence to Bandar-Congo it is 14 days Sail.... This place would be a far better habitation for the Merchants than Ormus, where it is very unwholsom and dangerous to live. But that which hinders the Trade from Bandar-Congo is, because the Road to Lar is so bad.... The 30th, we hir'd a Vessel for Bander-Abassi, and after 3 or 4 hours Sailing we put into a Village ... in the Island of Keckmishe" (see KISHM).—Tavernier, E.T. i. 94.

1653.—"Congue est vne petite ville fort agreable sur le sein Persique à trois journées du Bandar Abbassi tirant à l'Ouest dominée par le Schah ... les Portugais y ont vn Feitour (see FACTOR) qui prend la moitié de la Doüane, et donne la permission aux barques de nauiger, en luy payant vn certain droit, parceque toutes ces mers sont tributaires de la generalité de Mascati, qui est à l'entrée du sein Persique.... Cette ville est peuplée d'Arabes, de Parsis et d'Indous qui ont leur Pagodes et leur Saincts hors la ville."—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, p. 284.

1677.—"A Voyage to Congo for Pearl.—Two days after our Arrival at Gombroon, I went to Congo.... At noon we came to Bassatu (see BASSADORE), an old ruined Town of the Portugals, fronting Congo.... Congo is something better built than Gombroon, and has some small Advantage of the Air" (Then goes off about pearls).—Fryer, 320.

1683.—"One Haggerston taken by ye said President into his Service, was run away with a considerable quantity of Gold and Pearle, to ye amount of 30,000 Rupees, intrusted to him at Bussera (see BALSORA) and Cong, to bring to Surrat, to save Freight and Custom."—Hedges, Diary, i. 96 seq.

1685.—"May 27.—This afternoon it pleased God to bring us in safety to Cong Road. I went ashore immediately to Mr. Brough's house (Supra Cargo of ye Siam Merchant), and lay there all night."—Ibid. i. 202.

1727.—"Congoun stands on the South side of a large River, and makes a pretty good figure in Trade; for most of the Pearl that are caught at Bareen, on the Arabian Side, are brought hither for a Market, and many fine Horses are sent thence to India, where they generally sell well.... The next maritim town, down the Gulf, is Cong, where the Portuguese lately had a Factory, but of no great Figure in Trade, tho' that Town has a small Trade with Banyans and Moors from India." (Here the first place is Kongun, the second one Kung).—A. Hamilton, i. 92 seq.; [ed. 1744].

CONICOPOLY, s. Literally 'Account-Man,' from Tam. kanakka, 'account' or 'writing,' and piḷḷai, 'child' or 'person.' ["The Kanakar are usually addressed as 'Pillay,' a title of respect common to them and the agricultural and shepherd castes" (Madras Man. ii. 229).] In Madras, a native clerk or writer, [in particular a shipping clerk. The corresponding Tel. term is Curnum].

1544.—"Duc eò tecum ... domesticos tuos; pueros et aliquem Conacapulam qui norit scribere, cujus manu exaratas relinquere posses in quovis loco precationes a Pueris et aliis Catechumenis ediscendas."—Scti. Franc. Xavier, Epist., pp. 160 seq.

1584.—"So you must appoint in each village or station fitting teachers and Canacopoly, as we have already arranged, and these must assemble the children every day at a certain time and place, and teach and drive into them the elements of reading and religion."—Ditto, in Coleridge's L. of him, ii. 24.

1578.—"At Tanor in Malabar I was acquainted with a Nayre Canacopola, a writer in the Camara del Rey at Tanor ... who every day used to eat to the weight of 5 drachms (of opium), which he would take in my presence."—Acosta, Tractado, 415.

c. 1580.—"One came who worked as a clerk, and said he was a poor canaquapolle, who had nothing to give."—Primor e Honra, &c., f. 94.

1672.—"Xaverius set everywhere teachers called Canacappels."—Baldaeus, Ceylon, 377.

1680.—"The Governour, accompanyed with the Councell and severall Persons of the factory, attended by six files of Soldyers, the Company's Peons, 300 of the Washers, the Pedda Naigue, the Cancoply of the Towne and of the grounds, went the circuit of Madras ground, which was described by the Cancoply of the grounds, and lyes so intermixed with others (as is customary in these Countrys) that 'tis impossible to be knowne to any others, therefore every Village has a Cancoply and a Parryar, who are imployed in this office, which goes from Father to Son for ever."—Ft. St. Geo. Consn. Sept. 21. In Notes and Exts., No. iii. 34.

1718.—"Besides this we maintain seven Kanakappel, or Malabarick writers."—Propagation of the Gospel in the East, Pt. ii. 55.

1726.—"The Conakapules (commonly called Kannekappels) are writers."—Valentijn, Choro. 88.

[1749.—"Canacapula," in Logan, Malabar, iii. 52.

[1750.—"Conicoplas," ibid. iii. 150.

[1773.—"Conucopola. He keeps your accounts, pays the rest of the servants their wages, and assists the Dubash in buying and selling. At Bengal he is called secretary...."—Ives, 49.]

CONSOO-HOUSE, n.p. At Canton this was a range of buildings adjoining the foreign Factories, called also the 'Council Hall' of the foreign Factories. It was the property of the body of Hong merchants, and was the place of meeting of these merchants among themselves, or with the chiefs of the Foreign houses, when there was need for such conference (see Fankwae, p. 23). The name is probably a corruption of 'Council.' Bp. Moule, however, says: "The name is likely to have come from kung-su, the public hall, where a kung-sz', a 'public company,' or guild, meets."

CONSUMAH, KHANSAMA, s. P. Khānsāmān; 'a house-steward.' In Anglo-Indian households in the Bengal Presidency, this is the title of the chief table servant and provider, now always a Mahommedan. [See BUTLER.] The literal meaning of the word is 'Master of the household gear'; it is not connected with khwān, 'a tray,' as Wilson suggests. The analogous word Mīr-sāmān occurs in Elliot, vii. 153. The Anglo-Indian form Consumer seems to have been not uncommon in the 18th century, probably with a spice of intention. From tables quoted in Long, 182, and in Seton-Karr, i. 95, 107, we see that the wages of a "Consumah, Christian, Moor, or Gentoo," were at Calcutta, in 1759, 5 rupees a month, and in 1785, 8 to 10 rupees.

[1609.—"Emersee Nooherdee being called by the Cauncamma."—Danvers, Letters, i. 24.]

c. 1664.—"Some time after ... she chose for her Kane-saman, that is, her Steward, a certain Persian called Nazerkan, who was a young Omrah, the handsomest and most accomplished of the whole Court."—Bernier, E.T., p. 4; [ed. Constable, p. 13].

1712.—"They were brought by a great circuit on the River to the Chansamma or Steward (Dispenser) of the aforesaid Mahal."—Valentijn, iv. (Suratte) 288.

1759.—"Dustuck or Order, under the Chan Sumaun, or Steward's Seal, for the Honourable Company's holding the King's [i.e. the Great Mogul's] fleet."

"At the back of this is the seal of Zecah al Doulat Tidaudin Caun Bahadour, who is Caun Samaun, or Steward to his Majesty, whose prerogative it is to grant this Order."—R. Owen Cambridge, pp. 231 seq.

1788.—"After some deliberation I asked the Khansaman, what quantity was remaining of the clothes that had been brought from Iran to camp for sale, who answered that there were 15,000 jackets, and 12,000 pairs of long drawers."—Mem. of Khojeh Abdulkurreem, tr. by Gladwin, 55.