C (part 3)

1810.—"The Kansamah may be classed with the house-steward, and butler; both of which offices appear to unite in this servant."—Williamson, V. M., i. 199.

1831.—"I have taught my khansama to make very light iced punch."—Jacquemont, Letters, E.T., ii. 104.

COOCH AZO, or AZO simply, n.p. Koch Hājo, a Hindu kingdom on the banks of the Brahmaputra R., to the E. of Koch Bihār, annexed by Jahāngīr's troops in 1637. See Blochmann in J.A.S.B. xli. pt. i. 53, and xlii. pt. i. 235. In Valentijn's map of Bengal (made c. 1660) we have Cos Assam with Azo as capital, and T'Ryk van Asoe, a good way south and east of Silhet.

1753.—"Ceste rivière (Brahmapoutra), en remontant, conduit à Rangamati et à Azoo, qui font la frontière de l'état du Mogol. Azoo est une forteresse que l'Emir Jemla, sous le règne d'Aorengzèbe, reprit sur le roi d'Asham, comme une dependance de Bengale."—D'Anville, p. 62.

COOCH BEHAR, n.p. Koch Bihār, a native tributary State on the N.E. of Bengal, adjoining Bhotan and the Province of Assam. The first part of the name is taken from that of a tribe, the Koch, apparently a forest race who founded this State about the 15th century, and in the following century obtained dominion of considerable extent. They still form the majority of the population, but, as usual in such circumstances, give themselves a Hindu pedigree, under the name of Rājbansi. [See Risley, Tribes and Castes of Bengal, i. 491 seqq.] The site of the ancient monarchy of Kāmrūp is believed to have been in Koch Bihār, within the limits of which there are the remains of more than one ancient city. The second part of the name is no doubt due to the memory of some important Vihara, or Buddhist Monastery, but we have not found information on the subject. [Possibly the ruins at Kamatapur, for which see Buchanan Hamilton, Eastern India, iii. 426 seqq.]

1585.—"I went from Bengala into the countrey of Couche, which lieth 25 dayes iourny Northwards from Tanda."—R. Fitch, in Hakl. ii. 397.

c. 1596.—"To the north of Bengal is the province of Coach, the Chief of which commands 1,000 horse, and 100,000 foot. Kamroop, which is also called Kamroo and Kamtah (see COMOTAY) makes a part of his dominions."—Ayeen (by Gladwin), ed. 1800, ii. 3; [ed. Jarrett, ii. 117].

1726.—"Cos Bhaar is a Kingdom of itself, the King of which is sometimes subject to the Great Mogol, and sometimes throws his yoke off."—Valentijn, v. 159.

1774.—"The country about Bahar is low. Two kos beyond Bahar we entered a thicket ... frogs, watery insects and dank air ... 2 miles farther on we crossed the river which separates the Kuch Bahar country from that of the Deb Rajah, in sal canoes...."—Bogle, in Markham's Tibet, &c., 14 seq.

(But Mr. Markham spoils all the original spelling. We may be sure Bogle did not write kos, nor "Kuch Bahar," as Mr. M. makes him do.)

1791.—"The late Mr. George Bogle ... travelled by way of Coos-Beyhar, Tassasudon, and Paridrong, to Chanmanning the then residence of the Lama."—Rennell (3rd ed.), 301.

COOJA, s. P. kūza; an earthenware water-vessel (not long-necked, like the ṣurāḥī—see SERAI). It is a word used at Bombay chiefly, [but is not uncommon among Mahommedans in N. India].

[1611.—"One sack of cusher to make coho."—Danvers, Letters, i. 128.

[1871.—"Many parts of India are celebrated for their coojahs or guglets, but the finest are brought from Bussorah, being light, thin, and porous, made from a whitish clay."—Riddell, Indian Domestic Economy, 7th ed., p. 362.]

1883.—"They (tree-frogs) would perch pleasantly on the edge of the water cooja, or on the rim of a tumbler."—Tribes on my Frontier, 118.

COOK-ROOM, s. Kitchen; in Anglo-Indian establishments always detached from the house.

1758.—"We will not in future admit of any expenses being defrayed by the Company either under the head of cook-rooms, gardens, or other expenses whatever."—The Court's Letter, March 3, in Long, 130.

1878.—"I was one day watching an old female monkey who had a young one by her side to whom she was giving small bits of a piece of bread which she had evidently just received from my cook-room."—Life in the Mofussil, ii. 44.

COOLCURNEE, s. This is the title of the village accountant and writer in some of the central and western parts of India. Mahr. kuḷkaraṇī, apparently from kuḷa, 'tribe,' and karaṇa, writer, &c., the patwārī of N. India (see under CRANNY, CURNUM). [Kula "in the revenue language of the S. appears to be applied especially to families, or individual heads of families, paying revenue" (Wilson).]

c. 1590.—"... in this Soobah (Berar) ... a chowdry they call Deysmuck; a Canoongou with them is Deyspandeh; a Mokuddem ... they style Putiel; and a Putwaree they name Kulkurnee."—Gladwin's Ayeen Akbery, ii. 57; [ed. Jarrett, ii. 228].

[1826.—"You potails, coolcunnies, &c., will no doubt ... contrive to reap tolerable harvests."—Pandurang Hari, ed. 1873, ii. 47.]

COOLICOY, s. A Malay term, properly kulit-kayu, 'skin-wood,' explained in the quotation:

1784.—"The coolitcayo or coolicoy.... This is a bark procured from some particular trees. (It is used for matting the sides of houses, and by Europeans as dunnage in pepper cargoes.)"—Marsden's H. of Sumatra, 2nd ed. 51.

COOLIN, adj. A class of Brāhmans of Bengal Proper, who make extraordinary claims to purity of caste and exclusiveness. Beng. kulīnas, from Skt. kula, 'a caste or family,' kulīna, 'belonging to a noble family.' They are much sought in marriage for the daughters of Brāhmans of less exalted pretensions, and often take many brides for the sake of the presents they receive. The system is one of the greatest abuses in Bengali Hinduism. [Risley, Tribes and Castes of Bengal, i. 146 seqq.]

1820.—"Some inferior Koolēēnŭs marry many wives; I have heard of persons having 120; many have 15 or 20, and others 40 and 50 each. Numbers procure a subsistence by this excessive polygamy...."—Ward, i. 81.

COOLUNG, COOLEN, and in W. India CULLUM, s. Properly the great grey crane (Grus cinerea), H. kulang (said by the dictionaries to be Persian, but Jerdon gives Mahr. kallam, and Tel. kulangi, kolangi, which seem against the Persian origin), [and Platts seems to connect it with Skt. kurankara, the Indian crane, Ardea Sibirica (Williams)]. Great companies of these are common in many parts of India, especially on the sands of the less frequented rivers; and their clanging, trumpet-like call is often heard as they pass high overhead at night.

"Ille gruum ...

Clamor in aetheriis dispersus nubibus austri."

(Lucr. iv. 182 seq.).

The name, in the form Coolen, is often misapplied to the Demoiselle Crane (Anthropoides virgo, L.), which is one of the best of Indian birds for the table (see Jerdon, ed. 1877, ii. 667, and last quotation below). The true Coolung, though inferior, is tolerably good eating. This bird, which is now quite unknown in Scotland, was in the 15th century not uncommon there, and was a favourite dish at great entertainments (see Accts. of L. H. Treasurer of Scotland, i. ccv.).

1698.—"Peculiarly Brand-geese, Colum, and Serass, a species of the former."—Fryer, 117.

c. 1809.—"Large flocks of a crane called Kolong, and of another called Saros (Ardea Antigone—see CYRUS), frequent this district in winter.... They come from the north in the beginning of the cold season, and retire when the heats commence."—Buchanan's Rungpoor, in Eastern India, iii. 579.

1813.—"Peacocks, partridges, quails, doves, and green-pigeons supplied our table, and with the addition of two stately birds, called the Sahras and cullum, added much to the animated beauty of the country."—Forbes, Or. Mem. ii. 29; [2nd ed. i. 331].

1883.—"Not being so green as I was, I let the tempting herd of antelopes pass, but the kullum I cannot resist. They are feeding in thousands at the other end of a large field, and to reach them it will only be necessary to crawl round behind the hedge for a quarter of a mile or so. But what will one not do with roast kullum looming in the vista of the future?"—Tribes on my Frontier, p. 162.

"*** N.B.—I have applied the word kullum, as everybody does, to the demoiselle crane, which, however, is not properly the kullum but the Koonja."—Ibid. p. 171.

COOLY, s. A hired labourer, or burden-carrier; and, in modern days especially, a labourer induced to emigrate from India, or from China, to labour in the plantations of Mauritius, Réunion, or the West Indies, sometimes under circumstances, especially in French colonies, which have brought the cooly's condition very near to slavery. In Upper India the term has frequently a specific application to the lower class of labourer who carries earth, bricks, &c., as distinguished from the skilled workman, and even from the digger.

The original of the word appears to have been a nomen gentile, the name (Kolī) of a race or caste in Western India, who have long performed such offices as have been mentioned, and whose savagery, filth, and general degradation attracted much attention in former times, [see Hamilton, Descr. of Hindostan (1820), i. 609]. The application of the word would thus be analogous to that which has rendered the name of a Slav, captured and made a bondservant, the word for such a bondservant in many European tongues. According to Dr. H. V. Carter the Kolīs proper are a true hill-people, whose especial locality lies in the Western Ghāts, and in the northern extension of that range, between 18° and 24° N. lat. They exist in large numbers in Guzerat, and in the Konkan, and in the adjoining districts of the Deccan, but not beyond these limits (see Ind. Antiquary, ii. 154). [But they are possibly kinsfolk of the Kols, an important Dravidian race in Bengal and the N.W.P. (see Risley, T. and C. of Bengal, ii. 101; Crooke, T. C. of N.W.P. iii. 294).] In the Rās Mālā [ed. 1878, p. 78 seqq.] the Koolies are spoken of as a tribe who lived long near the Indus, but who were removed to the country of the Null (the Nal, a brackish lake some 40 m. S.W. of Ahmedabad) by the goddess Hinglāj.

Though this explanation of the general use of the term Cooly is the most probable, the matter is perplexed by other facts which it is difficult to trace to the same origin. Thus in S. India there is a Tamil and Can. word kūli in common use, signifying 'hire' or 'wages,' which Wilson indeed regards as the true origin of Cooly. [Oppert (Orig. Inhab. of Bharatavarsa, p. 131) adopts the same view, and disputing the connection of Cooly with Koli or Kol, regards the word as equivalent to 'hired servant' and originating in the English Factories on the E. coast.] Also in both Oriental and Osmanli Turkish kol is a word for a slave, whilst in the latter also kūleh means 'a male slave, a bondsman' (Redhouse). Khol is in Tibetan also a word for a servant or slave (Note from A. Schiefner; see also Jäschke's Tibetan Dict., 1881, p. 59). But with this the Indian term seems to have no connection. The familiar use of Cooly has extended to the Straits Settlements, Java, and China, as well as to all tropical and sub-tropical colonies, whether English or foreign.

In the quotations following, those in which the race is distinctly intended are marked with an *.

*1548.—"And for the duty from the Colés who fish at the sea-stakes and on the river of Bacaim...."—S. Botelho, Tombo, 155.

*1553.—"Soltan Badur ... ordered those pagans to be seized, and if they would not become Moors, to be flayed alive, saying that was all the black-mail the Collijs should get from Champanel."—Barros, Dec. IV. liv. v. cap. 7.

*1563.—"These Colles ... live by robbing and thieving at this day."—Garcia, f. 34.

*1584.—"I attacked and laid waste nearly fifty villages of the Kolís and Grassias, and I built forts in seven different places to keep these people in check."—Ṭabaḳāt-i-Akbarī, in Elliot, v. 447.

*1598.—"Others that yet dwell within the countrie called Colles: which Colles ... doe yet live by robbing and stealing...."—Linschoten, ch. xxvii.; [Hak. Soc. i. 166].

*1616.—"Those who inhabit the country villages are called Coolees; these till the ground and breed up cattle."—Terry, in Purchas; [ed. 1777, p. 180].

*"The people called Collees or Quillees."—In Purchas, i. 436.

1630.—"The husbandmen or inferior sort of people called the Coulies."—Lord's Display, &c., ch. xiii.

1638.—"He lent us horses to ride on, and Cowlers (which are Porters) to carry our goods."—W. Bruton, in Hakl. v. 49.

In this form there was perhaps an indefinite suggestion of the cowl-staff used in carrying heavy loads.

1644.—"In these lands of Damam the people who dwell there as His Majesty's Vassals are heathen, whom they call Collis, and all the Padres make great complaints that the owners of the aldeas do not look with favour on the conversion of these heathen Collis, nor do they consent to their being made Christians, lest there thus may be hindrance to the greater service which is rendered by them when they remain heathen."—Bocarro (Port. MS.).

*1659.—"To relate how I got away from those Robbers, the Koullis ... how we became good Friends by the means of my Profession of Physick ... I must not insist upon to describe."—Bernier, E.T., p. 30; [ed. Constable, 91].

*c. 1666.—"Nous rencontrâmes quantité de Colys, qui sont gens d'une Caste ou tribut des Gentils, qui n'ont point d'habitation arrêtée, mais qui vont de village en village et portent avec eux tout leur ménage."—Thevenot, v. 21.

*1673.—"The Inhabitants of Ramnagur are the Salvages called Coolies...."—Fryer, 161.

" "Coolies, Frasses, and Holencores, are the Dregs of the People."—Ibid. 194.

1680.—"... It is therefore ordered forthwith that the drum be beat to call all coolies, carpenters...."—Official Memo. in Wheeler, i. 129.

*c. 1703.—"The Imperial officers ... sent ... ten or twelve sardārs, with 13,000 or 14,000 horse, and 7,000 or 8,000 trained Kolís of that country."—Khāfī Khān, in Elliot, vii. 375.

1711.—"The better sort of people travel in Palankeens, carry'd by six or eight Cooleys, whose Hire, if they go not far from Town, is threepence a Day each."—Lockyer, 26.

1726.—"Coeli's. Bearers of all sorts of Burdens, goods, Andols (see ANDOR) and Palankins...."—Valentijn, vol. v., Names, &c., 2.

*1727.—"Goga ... has had some Mud Wall Fortifications, which still defend them from the Insults of their Neighbours the Coulies."—A. Hamilton, i. 141; [ed. 1744, i. 142].

1755.—"The Families of the Coolies sent to the Negrais complain that Mr. Brook has paid to the Head Cooley what money those who died there left behind them."—In Long, 54.

1785.—"... the officers were obliged to have their baggage transported upon men's heads over an extent of upwards of 800 miles, at the rate of 5l. per month for every couley or porter employed."—Carraccioli's L. of Clive, i. 243 seq.

1789.—"If you should ask a common cooly or porter, what cast he is of, he will answer, the same as Master, pariar-cast."—Munro's Narrative, 29.

1791.—"... deux relais de vigoreux coulis, ou porteurs, de quatre hommes chacun...."—B. de St. Pierre, La Chaumière Indienne, 15.

[1798.—"The Resident hopes all distinctions between the Cooley and Portuguese inhabitants will be laid aside."—Procl. in Logan, Malabar, iii. 302.]

*1813.—"Gudgerah, a large populous town surrounded by a wall, to protect it from the depredations of the Coolees, who are a very insolent set among the numerous and probably indigenous tribes of freebooters, and robbers in this part of India."—Forbes, Orient. Mem. iii. 63; [2nd ed. ii. 160; also see i. 146].

1817.—"These (Chinese) emigrants are usually employed as coolees or labourers on their first arrival (in Java)."—Raffles, H. of Java, i. 205.

*1820.—"In the profession of thieving the Koolees may be said to act con amore. A Koolee of this order, meeting a defenceless person in a lane about dusk, would no more think of allowing him to pass unplundered than a Frenchman would a woman without bowing to her; it may be considered a point of honour of the caste."—Tr. Lit. Soc. Bo. iii. 335.

*1825.—"The head man of the village said he was a Kholee, the name of a degenerate race of Rajpoots in Guzerat, who from the low occupations in which they are generally employed have (under the corrupt name of Coolie) given a name, probably through the medium of the Portuguese, to bearers of burdens all over India."—Heber, ed. 1844, ii. 92.

1867.—"Bien que de race différente les Coolies et les Chinois sont comportés à peu-près de même."—Quatrefages, Rapport sur le Progrès de l'Anthropologie, 219.

1871.—"I have hopes for the Coolies in British Guiana, but it will be more sure and certain when the immigration system is based on better laws."—Jenkins, The Coolie.

1873.—"The appellant, the Hon. Julian Pauncefote, is the Attorney-General for the Colony (Hong Kong) and the respondent Hwoka-Sing is a Coolie or labourer, and a native of China."—Report of Case before Jud. Com. of Privy Council.

" "A man (Col. Gordon) who had wrought such wonders with means so modest as a levy of Coolies ... needed, we may be sure, only to be put to the highest test to show how just those were who had marked him out in his Crimean days as a youth whose extraordinary genius for war could not be surpassed in the army that lay before Sebastopol."—Sat. Review, Aug. 16, 203.

1875.—"A long row of cottages, evidently pattern-built ... announced the presence of Coolies, Indian or Chinese."—Palgrave, Dutch Guiana, ch. i.

The word Cooly has passed into English thieves' jargon in the sense of 'a soldier' (v. Slang Dict.).

COOMKEE, adj., used as sub. This is a derivative from P. kumak, 'aid,' and must have been widely diffused in India, for we find it specialised in different senses in the extreme West and East, besides having in both the general sense of 'auxiliary.'

[(a) In the Moghul army the term is used for auxiliary troops.

[c. 1590.—"Some troops are levied occasionally to strengthen the munsubs, and they are called Kummeky (or auxiliaries)."—Gladwin, Ayeen Akbery, ed. 1800, i. 188; in Blochmann, i. 232, Kumakis.

[1858.—"The great landholders despise them (the ordinary levies) but respect the Komukee corps...."—Sleeman, Journey through Oudh, i. 30.]

(b) Kumakī, in N. and S. Canara, is applied to a defined portion of forest, from which the proprietor of the village or estate has the privilege of supplying himself with wood for house-building, &c. (except from the reserved kinds of wood), with leaves and twigs for manure, fodder, &c. (See COOMRY). [The system is described by Sturrock, Man. S. Canara, i. 16, 224 seqq.]

(c). Koomkee, in Bengal, is the technical name of the female elephant used as a decoy in capturing a male.

1807.—"When an elephant is in a proper state to be removed from the Keddah, he is conducted either by koomkies (i.e. decoy females) or by tame males."—Williamson, Oriental Field Sports, folio ed., p. 30.

[1873.—"It was an interesting sight to see the captive led in between two khoonkies or tame elephants."—Cooper, Mishmee Hills, 88.

[1882.—"Attached to each elephant hunting party there must be a number of tame elephants, or Koonkies, to deal with the wild elephants when captured."—Sanderson, Thirteen Years, 70.]

COOMRY, s. [Can. kumari, from Mahr. kumbarī, 'a hill slope of poor soil.'] Kumari cultivation is the S. Indian (especially in Canara), [Sturrock, S. Canara Man. i. 17], appellation of that system pursued by hill-people in many parts of India and its frontiers, in which a certain tract of forest is cut down and burnt, and the ground planted with crops for one or two seasons, after which a new site is similarly treated. This system has many names in different regions; in the east of Bengal it it known as jhūm (see JHOOM); in Burma as tounggyan; [in parts of the N.W.P. dahya, Skt. daha, 'burning'; ponam in Malabar; ponacaud in Salem]. We find kumried as a quasi-English participle in a document quoted by the High Court, Bombay, in a judgment dated 27th January, 1879, p. 227.

1883.—"Kumaki (Coomkee) and Kumari privileges stand on a very different platform. The former are perfectly reasonable, and worthy of a civilised country.... As for Kumari privileges, they cannot be defended before the tribunal of reason as being really good for the country, but old custom is old custom, and often commands the respect of a wise government even when it is indefensible."—Mr. Grant Duff's Reply to an Address at Mangalore, 15th October.

COONOOR, n.p. A hill-station in the Neilgherries. Kuṇṇur, 'Hill-Town.' [The Madras Gloss. gives Can. Kunnūru, Skt. kunna, 'small,' Can. ūru, 'village.']

COORG, n.p. A small hill State on the west of the table-land of Mysore, in which lies the source of the Cauvery, and which was annexed to the British Government, in consequence of cruel misgovernment in 1834. The name is a corruption of Kŏḍagu, of which Gundert says: "perhaps from koḍu, 'steep,' or Tamil kaḍaga, 'west.'" [For various other speculations on the derivation, see Oppert, Original Inhabit., 162 seqq. The Madras Gloss. seems to refer it to Skt. kroḍadeśa, 'hog-land,' from "the tradition that the inhabitants had nails on hands and feet like a boar."] Coorg is also used for a native of the country, in which case it stands for Kŏḍaga.

COORSY, s. H.—from Ar.—kursī [which is used for the stand on which the Koran is laid]. It is the word usually employed in Western India for 'a chair,' and is in the Bengal Presidency a more dignified term than chaukī (see CHOKY). Kursī is the Arabic form, borrowed from the Aramaic, in which the emphatic state is kursĕyā. But in Hebrew the word possesses a more original form with ss for rs (kisse, the usual word in the O. T. for 'a throne'). The original sense appears to be 'a covered seat.'

1781.—"It happened, at this time, that the Nawaub was seated on his koorsi, or chair, in a garden, beneath a banyan tree."—Hist. of Hydur Naik, 452.

COOSUMBA, s. H. kusum, kusumbha, Safflower, q.v. But the name is applied in Rajputana and Guzerat to the tincture of opium, which is used freely by Rājputs and others in those territories; also (according to Shakespear) to an infusion of Bang (q.v.).

[1823.—"Several of the Rajpoot Princes West of the Chumbul seldom hold a Durbar without presenting a mixture of liquid opium, or, as it is termed, 'kusoombah,' to all present. The minister washes his hands in a vessel placed before the Rawul, after which some liquid opium is poured into the palm of his right hand. The first in rank who may be present then approaches and drinks the liquid."—Malcolm, Mem. of Central India, 2d ed. ii. 146, note.]

COOTUB, THE, n.p. The Ḳuṭb Minār, near Delhi, one of the most remarkable of Indian architectural antiquities, is commonly so called by Europeans. It forms the minaret of the Great Mosque, now long in ruins, which Ḳuṭb-uddīn Ībak founded A.D. 1191, immediately after the capture of Delhi, and which was built out of the materials of numerous Hindu temples, as is still manifest. According to the elaborate investigation of Gen. A. Cunningham [Arch. Rep. i. 189 seqq.], the magnificent Minār was begun by Ḳuṭb-uddīn Ībak about 1200, and completed by his successor Shamsuddīn Iyaltimish about 1220. The tower has undergone, in its upper part, various restorations. The height as it now stands is 238 feet 1 inch. The traditional name of the tower no doubt had reference to the name of its founder, but also there may have been a reference to the contemporary Saint, Ḳuṭb-uddīn Ūshī, whose tomb is close by; and perhaps also to the meaning of the name Ḳuṭb-uddīn, 'The Pole or Axle of the Faith,' as appropriate to such a structure.

c. 1330.—"Attached to the mosque (of Delhi) is a tower for the call to prayer which has no equal in the whole world. It is built of red stone, with about 360 steps. It is not square, but has a great number of angles, is very massive at the base, and very lofty, equalling the Pharos of Alexandria."—Abulfeda, in Gildemeister, 190.

c. 1340.—"In the northern court of the mosque stands the minaret (al-ṣauma'a), which is without a parallel in all the countries of Islām.... It is of surpassing height; the pinnacle is of milk-white marble, and the globes which decorate it are of pure gold. The aperture of the staircase is so wide that elephants can ascend, and a person on whom I could rely told me that when the minaret was a-building, he saw an elephant ascend to the very top with a load of stones."—Ibn Batuta, iii. 151.

The latter half of the last quotation is fiction.

1663.—"At two Leagues off the City on Agra's side, in a place by the Mahumetans called Koja Kotubeddine, there is a very ancient Edifice which hath been a Temple of Idols...."—Bernier, E.T. 91.

It is evident from this that Bernier had not then visited the Ḳuṭb. [Constable in his tr. reads "Koia Kotub-eddine," by which he understands Koh-i-Ḳuṭab-uddīn, the hill or eminence of the Saint, p. 283.]

1825.—"I will only observe that the Cuttab Minar ... is really the finest tower I have ever seen, and must, when its spire was complete, have been still more beautiful."—Heber, ed. 1844, i. 308.

COPECK, s. This is a Russian coin, 1⁄100 of a ruble. The degeneration of coin denominations is often so great that we may suspect this name to preserve that of the dīnār Kopekī often mentioned in the histories of Timur and his family. Kopek is in Turki, 'dog,' and Charmoy explains the term as equivalent to Abū-kalb, 'Father of a dog,' formerly applied in Egypt to Dutch crowns (Löwenthaler) bearing a lion. There could not be Dutch coins in Timur's time, but some other Frank coin bearing a lion may have been so called, probably Venetian. A Polish coin with a lion on it was called by a like name (see Macarius, quoted below, p. 169). Another etymology of kopek suggested (in Chaudoir, Aperçu des Monnaies Russes) is from Russ. kopié, kopyé, a pike, many old Russian coins representing the Prince on horseback with a spear. [This is accepted by the N.E.D.] Kopeks are mentioned in the reign of Vassili III., about the middle of the 15th century, but only because regularly established in the coinage c. 1536. [See TANGA.]

1390.—(Timour resolved) "to visit the venerated tomb of Sheikh Maslahat ... and with that intent proceeded to Tāshkand ... he there distributed as alms to worthy objects, 10,000 dīnārs kopakī...."—Sharīfuddīn, in Extracts by M. Charmoy, Mem. Acad. St. P., vi. S., tome iii. p. 363, also note, p. 135.

1535.—"It was on this that the Grand Duchess Helena, mother of Ivan Vassilievitch, and regent in his minority, ordered, in 1535, that these new Dengui should be melted down and new ones struck, at the rate of 300 dengui, or 3 Roubles of Moscow à la grivenka, in Kopeks.... From that time accounts continued to be kept in Roubles, Kopeks, and Dengui."—Chaudoir, Aperçu.

c. 1655.—"The pension in lieu of provisions was, for our Lord the Patriarch 25 copecks daily."—Travels of the Patriarch Macarius, Or. Tr. Fund, i. 281.

1783.—"The Copeck of Russia, a copper coin, in name and apparently in value, is the same which was current in Tartary during the reign of Timur."—Forster's Journey, ed. 1808, ii. 332.

COPPERSMITH, s. Popular name both in H. (tambayat) and English of the crimson-breasted barbet (Xantholaema indica, Latham). See the quotation from Jerdon.

1862.—"It has a remarkably loud note, which sounds like took-took-took, and this it generally utters when seated on the top of some tree, nodding its head at each call, first to one side and then to another.... This sound and the motion of its head, accompanying it, have given origin to the name of 'Coppersmith.'..."—Jerdon, ed. 1877, i. 316.

1879.—

"... In the mango-sprays

The sun-birds flashed; alone at his green forge

Toiled the loud Coppersmith...."

The Light of Asia, p. 20.

1883.—"For the same reason mynas seek the tope, and the 'blue jay,' so-called, and the little green coppersmith hooting ventriloquistically."—Tribes on my Frontier, 154.

COPRAH, s. The dried kernel of the coco-nut, much used for the expression of its oil, and exported largely from the Malabar ports. The Portuguese probably took the word from the Malayāl. koppara, which is, however, apparently borrowed from the H. khoprā, of the same meaning. The latter is connected by some with khapnā, 'to dry up.' Shakespear however, more probably, connects khoprā, as well as khoprī, 'a skull, a shell,' and khappar, 'a skull,' with Skt. kharpara, having also the meaning of 'skull.' Compare with this a derivation which we have suggested (s.v.) as possible of coco from old Fr. and Span. coque, coco, 'a shell'; and with the slang use of coco there mentioned.

1563.—"And they also dry these cocos ... and these dried ones they call copra, and they carry them to Ormuz, and to the Balaghat."—Garcia, Colloq. f. 68b.

1578.—"The kernel of these cocos is dried in the sun, and is called copra.... From this same copra oil is made in presses, as we make it from olives."—Acosta, 104.

1584.—"Chopra, from Cochin and Malabar...."—Barret, in Hakl. ii. 413.

1598.—"The other Oyle is prest out of the dried Cocus, which is called Copra...."—Linschoten, 101. See also (1602), Couto, Dec. I. liv. iv. cap. 8; (1606) Gouvea, f. 62b; [(1610) Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. ii. 384 (reading kuppara for suppara);] (c. 1690) Rumphius, Herb. Amb. i. 7.

1727.—"That tree (coco-nut) produceth ... Copera, or the Kernels of the Nut dried, and out of these Kernels there is a very clear Oil exprest."—A. Hamilton, i. 307; [ed. 1744, i. 308].

1860.—"The ordinary estimate is that one thousand full-grown nuts of Jaffna will yield 525 pounds of Copra when dried, which in turn will produce 25 gallons of cocoa-nut oil."—Tennent, Ceylon, ii. 531.

1878.—It appears from Lady Brassey's Voyage in the Sunbeam (5th ed. 248) that this word is naturalised in Tahiti.

1883.—"I suppose there are but few English people outside the trade who know what copra is; I will therefore explain:—it is the white pith of the ripe cocoa-nut cut into strips and dried in the sun. This is brought to the trader (at New Britain) in baskets varying from 3 to 20 lbs. in weight; the payment ... was a thimbleful of beads for each pound of copra.... The nut is full of oil, and on reaching Europe the copra is crushed in mills, and the oil pressed from it ... half the oil sold as 'olive-oil' is really from the cocoa-nut."—Wilfred Powell, Wanderings in a Wild Country, p. 37.

CORAL-TREE, s. Erythrina indica, Lam., so called from the rich scarlet colour of its flowers.

[1860.—"There are ... two or three species of the genus Erythrina or Coral Tree. A small species of Erythrina, with reddish flowers, is famous in Buddhist mythology as the tree around which the Devas dance till they are intoxicated in Sudra's (? Indra's) heaven." Mason's Burmah, p. 531.—McMahon, Karens of the Golden Chersonese, p. 11.]

CORCOPALI, s. This is the name of a fruit described by Varthema, Acosta, and other old writers, the identity of which has been the subject of much conjecture. It is in reality the Garcinia indica, Choisy (N. O. Guttiferae), a tree of the Concan and Canara, which belongs to the same genus as the mangosteen, and as the tree affording the gamboge (see CAMBOJA) of commerce. It produces an agreeable, acid, purple fruit, which the Portuguese call brindões. From the seeds a fatty oil is drawn, known as kokun butter. The name in Malayāl. is koḍukka, and this possibly, with the addition of puli, 'acid,' gave rise to the name before us. It is stated in the English Cyclopaedia (Nat. Hist. s.v. Garcinia) that in Travancore the fruit is called by the natives gharka pulli, and in Ceylon goraka. Forbes Watson's 'List of Indian Productions' gives as synonyms of the Garcinia cambogia tree 'karka-puliemaram?' Tam.; 'kurka-pulie,' Mal.; and 'goraka-gass,' Ceyl. [The Madras Gloss. calls it Mate mangosteen, a ship term meaning 'cook-room mangosteen'; Can. murginahuli, 'twisted tamarind'; Mal. punampuli, 'stiff tamarind.'] The Cyclopædia also contains some interesting particulars regarding the uses in Ceylon of the goraka. But this Ceylon tree is a different species (G. Gambogia, Desrous). Notwithstanding its name it does not produce gamboge; its gum being insoluble in water. A figure of G. indica is given in Beddome's Flora Sylvatica, pl. lxxxv. [A full account of Kokam butter will be found in Watt, Econ. Dict. iii. 467 seqq.]

1510.—"Another fruit is found here fashioned like a melon, and it has divisions after that manner, and when it is cut, three or four grains which look like grapes, or birdcherries, are found inside. The tree which bears this fruit is of the height of a quince tree, and forms its leaves in the same manner. This fruit is called Corcopal; it is extremely good for eating, and excellent as a medicine."—Varthema (transl. modified from), Hak. Soc. 167.

1578.—"Carcapuli is a great tree, both lofty and thick; its fruit is in size and aspect like an orange without a rind, all divided in lobes...."—Acosta, Tractado, 357.

(This author gives a tolerable cut of the fruit; there is an inferior plate in Debry, iv. No. xvii.).

1672.—"The plant Carcapuli is peculiar to Malabar.... The ripe fruit is used as ordinary food; the unripe is cut in pieces and dried in the sun, and is then used all the year round to mix in dishes, along with tamarind, having an excellent flavour, of a tempered acidity, and of a very agreeable and refreshing odour. The form is nearly round, of the size of an apple, divided into eight equal lobes of a yellow colour, fragrant and beautiful, and with another little fruitlet attached to the extremity, which is perfectly round," &c., &c.—P. Vincenzo Maria, 356.

CORGE, COORGE, &c., s. A mercantile term for 'a score.' The word is in use among the trading Arabs and others, as well as in India. It is established in Portuguese use apparently, but the Portuguese word is almost certainly of Indian origin, and this is expressly asserted in some Portuguese Dictionaries (e.g. Lacerda's, Lisbon, 1871). Koṛī is used exactly in the same way by natives all over Upper India. Indeed, the vulgar there in numeration habitually say do koṛī, tīn koṛī, for 40, 60, and so forth. The first of our quotations shows the word in a form very closely allied to this, and explaining the transition. Wilson gives Telugu khorjam, "a bale or lot of 20 pieces, commonly called a corge." [The Madras Gloss. gives Can. korji, Tel. khorjam, as meaning either a measure of capacity, about 44 maunds, or a Madras town cloth measure of 20 pieces.] But, unless a root can be traced, this may easily be a corruption of the trade-word. Littré explains corge or courge as "Paquet de toile de coton des Indes"; and Marcel Devic says: "C'est vraisemblablement l'Arabe khordj"—which means a saddlebag, a portmanteau. Both the definition and the etymology seem to miss the essential meaning of corge, which is that of a score, and not that of a packet or bundle, unless by accident.

1510.—"If they be stuffs, they deal by curia, and in like manner if they be jewels. By a curia is understood twenty."—Varthema, 170.

1525.—"A corjá dos quotonyas grandes vale (250) tamgas."—Lembrança, das Cousas da India, 48.

1554.—"The nut and mace when gathered were bartered by the natives for common kinds of cloth, and for each korja of these ... they gave a bahar of mace ... and seven bahars of the nut."—Castanheda, vi. 8.

[1605-6.—"Note the cody or corge is a bondell or set nomber of 20 pieces."—Birdwood, First Letter Book, 80.]

1612.—"White callicos from twentie to fortie Royals the Corge (a Corge being twentie pieces), a great quantitie."—Capt. Saris, in Purchas, i. 347.

1612-13.—"They returning brought doune the Mustraes of everie sort, and the prices demanded for them per Corge."—Dounton, in Purchas, i. 299.

1615.—

"6 pec. whit baftas of 16 and 17 Rs. corg.

6 pec. blew byrams, of 15 Rs. corg.

6 pec. red zelas, of 12 Rs. corg."

Cocks's Diary, i. 75.

1622.—Adam Denton ... admits that he made "90 corge of Pintadoes" in their house at Patani, but not at their charge.—Sainsbury, iii. 42.

1644.—"To the Friars of St. Francis for their regular yearly allowance, a cow every week, 24 candies of wheat, 15 sacks of rice girasol, 2 sacks of sugar, half a candy of sero (qu. sevo, 'tallow,' 'grease,'?) ½ candy of coco-nut oil, 6 maunds of butter, 4 corjas of cotton stuffs, and 25,920 rés for dispensary medicines (mezinhas de bottica)."—Bocarro, MS. f. 217.

c. 1670.—"The Chites ... which are made at Lahor ... are sold by Corges, every Corge consisting of twenty pieces...."—Tavernier, On the Commodities of the Domns. of the Great Mogul, &c., E.T. p. 58; [ed. Ball, ii. 5].

1747.—"Another Sett of Madrass Painters ... being examined regarding what Goods were Remaining in their hands upon the Loss of Madrass, they acknowledge to have had 15 Corge of Chints then under their Performance, and which they acquaint us is all safe ... but as they have lost all their Wax and Colours, they request an Advance of 300 Pagodas for the Purchase of more...."—Consns. Fort St. David, Aug. 13. MS. Records in India Office.

c. 1760.—"At Madras ... 1 gorge is 22 pieces."—Grose, i. 284.

" "No washerman to demand for 1 corge of pieces more than 7 pun of cowries."—In Long, 239.

1784.—In a Calcutta Lottery-list of prizes we find "55 corge of Pearls."—In Seton-Karr, i. 33.

[c. 1809.—"To one korj or 20 pieces of Tunzebs ... 50 rs."—Buchanan Hamilton, Eastern India, i. 398.]

1810.—"I recollect about 29 years back, when marching from Berhampore to Cawnpore with a detachment of European recruits, seeing several coarges (of sheep) bought for their use, at 3 and 3½ rupees! at the latter rate 6 sheep were purchased for a rupee ... five pence each."—Williamson, V. M. i. 293.

1813.—"Corge is 22 at Judda."—Milburn, i. 93.

CORINGA, n.p. Koringa; probably a corruption of Kalinga [see KLING]. [The Madras Gloss. gives the Tel. korangi, 'small cardamoms.'] The name of a seaport in Godāvari Dist. on the northern side of the Delta. ["The only place between Calcutta and Trincomalee where large vessels used to be docked."—Morris, Godavery Man., p. 40.]

CORLE, s. Singh. kōrale, a district.

1726.—"A Coraal is an overseer of a Corle or District...."—Valentijn, Names of Native Officers in the Villages of Ceylon, 1.

CORNAC, s. This word is used, by French writers especially, as an Indian word, and as the equivalent of Mahout (q.v.), or driver of the elephant. Littré defines: "Nom qu'on donne dans les Indes au conducteur d'un éléphant," &c., &c., adding: "Etym. Sanskrit karnikin, éléphant." "Dans les Indes" is happily vague, and the etymology worthless. Bluteau gives Cornâca, but no etymology. In Singhalese Kūrawa = 'Elephant Stud.' (It is not in the Singhalese Dict., but it is in the official Glossary of Terms, &c.), and our friend Dr. Rost suggests Kūrawa-nāyaka, 'Chief of the Kūrawa' as a probable origin. This is confirmed by the form Cournakea in Valentijn, and by another title which he gives as used for the head of the Elephant Stable at Matura, viz. Gaginaicke (Names, &c., p. 11), i.e. Gaji-nāyaka, from Gaja, 'an elephant.' [The N.E.D. remarks that some authorities give for the first part of the word Skt. kari, 'elephant.']

1672.—"There is a certain season of the year when the old elephant discharges an oil at the two sides of the head, and at that season they become like mad creatures, and often break the neck of their carnac or driver."—Baldaeus, Germ. ed. 422. (See MUST.)

1685.—"O cornaca q̃ estava de baixo delle tinha hum laço que metia em hũa das mãos ao bravo."—Ribeiro, f. 49b.

1712.—"The aforesaid author (P. Fr. Gaspar de S. Bernardino in his Itinerary), relates that in the said city (Goa), he saw three Elephants adorned with jewels, adoring the most Holy Sacrament at the Sè Gate on the Octave of Easter, on which day in India they make the procession of Corpus Domini, because of the calm weather. I doubt not that the Cornacas of these animals had taught them to perform these acts of apparent adoration. But at the same time there appears to be Religion and Piety innate in the Elephant."—In Bluteau, s.v. Elephante.

1726.—"After that (at Mongeer) one goes over a great walled area, and again through a gate, which is adorned on either side with a great stone elephant with a Carnak on it."—Valentijn, v. 167.

" "Cournakeas, who stable the new-caught elephants, and tend them."—Valentijn, Names, &c., 5 (in vol. v.).

1727.—"As he was one Morning going to the River to be washed, with his Carnack or Rider on his Back, he chanced to put his Trunk in at the Taylor's Window."—A. Hamilton, ii. 110; [ed. 1744, ii. 109]. This is the only instance of English use that we know (except Mr. Carl Bock's; and he is not an Englishman, though his book is in English). It is the famous story of the Elephant's revenge on the Tailor.

[1831.—"With the same judgment an elephant will task his strength, without human direction. 'I have seen,' says M. D'Obsonville, 'two occupied in beating down a wall which their cornacs (keepers) had desired them to do....'"—Library of Entertaining Knowledge, Quadrupeds, ii. 157.]

1884.—"The carnac, or driver, was quite unable to control the beast, which roared and trumpeted with indignation."—C. Bock, Temples and Elephants, p. 22.

COROMANDEL, n.p. A name which has been long applied by Europeans to the Northern Tamil Country, or (more comprehensively) to the eastern coast of the Peninsula of India from Pt. Calimere northward to the mouth of the Kistna, sometimes to Orissa. It corresponds pretty nearly to the Maabar of Marco Polo and the Mahommedan writers of his age, though that is defined more accurately as from C. Comorin to Nellore.

Much that is fanciful has been written on the origin of this name. Tod makes it Kūrū-mandala, the Realm of the Kūrūs (Trans. R. As. Soc. iii. 157). Bp. Caldwell, in the first edition of his Dravidian Grammar, suggested that European traders might have taken this familiar name from that of Karumaṇal ('black sand'), the name of a small village on the coast north of Madras, which is habitually pronounced and written Coromandel by European residents at Madras. [The same suggestion was made earlier (see Wilks, Hist. Sketches, ed. 1869, i. 5, note)]. The learned author, in his second edition, has given up this suggestion, and has accepted that to which we adhere. But Mr. C. P. Brown, the eminent Telugu scholar, in repeating the former suggestion, ventures positively to assert: "The earliest Portuguese sailors pronounced this Coromandel, and called the whole coast by this name, which was unknown to the Hindus"; a passage containing in three lines several errors. Again, a writer in the Ind. Antiquary (i. 380) speaks of this supposed origin of the name as "pretty generally accepted," and proceeds to give an imaginative explanation of how it was propagated. These etymologies are founded on a corrupted form of the name, and the same remark would apply to Khara-maṇḍalam, the 'hot country,' which Bp. Caldwell mentions as one of the names given, in Telugu, to the eastern coast. Padre Paolino gives the name more accurately as Ciola (i.e. Chola) maṇḍalam, but his explanation of it as meaning the Country of Cholam (or juwārī—Sorghum vulgare, Pers.) is erroneous. An absurd etymology is given by Teixeira (Relacion de Harmuz, 28; 1610). He writes: "Choromãdel or Choro Bãdel, i.e. Rice Port, because of the great export of rice from thence." He apparently compounds H. chaul, chāwal, 'cooked rice' (!) and bandel, i.e. bandar (q.v.) 'harbour.' This is a very good type of the way etymologies are made by some people, and then confidently repeated.

The name is in fact Chôṛamaṇḍala, the Realm of Chôṛa; this being the Tamil form of the very ancient title of the Tamil Kings who reigned at Tanjore. This correct explanation of the name was already given by D'Anville (see Éclaircissemens, p. 117), and by W. Hamilton in 1820 (ii. 405), by Ritter, quoting him in 1836 (Erdkunde, vi. 296); by the late M. Reinaud in 1845 (Relation, &c., i. lxxxvi.); and by Sir Walter Elliot in 1869 (J. Ethnol. Soc. N.S. i. 117). And the name occurs in the forms Cholamaṇḍalam or Solamaṇḍalam on the great Temple inscription of Tanjore (11th century), and in an inscription of A.D. 1101 at a temple dedicated to Varāhasvāmi near the Seven Pagodas. We have other quite analogous names in early inscriptions, e.g. Īlamaṇḍalam (Ceylon), Cheramaṇḍalam, Tondaimaṇḍalam, &c.

Chola, as the name of a Tamil people and of their royal dynasty appears as Choḍa in one of Asoka's inscriptions, and in the Telugu inscriptions of the Chālukya dynasty. Nor can we doubt that the same name is represented by Σῶρα of Ptolemy who reigned at Ἀρκατοῦ (Arcot), Σώρ-ναξ who reigned at Ὄρθουρα (Wariūr), and the Σῶραι νομάδες who dwelt inland from the site of Madras.

The word Soli, as applied to the Tanjore country, occurs in Marco Polo (Bk. iii. ch. 20), showing that Chola in some form was used in his day. Indeed Soli is used in Ceylon. And although the Choromandel of Baldaeus and other Dutch writers is, as pronounced in their language, ambiguous or erroneous, Valentijn (1726) calls the country Sjola, and defines it as extending from Negapatam to Orissa, saying that it derived its name from a certain kingdom, and adding that mandalam is 'kingdom.' So that this respectable writer had already distinctly indicated the true etymology of Coromandel.

Some old documents in Valentijn speak of the 'old city of Coromandel.' It is not absolutely clear what place was so called (probably by the Arabs in their fashion of calling a chief town by the name of the country), but the indications point almost certainly to Negapatam.

The oldest European mention of the name is, we believe, in the Roteiro de Vasco da Gama, where it appears as Chomandarla. The short Italian narrative of Hieronymo da Sto. Stefano is, however, perhaps earlier still, and he curiously enough gives the name in exactly the modern form "Coromandel," though perhaps his C had originally a cedilla (Ramusio, i. f. 345v.). These instances suffice to show that the name was not given by the Portuguese. Da Gama and his companions knew the east coast only by hearsay, and no doubt derived their information chiefly from Mahommedan traders, through their "Moorish" interpreter. That the name was in familiar Mahommedan use at a later date may be seen from Rowlandson's Translation of the Tohfat-ul-Mujāhidīn, where we find it stated that the Franks had built fortresses "at Meelapoor (i.e. Mailapur or San Tomé) and Nagapatam, and other ports of Solmundul," showing that the name was used by them just as we use it (p. 153). Again (p. 154) this writer says that the Mahommedans of Malabar were cut off from extra-Indian trade, and limited "to the ports of Guzerat, the Concan, Solmondul, and the countries about Kaeel." At page 160 of the same work we have mention of "Coromandel and other parts," but we do not know how this is written in the original Arabic. Varthema (1510) has Ciormandel, i.e. Chormandel, but which Eden in his translation (1577, which probably affords the earliest English occurrence of the name) deforms into Cyromandel (f. 396b). [Albuquerque in his Cartas (see p. 135 for a letter of 1513) has Choromandell passim.] Barbosa has in the Portuguese edition of the Lisbon Academy, Charamandel; in the Span. MS. translated by Lord Stanley of Alderley, Cholmendel and Cholmender. D'Alboquerque's Commentaries (1557), Mendez Pinto (c. 1550) and Barros (1553) have Choromandel, and Garcia De Orta (1563) Charamandel. The ambiguity of the ch, soft in Portuguese and Spanish, but hard in Italian, seems to have led early to the corrupt form Coromandel, which we find in Parkes's Mendoza (1589), and Coromandyll, among other spellings, in the English version of Castanheda (1582). Cesare Federici has in the Italian (1587) Chiaramandel (probably pronounced soft in the Venetian manner), and the translation of 1599 has Coromandel. This form thenceforward generally prevails in English books, but not without exceptions. A Madras document of 1672 in Wheeler has Cormandell, and so have the early Bengal records in the India Office; Dampier (1689) has Coromondel (i. 509); Lockyer (1711) has "the Coast of Cormandel"; A. Hamilton (1727) Chormondel (i. 349); ed. 1744, i. 351; and a paper of about 1759, published by Dalrymple, has "Choromandel Coast" (Orient. Repert. i. 120-121). The poet Thomson has Cormandel:

"all that from the tract

Of woody mountains stretch'd through gorgeous Ind

Fall on Cormandel's Coast or Malabar."

Summer.

The Portuguese appear to have adhered in the main to the correcter form Choromandel: e.g. Archivio Port. Oriental, fasc. 3, p. 480, and passim. A Protestant Missionary Catechism, printed at Tranquebar in 1713 for the use of Portuguese schools in India has: "na costa dos Malabaros que se chama Cormandel." Bernier has "la côte de Koromandel" (Amst. ed. ii. 322). W. Hamilton says it is written Choramandel in the Madras Records until 1779, which is substantially correct. In the MS. "List of Persons in the Service of the Rt. Honble. E. I. Company in Fort St. George and other places on the Coast of Choromandell," preserved in the Indian Office, that spelling continues down to 1778. In that year it is changed to Coromandel. In the French translation of Ibn Batuta (iv. 142) we find Coromandel, but this is only the perverse and misleading manner of Frenchmen, who make Julius Caesar cross from "France" to "England." The word is Ma'bar in the original. [Alboquerque (Comm. Hak. Soc. i. 41) speaks of a violent squall under the name of vara de Coromandel.]

CORPORAL FORBES, s. A soldier's grimly jesting name for Cholera Morbus.

1829.—"We are all pretty well, only the regiment is sickly, and a great quantity are in hospital with the Corporal Forbes, which carries them away before they have time to die, or say who comes there."—In Shipp's Memoirs, ii. 218.

CORRAL, s. An enclosure as used in Ceylon for the capture of wild elephants, corresponding to the Keddah of Bengal. The word is Sp. corral, 'a court,' &c., Port. curral, 'a cattle-pen, a paddock.' The Americans have the same word, direct from the Spanish, in common use for a cattle-pen; and they have formed a verb 'to corral,' i.e. to enclose in a pen, to pen. The word kraal applied to native camps and villages at the Cape of Good Hope appears to be the same word introduced there by the Dutch. The word corral is explained by Bluteau: "A receptacle for any kind of cattle, with railings round it and no roof, in which respect it differs from Corte, which is a building with a roof." Also he states that the word is used especially in churches for septum nobilium feminarum, a pen for ladies.

c. 1270.—"When morning came, and I rose and had heard mass, I proclaimed a council to be held in the open space (corral) between my house and that of Montaragon."—Chron. of James of Aragon, tr. by Foster, i. 65.

1404.—"And this mosque and these chapels were very rich, and very finely wrought with gold and azure, and enamelled tiles (azulejos); and within there was a great corral, with trees and tanks of water."—Clavijo, § cv. Comp. Markham, 123.

1672.—"About Mature they catch the Elephants with Coraals" (Coralen, but sing. Coraal).—Baldaeus, Ceylon, 168.

1860.—In Emerson Tennent's Ceylon, Bk. VIII. ch. iv. the corral is fully described.

1880.—"A few hundred pounds expended in houses, and the erection of coralls in the neighbourhood of a permanent stream will form a basis of operations." (In Colorado.)—Fortnightly Rev., Jan., 125.

CORUNDUM, s. This is described by Dana under the species Sapphire, as including the grey and darker coloured opaque crystallised specimens. The word appears to be Indian. Shakespear gives Hind. kuranḍ, Dakh. kurund. Littré attributes the origin to Skt. kuruvinda, which Williams gives as the name of several plants, but also as 'a ruby.' In Telugu we have kuruvindam, and in Tamil kurundam for the substance in present question; the last is probably the direct origin of the term.

c. 1666.—"Cet emeri blanc se trouve par pierres dans un lieu particulier du Roiaume, et s'apelle Corind en langue Telengui."—Thevenot, v. 297.

COSMIN, n.p. This name is given by many travellers in the 16th and 17th centuries to a port on the western side of the Irawadi Delta, which must have been near Bassein, if not identical with it. Till quite recently this was all that could be said on the subject, but Prof. Forchhammer of Rangoon has now identified the name as a corruption of the classical name formerly borne by Bassein, viz. Kusima or Kusumanagara, a city founded about the beginning of the 5th century. Kusima-maṇḍala was the western province of the Delta Kingdom which we know as Pegu. The Burmese corrupted the name of Kusuma into Kusmein and Kothein, and Alompra after his conquest of Pegu in the middle of the 18th century, changed it to Bathein. So the facts are stated substantially by Forchhammer (see Notes on Early Hist. and Geog. of Br. Burma, No. 2, p. 12); though familiar and constant use of the word Persaim, which appears to be a form of Bassein, in the English writings of 1750-60, published by Dalrymple (Or. Repertory, passim), seems hardly consistent with this statement of the origin of Bassein. [Col. Temple (Ind. Ant. xxii. 19 seqq.; J. R. A. S. 1893, p. 885) disputes the above explanation. According to him the account of the change of name by Alompra is false history; the change from initial p to k is not isolated, and the word Bassein itself does not date beyond 1780.]

The last publication in which Cosmin appears is the "Draught of the River Irrawaddy or Irabatty," made in 1796, by Ensign T. Wood of the Bengal Engineers, which accompanies Symes's Account (London, 1800). This shows both Cosmin, and Persaim or Bassein, some 30 or 40 miles apart. But the former was probably taken from an older chart, and from no actual knowledge.

c. 1165.—"Two ships arrived at the harbour Kusuma in Aramana, and took in battle and laid waste country from the port Sapattota, over which Kurttipurapam was governor."—J.A.S. Bengal, vol. xli. pt. i. p. 198.

1516.—"Anrique Leme set sail right well equipped, with 60 Portuguese. And pursuing his voyage he captured a junk belonging to Pegu merchants, which he carried off towards Martaban, in order to send it with a cargo of rice to Malaca, and so make a great profit. But on reaching the coast he could not make the port of Martaban, and had to make the mouth of the River of Pegu.... Twenty leagues from the bar there is another city called Cosmim, in which merchants buy and sell and do business...."—Correa, ii. 474.

1545.—"... and 17 persons only out of 83 who were on board, being saved in the boat, made their way for 5 days along the coast; intending to put into the river of Cosmim, in the kingdom of Pegu, there to embark for India (i.e. Goa) in the king's lacker ship...."—F. M. Pinto, ch. cxlvii.

1554.—"Cosmym ... the currency is the same in this port that is used in Peguu, for this is a seaport by which one goes to Peguu."—A. Nunez, 38.

1566.—"In a few days they put into Cosmi, a port of Pegu, where presently they gave out the news, and then all the Talapoins came in haste, and the people who were dwelling there."—Couto, Dec. viii. cap. 13.

c. 1570.—"They go it vp the riuer in foure daies ... with the flood, to a City called Cosmin ... whither the Customer of Pegu comes to take the note or markes of euery man.... Nowe from Cosmin to the citie Pegu ... it is all plaine and a goodly Country, and in 8 dayes you may make your voyage."—Cæsar Frederike, in Hakl. ii. 366-7.

1585.—"So the 5th October we came to Cosmi, the territory of which, from side to side is full of woods, frequented by parrots, tigers, boars, apes, and other like creatures."—G. Balbi, f. 94.

1587.—"We entered the barre of Negrais, which is a braue barre, and hath 4 fadomes water where it hath least. Three dayes after we came to Cosmin, which is a very pretie towne, and standeth very pleasantly, very well furnished with all things ... the houses are all high built, set vpon great high postes ... for feare of the Tygers, which be very many."—R. Fitch, in Hakl. ii. 390.

1613.—"The Portuguese proceeded without putting down their arms to attack the Banha Dela's (position), and destroyed it entirely, burning his factory and compelling him to flee to the kingdom of Prom, so that there now remained in the whole realm of Pegu only the Banho of Cosmim (a place adjoining Negrais) calling himself vassal of the King of Arracan."—Bocarro, 132.

COSPETIR, n.p. This is a name which used greatly to perplex us on the 16th and 17th century maps of India, e.g. in Blaeu's Atlas (c. 1650), appearing generally to the west of the Ganges Delta. Considering how the geographical names of different ages and different regions sometimes get mixed up in old maps, we at one time tried to trace it to the Κασπάτυρος of Herodotus, which was certainly going far afield! The difficulty was solved by the sagacity of the deeply-lamented Prof. Blochmann, who has pointed out (J. As. Soc. Beng., xlii. pt. i. 224) that Cospetir represents the Bengali genitive of Gajpati, 'Lord of Elephants,' the traditional title of the Kings of Orissa. The title Gajpati was that one of the Four Great Kings who, according to Buddhist legend, divided the earth among them in times when there was no Chakravartti, or Universal Monarch (see CHUCKERBUTTY). Gajapati rules the South; Aśvapati (Lord of Horses) the North; Chhatrapati (Lord of the Umbrella) the West; Narapati (Lord of Men) the East. In later days these titles were variously appropriated (see Lassen, ii. 27 seq.). And Akbar, as will be seen below, adopted these names, with others of his own devising, for the suits of his pack of cards. There is a Raja Gajpati, a chief Zamindar of the country north of Patna, who is often mentioned in the wars of Akbar (see Elliot, v. 399 and passim, vi. 55, &c.) who is of course not to be confounded with the Orissa Prince.

c. 700 (?).—"In times when there was no Chakravartti King ... Chen-pu (Samba-dvīpa) was divided among four lords. The southern was the Lord of Elephants (Gajapati), &c...."—Introd. to Si-yu-ki (in Pèlerins Bouddh.), ii. lxxv.

1553.—"On the other or western side, over against the Kingdom of Orixa, the Bengalis (os Bengalos) hold the Kingdom of Cospetir, whose plains at the time of the risings of the Ganges are flooded after the fashion of those of the River Nile."—Barros, Dec. IV. ix. cap. I.

This and the next passage compared show that Barros was not aware that Cospetir and Gajpati were the same.

" "Of this realm of Bengala, and of other four realms its neighbours, the Gentoos and Moors of those parts say that God has given to each its peculiar gift: to Bengala infantry numberless; to the Kingdom of Orixa elephants; to that of Bisnaga men most skilful in the use of sword and shield; to the Kingdom of Dely multitudes of cities and towns; and to Cou a vast number of horses. And so naming them in this order they give them these other names, viz.: Espaty, Gaspaty, Noropaty, Buapaty, and Coapaty."—Barros, ibid. [These titles appear to be Aśvapati, "Lord of Horses"; Gajapati; Narapati, "Lord of Men"; Bhūpati, "Lord of Earth"; Gopati, "Lord of Cattle."]

c. 1590.—"His Majesty (Akbar) plays with the following suits of cards. 1st. Ashwapati, the lord of horses. The highest card represents a King on horseback, resembling the King of Dihli.... 2nd. Gajpati, the King whose power lies in the number of his elephants, as the ruler of Oṛisah.... 3rd. Narpati, a King whose power lies in his infantry, as is the case with the rulers of Bijápúr," &c.—Āīn, i. 306.

c. 1590.—"Orissa contains one hundred and twenty-nine brick forts, subject to the command of Gujeputty."—Ayeen (by Gladwin), ed. 1800, ii. 11; [ed. Jarrett, ii. 126].

1753.—"Herodote fait aussi mention d'une ville de Caspatyrus située vers le haut du fleuve Indus, ce que Mercator a cru correspondre à une denomination qui existe dans la Géographie moderne, sans altération marquée, savoir Cospetir. La notion qu'on a de Cospetir se tire de l'historien Portugais Jean de Barros ... la situation n'est plus celle qui convient à Caspatyrus."—D'Anville, 4 seq.

COSS, s. The most usual popular measure of distance in India, but like the mile in Europe, and indeed like the mile within the British Islands up to a recent date, varying much in different localities.

The Skt. word is krośa, which also is a measure of distance, but originally signified 'a call,' hence the distance at which a man's call can be heard.

In the Pali vocabulary called Abhidhānappadīpīkā, which is of the 12th century, the word appears in the form koss; and nearly this, kos, is the ordinary Hindi. Kuroh is a Persian form of the word, which is often found in Mahommedan authors and in early travellers. These latter (English) often write course. It is a notable circumstance that, according to Wrangell, the Yakuts of N. Siberia reckon distance by kiosses (a word which, considering the Russian way of writing Turkish and Persian words, must be identical with kos). With them this measure is "indicated by the time necessary to cook a piece of meat." Kioss is = to about 5 versts, or 1⅔ miles, in hilly or marshy country, but on plain ground to 7 versts, or 2⅓ miles. The Yakuts are a Turk people, and their language is a Turki dialect. The suggestion arises whether the form kos may not have come with the Mongols into India, and modified the previous krośa? But this is met by the existence of the word kos in Pali, as mentioned above.

In ancient Indian measurement, or estimation, 4 krośas went to the yojana. Sir H. M. Elliot deduced from distances in the route of the Chinese pilgrim Fa-hian that the yojana of his age was as nearly as possible 7 miles. Cunningham makes it 7½ or 8, Fergusson 6; but taking Elliot's estimate as a mean, the ancient kos would be 1¾ miles.

The kos as laid down in the Āīn [ed. Jarrett, iii. 414] was of 5000 gaz [see GUDGE]. The official decision of the British Government has assigned the length of Akbar's Ilāhī gaz as 33 inches, and this would make Akbar's kos = 2 m. 4 f. 183⅓ yards. Actual measurement of road distances between 5 pair of Akbar's kos-minārs, near Delhi, gave a mean of 2 m. 4 f. 158 yards.

In the greater part of the Bengal Presidency the estimated kos is about 2 miles, but it is much less as you approach the N.W. In the upper part of the Doab, it is, with fair accuracy, 1¼ miles. In Bundelkhand again it is nearly 3 m. (Carnegy), or, according to Beames, even 4 m. [In Madras it is 2¼ m., and in Mysore the Sultānī kos is about 4 m.] Reference may be made on this subject to Mr. Thomas's ed. of Prinsep's Essays, ii. 129; and to Mr. Beames's ed. of Elliot's Glossary ("The Races of the N.-W. Provinces," ii. 194). The latter editor remarks that in several parts of the country there are two kinds of kos, a pakkā and a kachchā kos, a double system which pervades all the weights and measures of India; and which has prevailed also in many other parts of the world [see PUCKA].

c. 500.—"A gavyūtih (or league—see GOW) is two krosas."—Amarakosha, ii. 2, 18.

c. 600.—"The descendant of Kukulstha (i.e. Rāma) having gone half a krośa...."—Raghuvamsā, xiii. 79.

c. 1340.—"As for the mile it is called among the Indians al-Kurūh."—Ibn Batuta, iii. 95.

" "The Sultan gave orders to assign me a certain number of villages.... They were at a distance of 16 Kurūhs from Dihli."—Ibn Batuta, 388.

c. 1470.—"The Sultan sent ten viziers to encounter him at a distance of ten Kors (a kor is equal to 10 versts)...."—Ath. Nikitin, 26, in India in the XVth Cent.

" "From Chivil to Jooneer it is 20 Kors; from Jooneer to Beder 40; from Beder to Kulongher, 9 Kors; from Beder to Koluberg, 9."—Ibid. p. 12.

1528.—"I directed Chikmâk Beg, by a writing under the royal hand and seal, to measure the distance from Agra to Kâbul; that at every nine kos he should raise a minâr or turret, twelve gez in height, on the top of which he was to construct a pavilion...."—Baber, 393.

1537.—"... that the King of Portugal should hold for himself and all his descendants, from this day forth for aye, the Port of the City of Mangualor (in Guzerat) with all its privileges, revenues, and jurisdiction, with 2½ coucees round about...."—Treaty in S. Botelho, Tombo, 225.

c. 1550.—"Being all unmanned by their love of Raghoba, they had gone but two Kos by the close of day, then scanning land and water they halted."—Rāmāyana of Tulsī Dās, by Growse, 1878, p. 119.

[1604.—"At the rate of four coss (Coces) the league by the calculation of the Moors."—Couto, Dec. XII., Bk. I. cap. 4.]

1616.—"The three and twentieth arrived at Adsmeere, 219 Courses from Brampoore, 418 English miles, the Courses being longer than towards the Sea."—Sir T. Roe, in Purchas, i. 541; [Hak. Soc. i. 105].

" "The length of these forenamed Provinces is North-West to South-East, at the least 1000 Courses, every Indian Course being two English miles."—Terry, in Purchas, ii. 1468.

1623.—"The distance by road to the said city they called seven cos, or corū, which is all one; and every cos or corū is half a ferseng or league of Persia, so that it will answer to a little less than two Italian [English] miles."—P. della Valle, ii. 504; [Hak. Soc. i. 23].

1648.—"... which two Coss are equivalent to a Dutch mile."—Van Twist, Gen. Beschrijv. 2.

1666.—"... une cosse qui est la mesure des Indes pour l'espace des lieux, est environ d'une demi-lieue."—Thevenot, v. 12.

COSSACK, s. It is most probable that this Russian term for the military tribes of various descent on what was the S. frontier of the Empire has come originally from ḳazzāḳ, a word of obscure origin, but which from its adoption in Central Asia we may venture to call Turki. [Schuyler, Turkistan, i. 8.] It appears in Pavet de Courteille's Dict. Turk-Oriental as "vagabond; aventurier ...; onagre que ses compagnons chassent loin d'eux." But in India it became common in the sense of 'a predatory horseman' and freebooter.

1366.—"On receipt of this bad news I was much dispirited, and formed to myself three plans; 1st. That I should turn Cossack, and never pass 24 hours in one place, and plunder all that came to hand."—Mem. of Timūr, tr. by Stewart, p. 111.

[1609.—In a Letter from the Company to the factors at Bantam mention is made of one "Sophony Cosuke," or as he is also styled in the Court Minutes "the Russe."—Birdwood, First Letter Book, 288.]

1618.—"Cossacks (Cosacchi) ... you should know, is not the name of a nation, but of a collection of people of various countries and sects (though most of them Christians) who without wives or children, and without horses, acknowledge obedience to no prince; but dwelling far from cities in fastnesses among the woods or mountains, or rivers ... live by the booty of their swords ... employ themselves in perpetual inroads and cruisings by land and sea to the detriment of their nearest enemies, i.e. of the Turks and other Mahometans.... As I have heard from them, they promise themselves one day the capture of Constantinople, saying that Fate has reserved for them the liberation of that country, and that they have clear prophecies to that effect."—P. della Valle, i. 614 seq.

c. 1752.—"His kuzzaks ... were likewise appointed to surround and plunder the camp of the French...."—Hist. of Hydur Naik, tr. by Miles, p. 36.

1813.—"By the bye, how do Clarke's friends the Cossacks, who seem to be a band of Circassians and other Sarmatians, come to be called by a name which seems to belong to a great Toorkee tribe on the banks of the Jaxartes? Kuzzauk is used about Delhi for a highwayman. Can it be (as I have heard) an Arabic Mobaligh (exaggeration) from kizk (plunder) applied to all predatory tribes?"—Elphinstone, in Life, i. 264.

1819.—"Some dashing leader may ... gather a predatory band round his standard, which, composed as it would be of desperate adventurers, and commanded by a professional Kuzzauk, might still give us an infinite deal of trouble."—Ibid. ii. 68.

c. 1823.—"The term Cossack is used because it is the one by which the Mahrattas describe their own species of warfare. In their language the word Cossâkee (borrowed like many more of their terms from the Moghuls) means predatory."—Malcolm, Central India, 3d ed. i. 69.

COSSID, s. A courier or running messenger; Arab. ḳāṣid.

1682.—"I received letters by a Cossid from Mr. Johnson and Mr. Catchpoole, dated ye 18th instant from Muxoodavad, Bulchund's residence."—Hedges, Diary, Dec. 20th; [Hak. Soc. i. 58].

[1687.—"Haveing detained the Cossetts 4 or 5 Daies."—Ibid. ii. lxix.]

1690.—"Therefore December the 2d. in the evening, word was brought by the Broker to our President, of a Cosset's Arrival with Letters from Court to the Vacinavish, injoyning our immediate Release."—Ovington, 416.

1748.—"The Tappies [ḍâk runners] on the road to Ganjam being grown so exceedingly indolent that he has called them in, being convinced that our packets may be forwarded much faster by Cassids [mounted postmen]."—In Long, p. 3.

c. 1759.—"For the performance of this arduous ... duty, which required so much care and caution, intelligencers of talent, and Kasids or messengers, who from head to foot were eyes and ears ... were stationed in every quarter of the country."—H. of Hydur Naik, 126.

1803.—"I wish that you would open a communication by means of cossids with the officer commanding a detachment of British troops in the fort of Songhur."—Wellington, ii. 159.

COSSIMBAZAR, n.p. Properly Kāsimbāzār. A town no longer existing, which closely adjoined the city of Murshīdābād, but preceded the latter. It was the site of one of the most important factories of the East India Company in their mercantile days, and was indeed a chief centre of all foreign trade in Bengal during the 17th century. ["In 1658 the Company established a factory at Cossimbazaar, 'Castle Bazaar.'"—(Birdwood Rep. on Old Rec. 219.)] Fryer (1673) calls it Castle Buzzar (p. 38).

1665.—"That evening I arrived at Casen-Basar, where I was welcom'd by Menheir Arnold van Wachtendonk, Director of all Holland-Factories in Bengal."—Tavernier, E.T., ii. 56; [ed. Ball, i. 131. Bernier (E.T. p. 141; ed. Constable, 440) has Kassem-Bazar; in the map, p. 454, Kasembazar.]

1676.—"Kassembasar, a Village in the Kingdom of Bengala, sends abroad every year two and twenty thousand Bales of Silk; every Bale weighing a hunder'd pound."—Tavernier, E.T. ii. 126; [Ball, ed. ii. 2].

[1678.—"Cassumbazar." See quotation under DADNY.]

COSSYA, n.p. More properly Kāsia, but now officially Khāsi; in the language of the people themselves kī-Kāsī, the first syllable being a prefix denoting the plural. The name of a hill people of Mongoloïd character, occupying the mountains immediately north of Silhet in Eastern Bengal. Many circumstances in relation to this people are of high interest, such as their practice, down to our own day, of erecting rude stone monuments of the menhir and dolmen kind, their law of succession in the female line, &c. Shillong, the modern seat of administration of the Province of Assam, and lying midway between the proper valley of Assam and the plain of Silhet, both of which are comprehended in that government, is in the Kāsia country, at a height of 4,900 feet above the sea. The Kāsias seem to be the people encountered near Silhet by Ibn Batuta as mentioned in the quotation:

c. 1346.—"The people of these mountains resemble Turks (i.e. Tartars), and are very strong labourers, so that a slave of their race is worth several of another nation."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 216. [See KHASYA.]

1780.—"The first thing that struck my observation on entering the arena was the similarity of the dresses worn by the different tribes of Cusseahs or native Tartars, all dressed and armed agreeable to the custom of the country or mountain from whence they came."—Hon. R. Lindsay, in Lives of the Lindsays, iii. 182.

1789.—"We understand the Cossyahs who inhabit the hills to the north-westward of Sylhet, have committed some very daring acts of violence."—In Seton-Karr, ii. 218.

1790.—"Agreed and ordered, that the Trade of Sylhet ... be declared entirely free to all the natives ... under the following Regulations:—1st. That they shall not supply the Cossyahs or other Hill-people with Arms, Ammunition or other articles of Military store...."—In Seton-Karr, ii. 31.

COSTUS. (See PUTCHOCK.)

COT, s. A light bedstead. There is a little difficulty about the true origin of this word. It is universal as a sea-term, and in the South of India. In Northern India its place has been very generally taken by charpoy (q.v.), and cot, though well understood, is not in such prevalent European use as it formerly was, except as applied to barrack furniture, and among soldiers and their families. Words with this last characteristic have very frequently been introduced from the south. There are, however, both in north and south, vernacular words which may have led to the adoption of the term cot in their respective localities. In the north we have H. khāṭ and khaṭwā, both used in this sense, the latter also in Sanskrit; in the south, Tam. and Malayāl. kaṭṭil, a form adopted by the Portuguese. The quotations show, however, no Anglo-Indian use of the word in any form but cot.

The question of origin is perhaps further perplexed by the use of quatre as a Spanish term in the West Indies (see Tom Cringle below). A Spanish lady tells us that catre, or catre de tigera ("scissors-cot") is applied to a bedstead with X-trestles. Catre is also common Portuguese for a wooden bedstead, and is found as such in a dictionary of 1611. These forms, however, we shall hold to be of Indian origin; unless it can be shown that they are older in Spain and Portugal than the 16th century. The form quatre has a curious analogy (probably accidental) to chārpāī.

1553.—"The Camarij (Zamorin) who was at the end of a house, placed on a bedstead, which they call catle...."—De Barros, Dec. I. liv. iv. cap. viii.

1557.—"The king commanded his men to furnish a tent on that spot, where the interview was to take place, all carpeted inside with very rich tapestries, and fitted with a sofa (catle) covered over with a silken cloth."—Alboquerque, Hak. Soc. ii. 204.

1566.—"The king was set on a catel (the name of a kind of field bedstead) covered with a cloth of white silk and gold...."—Damian de Goës, Chron. del R. Dom Emanuel, 48.

1600.—"He retired to the hospital of the sick and poor, and there had his cell, the walls of which were of coarse palm-mats. Inside there was a little table, and on it a crucifix of the wood of St. Thomé, covered with a cloth, and a breviary. There was also a catre of coir, with a stone for pillow; and this completes the inventory of the furniture of that house."—Lucena, V. do P. F. Xavier, 199.

[1613.—"Here hired a catele and 4 men to have carried me to Agra."—Danvers, Letters, i. 277.

[1634.—"The better sort sleepe upon cots, or Beds two foot high, matted or done with girth-web."—Sir T. Herbert, Trav. 149. N.E.D.]

1648.—"Indian bedsteads or Cadels."—Van Twist, 64.

1673.—"... where did sit the King in State on a Cott or Bed."—Fryer, 18.

1678.—"Upon being thus abused the said Serjeant Waterhouse commanded the corporal Edward Short, to tie Savage down on his cot."—In Wheeler, i. 106.

1685.—"I hired 12 stout fellows ... to carry me as far as Lar in my cott (Palankeen fashion)...."—Hedges, Diary, July 29; [Hak. Soc. i. 203].

1688.—"In the East Indies, at Fort St. George, also Men take their Cotts or little Field-Beds and put them into the Yards, and go to sleep in the Air."—Dampier's Voyages, ii. Pt. iii.

1690.—"... the Cot or Bed that was by ...."—Ovington, 211.

1711.—In Canton Price Current: "Bamboo Cotts for Servants each ... 1 mace."—Lockyer, 150.

1768-71.—"We here found the body of the deceased, lying upon a kadel, or couch."—Stavorinus, E.T., i. 442.

1794.—"Notice is hereby given that sealed proposals will be received ... for supplying ... the different General Hospitals with clothing, cotts, and bedding."—In Seton-Karr, ii. 115.

1824.—"I found three of the party insisted upon accompanying me the first stage, and had despatched their camp-cots."—Seely, Ellora, ch. iii.

c. 1830.—"After being ... furnished with food and raiment, we retired to our quatres, a most primitive sort of couch, with a piece of canvas stretched over it."—Tom Cringle's Log, ed. 1863, p. 100.

1872.—"As Badan was too poor to have a khāt, that is, a wooden bedstead with tester frames and mosquito curtains."—Govinda Samanta, i. 140.

COTAMALUCO, n.p. The title by which the Portuguese called the kings of the Golconda Dynasty, founded, like the other Mahommedan kingdoms of S. India, on the breaking up of the Bāhmani kingdom of the Deccan. It was a corruption of Ḳuṭb-ul-Mulk, the designation of the founder, retained as the style of the dynasty by Mahommedans as well as Portuguese (see extract from Akbar-nāma under IDALCAN).

1543.—"When Idalcan heard this reply he was in great fear ... and by night made his escape with some in whom he trusted (very few they were), and fled in secret, leaving his family and his wives, and went to the territories of the Izam Maluco (see NIZAMALUCO), his neighbour and friend ... and made matrimonial ties with the Izam Maluco, marrying his daughter, on which they arranged together; and there also came into this concert the Madremaluco, and Cotamaluco, and the Verido, who are other great princes, marching with Izam Maluco, and connected with him by marriage."—Correa, iv. 313 seq.

1553.—"The Captains of the Kingdom of the Decan added to their proper names other honorary ones which they affected more, one calling himself Iniza Malmulco, which is as much as to say 'Spear of the State,' Cota Malmulco, i.e. 'Fortress of the State,' Adelchan, 'Lord of Justice'; and we, corrupting these names, call them Nizamaluco, Cotamaluco, and Hidalchan."—Barros, IV. iv. 16; [and see Linschoten, Hak. Soc. i. 172]. These same explanations are given by Garcia de Orta (Colloquios, f. 36v), but of course the two first are quite wrong. Iniza Malmulco, as Barros here writes it, is Ar. An-Niẓām ul Mulk, "The Administrator of the State," not from P. neza, "a spear." Cotamaluco is Ḳuṭb-ul-Mulk, Ar. "the Pivot (or Pole-star) of the State," not from H. koṭā, "a fort."

COTIA, s. A fast-sailing vessel, with two masts and lateen sails, employed on the Malabar coast. Koṭṭiya is used in Malayāl.; [the Madras Gloss. writes the word kotyeh, and says that it comes from Ceylon;] yet the word hardly appears to be Indian. Bluteau however appears to give it as such (iii. 590).

1552.—"Among the little islands of Goa he embarked on board his fleet, which consisted of about a dozen cotias, taking with him a good company of soldiers."—Castanheda, iii. 25. See also pp. 47, 48, 228, &c.

c. 1580.—"In the gulf of Naguná ... I saw some Cutiás."—Primor e Honra, &c., f. 73.

1602.—"... embarking his property on certain Cotias, which he kept for that purpose."—Couto, Dec. IV. liv. i. cap. viii.

COTTA, s. H. kaṭṭhā. A small land-measure in use in Bengal and Bahar, being the twentieth part of a Bengal bīghā (see BEEGAH), and containing eighty square yards.

[1767.—"The measurement of land in Bengal is thus estimated: 16 Gundas make 1 Cotta; 20 Cottas, 1 Bega, or about 16,000 square feet."—Verelst, View of Bengal, 221, note.]

1784.—"... An upper roomed House standing upon about 5 cottahs of ground...."—Seton-Karr, i. 34.

COTTON, s. We do not seem to be able to carry this familiar word further back than the Ar. ḳuṭn, ḳuṭun, or ḳuṭunn, having the same meaning, whence Prov. coton, Port. cotão, It. cotone, Germ. Kattun. The Sp. keeps the Ar. article, algodon, whence old Fr. auqueton and hoqueton, a coat quilted with cotton. It is only by an odd coincidence that Pliny adduces a like-sounding word in his account of the arbores lanigerae: "ferunt mali cotonei amplitudine cucurbitas, quae maturitate ruptae ostendunt lanuginis pilas, ex quibus vestes pretioso linteo faciunt"—xii. 10 (21). [On the use and cultivation of cotton in the ancient world, see the authorities collected by Frazer, Pausanias, iii. 470, seqq.]

[1830.—"The dress of the great is on the Persian model; it consists of a shirt of kuttaun (a kind of linen of a wide texture, the best of which is imported from Aleppo, and the common sort from Persia)...."—Elphinstone's Caubul, i. 351.]

COTTON-TREE, SILK. (See SEEMUL.)

COTWAL, CUTWAUL, s. A police-officer; superintendent of police; native town magistrate. P. kotwāl, 'a seneschal, a commandant of a castle or fort.' This looks as if it had been first taken from an Indian word, koṭwālā; [Skt. koṭha- or koshṭha pālā 'castle-porter']; but some doubt arises whether it may not have been a Turki term. In Turki it is written kotāul, kotāwal, and seems to be regarded by both Vambéry and Pavet de Courteille as a genuine Turki word. V. defines it as: "Ketaul, garde de forteresse, chef de la garnison; nom d'un tribu d'Ozbegs;" P. "kotāwal, kotāwāl, gardien d'une citadelle." There are many Turki words of analogous form, as ḳarāwal, 'a vidette,' baḳāwal, 'a table-steward,' yasāwal, 'a chamberlain,' tangāwal, 'a patrol,' &c. In modern Bokhara Kataul is a title conferred on a person who superintends the Amir's buildings (Khanikoff, 241). On the whole it seems probable that the title was originally Turki, but was shaped by Indian associations.

[The duties of the Kotwāl, as head of the police, are exhaustively laid down in the Āīn (Jarrett, ii. 41). Amongst other rules: "He shall amputate the hand of any who is the pot-companion of an executioner, and the finger of such as converse with his family."] The office of Kotwāl in Western and Southern India, technically speaking, ceased about 1862, when the new police system (under Act, India, V. of 1861, and corresponding local Acts) was introduced. In Bengal the term has been long obsolete. [It is still in use in the N.W.P. to designate the chief police officer of one of the larger cities or cantonments.]

c. 1040.—"Bu-Ali Kotwal (of Ghazni) returned from the Khilj expedition, having adjusted matters."—Baihaki, in Elliot, ii. 151.

1406-7.—"They fortified the city of Astarābād, where Abul Leïth was placed with the rank of Kotwal."—Abdurrazāk, in Not. et Extr. xiv. 123.

1553.—"The message of the Camorij arriving, Vasco da Gama landed with a dozen followers, and was received by a noble person whom they called Catual...."—Barros, Dec. I. liv. iv. ch. viii.

1572.—

"Na praya hum regedor do Regno estava

Que na sua lingua Catual se chama."

Camões, vii. 44.

By Burton:

"There stood a Regent of the Realm ashore,

a chief, in native parlance 'Cat'ual' hight."

also the plural:

"Mas aquelles avaros Catuais

Que o Gentilico povo governavam."

Ibid. viii. 56.

1616.—Roe has Cutwall passim; [e.g. Hak. Soc. i. 90. &c.].

1727.—"Mr. Boucher being bred a Druggist in his youth, presently knew the Poison, and carried it to the Cautwaul or Sheriff, and showed it."—A. Hamilton, ii. 199. [In ed. 1744, ii. 199, cautwal].

1763.—"The Catwal is the judge and executor of justice in criminal cases."—Orme (ed. 1803), i. 26.

1812.—"... an officer retained from the former system, denominated cutwal, to whom the general police of the city and regulation of the market was entrusted."—Fifth Report, 44.

1847.—"The Kutwal ... seems to have done his duty resolutely and to the best of his judgment."—G. O. by Sir C. Napier, 121.

[1880.—"The son of the Raja's Kotwal was the prince's great friend."—Miss Stokes, Indian Fairy Tales, 209.]

COUNSILLEE, s. This is the title by which the natives in Calcutta generally designate English barristers. It is the same use as the Irish one of Counsellor, and a corruption of that word.

COUNTRY, adj. This term is used colloquially, and in trade, as an adjective to distinguish articles produced in India (generally with a sub-indication of disparagement), from such as are imported, and especially imported from Europe. Indeed Europe (q.v.) was, and still occasionally is, used as the contrary adjective. Thus, 'country harness' is opposed to 'Europe harness'; 'country-born' people are persons of European descent, but born in India; 'country horses' are Indian-bred in distinction from Arabs, Walers (q.v.), English horses, and even from 'stud-breds,' which are horses reared in India, but from foreign sires; 'country ships' are those which are owned in Indian ports, though often officered by Europeans; country bottled beer is beer imported from England in cask and bottled in India; ['country-wound' silk is that reeled in the crude native fashion]. The term, as well as the H. desī, of which country is a translation, is also especially used for things grown or made in India as substitutes for certain foreign articles. Thus the Cicca disticha in Bombay gardens is called 'Country gooseberry'; Convolvulus batatas, or sweet potato, is sometimes called the 'country potato.' It was, equally with our quotidian root which has stolen its name, a foreigner in India, but was introduced and familiarised at a much earlier date. Thus again desī bādām, or 'country almond,' is applied in Bengal to the nut of the Terminalia Catappa. On desī, which is applied, among other things, to silk, the great Ritter (dormitans Homerus) makes the odd remark that desī is just Seide reversed! But it would be equally apposite to remark that Trigon-ometry is just Country-ometry reversed!

Possibly the idiom may have been taken up from the Portuguese, who also use it, e.g. 'açafrao da terra,' 'country saffron,' i.e. safflower, otherwise called bastard saffron, the term being sometimes applied to turmeric. But the source of the idiom is general, as the use of desī shows. Moreover the Arabic baladī, having the same literal meaning, is applied in a manner strictly analogous, including the note of disparagement, insomuch that it has been naturalised in Spanish as indicating 'of little or no value.' Illustrations of the mercantile use of beledi (i.e. baladī) will be found in a note to Marco Polo, 2nd ed. ii. 370. For the Spanish use we may quote the Dict. of Cobarruvias (1611): "Baladi, the thing which is produced at less cost, and is of small duration and profit." (See also Dozy and Engelmann, 232 seq.)

1516.—"Beledyn ginger grows at a distance of two or three leagues all round the city of Calicut.... In Bengal there is also much ginger of the country (Gengivre Beledi)."—Barbosa, 221 seq.

[1530.—"I at once sent some of these country men (homeens valadis) to the Thanas."—Alboquerque, Cartas, p. 148.]

1582.—"The Nayres maye not take anye Countrie women, and they also doe not marrie."—Castañeda, (by N. L.), f. 36.

[1608.—"The Country here are at dissension among themselves."—Danvers, Letters, i. 20.]

1619.—"The twelfth in the morning Master Methwold came from Messalipatam in one of the Countrey Boats."—Pring, in Purchas, i. 638.

1685.—"The inhabitants of the Gentoo Town, all in arms, bringing with them also elephants, kettle-drums, and all the Country music."—Wheeler, i. 140.

1747.—"It is resolved and ordered that a Serjeant with two Troopers and a Party of Country Horse, to be sent to Markisnah Puram to patroll...."—Ft. St. David Council of War, Dec. 25. MS. Records in India Office.

1752.—"Captain Clive did not despair ... and at ten at night sent one Shawlum, a serjeant who spoke the country languages, with a few sepoys to reconnoitre."—Orme, i. 211 (ed. 1803).

1769.—"I supped last night at a Country Captain's; where I saw for the first time a specimen of the Indian taste."—Teignmouth, Mem. i. 15.

1775.—"The Moors in what is called Country ships in East India, have also their chearing songs; at work in hoisting, or in their boats a rowing."—Forrest, V. to N. Guinea, 305.

1793.—"The jolting springs of country-made carriages, or the grunts of country-made carriers, commonly called palankeen-boys."—Hugh Boyd, 146.

1809.—"The Rajah had a drawing of it made for me, on a scale, by a country Draftsman of great merit."—Ld. Valentia, i. 356.

" "... split country peas...."—Maria Graham, 25.

1817.—"Since the conquest (of Java) a very extensive trade has been carried on by the English in country ships."—Raffles, H. of Java, i. 210.

[1882.—"There was a country-born European living in a room in the bungalow."—Sanderson, Thirteen Years, 256.]

COUNTRY-CAPTAIN, s. This is in Bengal the name of a peculiar dry kind of curry, often served as a breakfast dish. We can only conjecture that it was a favourite dish at the table of the skippers of 'country ships,' who were themselves called 'country captains,' as in our first quotation. In Madras the term is applied to a spatchcock dressed with onions and curry stuff, which is probably the original form. [Riddell says: "Country-captain.—Cut a fowl in pieces; shred an onion small and fry it brown in butter; sprinkle the fowl with fine salt and curry powder and fry it brown; then put it into a stewpan with a pint of soup; stew it slowly down to a half and serve it with rice" (Ind. Dom. Econ. 176).]

1792.—"But now, Sir, a Country Captain is not to be known from an ordinary man, or a Christian, by any certain mark whatever."—Madras Courier, April 26.

c. 1825.—"The local name for their business was the 'Country Trade,' the ships were 'Country Ships,' and the masters of them 'Country Captains.' Some of my readers may recall a dish which was often placed before us when dining on board these vessels at Whampoa, viz. 'Country Captain.'—The Fankwae at Canton (1882), p. 33.

COURSE, s. The drive usually frequented by European gentlemen and ladies at an Indian station.

1853.—"It was curious to Oakfield to be back on the Ferozepore course, after a six months' interval, which seemed like years. How much had happened in these six months!"—Oakfield, ii. 124.

COURTALLUM, n.p. The name of a town in Tinnevelly [used as an European sanatorium (Stuart, Man. of Tinnevelly, 96)]; written in vernacular Kuttālam. We do not know its etymology. [The Madras Gloss. gives Trikūtāchala, Skt., the 'Three-peaked Mountain.']

COVENANTED SERVANTS. This term is specially applied to the regular Civil Service of India, whose members used to enter into a formal covenant with the East India Company, and do now with the Secretary of State for India. Many other classes of servants now go out to India under a variety of contracts and covenants, but the term in question continues to be appropriated as before. [See CIVILIAN.]

1757.—"There being a great scarcity of covenanted servants in Calcutta, we have entertained Mr. Hewitt as a monthly writer ... and beg to recommend him to be covenanted upon this Establishment."—Letter in Long, 112.

COVID, s. Formerly in use as the name of a measure, varying much locally in value, in European settlements not only in India but in China, &c. The word is a corruption, probably an Indo-Portuguese form, of the Port. covado, a cubit or ell.

[1612.—"A long covad within 1 inch of our English yard, wherewith they measure cloth, the short covad is for silks, and containeth just as the Portuguese covad."—Danvers, Letters, i. 241.

[1616.—"Clothes of gould: ... were worth 100 rupies a cobde."—Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. i. 203.

[1617.—Cloth "here affoorded at a rupie and two in a cobdee vnder ours."—Ibid. ii. 409.]

1672.—"Measures of Surat are only two; the Lesser and the Greater Coveld [probably misprint for Coveed], the former of 27 inches English, the latter of 36 inches English."—Fryer, 206.

1720.—"Item. I leave 200 pagodas for a tomb to be erected in the burial place in form as follows. Four large pillars, each to be six covids high, and six covids distance one from the other; the top to be arched, and on each pillar a cherubim; and on the top of the arch the effigy of Justice."—Testament of Charles Davers, Merchant, in Wheeler, ii. 338.

[1726.—"Cobidos." See quotation under LOONGHEE.]

c. 1760.—According to Grose the covid at Surat was 1 yard English [the greater coveed of Fryer], at Madras ½ a yard; but he says also: "At Bengal the same as at Surat and Madras."

1794.—"To be sold, on very reasonable terms, About 3000 covits of 2-inch Calicut Planks."—Bombay Courier, July 19.

The measure has long been forgotten under this name in Bengal, though used under the native name hāth. From Milburn (i. 334, 341, &c.) it seems to have survived on the West Coast in the early part of last century, and possibly may still linger.

[1612.—"½ corge of pintados of 4 hastas the piece."—Danvers, Letters, i. 232.]

COVIL, s. Tam. kō-v-il, 'God-house,' a Hindu temple; and also (in Malabar) a palace, [also in the form Colghum, for Kovilagam]. In colloquial use in S. India and Ceylon. In S. India it is used, especially among the French, for 'a church'; also among the uneducated English.

[1796.—"I promise to use my utmost endeavours to procure for this Raja the colghum of Pychi for his residence...."—Treaty, in Logan, Malabar, iii. 254.]

COWCOLLY, n.p. The name of a well-known lighthouse and landmark at the entrance of the Hoogly, in Midnapur District. Properly, according to Hunter, Geonkhālī. In Thornton's English Pilot (pt. iii. p. 7, of 1711) this place is called Cockoly.

COW-ITCH, s. The irritating hairs on the pod of the common Indian climbing herb Mucuna pruriens, D.C., N. O. Leguminosae, and the plant itself. Both pods and roots are used in native practice. The name is doubtless the Hind. kewānch (Skt. kapi-kachchhu), modified in Hobson-Jobson fashion, by the 'striving after meaning.'

[1773.—"Cow-itch. This is the down found on the outside of a pod, which is about the size and thickness of a man's little finger, and of the shape of an Italian S."—Ives, 494.]

COWLE, s. A lease, or grant in writing; a safe-conduct, amnesty, or in fact any written engagement. The Emperor Sigismund gave Cowle to John Huss—and broke it. The word is Ar. ḳaul, 'word, promise, agreement,' and it has become technical in the Indian vernaculars, owing to the prevalence of Mahommedan Law.

[1611.—"We desired to have a cowl of the Shahbunder to send some persons aland."—Danvers, Letters, i. 133.

[1613.—"Procured a cowl for such ships as should come."—Foster, Letters, ii. 17.]

1680.—"A Cowle granted by the Right Worshipful Streynsham Master, Esq., Agent and Governour for affairs of the Honorable East India Company in ffort St. George at Chinapatnam, by and with the advice of his Councell to all the Pegu Ruby Marchants...."—Fort St. George Cons. Feb. 23, in Notes and Extracts, No. iii. p. 10.

1688.—"The President has by private correspondence procured a Cowle for renting the Town and customs of S. Thomé."—Wheeler, i. 176.

1758.—"The Nawaub ... having mounted some large guns on that hill ... sent to the Killadar a Kowl-nama, or a summons and terms for his surrender."—H. of Hydur Naik, 123.

1780.—"This Caoul was confirmed by another King of Gingy ... of the Bramin Caste."—Dunn, New Directory, 140.

Sir A. Wellesley often uses the word in his Indian letters. Thus:

1800.—"One tandah of brinjarries ... has sent to me for cowle...."—Wellington Desp. (ed. 1837), i. 59.

1804.—"On my arrival in the neighbourhood of the pettah I offered cowle to the inhabitants."—Ibid. ii. 193.

COWRY, s. Hind. kauṛī (kauḍī), Mahr. kavaḍī, Skt. kaparda, kapardika. The small white shell, Cypraea moneta, current as money extensively in parts of S. Asia and of Africa.

By far the most ancient mention of shell currency comes from Chinese literature. It is mentioned in the famous "Tribute of Yü" (or Yü-Kung); in the Shu-King (about the 14th cent. B.C.); and in the "Book of Poetry" (Shi-King), in an ode of the 10th cent. B.C. The Chinese seem to have adopted the use from the aborigines in the East and South; and they extended the system to tortoise-shell, and to other shells, the cowry remaining the unit. In 338 B.C., the King of Tsin, the supply of shells failing, suppressed the cowry currency, and issued copper coin, already adopted in other States of China. The usurper Wang Mang, who ruled A.D. 9-23, tried to revive the old systems, and issued rules instituting, in addition to the metallic money, ten classes of tortoise-shell and five of smaller shells, the value of all based on the cowry, which was worth 3 cash. [Cowries were part of the tribute paid by the aborigines of Puanit to Metesouphis I. (Maspero, Dawn of Civ., p. 427).]

The currency of cowries in India does not seem to be alluded to by any Greek or Latin author. It is mentioned by Maṣ'ūdī (c. 943), and their use for small change in the Indo-Chinese countries is repeatedly spoken of by Marco Polo, who calls them pourcelaines, the name by which this kind of shell was known in Italy (porcellane) and France. When the Mahommedans conquered Bengal, early in the 13th century, they found the ordinary currency composed exclusively of cowries, and in some remote districts this continued to the beginning of the last century. Thus, up to 1801, the whole revenue of the Silhet District, amounting then to Rs. 250,000, was collected in these shells, but by 1813 the whole was realised in specie. Interesting details in connection with this subject are given by the Hon. Robert Lindsay, who was one of the early Collectors of Silhet (Lives of the Lindsays, iii. 170).

The Sanskrit vocabulary called Trikāṇḍaśesha (iii. 3, 206) makes 20 kapardika (or kauṛīs) = ¼ paṇa; and this value seems to have been pretty constant. The cowry table given by Mr. Lindsay at Silhet, circa 1778, exactly agrees with that given by Milburn as in Calcutta use in the beginning of last century, and up to 1854 or thereabouts it continued to be the same:

4 kauṛis = 1 ganda

20 gandas = 1 paṇ

4 paṇ = 1 āna

4 ānas = 1 kāhan, or about ¼ rupee.

This gives about 5120 cowries to the Rupee. We have not met with any denomination of currency in actual use below the cowry, but it will be seen that, in a quotation from Mrs. Parkes, two such are indicated. It is, however, Hindu idiosyncracy to indulge in imaginary submultiples as well as imaginary multiples. (See a parallel under LACK).

In Bastar, a secluded inland State between Orissa and the Godavery, in 1870, the following was the prevailing table of cowry currency, according to Sir W. Hunter's Gazetteer:

28 kauṛis = 1 borī

12 boris = 1 dugānī

12 dugānīs = 1 Rupee, i.e. 2880 cowries.

Here we may remark that both the paṇ in Bengal, and the dugānī in this secluded Bastar, were originally the names of pieces of money, though now in the respective localities they represent only certain quantities of cowries. (For paṇ, see under FANAM; and as regards dugānī, see Thomas's Patan Kings of Delhī, pp. 218 seq.). ["Up to 1865 bee-a or cowries were in use in Siam; the value of these was so small that from 800 to 1500 went to a fuang (7½ cents.)."—Hallett, A Thousand Miles on an Elephant, p. 164. Mr. Gray has an interesting note on cowries in his ed. of Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 236 seqq.]

Cowries were at one time imported into England in considerable quantities for use in the African slave-trade. "For this purpose," says Milburn, "they should be small, clean, and white, with a beautiful gloss" (i. 273). The duty on this importation was £53, 16s. 3d. per cent. on the sale value, with ⅓ added for war-tax. In 1803, 1418 cwt. were sold at the E. I. auctions, fetching £3,626; but after that few were sold at all. In the height of slave-trade, the great mart for cowries was at Amsterdam, where there were spacious warehouses for them (see the Voyage, &c., quoted 1747).

c. A.D. 943.—"Trading affairs are carried on with cowries (al-wada'), which are the money of the country."—Maṣ'ūdī, i. 385.

c. 1020.—"These isles are divided into two classes, according to the nature of their chief products. The one are called Dewa-Kauḍha, 'the Isles of the Cowries,' because of the Cowries that they collect on the branches of coco-trees planted in the sea."—Albirūnī, in J. As., Ser. IV. tom. iv. 266.

c. 1240.—"It has been narrated on this wise that as in that country (Bengal), the kauṛi [shell] is current in place of silver, the least gift he used to bestow was a lak of kauṛis. The Almighty mitigate his punishment [in hell]!"—Ṭabaḳāt-i-Nāṣiri, by Raverty, 555 seq.

c. 1350.—"The money of the Islanders (of the Maldives) consists of cowries (al-wada'). They so style creatures which they collect in the sea, and bury in holes dug on the shore. The flesh wastes away, and only a white shell remains. 100 of these shells are called siyāh, and 700 fāl; 12,000 they call kutta; and 100,000 bustū. Bargains are made with these cowries at the rate of 4 bustū for a gold dīnār. [This would be about 40,000 for a rupee.] Sometimes the rate falls, and 12 bustū are exchanged for a gold dīnār. The islanders barter them to the people of Bengal for rice, for they also form the currency in use in that country.... These cowries serve also for barter with the negroes in their own land. I have seen them sold at Mālī and Gūgū [on the Niger] at the rate of 1150 for a gold dīnār."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 122.

c. 1420.—"A man on whom I could rely assured me that he saw the people of one of the chief towns of the Said employ as currency, in the purchase of low-priced articles of provision, kaudas, which in Egypt are known as wada, just as people in Egypt use fals."—Makrizi, S. de Sacy, Chrest. Arabe, 2nd ed. i. 252.

[1510.—Mr. Whiteway writes: "In an abstract of an unpublished letter of Alboquerque which was written about 1510, and abstracted in the following year, occurs this sentence:—'The merchandize which they carry from Cairo consists of snails (caracoes) of the Twelve Thousand Islands.' He is speaking of the internal caravan-trade of Africa, and these snails must be cowries."]

1554.—At the Maldives: "Cowries 12,000 make one cota; and 4½ cotas of average size weigh one quintal; the big ones something more."—A. Nunes, 35.

" "In these isles ... are certain white little shells which they call cauris."—Castanheda, iv. 7.

1561.—"Which vessels (Gundras, or palm-wood boats from the Maldives) come loaded with coir and caury, which are certain little white shells found among the Islands in such abundance that whole vessels are laden with them, and which make a great trade in Bengala, where they are current as money."—Correa, I. i. 341.

1586.—"In Bengal are current those little shells that are found in the islands of Maldiva, called here courim, and in Portugal Buzio."—Sassetti, in De Gubernatis, 205.

[c. 1590.—"Four kos from this is a well, into which if the bone of any animal be thrown it petrifies, like a cowrie shell, only smaller."—Āīn, ed. Jarrett, ii. 229.]

c. 1610.—"Les marchandises qu'ils portent le plus souvent sont ces petites coquilles des Maldives, dont ils chargent tous les ans grand nombre de nauires. Ceux des Maldives les appellent Boly, et les autres Indiens Caury."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 517; see also p. 165; [Hak. Soc. i. 438; also comp. i. 78, 157, 228, 236, 240, 250, 299; Boly is Singh. bella, a cowry].

c. 1664.—"... lastly, it (Indostan) wants those little Sea-cockles of the Maldives, which serve for common Coyne in Bengale, and in some other places...."—Bernier, E.T. 63; [ed. Constable, 204].

[c. 1665.—"The other small money consists of shells called Cowries, which have the edges inverted, and they are not found in any other part of the world save only the Maldive Islands.... Close to the sea they give up to 80 for the paisa, and that diminishes as you leave the sea, on account of carriage; so that at Agra you receive but 50 or 55 for the paisa."—Tavernier, ed. Ball, i. 27 seq.]

1672.—"Cowreys, like sea-shells, come from Siam, and the Philippine Islands."—Fryer, 86.

1683.—"The Ship Britannia—from the Maldiva Islands, arrived before the Factory ... at their first going ashore, their first salutation from the natives was a shower of Stones and Arrows, whereby 6 of their Men were wounded, which made them immediately return on board, and by ye mouths of their Guns forced them to a complyance, and permission to load what Cowries they would at Markett Price; so that in a few days time they sett sayle from thence for Surrat with above 60 Tunn of Cowryes."—Hedges, Diary, July 1; [Hak. Soc. i. 96].

1705.—"... Coris, qui sont des petits coquillages."—Luillier, 245.

1727.—"The Couries are caught by putting Branches of Cocoa-nut trees with their Leaves on, into the Sea, and in five or six Months the little Shell-fish stick to those leaves in Clusters, which they take off, and digging Pits in the Sand, put them in and cover them up, and leave them two or three Years in the Pit, that the Fish may putrefy, and then they take them out of the Pit, and barter them for Rice, Butter, and Cloth, which Shipping bring from Ballasore in Orisa near Bengal, in which Countries Couries pass for Money from 2500 to 3000 for a Rupee, or half a Crown English."—A. Hamilton [ed. 1744], i. 349.

1747.—"Formerly 12,000 weight of these cowries would purchase a cargo of five or six hundred Negroes: but those lucrative times are now no more; and the Negroes now set such a value on their countrymen, that there is no such thing as having a cargo under 12 or 14 tuns of cowries.

"As payments of this kind of specie are attended with some intricacy, the Negroes, though so simple as to sell one another for shells, have contrived a kind of copper vessel, holding exactly 108 pounds, which is a great dispatch to business."—A Voyage to the Id. of Ceylon on board a Dutch Indiaman in the year 1747, &c. &c. Written by a Dutch Gentleman. Transl. &c. London, 1754, pp. 21 seq.

1749.—"The only Trade they deal in is Cowries (or Blackamoor's Teeth as they call them in England), the King's sole Property, which the sea throws up in great abundance."—The Boscawen's Voyage to Bombay, by Philalethes (1750), p. 52.

1753.—"Our Hon'ble Masters having expressly directed ten tons of couries to be laden in each of their ships homeward bound, we ordered the Secretary to prepare a protest against Captain Cooke for refusing to take any on board the Admiral Vernon."—In Long, 41.

1762.—"The trade of the salt and butty wood in the Chucla of Sillett, has for a long time been granted to me, in consideration of which I pay a yearly rent of 40,000 caouns of cowries...."—Native Letter to Nabob, in Van Sittart, i. 203.

1770.—"... millions of millions of lires, pounds, rupees, and cowries."—H. Walpole's Letters, v. 421.

1780.—"We are informed that a Copper Coinage is now on the Carpet ... it will be of the greatest utility to the Public, and will totally abolish the trade of Cowries, which for a long time has formed so extensive a field for deception and fraud. A greviance (sic) the poor has long groan'd under."—Hicky's Bengal Gazette, April 29.

1786.—In a Calcutta Gazette the rates of payment at Pultah Ferry are stated in Rupees, Annas, Puns, and Gundas (i.e. of Cowries, see above).—In Seton-Karr, i. 140.

1791.—"Notice is hereby given, that on or before the 1st November next, sealed proposals of Contract for the remittance in Dacca of the cowries received on account of the Revenues of Sylhet ... will be received at the Office of the Secretary to the Board of Revenue.... All persons who may deliver in proposals, are desired to specify the rates per cowan or cowans of cowries (see kāhan above) at which they will engage to make the remittance proposed."—In Seton-Karr, ii. 53.

1803.—"I will continue to pay, without demur, to the said Government, as my annual peshkush or tribute, 12,000 kahuns of cowries in three instalments, as specified herein below."—Treaty Engagement by the Rajah of Kitta Keonghur, a Tributary subordinate to Cuttack, 16th December, 1803.

1833.—"May 1st. Notice was given in the Supreme Court that Messrs. Gould and Campbell would pay a dividend at the rate of nine gundahs, one cowrie, one cawg, and eighteen teel, in every sicca rupee, on and after the 1st of June. A curious dividend, not quite a farthing in the rupee!"—The Pilgrim (by Fanny Parkes), i. 273.

c. 1865.—"Strip him stark naked, and cast him upon a desert island, and he would manage to play heads and tails for cowries with the sea-gulls, if land-gulls were not to be found."—Zelda's Fortune, ch. iv.

1883.—"Johnnie found a lovely cowrie two inches long, like mottled tortoise-shell, walking on a rock, with its red fleshy body covering half its shell, like a jacket trimmed with chenille fringe."—Letter (of Miss North's) from Seychelle Islands, in Pall Mall Gazette, Jan. 21, 1884.

COWRY, s. Used in S. India for the yoke to carry burdens, the Bangy (q.v.) of N. India. In Tamil, &c., kāvaḍi, [kāvu, 'to carry on the shoulder,' tadi, 'pole'].

[1853.—"Cowrie baskets ... a circular ratan basket, with a conical top, covered with green oil-cloth, and secured by a brass padlock."—Campbell, Old Forest Ranger, 3rd ed. 178.]

COWTAILS, s. The name formerly in ordinary use for what we now more euphoniously call chowries (q.v.).

c. 1664.—"These Elephants have then also ... certain Cow-tails of the great Tibet, white and very dear, hanging at their Ears like great Mustachoes...."—Bernier, E.T., 84; [ed. Constable, 261].

1665.—"Now that this King of the Great Tibet knows, that Aureng-Zebe is at Kachemire, and threatens him with War, he hath sent to him an Ambassador, with Presents of the Countrey, as Chrystal, and those dear White Cow-tails...."—Ibid. 135; [ed. Constable, 422].

1774.—"To send one or more pair of the cattle which bear what are called cowtails."—Warren Hastings, Instruction to Bogle, in Markham's Tibet, 8.

" "There are plenty of cowtailed cows (!), but the weather is too hot for them to go to Bengal."—Bogle, ibid. 52. 'Cowtailed cows' seem analogous to the 'dismounted mounted infantry' of whom we have recently heard in the Suakin campaign.

1784.—In a 'List of Imports probable from Tibet,' we find "Cow Tails."—In Seton-Karr, i. 4.

" "From the northern mountains are imported a number of articles of commerce.... The principal ... are ... musk, cowtails, honey...."—Gladwin's Ayeen Akbery (ed. 1800) ii. 17; [ed. Jarrett, ii. 172].

CRAN, s. Pers. krān. A modern Persian silver coin, worth about a franc, being the tenth part of a Tomaun.

1880.—"A couple of mules came clattering into the courtyard, driven by one muleteer. Each mule carried 2 heavy sacks ... which jingled pleasantly as they were placed on the ground. The sacks were afterwards opened in my presence, and contained no less than 35,000 silver krans. The one muleteer without guard had brought them across the mountains, 170 miles or so, from Tehran."—MS. Letter from Col. Bateman-Champain, R.E.

[1891.—"I on my arrival took my servants' accounts in tomauns and kerans, afterwards in kerans and shaies, and at last in kerans and puls."—Wills, Land of the Lion, 63.]

CRANCHEE, s. Beng. H. karānchī. This appears peculiar to Calcutta, [but the word is also used in N. India]. A kind of ricketty and sordid carriage resembling, as Bp. Heber says below, the skeleton of an old English hackney-coach of 1800-35 (which no doubt was the model), drawn by wretched ponies, harnessed with rope, and standing for native hire in various parts of the city.

1823.—"... a considerable number of 'caranchies,' or native carriages, each drawn by two horses, and looking like the skeletons of hackney coaches in our own country."—Heber, i. 28 (ed. 1844).

1834.—"As Lady Wroughton guided her horse through the crowd to the right, a kuranchy, or hackney-coach, suddenly passed her at full speed."—The Baboo, i. 228.

CRANGANORE, n.p. Properly (according to Dr. Gundert), Koḍuṅrīlūr, more generally Koduṅgalūr; [the Madras Gloss. gives Mal. Kotannallūr, kota, 'west,' kovil, 'palace,' ūr, 'village']. An ancient city and port of Malabar, identical with the Mūyiri-kkoḍu of an ancient copper-plate inscription, with the Μουζιρὶς of Ptolemy's Tables and the Periplus, and with the Muziris primum emporium Indiae of Pliny (Bk. vi. cap. 23 or 26) [see Logan, Malabar, i. 80]. "The traditions of Jews, Christians, Brahmans, and of the Kérala Ulpatti (legendary History of Malabar) agree in making Kodungalūr the residence of the Perumāls (ancient sovereigns of Malabar), and the first resort of Western shipping" (Dr. Gundert in Madras Journal, vol. xiii. p. 120). It was apparently the earliest settlement of Jew and Christian immigrants. It is prominent in all the earlier narratives of the 16th century, especially in connection with the Malabar Christians; and it was the site of one of the seven churches alleged in the legends of the latter to have been founded by St. Thomas. Cranganor was already in decay when the Portuguese arrived. They eventually established themselves there with a strong fort (1523), which the Dutch took from them in 1662. This fort was dismantled by Tippoo's troops in 1790, and there is now hardly a trace left of it. In Baldaeus (Malabar und Coromandel, p. 109, Germ. ed.) there are several good views of Cranganore as it stood in the 17th century. [See SHINKALI.]

c. 774. A.D.—"We have given as eternal possession to Iravi Corttan, the lord of the town, the brokerage and due customs ... namely within the river-mouth of Codangalur."—Copper Charter, see Madr. Journ. xiii. And for the date of the inscription, Burnell, in Ind. Antiq. iii. 315.

(Before 1500, see as in above quotation, p. 334.).—"I Erveh Barmen ... sitting this day in Canganúr...." (Madras Journal, xiii. pt. ii. p. 12). This is from an old Hebrew translation of the 8th century copper-grant to the Jews, in which the Tamil has "The king ... Sri Bhaskara Ravi Varman ... on the day when he was pleased to sit in Muyiri-kódu...."—thus identifying Muyiri or Muziris with Cranganore, an identification afterwards verified by tradition ascertained on the spot by Dr. Burnell.

1498.—"Quorongoliz belongs to the Christians, and the king is a Christian; it is 3 days distant from Calecut by sea with fair wind; this king could muster 4,000 fighting men; here is much pepper...."—Roteiro de Vasco da Gama, 108.

1503.—"Nostra autem regio in qua Christiani commorantur Malabar appellatur, habetque xx circiter urbes, quarum tres celebres sunt et firmæ, Carongoly, Palor, et Colom, et aliæ illis proximæ sunt."—Letter of Nestorian Bishops on mission to India, in Assemani, iii. 594.

1516.—"... a place called Crongolor, belonging to the King of Calicut ... there live in it Gentiles, Moors, Indians, and Jews, and Christians of the doctrine of St. Thomas."—Barbosa, 154.

c. 1535.—"Crancanor fu antichamente honorata, e buon porto, tien molte genti ... la città e grande, ed honorata con grã traffico, auãti che si facesse Cochin, cõ la venuta di Portoghesi, nobile."—Sommario de' Regni, &c. Ramusio, i. f. 332v.

1554.—"Item ... paid for the maintenance of the boys in the College, which is kept in Cranguanor, by charter of the King our Lord, annually 100 000 reis...."—S. Botelho, Tombo, &c., 27.

c. 1570.—"... prior to the introduction of Islamism into this country, a party of Jews and Christians had found their way to a city of Malabar called Cadungaloor."—Tohfat-ul-Mujahideen, 47.

1572.—

"A hum Cochin, e a outro Cananor,

A qual Chale, a qual a ilha da pimenta,

A qual Coulão, a qual dá Cranganor,

E os mais, a quem o mais serve e contenta...."

Camões, vii. 35.

1614.—"The Great Samorine's Deputy came aboord ... and ... earnestly persuaded vs to stay a day or two, till he might send to the Samorine, then at Crangelor, besieging a Castle of the Portugals."—Peyton, in Purchas, i. 531.

c. 1806.—"In like manner the Jews of Kranghír (Cranganore), observing the weakness of the Sámuri ... made a great many Mahomedans drink the cup of martyrdom...."—Muhabbat Khán (writing of events in 16th century), in Elliot, viii. 388.

CRANNY, s. In Bengal commonly used for a clerk writing English, and thence vulgarly applied generically to the East Indians, or half-caste class, from among whom English copyists are chiefly recruited. The original is Hind. karānī, kirānī, which Wilson derives from Skt. karan, 'a doer.' Karaṇa is also the name of one of the (so-called) mixt castes of the Hindus, sprung from a Sudra mother and Vaisya father, or (according to some) from a pure Kshatriya mother by a father of degraded Kshatriya origin. The occupation of the members of this mixt caste is that of writers and accountants; [see Risley, Tribes and Castes of Bengal, i. 424 seqq.].

The word was probably at one time applied by natives to the junior members of the Covenanted Civil Service—"Writers," as they were designated. See the quotations from the "Seir Mutaqherin" and from Hugh Boyd. And in our own remembrance the "Writers' Buildings" in Calcutta, where those young gentlemen were at one time quartered (a range of apartments which has now been transfigured into a splendid series of public offices, but, wisely, has been kept to its old name), was known to the natives as Karānī kī Bārik.

c. 1350.—"They have the custom that when a ship arrives from India or elsewhere, the slaves of the Sultan ... carry with them complete suits ... for the Rabban or skipper, and for the kirānī, who is the ship's clerk."—Ibn Batuta, ii. 198.

" "The second day after our arrival at the port of Kailūkari, the princess escorted the nakhodāh (or skipper), the kirānī, or clerk...."—Ibid. iv. 250.

c. 1590.—"The Karrání is a writer who keeps the accounts of the ship, and serves out the water to the passengers."—Āīn (Blochmann), i. 280.

c. 1610.—"Le Secretaire s'apelle carans...."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 152; [Hak. Soc. i. 214].

[1611.—"Doubt you not but it is too true, howsoever the Cranny flatters you with better hopes."—Danvers, Letters, i. 117, and see also i. 190.

[1684.—"Ye Noceda and Cranee."—Pringle, Diary of Ft. St. George, iii. 111.]

c. 1781.—"The gentlemen likewise, other than the Military, who are in high offices and employments, have amongst themselves degrees of service and work, which have not come minutely to my knowledge; but the whole of them collectively are called Carranis."—Seir Mutaqherin, ii. 543.

1793.—"But, as Gay has it, example gains where precept fails. As an encouragement therefore to my brother crannies, I will offer an instance or two, which are remembered as good Company's jokes."—Hugh Boyd, The Indian Observer, 42.

1810.—"The Cranny, or clerk, may be either a native Armenian, a native Portuguese, or a Bengallee."—Williamson, V. M. i. 209.

1834.—"Nazir, see bail taken for 2000 rupees. The Crany will write your evidence, Captain Forrester."—The Baboo, i. 311.

It is curious to find this word explained by an old French writer, in almost the modern application to East Indians. This shows that the word was used at Goa in something of its Hindu sense of one of mixt blood.

1653.—"Les karanes sont engendrez d'vn Mestis, et d'vne Indienne, lesquels sont oliaustres. Ce mot de Karanes vient a mon advis de Kara, qui signifie en Turq la terre, ou bien la couleur noire, comme si l'on vouloit dire par karanes les enfans du païs, ou bien les noirs: ils ont les mesmes aduantages dans leur professions que les autres Mestis."—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, p. 226. Compare in M. Polo, Bk. I., ch. 18, his statement about the Caraonas, and note thereon.

CRAPE, s. This is no Oriental word, though crape comes from China. It is the French crêpe, i.e. crespe, Lat. crispus, meaning frizzed or minutely curled. As the word is given in a 16th century quotation by Littré, it is probable that the name was first applied to a European texture. [Its use in English dates from 1633, according to the N.E.D.]

"I own perhaps I might desire

Some shawls of true Cashmere—

Some narrowy crapes of China silk,

Like wrinkled skins, or scalded milk."

O. W. Holmes, 'Contentment.'

CREASE, CRIS, &c., s. A kind of dagger, which is the characteristic weapon of the Malay nations; from the Javanese name of the weapon, adopted in Malay, krīs, kirīs, or kres (see Favre, Dict. Javanais-Français, 137b, Crawfurd's Malay Dict. s.v., Jansz, Javaansch-Nederl. Woordenboek, 202). The word has been generalised, and is often applied to analogous weapons of other nations, as 'an Arab crease,' &c. It seems probable that the H. word kirich, applied to a straight sword, and now almost specifically to a sword of European make, is identical with the Malay word krīs. See the form of the latter word in Barbosa, almost exactly kirich. Perhaps Turki kīlīch is the original. [Platts gives Skt. kṛiti, 'a sort of knife or dagger.'] If Reinaud is right in his translation of the Arab Relations of the 9th and 10th centuries, in correcting a reading, otherwise unintelligible, to khrī, we shall have a very early adoption of this word by Western travellers. It occurs, however, in a passage relating to Ceylon.

c. 910.—"Formerly it was common enough to see in this island a man of the country walk into the market grasping in his hand a khrī, i.e. a dagger peculiar to the country, of admirable make, and sharpened to the finest edge. The man would lay hands on the wealthiest of the merchants that he found, take him by the throat, brandish his dagger before his eyes, and finally drag him outside of the town...."—Relation, &c., par Reinaud, p. 156; and see Arabic text, p. 120, near bottom.

It is curious to find the cris adopted by Alboquerque as a piece of state costume. When he received the ambassadors of Sheikh Ismael, i.e. the Shāh of Persia, Ismael Sūfī, at Ormuz, we read:

1515.—"For their reception there was prepared a dais of three steps ... which was covered with carpets, and the Governor seated thereon in a decorated chair, arrayed in a tunic and surcoat of black damask, with his collar, and his golden cris, as I described before, and with his big, long snow-white beard; and at the back of the dais the captains and gentlemen, handsomely attired, with their swords girt, and behind them their pages with lances and targets, and all uncovered."—Correa, ii. 423.

The portrait of Alboquerque in the 1st vol. of Mr. Birch's Translation of the Commentaries, realises the snow-white beard, tunic, and black surcoat, but the cris is missing. [The Malay Creese is referred to in iii. 85.]

1516.—"They are girt with belts, and carry daggers in their waists, wrought with rich inlaid work, these they call querix."—Barbosa, 193.

1552.—"And the quartermaster ran up to the top, and thence beheld the son of Timuta raja to be standing over the Captain Major with a cris half drawn."—Castanheda, ii. 363.

1572.—

"... assentada

Lá no gremio da Aurora, onde nasceste,

Opulenta Malaca nomeada!

As settas venenosas que fizeste!

Os crises, com que já te vejo armáda...."

Camões, x. 44.

By Burton:

"... so strong thy site

there on Aurora's bosom, whence they rise,

thou Home of Opulence, Malacca hight!

The poysoned arrows which thine art supplies,

the krises thirsting, as I see, for fight...."

1580.—A vocabulary of "Wordes of the naturall language of Iaua" in the voyage of Sir Fr. Drake, has Cricke, 'a dagger.'—Hakl. iv. 246.

[1584.—"Crise." See quotation under A MUCK.]

1586-88.—"The custom is that whenever the King (of Java) doth die ... the wives of the said King ... every one with a dagger in her hand (which dagger they call a crese, and is as sharp as a razor) stab themselves to the heart."—Cavendish, in Hakl. iv. 337.

1591.—"Furthermore I enjoin and order in the name of our said Lord ... that no servant go armed whether it be with staves or daggers, or crisses."—Procl. of Viceroy Mathias d'Alboquerque in Archiv. Port. Oriental, fasc. 3, p. 325.

1598.—"In the Western part of the Island (Sumatra) is Manancabo where they make Poinyards, which in India are called Cryses, which are very well accounted and esteemed of."—Linschoten, 33; [with some slight differences of reading, Hak. Soc. i. 110].

1602.—"... Chinesische Dolchen, so sie Cris nennen."—Hulsius, i. 33.

c. 1610.—"Ceux-là ont d'ordinaire à leur costé vn poignard ondé qui s'apelle cris, et qui vient d'Achen en Sumatra, de Iaua, et de la Chine."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 121; [Hak. Soc. i. 164]; also see ii. 101; [ii. 162, 170].

1634.—"Malayos crises, Arabes alfanges."—Malaca Conquistada, ix. 32.

1686.—"The Cresset is a small thing like a Baggonet which they always wear in War or Peace, at Work or Play, from the greatest of them to the poorest or meanest person."—Dampier, i. 337.

1690.—"And as the Japanners ... rip up their Bowels with a Cric...."—Ovington, 173.

1727.—"A Page of twelve Years of Age ... (said) that he would shew him the Way to die, and with that he took a Cress, and ran himself through the body."—A. Hamilton, ii. 99; [ed. 1744, ii. 98].

1770.—"The people never go without a poniard which they call cris."—Raynal (tr. 1777), i. 97.

c. 1850-60.—"They (the English) chew hashish, cut themselves with poisoned creases ... taste every poison, buy every secret."—Emerson, English Traits [ed. 1866, ii. 59].

The Portuguese also formed a word crisada, a blow with a cris (see Castanheda, iii. 379). And in English we find a verb to 'crease'; see in Purchas, i. 532, and this:

1604.—"This Boyhog we tortured not, because of his confession, but crysed him."—Scot's Discourse of Iava, in Purchas, i. 175.

[1704.—"At which our people ... were most of them creezed."—Yule, Hedges' Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. cccxxxvii.]

Also in Braddel's Abstract of the Sijara Malayu:

"He was in consequence creased at the shop of a sweetmeat seller, his blood flowed on the ground, but his body disappeared miraculously."—Sijara Malayu, in J. Ind. Arch. v. 318.

CREDERE, DEL. An old mercantile term.

1813.—"Del credere, or guaranteeing the responsibility of persons to whom goods were sold—commission ¾ per cent."—Milburn, i. 235.

CREOLE, s. This word is never used by the English in India, though the mistake is sometimes made in England of supposing it to be an Anglo-Indian term. The original, so far as we can learn, is Span. criollo, a word of uncertain etymology, whence the French créole, a person of European blood but colonial birth. See Skeat, who concludes that criollo is a negro corruption of criadillo, dim. of criado, and is = 'little nursling.' Criados, criadas, according to Pyrard de Laval, [Hak. Soc. ii. 89 seq.] were used at Goa for male and female servants. And see the passage quoted under NEELAM from Correa, where the words 'apparel and servants' are in the original 'todo o fato e criados.'

1782.—"Mr. Macintosh being the son of a Scotch Planter by a French Creole, of one of the West India Islands, is as swarthy and ill-looking a man as is to be seen on the Portugueze Walk on the Royal Exchange."—Price's Observations, &c. in Price's Tracts, i. 9.

CROCODILE, s. This word is seldom used in India; alligator (q.v.) being the term almost invariably employed.

c. 1328.—"There be also coquodriles, which are vulgarly called calcatix [Lat. calcatrix, 'a cockatrice'].... These animals be like lizards, and have a tail stretched over all like unto a lizard's," &c.—Friar Jordanus, p. 19.

1590.—"One Crocodile was so huge and greedy that he devoured an Alibamba, that is a chained company of eight or nine slaves; but the indigestible Iron paid him his wages, and murthered the murtherer."—Andrew Battel (West Africa), in Purchas, ii. 985.

[1870.—"... I have been compelled to amputate the limbs of persons seized by crocodiles (Mugger).... The Alligator (gharial) sometimes devours children...."—Chevers, Med. Jurispr. in India, 366 seq.].

CRORE, s. One hundred lakhs, i.e. 10,000,000. Thus a crore of rupees was for many years almost the exact equivalent of a million sterling. It had once been a good deal more, and has now been for some years a good deal less. The H. is karoṛ, Skt. koṭi.

c. 1315.—"Kales Dewar, the ruler of Ma'bar, enjoyed a highly prosperous life.... His coffers were replete with wealth, insomuch that in the city of Mardī (Madura) there were 1200 crores of gold deposited, every crore being equal to a thousand laks, and every lak to one hundred thousand dinārs."—Wassāf, in Elliot, iii. 52. N.B.—The reading of the word crore is however doubtful here (see note by Elliot in loco). In any case the value of crore is misstated by Wassāf.

c. 1343.—"They told me that a certain Hindu farmed the revenue of the city and its territories (Daulatābād) for 17 karōr ... as for the karōr it is equivalent to 100 laks, and the lak to 100,000 dīnārs."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 49.

c. 1350.—"In the course of three years he had misappropriated about a kror of tankas from the revenue."—Ziā-uddīn-Barnī, in Elliot, iii. 247.

c. 1590.—"Zealous and upright men were put in charge of the revenues, each over one Krōr of dams." (These, it appears, were called krōris.)—Āīn-i-Akbari, i. 13.

1609.—"The King's yeerely Income of his Crowne Land is fiftie Crou of Rupias, every Crou is an hundred Leckes, and every Lecke is an hundred thousand Rupias."—Hawkins, in Purchas, i. 216.

1628.—"The revenue of all the territories under the Emperors of Delhi amounts, according to the Royal registers, to six arbs and thirty krors of dāms. One arb is equal to a hundred krors (a kror being ten millions) and a hundred Krors of dāms are equivalent to two krors and fifty lacs of rupees."—Muhammad Sharīf Hanafi, in Elliot, vii. 138.

1690.—"The Nabob or Governour of Bengal was reputed to have left behind him at his Death, twenty Courous of Roupies: A kourou is an hundred thousand lacks."—Ovington, 189.

1757.—"In consideration of the losses which the English Company have sustained ... I will give them one crore of rupees."—Orme, ii. 162 (ed. 1803).

c. 1785.—"The revenues of the city of Decca, once the capital of Bengal, at a low estimation amount annually to two kherore."—Carraccioli's Life of Clive, i. 172.

1797.—"An Englishman, for H. E.'s amusement, introduced the elegant European diversion of a race in sacks by old women: the Nabob was delighted beyond measure, and declared that though he had spent a crore of rupees ... in procuring amusement, he had never found one so pleasing to him."—Teignmouth, Mem. i. 407.

1879.—

"'Tell me what lies beyond our brazen gates.'

Then one replied, 'The city first, fair Prince!

And next King Bimbasâra's realm, and then

The vast flat world with crores on crores of folk.'"

Sir E. Arnold, The Light of Asia, iii.

[CRORI, s. "The possessor or collector of a kror, or ten millions, of any given kind of money; it was especially applied as an official designation, under the Mohammedan government, to a collector of revenue to the extent of a kror of dāms, or 250,000 rupees, who was also at various times invested with the general superintendence of the lands in his district, and the charge of the police." (Wilson.)

[c. 1590.—See quotation under CRORE.

[1675.—"Nor does this exempt them from pishcashing the Nabob's Crewry or Governour."—Yule, Hedges' Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. ccxxxix.]

[CROTCHEY, KURACHEE,> properly Karāchi, the sea-port and chief town of the province of Sind, which is a creation of the British rule, no town appearing to have existed on the site before 1725. In As Suyūti's History of the Caliphs (E.T. p. 229) the capture of Kīrakh or Kīraj is mentioned. Sir H. M. Elliot thinks that this place was probably situated in if not named from Kachh. Jarrett (Āīn, ii. 344, note) supposes this to be Karāchi, which Elliot identified with the Krokala of Arrian. Here, according to Curtius, dwelt the Arabioi or Arabitai. The harbour of Karāchi was possibly the Porus Alexandri, where Nearchus was detained by the monsoon for twenty-four days (see McCrindle, Ancient India, 167, 262).

[1812.—"From Crotchey to Cape Monze the people call themselves Balouches."—Morier, Journey through Persia, p. 5.

[1839.—"... spices of all kinds, which are carried from Bombay ... to Koratchee or other ports in Sind."—Elphinstone's Caubul, i. 384.]

CROW-PHEASANT, s. The popular Anglo-Indian name of a somewhat ignoble bird (Fam. Cuculidae), common all over the plains of India, in Burma, and the Islands, viz. Centropus rufipennis, Illiger. It is held in India to give omens.

1878.—"The crow-pheasant stalks past with his chestnut wings drooping by his side."—Phil. Robinson, In My Indian Garden, 7.

1883.—"There is that ungainly object the coucal, crow-pheasant, jungle-crow, or whatever else you like to call the miscellaneous thing, as it clambers through a creeper-laden bush or spreads its reddish-bay wings and makes a slow voyage to the next tree. To judge by its appearance only it might be a crow developing for a peacock, but its voice seems to have been borrowed from a black-faced monkey."—Tribes on my Frontier, 155.

CUBEB, s. The fruit of the Piper Cubeba, a climbing shrub of the Malay region. [Its Hind. name kabāb chīnī marks its importation from the East by Chinese merchants.] The word and the articles were well known in Europe in the Middle Ages, the former being taken directly from the Arab. kabābah. It was used as a spice like other peppers, though less common. The importation into Europe had become infinitesimal, when it revived in last century, owing to the medicinal power of the article having become known to our medical officers during the British occupation of Java (1811-15). Several particulars of interest will be found in Hanbury and Flückiger's Pharmacog. 526, and in the notes to Marco Polo, ii. 380.

c. 943.—"The territories of this Prince (the Maharaja of the Isles) produce all sorts of spices and aromatics.... The exports are camphor, lign-aloes, clove, sandal-wood, betel-nut, nutmeg, cardamom, cubeb (al-kabābah)...."—Maṣ'ūdi, i. 341 seq.

13th cent.—

"Theo canel and the licoris

And swete savoury meynte I wis,

Theo gilofre, quybibe and mace...."

King Alesaunder, in Weber's Metr. Rom., i. 279.

1298.—"This Island (Java) is of surpassing wealth, producing black pepper, nutmegs, spikenard, galingale, cubebs, cloves...."—Marco Polo, ii. 254.

c. 1328.—"There too (in Jaua) are produced cubebs, and nutmegs, and mace, and all the other finest spices except pepper."—Friar Jordanus, 31.

c. 1340.—"The following are sold by the pound. Raw silk; saffron; clove-stalks and cloves; cubebs; lign-aloes...."—Pegolotti, in Cathay, &c., p. 305.

" "Cubebs are of two kinds, i.e. domestic and wild, and both should be entire and light, and of good smell; and the domestic are known from the wild in this way, that the former are a little more brown than the wild; also the domestic are round, whilst the wild have the lower part a little flattened underneath like flattened buttons."—Pegolotti, in Cathay, &c.; in orig. 374 seq.

c. 1390.—"Take fresh pork, seethe it, chop it small, and grind it well; put to it hard yolks of eggs, well mixed together, with dried currants, powder of cinnamon, and maces, cubebs, and cloves whole."—Recipe in Wright's Domestic Manners, 350.

1563.—"R. Let us talk of cubebs; although, according to Sepulveda, we seldom use them alone, and only in compounds.

"O. 'Tis not so in India; on the contrary they are much used by the Moors soaked in wine ... and in their native region, which is Java, they are habitually used for coldness of stomach; you may believe me they hold them for a very great medicine."—Garcia, f. 80-80v.

1572.—"The Indian physicians use Cubebs as cordials for the stomach...."—Acosta, p. 138.

1612.—"Cubebs, the pound ... xvi. s."—Rates and Valuatioun (Scotland).

1874.—"In a list of drugs to be sold in the ... city of Ulm, A.D. 1596, cubebs are mentioned ... the price for half an ounce being 8 kreuzers."—Hanb. & Flück. 527.

CUBEER BURR, n.p. This was a famous banyan-tree on an island of the Nerbudda, some 12 m. N.E. of Baroch, and a favourite resort of the English there in the 18th century. It is described by Forbes in his Or. Mem. i. 28; [2nd ed. i. 16, and in Pandurang Hari, ed. 1873, ii. 137 seqq.]. Forbes says that it was thus called by the Hindus in memory of a favourite saint (no doubt Kabīr). Possibly, however, the name was merely the Ar. kabīr, 'great,' given by some Mahommedan, and misinterpreted into an allusion to the sectarian leader.

[1623.—"On an other side of the city, but out of the circuit of the houses, in an open place, is seen a great and fair tree, of that kind which I saw in the sea coasts of Persia, near Ormuz, called there Lul, but here Ber."—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. i. 35. Mr. Grey identifies this with the CUBEER BURR.]

1818.—"The popular tradition among the Hindus is that a man of great sanctity named Kubeer, having cleaned his teeth, as is practised in India, with a piece of stick, stuck it into the ground, that it took root, and became what it now is."—Copland, in Tr. Lit. Soc. Bo. i. 290.

CUCUYA, CUCUYADA, s. A cry of alarm or warning; Malayāl. kūkkuya, 'to cry out'; not used by English, but found among Portuguese writers, who formed cucuyada from the native word, as they did Crisada from kris (see CREASE). See Correa, Lendas, ii. 2. 926. See also quotation from Tennent, under COSS, and compare Australian cooey.

1525.—"On this immediately some of his Nairs who accompanied him, desired to smite the Portuguese who were going through the streets; but the Regedor would not permit it; and the Caimal approaching the King's palace, without entering to speak to the King, ordered those cries of theirs to be made which they call cucuyadas, and in a few minutes there gathered together more than 2000 Nairs with their arms...."—Correa, ii. 926.

1543.—"At the house of the pagod there was a high enclosure-wall of stone, where the Governor collected all his people, and those of the country came trooping with bows and arrows and a few matchlocks, raising great cries and cucuyadas, such as they employ to call each other to war, just like cranes when they are going to take wing."—Ibid. iv. 327.

CUDDALORE, n.p. A place on the marine backwater 16 m. S. of Pondicherry, famous in the early Anglo-Indian history of Coromandel. It was settled by the Company in 1682-3, and Fort St. David's was erected there soon after. Probably the correct name is Kaḍal-ūr, 'Sea-Town.' [The Madras Gloss. gives Tam. kūḍal, 'junction,' ūr, 'village,' because it stands on the confluence of the Kadilam and Paravanar Rivers.]

[1773.—"Fort St. David is ... built on a rising ground, about a mile from the Black-Town, which is called Cuddalore."—Ives, p. 18.]

CUDDAPAH, n.p. Tel. kaḍapa, ['threshold,' said to take its name from the fact that it is situated at the opening of the pass which leads to the holy town of Tripatty (Gribble, Man. of Cuddapah, p. 3); others connect it with Skt. kṛipa, 'pity,' and the Skt. name is Kripanagara]. A chief town and district of the Madras Presidency. It is always written Kurpah in Kirkpatrick's Translation of Tippoo's Letters, [and see Wilks, Mysore, ed. 1869, i. 303]. It has been suggested as possible that it is the ΚΑΡΙΓΗ (for ΚΑΡΙΠΗ) of Ptolemy's Tables. [Kurpah indigo is quoted on the London market.]

1768.—"The chiefs of Shanoor and Kirpa also followed the same path."—H. of Hydur Naik, 189.

CUDDOO, s. A generic name for pumpkins, [but usually applied to the musk-melon, cucurbita moschata (Watt, Econ. Dict. ii. 640)]. Hind. Kaddū.

[1870.—"Pumpkin, Red and White—Hind. Kuddoo. This vegetable grows in great abundance in all parts of the Deccan."—Riddell, Ind. Dom. Econ. 568.]

CUDDY, s. The public or captain's cabin of an Indiaman or other passenger ship. We have not been able to trace the origin satisfactorily. It must, however, be the same with the Dutch and Germ. kajute, which has the same signification. This is also the Scandinavian languages, Sw. in kajuta, Dan. kahyt, and Grimm quotes kajute, "Casteria," from a vocabulary of Saxon words used in the first half of 15th century. It is perhaps originally the same with the Fr. cahute, 'a hovel,' which Littré quotes from 12th century as quahute. Ducange has L. Latin cahua, 'casa, tugurium,' but a little doubtfully. [Burton (Ar. Nights, xi. 169) gives P. kadah, 'a room,' and compares Cumra. The N.E.D. leaves the question doubtful.]

1726.—"Neither will they go into any ship's Cayuyt so long as they see any one in the Skipper's cabin or on the half-deck."—Valentijn, Chorom. (and Pegu), 134.

1769.—"It was his (the Captain's) invariable practice on Sunday to let down a canvas curtain at one end of the cuddy ... and to read the church service,—a duty which he considered a complete clearance of the sins of the preceding week."—Life of Lord Teignmouth, i. 12.

1848.—"The youngsters among the passengers, young Chaffers of the 150th, and poor little Ricketts, coming home after his third fever, used to draw out Sedley at the cuddy-table, and make him tell prodigious stories about himself and his exploits against tigers and Napoleon."—Vanity Fair, ed. 1867, ii. 255.

CULGEE, s. A jewelled plume surmounting the sirpesh or aigrette upon the turban. Shakespear gives kalghī as a Turki word. [Platts gives kalghā, kalghī, and refers it to Skt. kalaśa, 'a spire.']

c. 1514.—"In this manner the people of Bârân catch great numbers of herons. The Kilki-saj ['Plumes worn on the cap or turban on great occasions.' Also see Punjab Trade Report, App., p. ccxv.] are of the heron's feathers."—Baber, 154.

1715.—"John Surman received a vest and Culgee set with precious stones."—Wheeler, ii. 246.

1759.—"To present to Omed Roy, viz.:—

1 Culgah 1200 0 0

1 Surpage (sirpesh, or aigrette) 600 0 0

1 Killot (see Killut) 250 0 0 "

—Expenses of Nabob's Entertainment. In Long, 193.

1786.—"Three Kulgies, three Surpaishes (see Sirpech), and three Puduks (?) [padak, H. 'a badge, a flat piece of gold, a neck ornament'] of the value of 36,320 rupees have been despatched to you in a casket."—Tippoo's Letters, 263.

[1892.—Of a Banjara ox—"Over the beast's forehead is a shaped frontlet of cotton cloth bordered with patterns in colour with pieces of mirror sewn in, and crowned by a kalgi or aigrette of peacock feather tips."—L. Kipling, Beast and Man in India, 147.

[The word was also applied to a rich silk cloth imported from India.

[1714.—In a list of goods belonging to sub-governors of the South Sea C.—"A pair of culgee window curtains."—2 ser. Notes & Q. VI. 244.]

CULMUREEA, KOORMUREEA, s. Nautical H. kalmarīya, 'a calm,' taken direct from Port. calmaria (Roebuck).

CULSEY, s. According to the quotation a weight of about a candy (q.v.). We have traced the word, which is rare, also in Prinsep's Tables (ed. Thomas, p. 115), as a measure in Bhūj, kalsī. And we find R. Drummond gives it: "Kulsee or Culsy (Guz.). A weight of sixteen maunds" (the Guzerat maunds are about 40 lbs., therefore kalsi = about 640 lbs.). [The word is probably Skt. kalaśi, 'a water jar,' and hence a grain measure. The Madras Gloss. gives Can. kalasi as a measure of capacity holding 14 Seers.]

1813.—"So plentiful are mangos ... that during my residence in Guzerat they were sold in the public markets for one rupee the culsey; or 600 pounds in English weight."—Forbes, Orient. Mem. i. 30; [2d. ed. i. 20].

CUMBLY, CUMLY, CUMMUL, s. A blanket; a coarse woollen cloth. Skt. kambala, appearing in the vernaculars in slightly varying forms, e.g. H. kamlī. Our first quotation shows a curious attempt to connect this word with the Arab. ḥammāl, 'a porter' (see HUMMAUL), and with the camel's hair of John Baptist's raiment. The word is introduced into Portuguese as cambolim, 'a cloak.'

c. 1350.—"It is customary to make of those fibres wet-weather mantles for those rustics whom they call camalls, whose business it is to carry burdens, and also to carry men and women on their shoulders in palankins (lecticis).... A garment, such as I mean, of this camall cloth (and not camel cloth) I wore till I got to Florence.... No doubt the raiment of John the Baptist was of that kind. For, as regards camel's hair, it is, next to silk, the softest stuff in the world, and never could have been meant...."—John Marignolli, in Cathay, 366.

1606.—"We wear nothing more frequently than those cambolins."—Gouvea, f. 132.

[c. 1610.—"Of it they make also good store of cloaks and capes, called by the Indians Mansaus, and by the Portuguese 'Ormus cambalis.'"—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. ii. 240.]

1673.—"Leaving off to wonder at the natives quivering and quaking after Sunset wrapping themselves in a combly or Hair-Cloth."—Fryer, 54.

1690.—"Camlees, which are a sort of Hair Coat made in Persia...."—Ovington, 455.

1718.—"But as a body called the Cammul-poshes, or blanket wearers, were going to join Qhandaoran, their commander, they fell in with a body of troops of Mahratta horse, who forbade their going further."—Seir Mutaqherin, i. 143.

1781.—"One comley as a covering ... 4 fanams, 6 dubs, 0 cash."—Prison Expenses of Hon. J. Lindsay, Lives of Lindsays, iii.

1798.—"... a large black Kummul, or blanket."—G. Forster, Travels, i. 194.

1800.—"One of the old gentlemen, observing that I looked very hard at his cumly, was alarmed lest I should think he possessed numerous flocks of sheep."—Letter of Sir T. Munro, in Life, i. 281.

1813.—Forbes has cameleens.—Or. Mem. i. 195; [2d. ed. i. 108].

CUMMERBUND, s. A girdle. H. from P. kamar-band, i.e. 'loin-band.' Such an article of dress is habitually worn by domestic servants, peons, and irregular troops; but any waist-belt is so termed.

[1534.—"And tying on a cummerbund (camarabando) of yellow silk."—Correa, iii. 588. Camarabandes in Dalboquerque, Comm., Hak. Soc. iv. 104.]

1552.—"The Governor arriving at Goa received there a present of a rich cloth of Persia which is called comarbãdos, being of gold and silk."—Castanheda, iii. 396.

1616.—"The nobleman of Xaxma sent to have a sample of gallie pottes, jugges, podingers, lookinglasses, table bookes, chint bramport, and combarbands, with the prices."—Cocks's Diary, i. 147.

1638.—"Ils serrent la veste d'vne ceinture, qu'ils appellent Commerbant."—Mandelslo, 223.

1648.—"In the middle they have a well adjusted girdle, called a Commerbant."—Van Twist, 55.

1727.—"They have also a fine Turband, embroidered Shoes, and a Dagger of Value, stuck into a fine Cummerband, or Sash."—A. Hamilton, i. 229; [ed. 1744, ii. 233].

1810.—"They generally have the turbans and cummer-bunds of the same colour, by way of livery."—Williamson, V. M. i. 274.

[1826.—"My white coat was loose, for want of a kumberbund."—Pandurang Hari, ed. 1873, i. 275.]

1880.—"... The Punjab seems to have found out Manchester. A meeting of native merchants at Umritsur ... describes the effects of a shower of rain on the English-made turbans and Kummerbunds as if their heads and loins were enveloped by layers of starch."—Pioneer Mail, June 17.

CUMQUOT, s. The fruit of Citrus japonica, a miniature orange, often sent in jars of preserved fruits, from China. Kumkwat is the Canton pronunciation of kin-kü, 'gold orange,' the Chinese name of the fruit.

CUMRA, s. H. kamrā, from Port. camara; a chamber, a cabin. [In Upper India the drawing-room is the gol kamrā, so called because one end of it is usually semi-circular.]

CUMRUNGA, s. See CARAMBOLA.

CUMSHAW, s. Chin. Pigeon-English for bucksheesh (q.v.), or a present of any kind. According to Giles it is the Amoy pron. (kam-siā) of two characters signifying 'grateful thanks.' Bp. Moule suggests kan-siu (or Cantonese) kăm-sau, 'thank-gift.'

1879.—"... they pressed upon us, blocking out the light, uttering discordant cries, and clamouring with one voice, Kum-sha, i.e. backsheesh, looking more like demons than living men."—Miss Bird's Golden Chersonese, 70.

1882.—"As the ship got under weigh, the Compradore's cumshas, according to 'olo custom,' were brought on board ... dried lychee, Nankin dates ... baskets of oranges, and preserved ginger."—The Fankwae, 103.

CUNCHUNEE, s. H. kanchanī. A dancing-girl. According to Shakespear, this is the feminine of a caste, Kanchan, whose women are dancers. But there is doubt as to this: [see Crooke, Tribes and Castes, N.W.P. iv. 364, for the Kanchan caste.] Kanchan is 'gold'; also a yellow pigment, which the women may have used; see quot. from Bernier. [See DANCING-GIRL.]

[c. 1590.—"The Kanjari; the men of this class play the Pakhāwaj, the Rabāb, and the Tāla, while the women sing and dance. His Majesty calls them Kanchanis."—Āīn, ed. Jarrett, iii. 257.]

c. 1660.—"But there is one thing which seems to me a little too extravagant ... the publick Women, I mean not those of the Bazar, but those more retired and considerable ones that go to the great marriages at the houses of the Omrahs and Mansebdars to sing and dance, those that are called Kenchen, as if you should say the guilded the blossoming ones...."—Bernier, E.T. 88; [ed. Constable, 273 seq.].

c. 1661.—"On regala dans le Serrail, toutes ces Dames Etrangères, de festins et des dances des Quenchenies, qui sont des femmes et des filles d'une Caste de ce nom, qui n'ont point d'autre profession que celle de la danse."—Thevenot, v. 151.

1689.—"And here the Dancing Wenches, or Quenchenies, entertain you, if you please."—Ovington, 257.

1799.—"In the evening the Canchanis ... have exhibited before the Prince and court."—Diary in Life of Colebrooke, 153.

1810.—"The dancing-women are of different kinds ... the Meeraseens never perform before assemblies of men.... The Kunchenee are of an opposite stamp; they dance and sing for the amusement of the male sex."—Williamson, V. M. i. 386.

CURIA MURIA, n.p. The name of a group of islands off the S.E. coast of Arabia (Kharyān Maryān, of Edrisi).

1527.—"Thus as they sailed, the ship got lost upon the shore of Fartaque in (the region of) Curia Muria; and having swum ashore they got along in company of the Moors by land to Calayata, and thence on to Ormuz."—Correa, iii. 562; see also i. 366.

c. 1535.—"Dopo Adem è Fartaque, e le isole Curia, Muria...."—Sommario de' Regni, in Ramusio, f. 325.

1540.—"We letted not to discover the Isles of Curia, Muria, and Avedalcuria (in orig. Abedalcuria)."—Mendez Pinto, E.T. p. 4.

[1553.—See quotation under ROSALGAT.]

1554.—"... it is necessary to come forth between Súkara and the islands Khúr or Múria (Khōr Mōriyā)."—The Mohit, in Jour. As. Soc. Beng. v. 459.

[1833.—"The next place to Saugra is Koorya Moorya Bay, which is extensive, and has good soundings throughout; the islands are named Jibly, Hallanny, Soda, and Haskee."—Owen, Narr. i. 348.]

1834.—"The next place to Saugra is Koorya Moorya Bay."—J. R. Geog. Soc. ii. 208.

CURNUM, s. Tel. karaṇamu; a village accountant, a town-clerk. Acc. to Wilson from Skt. karaṇa; (see CRANNY). [It corresponds to the Tam. kanakan (see CONICOPOLY).]

1827.—"Very little care has been taken to preserve the survey accounts. Those of several villages are not to be found. Of the remainder only a small share is in the Collector's cutcherry, and the rest is in the hands of curnums, written on cadjans."—Minute by Sir T. Munro, in Arbuthnot, i. 285.

CUROUNDA, s. H. karaundā. A small plum-like fruit, which makes good jelly and tarts, and which the natives pickle. It is borne by Carissa carandas, L., a shrub common in many parts of India (N.O. Apocynaceae).

[1870.—Riddell gives a receipt for kurunder jelly, Ind. Dom. Econ. 338.]

[CURRIG JEMA, adj. A corr. of H. khārij jama, "separated or detached from the rental of the State, as lands exempt from rent, or of which the revenue has been assigned to individuals or institutions" (Wilson).

[1687.—"... that whenever they have a mind to build Factorys, satisfying for the land where it was Currig Jema, that is over measure, not entred in the King's books, or paying the usuall and accustomed Rent, no Government should molest them."—Yule, Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. lxiii.]

CURRUMSHAW HILLS, n.p. This name appears in Rennell's Bengal Atlas, applied to hills in the Gaya district. It is ingeniously supposed by F. Buchanan to have been a mistake of the geographer's, in taking Karna-Chaupār ('Karna's place of meeting or teaching'), the name of an ancient ruin on the hills in question, for Karnachau Pahār (Pahār = Hill).—(Eastern India, i. 4).

CURRY, s. In the East the staple food consists of some cereal, either (as in N. India) in the form of flour baked into unleavened cakes, or boiled in the grain, as rice is. Such food having little taste, some small quantity of a much more savoury preparation is added as a relish, or 'kitchen,' to use the phrase of our forefathers. And this is in fact the proper office of curry in native diet. It consists of meat, fish, fruit, or vegetables, cooked with a quantity of bruised spices and turmeric [see MUSSALLA]; and a little of this gives a flavour to a large mess of rice. The word is Tam. kari, i.e. 'sauce'; [kari, v. 'to eat by biting']. The Canarese form karil was that adopted by the Portuguese, and is still in use at Goa. It is remarkable in how many countries a similar dish is habitual; pilāo [see PILLAU] is the analogous mess in Persia, and kuskussu in Algeria; in Egypt a dish well known as ruzz mufalfal [Lane, Mod. Egypt., ed. 1871, i. 185], or "peppered rice." In England the proportions of rice and "kitchen" are usually reversed, so that the latter is made to constitute the bulk of the dish.

The oldest indication of the Indian cuisine in this kind, though not a very precise one, is cited by Athenaeus from Megasthenes: "Among the Indians, at a banquet, a table is set before each individual ... and on the table is placed a golden dish on which they throw, first of all, boiled rice ... and then they add many sorts of meat dressed after the Indian fashion" (Athen., by Yonge, iv. 39). The earliest precise mention of curry is in the Mahavanso (c. A.D. 477), where it is said of Kassapo that "he partook of rice dressed in butter, with its full accompaniment of curries." This is Turnour's translation, the original Pali being sūpa.

It is possible, however, that the kind of curry used by Europeans and Mahommedans is not of purely Indian origin, but has come down from the spiced cookery of medieval Europe and Western Asia. The medieval spiced dishes in question were even coloured like curry. Turmeric, indeed, called by Garcia de Orta, Indian saffron, was yet unknown in Europe, but it was represented by saffron and sandalwood. A notable incident occurs in the old English poem of King Richard, wherein the Lion-heart feasts on the head of a Saracen—

"soden full hastily

With powder and with spysory,

And with saffron of good colour."

Moreover, there is hardly room for doubt that capsicum or red pepper (see CHILLY) was introduced into India by the Portuguese (see Hanbury and Flückiger, 407); and this spice constitutes the most important ingredient in modern curries. The Sanskrit books of cookery, which cannot be of any considerable antiquity, contain many recipes for curry without this ingredient. A recipe for curry (caril) is given, according to Bluteau, in the Portuguese Arte de Cozinha, p. 101. This must be of the 17th century.

It should be added that kari was, among the people of S. India, the name of only one form of 'kitchen' for rice, viz. of that in consistency resembling broth, as several of the earlier quotations indicate. Europeans have applied it to all the savoury concoctions of analogous spicy character eaten with rice. These may be divided into three classes—viz. (1), that just noticed; (2), that in the form of a stew of meat, fish or vegetables; (3), that called by Europeans 'dry curry.' These form the successive courses of a Hindu meal in S. India, and have in the vernaculars several discriminating names.

In Java the Dutch, in their employment of curry, keep much nearer to the original Hindu practice. At a breakfast, it is common to hand round with the rice a dish divided into many sectoral spaces, each of which contains a different kind of curry, more or less liquid.

According to the Fankwae at Canton (1882), the word is used at the Chinese ports (we presume in talking with Chinese servants) in the form kāārle (p. 62).

1502.—"Then the Captain-major commanded them to cut off the hands and ears of all the crews, and put all that into one of the small vessels, into which he ordered them to put the friar, also without ears or nose or hands, which he ordered to be strung round his neck with a palm-leaf for the King, on which he told him to have a curry (caril) made to eat of what his friar brought him."—Correa, Three Voyages, Hak. Soc. 331. The "Friar" was a Brahman, in the dress of a friar, to whom the odious ruffian Vasco da Gama had given a safe-conduct.

1563.—"They made dishes of fowl and flesh, which they call caril."—Garcia, f. 68.

c. 1580.—"The victual of these (renegade soldiers) is like that of the barbarous people; that of Moors all bringe [birinj, 'rice']; that of Gentoos rice-carril."—Primor e Honra, &c., f. 9v.

1598.—"Most of their fish is eaten with rice, which they seeth in broth, which they put upon the rice, and is somewhat soure, as if it were sodden in gooseberries, or unripe grapes, but it tasteth well, and is called Carriel [v.l. Carriil], which is their daily meat."—Linschoten, 88; [Hak. Soc. ii. 11]. This is a good description of the ordinary tamarind curry of S. India.

1606.—"Their ordinary food is boiled rice with many varieties of certain soups which they pour upon it, and which in those parts are commonly called caril."—Gouvea, 61b.

1608-1610.—"... me disoit qu'il y auoit plus de 40 ans, qu'il estoit esclaue, et auoit gagné bon argent à celuy qui le possedoit; et toute fois qu'il ne luy donnoit pour tout viure qu'vne mesure de riz cru par iour sans autre chose ... et quelquefois deux baseruques, qui sont quelque deux deniers (see BUDGROOK), pour auoir du Caril à mettre auec le riz."—Mocquet, Voyages, 337.

1623.—"In India they give the name of caril to certain messes made with butter, with the kernel of the coco-nut (in place of which might be used in our part of the world milk of almonds) ... with spiceries of every kind, among the rest cardamom and ginger ... with vegetables, fruits, and a thousand other condiments of sorts; ... and the Christians, who eat everything, put in also flesh or fish of every kind, and sometimes eggs ... with all which things they make a kind of broth in the fashion of our guazzetti (or hotch-potches) ... and this broth with all the said condiments in it they pour over a good quantity of rice boiled simply with water and salt, and the whole makes a most savoury and substantial mess."—P. della Valle, ii. 709; [Hak. Soc. ii. 328.]

1681.—"Most sorts of these delicious Fruits they gather before they be ripe, and boyl them to make Carrees, to use the Portuguese word, that is somewhat to eat with and relish their Rice."—Knox, p. 12. This perhaps indicates that the English curry is formed from the Port. caris, plural of caril.

c. 1690.—"Curcuma in Indiâ tam ad cibum quam ad medecinam adhibetur, Indi enim ... adeo ipsi adsueti sunt ut cum cunctis admiscent condimentis et piscibus, praesertim autem isti quod karri ipsis vocatur."—Rumphius, Pars Vta. p. 166.

c. 1759-60.—"The currees are infinitely various, being a sort of fricacees to eat with rice, made of any animals or vegetables."—Grose, i. 150.

1781.—"To-day have curry and rice for my dinner, and plenty of it as C——, my messmate, has got the gripes, and cannot eat his share."—Hon. J. Lindsay's Imprisonment, in Lives of Lindsays, iii. 296.

1794-97.—

"The Bengal squad he fed so wondrous nice,

Baring his currie took, and Scott his rice."

Pursuits of Literature, 5th ed., p. 287.

This shows that curry was not a domesticated dish in England at the date of publication. It also is a sample of what the wit was that ran through so many editions!

c. 1830.—"J'ai substitué le lait à l'eau pour boisson ... c'est une sorte de contre-poison pour l'essence de feu que forme la sauce enragée de mon sempiternel cari."—Jacquemont, Correspondance, i. 196.

1848.—"Now we have seen how Mrs. Sedley had prepared a fine curry for her son."—Vanity Fair, ch. iv.

1860.—"... Vegetables, and especially farinaceous food, are especially to be commended. The latter is indeed rendered attractive by the unrivalled excellence of the Singhalese in the preparation of innumerable curries, each tempered by the delicate creamy juice expressed from the flesh of the cocoa-nut, after it has been reduced to a pulp."—Tennent's Ceylon, i. 77. N.B. Tennent is misled in supposing (i. 437) that chillies are mentioned in the Mahavanso. The word is maricha, which simply means "pepper," and which Turnour has translated erroneously (p. 158).

1874.—"The craving of the day is for quasi-intellectual food, not less highly peppered than the curries which gratify the faded stomach of a returned Nabob."—Blackwood's Magazine, Oct. 434.

The Dutch use the word as Kerrie or Karrie; and Kari à l'Indienne has a place in French cartes.

CURRY-STUFF, s. Onions, chillies, &c.; the usual material for preparing curry, otherwise mussalla (q.v.), represented in England by the preparations called curry-powder and curry-paste.

1860.—"... with plots of esculents and curry-stuffs of every variety, onions, chillies, yams, cassavas, and sweet potatoes."—Tennent's Ceylon, i. 463.

CUSBAH, s. Ar.—H. ḳaṣba, ḳaṣaba; the chief place of a pergunnah (q.v.).

1548.—"And the caçabe of Tanaa is rented at 4450 pardaos."—S. Botelho, Tombo, 150.

[c. 1590.—"In the fortieth year of his Majesty's reign, his dominions consisted of one hundred and five Sircars, sub-divided into two thousand seven hundred and thirty-seven kusbahs."—Ayeen, tr. Gladwin, ii. 1; Jarrett, ii. 115.]

1644.—"On the land side are the houses of the Vazador (?) or Possessor of the Casabe, which is as much as to say the town or aldea of Mombaym (Bombay). This town of Mombaym is a small and scattered affair."—Bocarro, MS. fol. 227.

c. 1844-45.—"In the centre of the large Cusbah of Streevygoontum exists an old mud fort, or rather wall of about 20 feet high, surrounding some 120 houses of a body of people calling themselves Kotie Vellalas,—that is 'Fort Vellalas.' Within this wall no police officer, warrant or Peon ever enters.... The females are said to be kept in a state of great degradation and ignorance. They never pass without the walls alive; when dead they are carried out by night in sacks."—Report by Mr. E. B. Thomas, Collector of Tinnevelly, quoted in Lord Stanhope's Miscellanies, 2nd Series, 1872, p. 132.

CUSCUSS, CUSS, s. Pers.—H. k̲h̲ask̲h̲as. The roots of a grass [called in N. India senṭhā or tīn,] which abounds in the drier parts of India, Anatherum muricatum (Beauv.), Andropogon muricatus (Retz), used in India during the hot dry winds to make screens, which are kept constantly wet, in the window openings, and the fragrant evaporation from which greatly cools the house (see TATTY). This device seems to be ascribed by Abul Faẓl to the invention of Akbar. These roots are well known in France by the name vetyver, which is the Tam. name veṭṭivēru, 'the root which is dug up.' In some of the N. Indian vernaculars khaskhas is 'a poppy-head'; [but this is a different word, Skt. khaskhasa, and compare P. k̲h̲ashk̲h̲ash].

c. 1590.—"But they (the Hindus) were notorious for the want of cold water, the intolerable heat of their climate.... His Majesty remedied all these evils and defects. He taught them how to cool water by the help of saltpetre.... He ordered mats to be woven of a cold odoriferous root called Khuss ... and when wetted with water on the outside, those within enjoy a pleasant cool air in the height of summer."—Ayeen (Gladwin, 1800), ii. 196; [ed. Jarrett, iii. 9].

1663.—"Kas kanays." See quotation under TATTY.

1810.—"The Kuss-Kuss ... when fresh, is rather fragrant, though the scent is somewhat terraceous."—Williamson, V. M. i. 235.

1824.—"We have tried to keep our rooms cool with 'tatties,' which are mats formed of the Kuskos, a peculiar sweet-scented grass...."—Heber, ed. 1844, i. 59.

It is curious that the coarse grass which covers the more naked parts of the Islands of the Indian Archipelago appears to be called kusu-kusu (Wallace, 2nd ed. ii. 74). But we know not if there is any community of origin in these names.

[1832.—"The sirrakee (sirkī) and sainturh (senṭhā) are two specimens of one genus of jungle grass, the roots of which are called secundah (sirkanda) or khus-khus."—Mrs. Meer Hasan Ali, Observations, &c., ii. 208.]

In the sense of poppy-seed or poppy-head, this word is P.; De Orta says Ar.; [see above.]

1563.—"... at Cambaiete, seeing in the market that they were selling poppy-heads big enough to fill a canada, and also some no bigger than ours, and asking the name, I was told that it was caxcax (cashcash)—and that in fact is the name in Arabic—and they told me that of these poppies was made opium (amfião), cuts being made in the poppy-head, so that the opium exudes."—Garcia De Orta, f. 155.

1621.—"The 24th of April public proclamation was made in Ispahan by the King's order ... that on pain of death, no one should drink cocnur, which is a liquor made from the husk of the capsule of opium, called by them khash-khash."—P. della Valle, ii. 209; [cocnur is P. koknār].

CUSPADORE, s. An old term for a spittoon. Port. cuspadeira, from cuspir, [Lat. conspuere], to spit. Cuspidor would be properly qui multum spuit.

[1554.—Speaking of the greatness of the Sultan of Bengal, he says to illustrate it—"From the camphor which goes with his spittle when he spits into his gold spittoon (cospidor) his chamberlain has an income of 2000 cruzados."—Castanheda, Bk. iv. ch. 83.]

1672.—"Here maintain themselves three of the most powerful lords and Naiks of this kingdom, who are subject to the Crown of Velour, and pay it tribute of many hundred Pagodas ... viz. Vitipa-naik of Madura, the King's Cuspidoor-bearer, 200 Pagodas, Cristapa-naik of Chengier, the King's Betel-server, 200 pagodas, the Naik of Tanjouwer, the King's Warder and Umbrella carrier, 400 Pagodas...."—Baldaeus, Germ. ed. 153.

1735.—In a list of silver plate we have "5 cuspadores."—Wheeler, iii. 139.

1775.—"Before each person was placed a large brass salver, a black earthen pot of water, and a brass cuspadore."—Forrest, V. to N. Guinea, &c. (at Magindanao), 235.

[1900.—"The royal cuspadore" is mentioned among the regalia at Selangor, and a "cuspadore" (ketor) is part of the marriage appliances.—Skeat, Malay Magic, 26, 374.]

CUSTARD-APPLE, s. The name in India of a fruit (Anona squamosa, L.) originally introduced from S. America, but which spread over India during the 16th century. Its commonest name in Hindustan is sharīfa, i.e. 'noble'; but it is also called Sītap'hal, i.e. 'the Fruit of Sītā,' whilst another Anona ('bullock's heart,' A. reticulata, L., the custard-apple of the W. Indies, where both names are applied to it) is called in the south by the name of her husband Rāma. And the Sītap'hal and Rāmp'hal have become the subject of Hindu legends (see Forbes, Or. Mem. iii. 410). The fruit is called in Chinese Fan-li-chi, i.e. foreign leechee.

A curious controversy has arisen from time to time as to whether this fruit and its congeners were really imported from the New World, or were indigenous in India. They are not mentioned among Indian fruits by Baber (c. A.D. 1530), but the translation of the Āīn (c. 1590) by Prof. Blochmann contains among the "Sweet Fruits of Hindustan," Custard-apple (p. 66). On referring to the original, however, the word is sadāp'hal (fructus perennis), a Hind. term for which Shakespear gives many applications, not one of them the anona. The bel is one (Aegle marmelos), and seems as probable as any (see BAEL). The custard-apple is not mentioned by Garcia de Orta (1563), Linschoten (1597), or even by P. della Valle (1624). It is not in Bontius (1631), nor in Piso's commentary on Bontius (1658), but is described as an American product in the West Indian part of Piso's book, under the Brazilian name Araticu. Two species are described as common by P. Vincenzo Maria, whose book was published in 1672. Both the custard-apple and the sweet-sop are fruits now generally diffused in India; but of their having been imported from the New World, the name Anona, which we find in Oviedo to have been the native West Indian name of one of the species, and which in various corrupted shapes is applied to them over different parts of the East, is an indication. Crawfurd, it is true, in his Malay Dictionary explains nona or buah- ("fruit") nona in its application to the custard-apple as fructus virginalis, from nona, the term applied in the Malay countries (like missy in India) to an unmarried European lady. But in the face of the American word this becomes out of the question.

It is, however, a fact that among the Bharhut sculptures, among the carvings dug up at Muttra by General Cunningham, and among the copies from wall-paintings at Ajanta (as pointed out by Sir G. Birdwood in 1874, (see Athenaeum, 26th October), [Bombay Gazetteer, xii. 490]) there is a fruit represented which is certainly very like a custard-apple (though an abnormally big one), and not very like anything else yet pointed out. General Cunningham is convinced that it is a custard-apple, and urges in corroboration of his view that the Portuguese in introducing the fruit (which he does not deny) were merely bringing coals to Newcastle; that he has found extensive tracts in various parts of India covered with the wild custard-apple; and also that this fruit bears an indigenous Hindi name, ātā or āt, from the Sanskrit ātṛipya.

It seems hard to pronounce about this ātṛipya. A very high authority, Prof. Max Müller, to whom we once referred, doubted whether the word (meaning 'delightful') ever existed in real Sanskrit. It was probably an artificial name given to the fruit, and he compared it aptly to the factitious Latin of aureum malum for "orange," though the latter word really comes from the Sanskrit nāranga. On the other hand, ātṛipya is quoted by Rāja Rādhakant Deb, in his Sanskrit dictionary, from a medieval work, the Dravyaguna. And the question would have to be considered how far the MSS. of such a work are likely to have been subject to modern interpolation. Sanskrit names have certainly been invented for many objects which were unknown till recent centuries. Thus, for example, Williams gives more than one word for cactus, or prickly pear, a class of plants which was certainly introduced from America (see Vidara and Viśvasaraka, in his Skt. Dictionary).

A new difficulty, moreover, arises as to the indigenous claims of ātā, which is the name for the fruit in Malabar as well as in Upper India. For, on turning for light to the splendid works of the Dutch ancients, Rheede and Rumphius, we find in the former (Hortus Malabaricus, part iv.) a reference to a certain author, 'Recchus de Plantis Mexicanis,' as giving a drawing of a custard-apple tree, the name of which in Mexico was ahaté or até, "fructu apud Mexicanos praecellenti arbor nobilis" (the expressions are noteworthy, for the popular Hindustani name of the fruit is sharīfa = "nobilis"). We also find in a Manilla Vocabulary that ate or atte is the name of this fruit in the Philippines. And from Rheede we learn that in Malabar the ātā was sometimes called by a native name meaning "the Manilla jack-fruit"; whilst the Anona reticulata, or sweet-sop, was called by the Malabars "the Parangi (i.e. Firingi or Portuguese) jack-fruit."

These facts seem to indicate that probably the ātā and its name came to India from Mexico viâ the Philippines, whilst the anona and its name came to India from Hispaniola viâ the Cape. In the face of these probabilities the argument of General Cunningham from the existence of the tree in a wild state loses force. The fact is undoubted and may be corroborated by the following passage from "Observations on the nature of the Food of the Inhabitants of South India," 1864, p. 12:—"I have seen it stated in a botanical work that this plant (Anona sq.) is not indigenous, but introduced from America, or the W. Indies. If so, it has taken most kindly to the soil of the Deccan, for the jungles are full of it": [also see Watt, Econ. Dict. ii. 259 seq., who supports the foreign origin of the plant]. The author adds that the wild custard-apples saved the lives of many during famine in the Hyderabad country. But on the other hand, the Argemone Mexicana, a plant of unquestioned American origin, is now one of the most familiar weeds all over India. The cashew (Anacardium occidentale), also of American origin, and carrying its American name with it to India, not only forms tracts of jungle now (as Sir G. Birdwood has stated) in Canara and the Concan (and, as we may add from personal knowledge, in Tanjore), but was described by P. Vincenzo Maria, more than two hundred and twenty years ago, as then abounding in the wilder tracts of the western coast.

The question raised by General Cunningham is an old one, for it is alluded to by Rumphius, who ends by leaving it in doubt. We cannot say that we have seen any satisfactory suggestion of another (Indian) plant as that represented in the ancient sculpture of Bharhut. [Dr. Watt says: "They may prove to be conventional representations of the jack-fruit tree or some other allied plant; they are not unlike the flower-heads of the sacred kadamba or Anthocephalus," (loc. cit. i. 260)]. But it is well to get rid of fallacious arguments on either side.

In the "Materia Medica of the Hindus by Udoy Chand Dutt, with a Glossary by G. King, M.B., Calc. 1877," we find the following synonyms given:—

"Anona squamosa: Skt. Ganḍagatra; Beng. Ātā; Hind. Sharīfa, and Sītāphal."

"Anona reticulata: Skt. Lavali; Beng. Lonā."

1672.—"The plant of the Atta in 4 or 5 years comes to its greatest size ... the fruit ... under the rind is divided into so many wedges, corresponding to the external compartments.... The pulp is very white, tender, delicate, and so delicious that it unites to agreeable sweetness a most delightful fragrance like rose-water ... and if presented to one unacquainted with it he would certainly take it for a blamange.... The Anona," &c., &c.—P. Vincenzo Maria, pp. 346-7.

1690.—"They (Hindus) feed likewise upon Pine-Apples, Custard-apples, so called because they resemble a Custard in Colour and Taste...."—Ovington, 303.

c. 1830.—"... the custard-apple, like russet bags of cold pudding."—Tom Cringle's Log, ed. 1863, p. 140.

1878.—"The gushing custard-apple with its crust of stones and luscious pulp."—Ph. Robinson, In my Indian Garden, .

CUSTOM, s. Used in Madras as the equivalent of Dustoor, Dustoory, of which it is a translation. Both words illustrate the origin of Customs in the solemn revenue sense.

1683.—"Threder and Barker positively denied ye overweight, ye Merchants proved it by their books; but ye skeyne out of every draught was confest, and claimed as their due, having been always the custom."—Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. i. 83.

1768-71.—"Banyans, who ... serve in this capacity without any fixed pay, but they know how much more they may charge upon every rupee, than they have in reality paid, and this is called costumado."—Stavorinus, E.T., i. 522.

CUSTOMER, s. Used in old books of Indian trade for the native official who exacted duties. [The word was in common use in England from 1448 to 1748; see N.E.D.]

[1609.—"His houses ... are seized on by the Customer."—Danvers, Letters, i. 25; and comp. Foster, ibid. ii. 225.

[1615.—"The Customer should come and visitt them."—Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. i. 44.]

1682.—"The several affronts, insolences, and abuses dayly put upon us by Boolchund, our chief Customer."—Hedges, Diary, [Hak. Soc. i. 33].

CUTCH, s. See CATECHU.

CUTCH, n.p. Properly Kachchh, a native State in the West of India, immediately adjoining Sind, the Rājput ruler of which is called the Rāo. The name does not occur, as far as we have found, in any of the earlier Portuguese writers, nor in Linschoten, [but the latter mentions the gulf under the name of Jaqueta (Hak. Soc. i. 56 seq.)]. The Skt. word kachchha seems to mean a morass or low, flat land.

c. 1030.—"At this place (Mansura) the river (Indus) divides into two streams, one empties itself into the sea in the neighbourhood of the city of Lúháráni, and the other branches off to the east to the borders of Kach."—Al-Birūnī, in Elliot, i. 49.

Again, "Kach, the country producing gum" (i.e. mukal or bdellium), p. 66.

The port mentioned in the next three extracts was probably Mandavi (this name is said to signify "Custom-House"); [manḍwī, 'a temporary hut,' is a term commonly applied to a bazaar in N. India].

1611.—"Cuts-nagore, a place not far from the River of Zinde."—Nic. Dounton, in Purchas, i. 307.

[1612.—"The other ship which proved of Cuts-nagana."—Danvers, Letters, i. 179.]

c. 1615.—"Francisco Sodre ... who was serving as captain-major of the fortress of Dio, went to Cache, with twelve ships and a sanguicel, to inflict chastisement for the arrogance and insolence of these blacks ("... pela soberbia e desaforos d'estes negros...."—"Of these niggers!"), thinking that he might do it as easily as Gaspar de Mello had punished those of Por."—Bocarro, 257.

[c. 1661.—"Dara ... traversing with speed the territories of the Raja Katche soon reached the province of Guzarate...."—Bernier, ed. Constable, 73.]

1727.—"The first town on the south side of the Indus is Cutch-naggen."—A. Hamilton, i. 131; [ed. 1744].

CUTCH GUNDAVA, n.p. Kachchh Gandāva or Kachchī, a province of Biluchistan, under the Khan of Kela't, adjoining our province of Sind; a level plain, subject to inordinate heat in summer, and to the visitation of the simūm. Across the northern part of this plain runs the railway from Sukkur to Sibi. Gandāva, the chief place, has been shown by Sir H. Elliot to be the Kandābīl or Kandhābel of the Arab geographers of the 9th and 10th centuries. The name in its modern shape, or what seems intended for the same, occurs in the Persian version of the Chachnāmah, or H. of the Conquest of Sind, made in A.D. 1216 (see Elliot, i. 166).

CUTCHA, KUTCHA, adj. Hind. kachchā, 'raw, crude, unripe, uncooked.' This word is with its opposite pakkā (see PUCKA) among the most constantly recurring Anglo-Indian colloquial terms, owing to the great variety of metaphorical applications of which both are susceptible. The following are a few examples only, but they will indicate the manner of use better than any attempt at comprehensive definition:—

A cutcha Brick is a sun-dried brick. A pucka Brick is a properly kiln-burnt brick.

" House is built of mud, or of sun-dried brick. " House is of burnt brick or stone with lime, and generally with a terraced plaster roof.

" Road is earthwork only. " Road is a Macadamised one.

" Appointment is acting or temporary. " Appointment is permanent.

" Settlement is one where the land is held without lease. " Settlement is one fixed for a term of years.

" Account or Estimate, is one which is rough, superficial, and untrustworthy. " Account, or Estimate, is carefully made, and claiming to be relied on.

" Maund, or Seer, is the smaller, where two weights are in use, as often happens. " Maund, or Seer, is the larger of two in use.

" Major is a brevet or local Major. " Major, is a regimental Major.

" Colour is one that won't wash. " Colour, is one that will wash.

" Fever is a simple ague or a light attack. " Fever, is a dangerous remittent or the like (what the Italians call pernizziosa).

" Pice generally means one of those amorphous coppers, current in up-country bazars at varying rates of value. " Pice; a double copper coin formerly in use; also a proper pice (= ¼ anna) from the Govt. mints.

" Coss—see analogy under Maund above. " Coss—see under Maund above.

" Roof. A roof of mud laid on beams; or of thatch, &c. " Roof; a terraced roof made with cement.

" Scoundrel, a limp and fatuous knave. " Scoundrel, one whose motto is "Thorough."

" Seam (silāī) is the tailor's tack for trying on. " Seam is the definite stitch of the garment.

1763.—"Il parait que les catcha cosses sont plus en usage que les autres cosses dans le gouvernement du Decan."—Lettres Edifiantes, xv. 190.

1863.—"In short, in America, where they cannot get a pucka railway they take a kutcha one instead. This, I think, is what we must do in India."—Lord Elgin, in Letters and Journals, 432.

Captain Burton, in a letter dated Aug. 26, 1879, and printed in the "Academy" (p. 177), explains the gypsy word gorgio, for a Gentile or non-Rommany, as being kachhā or cutcha. This may be, but it does not carry conviction.

CUTCHA-PUCKA, adj. This term is applied in Bengal to a mixt kind of building in which burnt brick is used, but which is cemented with mud instead of lime-mortar.

CUTCHÉRRY, and in Madras CUT′CHERY, s. An office of administration, a court-house. Hind. kachahrī; used also in Ceylon. The word is not usually now, in Bengal, applied to a merchant's counting-house, which is called dufter, but it is applied to the office of an Indigo-Planter or a Zemindar, the business in which is more like that of a Magistrate's or Collector's Office. In the service of Tippoo Sahib cutcherry was used in peculiar senses besides the ordinary one. In the civil administration it seems to have been used for something like what we should now call Department (see e.g. Tippoo's Letters, 292); and in the army for a division or large brigade (e.g. ibid. 332; and see under JYSHE and quotation from Wilks below).

1610.—"Over against this seat is the Cichery or Court of Rolls, where the King's Viseer sits every morning some three houres, by whose hands passe all matters of Rents, Grants, Lands, Firmans, Debts, &c."—Hawkins, in Purchas, i. 439.

1673.—"At the lower End the Royal Exchange or Queshery ... opens its folding doors."—Fryer, 261.

[1702.—"But not makeing an early escape themselves were carried into the Cacherra or publick Gaol."—Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. cvi.]

1763.—"The Secretary acquaints the Board that agreeably to their orders of the 9th May, he last Saturday attended the Court of Cutcherry, and acquainted the Members with the charge the President of the Court had laid against them for non-attendance."—In Long, 316.

" "The protection of our Gomastahs and servants from the oppression and jurisdiction of the Zemindars and their Cutcherries has been ever found to be a liberty highly essential both to the honour and interest of our nation."—From the Chief and Council at Dacca, in Van Sittart, i. 247.

c. 1765.—"We can truly aver that during almost five years that we presided in the Cutchery Court of Calcutta, never any murder or atrocious crime came before us but it was proved in the end a Bramin was at the bottom of it."—Holwell, Interesting Historical Events, Pt. II. 152.

1783.—"The moment they find it true that the English Government shall remain as it is, they will divide sugar and sweetmeats among all the people in the Cutcheree; then every body will speak sweet words."—Native Letter, in Forbes, Or. Mem. iv. 227.

1786.—"You must not suffer any one to come to your house; and whatever business you may have to do, let it be transacted in our Kuchurry."—Tippoo's Letters, 303.

1791.—"At Seringapatam General Matthews was in confinement. James Skurry was sent for one day to the Kutcherry there, and some pewter plates with marks on them were shown to him to explain; he saw on them words to this purport, 'I am indebted to the Malabar Christians on account of the Public Service 40,000 Rs.; the Company owes me (about) 30,000 Rs.; I have taken Poison and am now within a short time of Death; whoever communicates this to the Bombay Govt. or to my wife will be amply rewarded. (Signed) Richard Matthews.'"—Narrative of Mr. William Drake, and other Prisoners (in Mysore), in Madras Courier, 17th Nov.

c. 1796.—"... the other Asof Mirán Hussein, was a low fellow and a debauchee, ... who in different ... towns was carried in his pálkí on the shoulders of dancing girls as ugly as demons to his Kutcheri or hall of audience."—H. of Tipú Sultán, E.T. by Miles, 246.

" "... the favour of the Sultan towards that worthy man (Dundia Wágh) still continued to increase ... but although, after a time, a Kutcheri, or brigade, was named after him, and orders were issued for his release, it was to no purpose."—Ibid. 248.

[c. 1810.—"Four appears to have been the fortunate number with Tippoo; four companies (yeuz), one battalion (teep), four teeps, one cushoon (see KOSHOON): ... four cushoons, one Cutcherry. The establishment ... of a cutcherry ... 5,688, but these numbers fluctuated with the Sultaun's caprices, and at one time a cushoon, with its cavalry attached, was a legion of about 3,000."—Wilks, Mysore, ed. 1869, ii. 132.]

1834.—"I mean, my dear Lady Wroughton, that the man to whom Sir Charles is most heavily indebted, is an officer of his own Kucheree, the very sircar who cringes to you every morning for orders."—The Baboo, ii. 126.

1860.—"I was told that many years ago, what remained of the Dutch records were removed from the record-room of the Colonial Office to the Cutcherry of the Government Agent."—Tennent's Ceylon, i. xxviii.

1873.—"I'd rather be out here in a tent any time ... than be stewing all day in a stuffy Kutcherry listening to Ram Buksh and Co. perjuring themselves till they are nearly white in the face."—The True Reformer, i. 4.

1883.—"Surrounded by what seemed to me a mob of natives, with two or three dogs at his feet, talking, writing, dictating,—in short doing Cutcherry."—C. Raikes, in Bosworth Smith's Lord Lawrence, i. 59.

CUTCHNAR, s. Hind. kachnār, Skt. kānchanāra (kānchana, 'gold') the beautiful flowering tree Bauhinia variegata, L., and some other species of the same genus (N. O. Leguminosae).

1855.—"Very good fireworks were exhibited ... among the best was a sort of maypole hung round with minor fireworks which went off in a blaze and roll of smoke, leaving disclosed a tree hung with quivering flowers of purple flame, evidently intended to represent the Kachnar of the Burmese forests."—Yule, Mission to Ava, 95.

CUTTACK, n.p. The chief city of Orissa, and district immediately attached. From Skt. kaṭaka, 'an army, a camp, a royal city.' This name Al-kataka is applied by Ibn Batuta in the 14th century to Deogīr in the Deccan (iv. 46), or at least to a part of the town adjoining that ancient fortress.

c. 1567.—"Citta di Catheca."—Cesare Federici, in Ramusio, iii. 392. [Catecha, in Hakl. ii. 358].

[c. 1590.—"Attock on the Indus is called Atak Benares in contra distinction to Katak Benares in Orissa at the opposite extremity of the Empire."—Āīn, ed. Jarrett, ii. 311.]

1633.—"The 30 of April we set forward in the Morning for the City of Coteka (it is a city of seven miles in compasse, and it standeth a mile from Malcandy where the Court is kept."—Bruton, in Hakl. v. 49.

1726.—"Cattek."—Valentijn, v. 158.

CUTTANEE, s. Some kind of piece-goods, apparently either of silk or mixed silk and cotton. Kuttān, Pers., is flax or linen cloth. This is perhaps the word. [Kattan is now used in India for the waste selvage in silk weaving, which is sold to Patwas, and used for stringing ornaments, such as joshans (armlets of gold or silver beads), bāzūbands (armlets with folding bands), &c. (Yusuf Ali, Mon. on Silk Fabrics, 66).] Cutanees appear in Milburn's list of Calcutta piece-goods.

[1598.—"Cotonias, which are like canvas."—Linschoten, Hak. Soc. i. 60.]

[1648.—"Contenijs." See under ALCATIF.

[1673.—"Cuttanee breeches." See under ATLAS.

[1690.—"... rich Silks, such as Atlasses, Cuttanees...."—See under ALLEJA.

[1734.—"They manufacture ... in cotton and silk called Cuttenees."—A. Hamilton, i. 126; ed. 1744.]

CUTTRY. See KHUTTRY.

CYRUS, SYRAS, SARUS, &c. A common corruption of Hind. sāras, [Skt. sarasa, the 'lake bird,'] or (corruptly) sārhans, the name of the great gray crane, Grus Antigone, L., generally found in pairs, held almost sacred in some parts of India, and whose "fine trumpet-like call, uttered when alarmed or on the wing, can be heard a couple of miles off" (Jerdon). [The British soldier calls the bird a "Serious," and is fond of shooting him for the pot.]

1672.—"... peculiarly Brand-geese, Colum [see COOLUNG], and Serass, a species of the former."—Fryer, 117.

1807.—"The argeelah as well as the cyrus, and all the aquatic tribe are extremely fond of snakes, which they ... swallow down their long throats with great despatch."—Williamson, Or. Field Sports, 27.

[1809.—"Saros." See under coolung.]

1813.—In Forbes's Or. Mem. (ii. 277 seqq.; [2nd ed. i. 502 seqq.]), there is a curious story of a Cyrus or Sahras (as he writes it) which Forbes had tamed in India, and which nine years afterwards recognised its master when he visited General Conway's menagerie at Park Place near Henley.

1840.—"Bands of gobbling pelicans" (see this word, probably ADJUTANTS are meant) "and groups of tall cyruses in their half-Quaker, half-lancer plumage, consulted and conferred together, in seeming perplexity as to the nature of our intentions."—Mrs. Mackenzie, Storms and Sunshine of a Soldier's Life, i. 108.