Note 62 — B (continued 3)

Of the use of the word Boy (a corruption of Bōyi) for palanquin-bearer, numerous examples are quoted by Yule and Burnell.62 Thus Carraccioli, in his life of Lord Clive, records that, in 1785, the Boys with Colonel Lawrence’s palankeen, having struggled a little out of the time of march, were picked up by the Marattas. Writing in 1563, Barras states63 that “there are men who carry the umbrella so dexterously to ward off the sun that, although their master trots on his horse, the sun does not touch any part of his body and such men are called Boi.”