A GLOSSARY OF ANGLO-INDIAN COLLOQUIAL TERMS AND PHRASES OF ANALOGOUS ORIGIN. (continued 3)
Reading edition
1782.—(A Table of Wages):—
"Consumah.........10 (rupees a month). * * * * * * Eyah....................5."—India Gazette, Oct. 12.
1810.—"The female who attends a lady while she is dressing, etc., is called an Ayah."—Williamson, V. M. i. 337.
1826.—"The lieutenant's visits were now less frequent than usual; one day, however, he came ... and on leaving the house I observed him slip something, which I doubted not was money, into the hand of the Ayah, or serving woman, of Jane."—Pandurang Hari, 71; [ed. 1873, i. 99].
1842.—"Here (at Simla) there is a great preponderence of Mahometans. I am told that the guns produced absolute consternation, visible in their countenances. One Ayah threw herself upon the ground in an agony of despair.... I fired 42 guns for Ghuzni and Cabul; the 22nd (42nd?) gun—which announced that all was finished—was what overcame the Mahometans."—Lord Ellenborough, in Indian Administration 295. This stuff was written to the great Duke of Wellington!
1873.—"The white-robed ayah flits in and out of the tents, finding a home for our various possessions, and thither we soon retire."—Fraser's Mag., June, i. 99.
1879.—"He was exceedingly fond of his two children, and got for them servants; a man to cook their dinner, and an ayah to take care of them."—Miss Stokes, Indian Fairy Tales, 7.