B (continued 2)

1555.—"We may mention that the inhabitants of Guzerat call the unbelievers Banyāns, whilst the inhabitants of Hindustan call them Hindū."—Sidi 'Ali Kapudān, in J. As., 1^ère S. ix. 197-8.

1563.—"R. If the fruits were all as good as this (mango) it would be no such great matter in the Baneanes, as you tell me, not to eat flesh. And since I touch on this matter, tell me, prithee, who are these Baneanes ... who do not eat flesh?..."—Garcia, f. 136.

1608.—"The Gouernour of the Towne of Gandeuee is a Bannyan, and one of those kind of people that obserue the Law of Pythagoras."—Jones, in Purchas, i. 231.

[1610.—"Baneanes." See quotation under BANKSHALL, a.]

1623.—"One of these races of Indians is that of those which call themselves Vanià, but who are called, somewhat corruptly by the Portuguese, and by all our other Franks, Banians; they are all, for the most part, traders and brokers."—P. della Valle, i. 486-7; [and see i. 78 Hak. Soc.].

1630.—"A people presented themselves to mine eyes, cloathed in linnen garments, somewhat low descending, of a gesture and garbe, as I may say, maidenly and well nigh effeminate; of a countenance shy, and somewhat estranged; yet smiling out a glosed and bashful familiarity.... I asked what manner of people these were, so strangely notable, and notably strange. Reply was made that they were Banians."—Lord, Preface.

1665.—"In trade these Banians are a thousand times worse than the Jews; more expert in all sorts of cunning tricks, and more maliciously mischievous in their revenge."—Tavernier, E. T. ii. 58; [ed. Ball, i. 136, and see i. 91].

c. 1666.—"Aussi chacun a son Banian dans les Indes, et il y a des personnes de qualité qui leur confient tout ce qu'ils ont...."—Thevenot, v. 166. This passage shows in anticipation the transition to the Calcutta use (b., below).

1672.—"The inhabitants are called Guizeratts and Benyans."—Baldaeus, 2.

" "It is the custom to say that to make one Bagnan (so they call the Gentile Merchants) you need three Chinese, and to make one Chinese three Hebrews."—P. F. Vincenzo di Maria, 114.

1673.—"The Banyan follows the Soldier, though as contrary in Humour as the Antipodes in the same Meridian are opposite to one another.... In Cases of Trade they are not so hide-bound, giving their Consciences more Scope, and boggle at no Villainy for an Emolument."—Fryer, 193.

1677.—"In their letter to Ft. St. George, 15th March, the Court offer £20 reward to any of our servants or soldiers as shall be able to speak, write, and translate the Banian language, and to learn their arithmetic."—In Madras Notes and Exts., No. I. p. 18.

1705.—"... ceux des premieres castes, comme les Baignans."—Luillier, 106.

1813.—"... it will, I believe, be generally allowed by those who have dealt much with Banians and merchants in the larger trading towns of India, that their moral character cannot be held in high estimation."—Forbes, Or. Mem. ii. 456.

1877.—"Of the Wani, Banyan, or trader-caste there are five great families in this country."—Burton, Sind Revisited, ii. 281.

b.—

1761.—"We expect and positively direct that if our servants employ Banians or black people under them, they shall be accountable for their conduct."—The Court of Directors, in Long, 254.

1764.—"Resolutions and Orders. That no Moonshee, Linguist, Banian, or Writer, be allowed to any officer, excepting the Commander-in-Chief."—Ft. William Proc., in Long, 382.

1775.—"We have reason to suspect that the intention was to make him (Nundcomar) Banyan to General Clavering, to surround the General and us with the Governor's creatures, and to keep us totally unacquainted with the real state of the Government."—Minute by Clavering, Monson, and Francis, Ft. William, 11th April. In Price's Tracts, ii. 138.

1780.—"We are informed that the Juty Wallahs or Makers and Vendors of Bengal Shoes in and about Calcutta ... intend sending a Joint Petition to the Supreme Council ... on account of the great decay of their Trade, entirely owing to the Luxury of the Bengalies, chiefly the Bangans (sic) and Sarcars, as there are scarce any of them to be found who does not keep a Chariot, Phaeton, Buggy or Pallanquin, and some all four...."—In Hicky's Bengal Gazette, June 24th.

1783.—"Mr. Hastings' bannian was, after this auction, found possessed of territories yielding a rent of £140,000 a year."—Burke, Speech on E. I. Bill, in Writings, &c., iii. 490.

1786.—"The said Warren Hastings did permit and suffer his own banyan or principal black steward, named Canto Baboo, to hold farms ... to the amount of 13 lacs of rupees per annum."—Art. agst. Hastings, Burke, vii. 111.

" "A practice has gradually crept in among the Banians and other rich men of Calcutta, of dressing some of their servants ... nearly in the uniform of the Honourable Company's Sepoys and Lascars...."—Notification, in Seton Karr, i. 122.

1788.—"Banyan—A Gentoo servant employed in the management of commercial affairs. Every English gentleman at Bengal has a Banyan who either acts of himself, or as the substitute of some great man or black merchant."—Indian Vocabulary (Stockdale).

1810.—"The same person frequently was banian to several European gentlemen; all of whose concerns were of course accurately known to him, and thus became the subject of conversation at those meetings the banians of Calcutta invariably held...."—Williamson, V. M. i. 189.

1817.—"The European functionary ... has first his banyan or native secretary."—Mill, Hist. (ed. 1840), iii. 14. Mr. Mill does not here accurately interpret the word.

(2). BANYAN, s. An undershirt, originally of muslin, and so called as resembling the body garment of the Hindus; but now commonly applied to under body-clothing of elastic cotton, woollen, or silk web. The following quotations illustrate the stages by which the word reached its present application. And they show that our predecessors in India used to adopt the native or Banyan costume in their hours of ease. C. P. Brown defines Banyan as "a loose dressing-gown, such as Hindu tradesmen wear." Probably this may have been the original use; but it is never so employed in Northern India.

1672.—"It is likewise ordered that both Officers and Souldiers in the Fort shall, both on every Sabbath Day, and on every day when they exercise, weare English apparel; in respect the garbe is most becoming as Souldiers, and correspondent to their profession."—Sir W. Langhorne's Standing Order, in Wheeler, iii. 426.

1731.—"The Ensign (as it proved, for his first appearance, being undressed and in his banyon coat, I did not know him) came off from his cot, and in a very haughty manner cried out, 'None of your disturbance, Gentlemen.'"—In Wheeler, iii. 109.

1781.—"I am an Old Stager in this Country, having arrived in Calcutta in the Year 1736.... Those were the days, when Gentlemen studied Ease instead of Fashion; when even the Hon. Members of the Council met in Banyan Shirts, Long Drawers (q.v.), and Conjee (Congee) caps; with a Case Bottle of good old Arrack, and a Gouglet of Water placed on the Table, which the Secretary (a Skilful Hand) frequently converted into Punch...."—Letter from An Old Country Captain, in India Gazette, Feb. 24th.

[1773.—In a letter from Horace Walpole to the Countess of Upper Ossory, dated April 30th, 1773 (Cunningham's ed., v. 459) he describes a ball at Lord Stanley's, at which two of the dancers, Mr. Storer and Miss Wrottesley, were dressed "in banians with furs, for winter, cock and hen." It would be interesting to have further details of these garments, which were, it may be hoped, different from the modern Banyan.]

1810.—"... an undershirt, commonly called a banian."—Williamson, V.M. i. 19.

(3) BANYAN, s. See BANYAN-TREE.

BANYAN-DAY, s. This is sea-slang for a jour maigre, or a day on which no ration of meat was allowed; when (as one of our quotations above expresses it) the crew had "to observe the Law of Pythagoras."

1690.—"Of this (Kitchery or Kedgeree, q.v.) the European Sailors feed in these parts once or twice a Week, and are forc'd at those times to a Pagan Abstinence from Flesh, which creates in them a perfect Dislike and utter Detestation to those Bannian Days, as they commonly call them."—Ovington, 310, 311.

BANYAN-FIGHT, s. Thus:

1690.—"This Tongue Tempest is termed there a Bannian-Fight, for it never rises to blows or bloodshed."—Ovington, 275. Sir G. Birdwood tells us that this is a phrase still current in Bombay.

BANYAN-TREE, also elliptically Banyan, s. The Indian Fig-Tree (Ficus Indica, or Ficus bengalensis, L.), called in H. baṛ [or baṛgat, the latter the "Bourgade" of Bernier (ed. Constable, p. 309).] The name appears to have been first bestowed popularly on a famous tree of this species growing near Gombroon (q.v.), under which the Banyans or Hindu traders settled at that port, had built a little pagoda. So says Tavernier below. This original Banyan-tree is described by P. della Valle (ii. 453), and by Valentijn (v. 202). P. della Valle's account (1622) is extremely interesting, but too long for quotation. He calls it by the Persian name, lūl. The tree still stood, within half a mile of the English factory, in 1758, when it was visited by Ives, who quotes Tickell's verses given below. [Also see CUBEER BURR.]

c. A.D. 70.—"First and foremost, there is a Fig-tree there (in India) which beareth very small and slender figges. The propertie of this Tree, is to plant and set it selfe without mans helpe. For it spreadeth out with mightie armes, and the lowest water-boughes underneath, do bend so downeward to the very earth, that they touch it againe, and lie upon it: whereby, within one years space they will take fast root in the ground, and put foorth a new Spring round about the Mother-tree: so as these braunches, thus growing, seeme like a traile or border of arbours most curiously and artificially made," &c.—Plinies Nat. Historie, by Philemon Holland, i. 360.

1624.—

c. 1650.—"Cet Arbre estoit de même espece que celuy qui est a une lieue du Bander, et qui passe pour une merveille; mais dans les Indes il y en a quantité. Les Persans l'appellent Lul, les Portugais Arber de Reys, et les Français l'Arbre des Banianes; parce que les Banianes ont fait bâtir dessous une Pagode avec un carvansera accompagné de plusieurs petits étangs pour se laver."—Tavernier, V. de Perse, liv. v. ch. 23. [Also see ed. Ball, ii. 198.]

c. 1650.—"Near to the City of Ormus was a Bannians tree, being the only tree that grew in the Island."—Tavernier, Eng. Tr. i. 255.

c. 1666.—"Nous vimes à cent ou cent cinquante pas de ce jardin, l'arbre War dans toute son etenduë. On l'appelle aussi Ber, et arbre des Banians, et arbre des racines...."—Thevenot, v. 76.

1667.—

[Warton points out that Milton must have had in view a description of the Banyan-tree in Gerard's Herbal under the heading "of the arched Indian fig-tree."]

1672.—"Eastward of Surat two Courses, i.e. a League, we pitched our Tent under a Tree that besides its Leafs, the Branches bear its own Roots, therefore called by the Portugals, Arbor de Raiz; For the Adoration the Banyans pay it, the Banyan-Tree."—Fryer, 105.

1691.—"About a (Dutch) mile from Gamron ... stands a tree, heretofore described by Mandelslo and others.... Beside this tree is an idol temple where the Banyans do their worship."—Valentijn, v. 267-8.

1717.—

1726.—"On the north side of the city (Surat) is there an uncommonly great Pichar or Waringin^[35] tree.... The Portuguese call this tree Albero de laiz, i.e. Root-tree.... Under it is a small chapel built by a Benyan.... Day and night lamps are alight there, and Benyans constantly come in pilgrimage, to offer their prayers to this saint."—Valentijn, iv. 145.

1771.—"... being employed to construct a military work at the fort of Triplasore (afterwards called Marsden's Bastion) it was necessary to cut down a banyan-tree which so incensed the brahmans of that place, that they found means to poison him" (i.e. Thomas Marsden of the Madras Engineers).—Mem. of W. Marsden, 7-8.

1809.—"Their greatest enemy (i.e. of the buildings) is the Banyan-Tree."—Ld. Valentia, i. 396.

1810.—

1821.—

A note of the publishers on the preceding passage, in the edition of 1855, is diverting:

"Un journaliste allemand a accusé M. Casimir Delavigne d'avoir pris pour un arbre une secte religieuse de l'Inde...." The German journalist was wrong here, but he might have found plenty of matter for ridicule in the play. Thus the Brahmins (men) are Akebar (!), Idamore (!!), and Empsael (!!!); their women Néala (?), Zaide (!), and Mirza (!!).

1825.—"Near this village was the finest banyan-tree which I had ever seen, literally a grove rising from a single primary stem, whose massive secondary trunks, with their straightness, orderly arrangement, and evident connexion with the parent stock, gave the general effect of a vast vegetable organ. The first impression which I felt on coming under its shade was, 'What a noble place of worship!'"—Heber, ii. 93 (ed. 1844).

1834.—"Cast forth thy word into the everliving, everworking universe; it is a seed-grain that cannot die; unnoticed to-day, it will be found flourishing as a banyan-grove—(perhaps alas! as a hemlock forest) after a thousand years."—Sartor Resartus.

1856.—

1865.—"A family tends to multiply families around it, till it becomes the centre of a tribe, just as the banyan tends to surround itself with a forest of its own offspring."—Maclennan, Primitive Marriage, 269.

1878.—"... des banyans soutenus par des racines aëriennes et dont les branches tombantes engendrent en touchant terre des sujets nouveaux."—Rev. des Deux Mondes, Oct. 15, p. 832.

BĀRASINHĀ, s. The H. name of the widely-spread Cervus Wallichii, Cuvier. This H. name ('12-horn') is no doubt taken from the number of tines being approximately twelve. The name is also applied by sportsmen in Bengal to the Rucervus Duvaucellii, or Swamp-Deer. [See Blanford, Mamm. 538 seqq.].

[1875.—"I know of no flesh equal to that of the ibex; and the navo, a species of gigantic antelope of Chinese Tibet, with the barra-singh, a red deer of Kashmir, are nearly equally good."—Wilson, Abode of Snow, 91.]

[BARBER'S BRIDGE, n.p. This is a curious native corruption of an English name. The bridge in Madras, known as Barber's Bridge, was built by an engineer named Hamilton. This was turned by the natives into Ambuton, and in course of time the name Ambuton was identified with the Tamil ambattan, 'barber,' and so it came to be called Barber's Bridge.—See Le Fanu, Man. of the Salem Dist. ii. 169, note.]

BARBICAN, s. This term of mediæval fortification is derived by Littré, and by Marcel Devic, from Ar. barbakh, which means a sewer-pipe or water-pipe. And one of the meanings given by Littré is, "une ouverture longue et étroite pour l'écoulement des eaux." Apart from the possible, but untraced, history which this alleged meaning may involve, it seems probable, considering the usual meaning of the word as 'an outwork before a gate,' that it is from Ar. P. bāb-khāna, 'gate-house.' This etymology was suggested in print about 50 years ago by one of the present writers,^[36] and confirmed to his mind some years later, when in going through the native town of Cawnpore, not long before the Mutiny, he saw a brand-new double-towered gateway, or gate-house, on the face of which was the inscription in Persian characters: "Bāb-Khāna-i-Mahommed Bakhsh," or whatever was his name, i.e. "The Barbican of Mahommed Bakhsh." [The N.E.D. suggests P. barbar-khānah, 'house on the wall,' it being difficult to derive the Romanic forms in bar- from bāb-khāna.]

The editor of the Chron. of K. James of Aragon (1833, p. 423) says that barbacana in Spain means a second, outermost and lower wall; i.e. a fausse-braye. And this agrees with facts in that work, and with the definition in Cobarruvias; but not at all with Joinville's use, nor with V.-le-Duc's explanation.

c. 1250.—"Tuit le baron ... s'acorderent que en un tertre ... féist l'en une forteresse qui fust bien garnie de gent, si qui se li Tur fesoient saillies ... cell tore fust einsi come barbacane (orig. 'quasi antemurale') de l'oste."—The Med. Fr. tr. of William of Tyre, ed. Paul Paris, i. 158.

c. 1270.—"... on condition of his at once putting me in possession of the albarrana tower ... and should besides make his Saracens construct a barbacana round the tower."—James of Aragon, as above.

1309.—"Pour requerre sa gent plus sauvement, fist le roys faire une barbaquane devant le pont qui estoit entre nos dous os, en tel maniere que l'on pooit entrer de dous pars en la barbaquane à cheval."—Joinville, p. 162.

1552.—"Lourenço de Brito ordered an intrenchment of great strength to be dug, in the fashion of a barbican (barbacã) outside the wall of the fort ... on account of a well, a stone-cast distant...."—Barros, II. i. 5.

c. 1870.—"Barbacane. Défense extérieure protégeant une entrée, et permettant de réunir un assez grand nombre d'hommes pour disposer des sorties ou protéger une retraite."—Viollet-le-Duc, H. d'une Forteresse, 361.

BARBIERS, s. This is a term which was formerly very current in the East, as the name of a kind of paralysis, often occasioned by exposure to chills. It began with numbness and imperfect command of the power of movement, sometimes also affecting the muscles of the neck and power of articulation, and often followed by loss of appetite, emaciation, and death. It has often been identified with Beriberi, and medical opinion seems to have come back to the view that the two are forms of one disorder, though this was not admitted by some older authors of the last century. The allegation of Lind and others, that the most frequent subjects of barbiers were Europeans of the lower class who, when in drink, went to sleep in the open air, must be contrasted with the general experience that beriberi rarely attacks Europeans. The name now seems obsolete.

1673.—"Whence follows Fluxes, Dropsy, Scurvy, Barbiers (which is an enervating (sic) the whole Body, being neither able to use hands or Feet), Gout, Stone, Malignant and Putrid Fevers."—Fryer, 68.

1690.—"Another Distemper with which the Europeans are sometimes afflicted, is the Barbeers, or a deprivation of the Vse and Activity of their Limbs, whereby they are rendered unable to move either Hand or Foot."—Ovington, 350.

1755.—(If the land wind blow on a person sleeping) "the consequence of this is always dangerous, as it seldom fails to bring on a fit of the Barbiers (as it is called in this country), that is, a total deprivation of the use of the limbs."—Ives, 77.

[c. 1757.—"There was a disease common to the lower class of Europeans, called the Barbers, a species of palsy, owing to exposure to the land winds after a fit of intoxication."—In Carey, Good Old Days, ii. 266.]

1768.—"The barbiers, a species of palsy, is a disease most frequent in India. It distresses chiefly the lower class of Europeans, who when intoxicated with liquors frequently sleep in the open air, exposed to the land winds."—Lind on Diseases of Hot Climates, 260. (See BERIBERI.)

BARGANY, BRAGANY, H. bārakānī. The name of a small silver coin current in W. India at the time of the Portuguese occupation of Goa, and afterwards valued at 40 reis (then about 5¼d.). The name of the coin was apparently a survival of a very old system of coinage-nomenclature. Kānī is an old Indian word, perhaps Dravidian in origin, indicating ¼ of ¼ of ¼, or 1-64th part. It was applied to the jital (see JEETUL) or 64th part of the mediæval Delhi silver tanka—this latter coin being the prototype in weight and position of the Rupee, as the kānī therefore was of the modern Anglo-Indian pice (= 1-64th of a Rupee). There were in the currency of Mohammed Tughlak (1324-1351) of Delhi, aliquot parts of the tanka, Dokānīs, Shash-kānīs, Hasht-kānīs, Dwāzda-kānīs, and Shānzda-kānīs, representing, as the Persian numerals indicate, pieces of 2, 6, 8, 12, and 16 kānīs or jitals. (See E. Thomas, Pathan Kings of Delhi, pp. 218-219.) Other fractional pieces were added by Fīroz Shāh, Mohammed's son and successor (see Id. 276 seqq. and quotation under c. 1360, below). Some of these terms long survived, e.g. do-kānī in localities of Western and Southern India, and in Western India in the present case the bārakānī or 12 kānī, a vernacular form of the dwāzda-kānī of Mohammed Tughlak.

1330.—"Thousands of men from various quarters, who possessed thousands of these copper coins ... now brought them to the treasury, and received in exchange gold tankas and silver tankas (Tanga), shash-gānīs and du-gānīs, which they carried to their homes."—Táríkh-i-Fíroz-Sháhi, in Elliot, iii. 240-241.

c. 1350—"Sultan Fíroz issued several varieties of coins. There was the gold tanka and the silver tanka. There were also distinct coins of the respective value of 48, 25, 24, 12, 10, 8 and 6, and one jītal, known as chihal-o-hasht-gānī, bist-o-panjgānī, bist-o-chahār-gānī, dwāzdah-gānī, dah-gānī, hasht-gānī, shāsh-gānī, and yak jītal."—Ibid. 357-358.

1510.—Barganym, in quotation from Correa under Pardao.

1554.—"E as tamgas brancas que se recebem dos foros, são de 4 barganis a tamga, e de 24 leaes o bargany ..." i.e. "And the white tangas that are received in payment of land revenues are at the rate of 4 barganis to the tanga, and of 24 leals to the bargany."—A. Nunez, in Subsidios, p. 31.

" "Statement of the Revenues which the King our Lord holds in the Island and City of Guoa.

"Item—The Islands of Tiçoary, and Divar, and that of Chorão, and Johão, all of them, pay in land revenue (de foro) according to ancient custom 36,474 white tanguas, 3 barguanis, and 21 leals, at the tale of 3 barguanis to the tangua and 24 leals to the barguanim, the same thing as 24 bazarucos, amounting to 14,006 pardaos, 1 tangua and 47 leals, making 4,201,9162⁄5 reis. The Isle of Tiçoary (Salsette) is the largest, and on it stands the city of Guoa; the others are much smaller and are annexed to it, they being all contiguous, only separated by rivers."—Botelho, Tombo, ibid. pp. 46-7.

1584.—"They vse also in Goa amongst the common sort to bargain for coals, wood, lime and such like, at so many braganines, accounting 24 basaruchies for one braganine, albeit there is no such money stamped."—Barret, in Hakl. ii. 411; (but it is copied from G. Balbi's Italian, f. 71v).

BARGEER, s. H. from P. bārgīr. A trooper of irregular cavalry who is not the owner of his troop horse and arms (as is the normal practice (see SILLADAR)), but is either put in by another person, perhaps a native officer in the regiment, who supplies horses and arms and receives the man's full pay, allowing him a reduced rate, or has his horse from the State in whose service he is. The P. word properly means 'a load-taker,' 'a baggage horse.' The transfer of use is not quite clear. ["According to a man's reputation or connections, or the number of his followers, would be the rank (mansab) assigned to him. As a rule, his followers brought their own horses and other equipment; but sometimes a man with a little money would buy extra horses, and mount relations or dependants upon them. When this was the case, the man riding his own horse was called, in later parlance, a silaḥdār (literally, 'equipment-holder'), and one riding somebody else's horse was a bārgīr ('burden-taker')."—W. Irvine, The Army of the Indian Moghuls, J.R.A.S. July 1896, p. 539.]

1844.—"If the man again has not the cash to purchase a horse, he rides one belonging to a native officer, or to some privileged person, and becomes what is called his bargeer...."—Calcutta Rev., vol ii. p. 57.

BARKING-DEER, s. The popular name of a small species of deer (Cervulus aureus, Jerdon) called in H. kākar, and in Nepal ratwā; also called Ribfaced-Deer, and in Bombay Baikree. Its common name is from its call, which is a kind of short bark, like that of a fox but louder, and may be heard in the jungles which it frequents, both by day and by night.—(Jerdon).

[1873.—"I caught the cry of a little barking-deer."—Cooper, Mishmee Hills, 177.]

BARODA, n.p. Usually called by the Dutch and older English writers Brodera; proper name according to the Imp. Gazetteer, Wadodra; a large city of Guzerat, which has been since 1732 the capital of the Mahratta dynasty of Guzerat, the Gaikwārs. (See GUICOWAR).

1552.—In Barros, "Cidade de Barodar," IV. vi. 8.

1555.—"In a few days we arrived at Barūj; some days after at Baloudra, and then took the road towards Champaïz (read Champanīr?)."—Sidī 'Alī, p. 91.

1606.—"That city (Champanel) may be a day's journey from Deberadora or Barodar, which we commonly call Verdora."—Couto, IV. ix. 5.

[1614.—"We are to go to Amadavar, Cambaia and Brothera."—Foster, Letters, ii. 213; also see iv. 197.]

1638.—-"La ville de Brodra est située dans une plaine sablonneuse, sur la petite riviere de Wasset, a trente Cos, ou quinze lieües de Broitschea."—Mandelslo, 130.

1813.—Brodera, in Forbes, Or. Mem., iii. 268; [2nd ed. ii. 282, 389].

1857.—"The town of Baroda, originally Barpatra (or a bar leaf, i.e. leaf of the Ficus indica, in shape), was the first large city I had seen."—Autob. of Lutfullah, 39.

BAROS, n.p. A fort on the West Coast of Sumatra, from which the chief export of Sumatra camphor, so highly valued in China, long took place. [The name in standard Malay is, according to Mr Skeat, Barus.] It is perhaps identical with the Panṣūr or Fanṣūr of the Middle Ages, which gave its name to the Fanṣūrī camphor, famous among Oriental writers, and which by the perpetuation of a misreading is often styled Ḳaiṣūrī camphor, &c. (See CAMPHOR, and Marco Polo, 2nd ed. ii. 282, 285 seqq.) The place is called Barrowse in the E. I. Colonial Papers, ii. 52, 153.

1727.—"Baros is the next place that abounds in Gold, Camphire, and Benzoin, but admits of no foreign Commerce."—A. Hamilton, ii. 113.

BARRACKPORE, n.p. The auxiliary Cantonment of Calcutta, from which it is 15 m. distant, established in 1772. Here also is the country residence of the Governor-General, built by Lord Minto, and much frequented in former days before the annual migration to Simla was established. The name is a hybrid. (See ACHANOCK).

BARRAMUHUL, n.p. H. Bāramaḥall, 'Twelve estates'; an old designation of a large part of what is now the district of Salem in the Madras Presidency. The identification of the Twelve Estates is not free from difficulty; [see a full note in Le Fanu's Man. of Salem, i. 83, seqq.].

1881.—"The Baramahal and Dindigal was placed under the Government of Madras; but owing to the deficiency in that Presidency of civil servants possessing a competent knowledge of the native languages, and to the unsatisfactory manner in which the revenue administration of the older possessions of the Company under the Madras Presidency had been conducted, Lord Cornwallis resolved to employ military officers for a time in the management of the Baramahl."—Arbuthnot, Mem. of Sir T. Munro, xxxviii.

BASHAW, s. The old form of what we now call pasha, the former being taken from bāshā, the Ar. form of the word, which is itself generally believed to be a corruption of the P. pādishāh. Of this the first part is Skt. patis, Zend. paitis, Old P. pati, 'a lord or master' (comp. Gr. δεσπότης). Pechah, indeed, for 'Governor' (but with the ch guttural) occurs in I. Kings x. 15, II. Chron. ix. 14, and in Daniel iii. 2, 3, 27. Prof. Max Müller notices this, but it would seem merely as a curious coincidence.—(See Pusey on Daniel, 567.)

1554.—"Hujusmodi Bassarum sermonibus reliquorum Turcarum sermones congruebant."—Busbeq. Epist. ii. (p. 124).

1584.—

c. 1590.—"Filius alter Osmanis, Vrchanis frater, alium non habet in Annalibus titulum, quam Alis bassa: quod bassae vocabulum Turcis caput significat."—Lennclavius, Annales Sultanorum Othmanidarum, ed. 1650, p. 402. This etymology connecting bāshā with the Turkish bāsh, 'head,' must be rejected.

c. 1610.—"Un Bascha estoit venu en sa Cour pour luy rendre compte du tribut qu'il luy apportoit; mais il fut neuf mois entiers à attendre que celuy qui a la charge ... eut le temps et le loisir de le compter...."—Pyrard de Laval (of the Great Mogul), ii. 161.

1702.—"... The most notorious injustice we have suffered from the Arabs of Muscat, and the Bashaw of Judda."—In Wheeler, ii. 7.

1727.—"It (Bagdad) is now a prodigious large City, and the Seat of a Beglerbeg.... The Bashaws of Bassora, Comera, and Musol (the ancient Nineveh) are subordinate to him."—A. Hamilton, i. 78.

BASIN, s. H. besan. Pease-meal, generally made of Gram (q.v.) and used, sometimes mixed with ground orange-peel or other aromatic substance, to cleanse the hair, or for other toilette purposes.

[1832.—"The attendants present first the powdered peas, called basun, which answers the purpose of soap."—Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali, Observations, i. 328.]

BASSADORE, n.p. A town upon the island of Kishm in the Persian Gulf, which belonged in the 16th century to the Portuguese. The place was ceded to the British Crown in 1817, though the claim now seems dormant. The permission for the English to occupy the place as a naval station was granted by Saiyyid Sultan bin Aḥmad of 'Omān, about the end of the 18th century; but it was not actually occupied by us till 1821, from which time it was the depôt of our Naval Squadron in the Gulf till 1882. The real form of the name is, according to Dr. Badger's transliterated map (in H. of Imâns, &c. of Omân), Bāsīdū.

1673.—"At noon we came to Bassatu, an old ruined town of the Portugals, fronting Congo."—Fryer, 320.

BASSAN, s. H. bāsan, 'a dinner-plate'; from Port. bacia (Panjab N. & Q. ii. 117).

BASSEIN, n.p. This is a corruption of three entirely different names, and is applied to various places remote from each other.

(1) Wasāi, an old port on the coast, 26 m. north of Bombay, called by the Portuguese, to whom it long pertained, Baçaim (e.g. Barros, I. ix. 1).

c. 1565.—"Dopo Daman si troua Basain con molte ville ... ne di questa altro si caua che risi, frumenti, e molto ligname."—Cesare de' Federici in Ramusio, iii. 387v.

1756.—"Bandar Bassai."—Mirat-i-Ahmadi, Bird's tr., 129.

1781.—"General Goddard after having taken the fortress of Bessi, which is one of the strongest and most important fortresses under the Mahratta power...."—Seir Mutaqherin, iii. 327.

(2) A town and port on the river which forms the westernmost delta-arm of the Irawadi in the Province of Pegu. The Burmese name Bathein, was, according to Prof. Forchammer, a change, made by the Burmese conqueror Alompra, from the former name Kuthein (i.e. Kusein), which was a native corruption of the old name Kusima (see COSMIN). We cannot explain the old European corruption Persaim. [It has been supposed that the name represents the Besynga of Ptolemy (Geog. ii. 4; see M‘Crindle in Ind. Ant. xiii. 372); but (ibid. xxii. 20) Col. Temple denies this on the ground that the name Bassein does not date earlier than about 1780. According to the same authority (ibid. xxii. 19), the modern Burmese name is Patheng, by ordinary phonetics used for Putheng, and spelt Pusin or Pusim. He disputes the statement that the change of name was made by Alaungp'aya or Alompra. The Talaing pronunciation of the name is Pasem or Pasim, according to dialect.]

[1781.—"Intanto piaciutto era alla Congregazione di Propagando che il Regno di Ava fosse allora coltivato nella fede da' Sacerdoti secolari di essa Congregazione, e a' nostri destino li Regni di Battiam, Martaban, e Pegu."—Quirini, Percoto, 93.

[1801.—"An ineffectual attempt was made to repossess and defend Bassien by the late Chekey or Lieutenant."—Symes, Mission, 16.]

The form Persaim occurs in Dalrymple, (1759) (Or. Repert., i. 127 and passim).

(3) Basim, or properly Wāsim; an old town in Berar, the chief place of the district so-called. [See Berar Gazett. 176.]

BATÁRA, s. This is a term applied to divinities in old Javanese inscriptions, &c., the use of which was spread over the Archipelago. It was regarded by W. von Humboldt as taken from the Skt. avatāra (see AVATAR); but this derivation is now rejected. The word is used among R. C. Christians in the Philippines now as synonymous with 'God'; and is applied to the infant Jesus (Blumentritt, Vocabular). [Mr. Skeat (Malay Magic, 86 seqq.) discusses the origin of the word, and prefers the derivation given by Favre and Wilkin, Skt. bhaṭṭāra, 'lord.' A full account of the "Petara, or Sea Dyak gods," by Archdeacon J. Perham, will be found in Roth, Natives of Sarawak, I. 168 seqq.]

BATAVIA, n.p. The famous capital of the Dutch possessions in the Indies; occupying the site of the old city of Jakatra, the seat of a Javanese kingdom which combined the present Dutch Provinces of Bantam, Buitenzorg, Krawang, and the Preanger Regencies.

1619.—"On the day of the capture of Jakatra, 30th May 1619, it was certainly time and place to speak of the Governor-General's dissatisfaction that the name of Batavia had been given to the Castle."—Valentijn, iv. 489.

The Governor-General, Jan Pietersen Coen, who had taken Jakatra, desired to have called the new fortress New Hoorn, from his own birth-place, Hoorn, on the Zuider Zee.

c. 1649.—"While I stay'd at Batavia, my Brother dy'd; and it was pretty to consider what the Dutch made me pay for his Funeral."—Tavernier (E.T.), i. 203.

BATCUL, BATCOLE, BATECALA, &c., n.p. Bhatkal. A place often named in the older narratives. It is on the coast of Canara, just S. of Pigeon Island and Hog Island, in lat. 13° 59′, and is not to be confounded (as it has been) with BEITCUL.

1328.—"... there is also the King of Batigala, but he is of the Saracens."—Friar Jordanus, p. 41.

1510.—The "Bathecala, a very noble city of India," of Varthema (119), though misplaced, must we think be this place and not Beitcul.

1548.—"Trelado (i.e. 'Copy') do Contrato que o Gouernador Gracia de Saa fez com a Raynha de Batecalaa por não aver Reey e ela reger o Reeyno."—In S. Botelho, Tombo, 242.

1599.—"... part is subject to the Queene of Baticola, who selleth great store of pepper to the Portugals, at a towne called Onor...."—Sir Fulke Greville to Sir Fr. Walsingham, in Bruce's Annals, i. 125.

1618.—"The fift of March we anchored at Batachala, shooting three Peeces to give notice of our arriuall...."—Wm. Hore, in Purchas, i. 657. See also Sainsbury, ii. p. 374.

[1624.—"We had the wind still contrary, and having sail'd three other leagues, at the usual hour we cast anchor near the Rocks of Baticala."—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. ii. 390.]

1727.—"The next Sea-port, to the Southward of Onoar, is Batacola, which has the vestigia of a very large city...."—A. Hamilton, i. 282.

[1785.—"Byte Koal." See quotation under DHOW.]

BATEL, BATELO, BOTELLA, s. A sort of boat used in Western India, Sind, and Bengal. Port. batell, a word which occurs in the Roteiro de V. da Gama, 91 [cf. PATTELLO].

[1686.—"About four or five hundred houses burnt down with a great number of their Bettilos, Boras and boats."—Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. 55.]

1838.—"The Botella may be described as a Dow in miniature.... It has invariably a square flat stern, and a long grab-like head."—Vaupell, in Trans. Bo. Geog. Soc. vii. 98.

1857.—"A Sindhi battéla, called Rahmatí, under the Tindal Kasim, laden with dry fish, was about to proceed to Bombay."—Lutfullah, 347. See also Burton, Sind Revisited (1877), 32, 33.

[1900.—"The Sheikh has some fine war-vessels, called batils."—Bent, Southern Arabia, 8.]

BATTA, s. Two different words are thus expressed in Anglo-Indian colloquial, and in a manner confounded.

a. H. bhata or bhātā: an extra allowance made to officers, soldiers, or other public servants, when in the field, or on other special grounds; also subsistence money to witnesses, prisoners, and the like. Military Batta, originally an occasional allowance, as defined, grew to be a constant addition to the pay of officers in India, and constituted the chief part of the excess of Indian over English military emoluments. The question of the right to batta on several occasions created great agitation among the officers of the Indian army, and the measure of economy carried out by Lord William Bentinck when Governor-General (G. O. of the Gov.-Gen. in Council, 29th November 1828) in the reduction of full batta to half batta, in the allowances received by all regimental officers serving at stations within a certain distance of the Presidency in Bengal (viz. Barrackpore, Dumdum, Berhampore, and Dinapore) caused an enduring bitterness against that upright ruler.

It is difficult to arrive at the origin of this word. There are, however, several Hindi words in rural use, such as bhāt, bhantā, 'advances made to ploughmen without interest,' and bhaṭṭa, bhaṇṭā, 'ploughmen's wages in kind,' with which it is possibly connected. It has also been suggested, without much probability, that it may be allied to bahut, 'much, excess,' an idea entering into the meaning of both a and b. It is just possible that the familiar military use of the term in India may have been influenced by the existence of the European military term bât or bât-money. The latter is from bât, 'a pack-saddle,' [Late Lat. bastum], and implies an allowance for carrying baggage in the field. It will be seen that one writer below seems to confound the two words.

b. H. baṭṭā and bāṭṭā: agio, or difference in exchange, discount on coins not current, or of short weight. We may notice that Sir H. Elliot does not recognize an absolute separation between the two senses of Batta. His definition runs thus: "Difference of exchange; anything extra; an extra allowance; discount on uncurrent, or short-weight coins; usually called Batta. The word has been supposed to be a corruption of Bharta, increase, but it is a pure Hindi vocable, and is more usually applied to discount than to premium."—(Supp. Gloss. ii. 41.) [Platts, on the other hand, distinguishes the two words—Baṭṭa, Skt. vṛitta, 'turned,' or varta, 'livelihood'—"Exchange, discount, difference of exchange, deduction, &c.," and Bhaṭṭa, Skt. bhakta 'allotted,'—"advances to ploughmen without interest; ploughman's wages in kind."] It will be seen that we have early Portuguese instances of the word apparently in both senses.

The most probable explanation is that the word (and I may add, the thing) originated in the Portuguese practice, and in the use of the Canarese word bhatta, Mahr. bhāt, 'rice' in 'the husk,' called by the Portuguese bate and bata, for a maintenance allowance.

The word batty, for what is more generally called paddy, is or was commonly used by the English also in S. and W. India (see Linschoten, Lucena and Fryer quoted s.v. Paddy, and Wilson's Glossary, s.v. Bhatta).

The practice of giving a special allowance for mantimento began from a very early date in the Indian history of the Portuguese, and it evidently became a recognised augmentation of pay, corresponding closely to our batta, whilst the quotation from Botelho below shows also that bata and mantimento were used, more or less interchangeably, for this allowance. The correspondence with our Anglo-Indian batta went very far, and a case singularly parallel to the discontent raised in the Indian army by the reduction of full-batta to half-batta is spoken of by Correa (iv. 256). The mantimento had been paid all the year round, but the Governor, Martin Afonso de Sousa, in 1542, "desiring," says the historian, "a way to curry favour for himself, whilst going against the people and sending his soul to hell," ordered that in future the mantimento should be paid only during the 6 months of Winter (i.e. of the rainy season), when the force was on shore, and not for the other 6 months when they were on board the cruisers, and received rations. This created great bitterness, perfectly analogous in depth and in expression to that entertained with regard to Lord W. Bentinck and Sir John Malcolm, in 1829. Correa's utterance, just quoted, illustrates this, and a little lower down he adds: "And thus he took away from the troops the half of their mantimento (half their batta, in fact), and whether he did well or ill in that, he'll find in the next world."—(See also ibid. p. 430).

The following quotations illustrate the Portuguese practice from an early date:

1502.—"The Captain-major ... between officers and men-at-arms, left 60 men (at Cochin), to whom the factor was to give their pay, and every month a cruzado of mantimento, and to the officers when on service 2 cruzados...."—Correa, i. 328.

1507.—(In establishing the settlement at Mozambique) "And the Captains took counsel among themselves, and from the money in the chest, paid the force each a cruzado a month for mantimento, with which the men greatly refreshed themselves...."—Ibid. 786.

1511.—"All the people who served in Malaca, whether by sea or by land, were paid their pay for six months in advance, and also received monthly two cruzados of mantimento, cash in hand" (i.e. they had double batta).—Ibid. ii. 267.

a.

1548.—"And for 2 ffarazes (see FARASH) 2 pardaos a month for the two and 4 tangas for bata."...—S. Botelho, Tombo, 233. The editor thinks this is for bate, i.e. paddy. But even if so it is used exactly like batta or maintenance money. A following entry has: "To the constable 38,920 reis a year, in which is comprised maintenance (mantimento)."

1554.—An example of batee for rice will be found s.v. MOORAH.

The following quotation shows battee (or batty) used at Madras in a way that also indicates the original identity of batty, 'rice,' and batta, 'extra allowance':—

1680.—"The Peons and Tarryars (see TALIAR) sent in quest of two soldiers who had deserted from the garrison returned with answer that they could not light of them, whereupon the Peons were turned out of service, but upon Verona's intercession were taken in again, and fined each one month's pay, and to repay the money paid them for Battee...."—Ft. St. Geo. Consn., Feb. 10. In Notes and Exts. No. iii. p. 3.

1707.—"... that they would allow Batta or subsistence money to all that should desert us."—In Wheeler, ii. 63.

1765.—"... orders were accordingly issued ... that on the 1st January, 1766, the double batta should cease...."—Caraccioli's Clive, iv. 160.

1789.—"... batta, or as it is termed in England, bât and forage money, which is here, in the field, almost double the peace allowance."—Munro's Narrative, p. 97.

1799.—"He would rather live on half-pay, in a garrison that could boast of a fives court, than vegetate on full batta, where there was none."—Life of Sir T. Munro, i. 227.

The following shows Batty used for rice in Bombay:

[1813.—"Rice, or batty, is sown in June."—Forbes, Or. Mem. 2nd ed. i. 23.]

1829.—"To the Editor of the Bengal Hurkaru.—Sir,—Is it understood that the Wives and daughters of officers on half batta are included in the order to mourn for the Queen of Wirtemberg; or will half-mourning be considered sufficient for them?"—Letter in above, dated 15th April 1829.

1857.—"They have made me a K.C.B. I may confess to you that I would much rather have got a year's batta, because the latter would enable me to leave this country a year sooner."—Sir Hope Grant, in Incidents of the Sepoy War.

b.—

1554.—"And gold, if of 10 mates or 24 carats, is worth 10 cruzados the tael ... if of 9 mates, 9 cruzados; and according to whatever the mates may be it is valued; but moreover it has its batao, i.e. its shroffage (çarrafagem) or agio (caibo) varying with the season."—A. Nunes, 40.

1680.—"The payment or receipt of Batta or Vatum upon the exchange of Pollicat for Madras pagodas prohibited, both coines being of the same Matt and weight, upon pain of forfeiture of 24 pagodas for every offence together with the loss of the Batta."—Ft. St. Geo. Consn., Feb. 10. In Notes and Exts., p. 17.

1760.—"The Nabob receives his revenues in the siccas of the current year only ... and all siccas of a lower date being esteemed, like the coin of foreign provinces, only a merchandize, are bought and sold at a certain discount called batta, which rises and falls like the price of other goods in the market...."—Ft. Wm. Cons., June 30, in Long, 216.

1810.—"... he immediately tells master that the batta, i.e. the exchange, is altered."—Williamson, V. M. i. 203.

BATTAS, BATAKS, &c. n.p. [the latter, according to Mr. Skeat, being the standard Malay name]; a nation of Sumatra, noted especially for their singular cannibal institutions, combined with the possession of a written character of their own and some approach to literature.

c. 1430.—"In ejus insulae, quam dicunt Bathech, parte, anthropophagi habitant ... capita humana in thesauris habent, quae ex hostibus captis abscissa, esis carnibus recondunt, iisque utuntur pro nummis."—Conti, in Poggius, De Var. Fort. lib. iv.

c. 1539.—"This Embassador, that was Brother-in-law to the King of Battas ... brought him a rich Present of Wood of Aloes, Calambaa, and five quintals of Benjamon in flowers."—Cogan's Pinto, 15.

c. 1555.—"This Island of Sumatra is the first land wherein we know man's flesh to be eaten by certaine people which liue in the mountains, called Bacas (read Batas), who vse to gilde their teethe."—Galvano, Discoveries of the World, Hak. Soc. 108.

1586.—"Nel regno del Dacin sono alcuni luoghi, ne' quali si ritrouano certe genti, che mangiano le creature humane, e tali genti, si chaimano Batacchi, e quando frà loro i padri, e le madri sono vechhi, si accordano i vicinati di mangiarli, e li mangiano."—G. Balbi, f. 130.

1613.—"In the woods of the interior dwelt Anthropophagi, eaters of human flesh ... and to the present day continues that abuse and evil custom among the Battas of Sumatra."—Godinho de Eredia, f. 23v.

[The fact that the Battas are cannibals has recently been confirmed by Dr. Volz and H. von Autenrieth (Geogr. Jour., June 1898, p. 672.]

BAWUSTYE, s. Corr. of bobstay in Lascar dialect (Roebuck).

BAY, The, n.p. In the language of the old Company and its servants in the 17th century, The Bay meant the Bay of Bengal, and their factories in that quarter.

1683.—"And the Councell of the Bay is as expressly distinguished from the Councell of Hugly, over which they have noe such power."—In Hedges, under Sept. 24. [Hak. Soc. i. 114.]

1747.—"We have therefore laden on her 1784 Bales ... which we sincerely wish may arrive safe with You, as We do that the Gentlemen at the Bay had according to our repeated Requests, furnished us with an earlier conveyance...."—Letter from Ft. St. David, 2nd May, to the Court (MS. in India Office).

BAYA, s. H. baiā [bayā], the Weaver-bird, as it is called in books of Nat. Hist., Ploceus baya, Blyth (Fam. Fringillidae). This clever little bird is not only in its natural state the builder of those remarkable pendant nests which are such striking objects, hanging from eaves or palm-branches; but it is also docile to a singular degree in domestication, and is often exhibited by itinerant natives as the performer of the most delightful tricks, as we have seen, and as is detailed in a paper of Mr Blyth's quoted by Jerdon. "The usual procedure is, when ladies are present, for the bird on a sign from its master to take a cardamom or sweatmeat in its bill, and deposit it between a lady's lips.... A miniature cannon is then brought, which the bird loads with coarse grains of powder one by one ... it next seizes and skilfully uses a small ramrod: and then takes a lighted match from its master, which it applies to the touch-hole." Another common performance is to scatter small beads on a sheet; the bird is provided with a needle and thread, and proceeds in the prettiest way to thread the beads successively. [The quotation from Abul Faẓl shows that these performances are as old as the time of Akbar and probably older still.]

[c. 1590.—"The baya is like a wild sparrow but yellow. It is extremely intelligent, obedient and docile. It will take small coins from the hand and bring them to its master, and will come to a call from a long distance. Its nests are so ingeniously constructed as to defy the rivalry of clever artificers."—Āīn (trans. Jarrett), iii. 122.]

1790.—"The young Hindu women of Banáras ... wear very thin plates of gold, called tíca's, slightly fixed by way of ornament between the eyebrows; and when they pass through the streets, it is not uncommon for the youthful libertines, who amuse themselves with training Bayā's, to give them a sign, which they understand, and to send them to pluck the pieces of gold from the foreheads of their mistresses."—Asiat. Researches, ii. 110.

[1813.—Forbes gives a similar account of the nests and tricks of the Baya.—Or. Mem., 2nd ed. i. 33.]

BAYADÈRE, s. A Hindu dancing-girl. The word is especially used by French writers, from whom it has been sometimes borrowed as if it were a genuine Indian word, particularly characteristic of the persons in question. The word is in fact only a Gallicized form of the Portuguese bailadeira, from bailar, to dance. Some 50 to 60 years ago there was a famous ballet called Le dieu et la bayadère, and under this title Punch made one of the most famous hits of his early days by presenting a cartoon of Lord Ellenborough as the Bayadère dancing before the idol of Somnāth; [also see DANCING-GIRL].

1513.—"There also came to the ground many dancing women (molheres bailadeiras) with their instruments of music, who make their living by that business, and these danced and sang all the time of the banquet...."—Correa, ii. 364.

1526.—"XLVII. The dancers and danceresses (bayladores e bayladeiras) who come to perform at a village shall first go and perform at the house of the principal man of the village" (Gancar, see GAUM).—Foral de usos costumes dos Gancares e Lavradores de esta Ilha de Goa, in Arch. Port. Or., fascic. 5, 132.

1598.—"The heathenish whore called Balliadera, who is a dancer."—Linschoten, 74; [Hak. Soc. i. 264].

1599.—"In hâc icone primum proponitur Inda Balliadera, id est saltatrix, quae in publicis ludis aliisque solennitatibus saltando spectaculum exhibet."—De Bry, Text to pl. xii. in vol. ii. (also see p. 90, and vol. vii. 26), etc.

[c. 1676.—"All the Baladines of Gombroon were present to dance in their own manner according to custom."—Tavernier, ed. Ball, ii. 335.]

1782.—"Surate est renommé par ses Bayadères, dont le véritable nom est Dévédassi: celui de Bayadères que nous leur donnons, vient du mot Balladeiras, qui signifie en Portugais Danseuses."—Sonnerat, i. 7.

1794.—"The name of Balliadere, we never heard applied to the dancing girls; or saw but in Raynal, and 'War in Asia, by an Officer of Colonel Baillie's Detachment;' it is a corrupt Portuguese word."—Moor's Narrative of Little's Detachment, 356.

1825.—"This was the first specimen I had seen of the southern Bayadère, who differ considerably from the nâch girls of northern India, being all in the service of different temples, for which they are purchased young."—Heber, ii. 180.

c. 1836.—"On one occasion a rumour reached London that a great success had been achieved in Paris by the performance of a set of Hindoo dancers, called Les Bayadères, who were supposed to be priestesses of a certain sect, and the London theatrical managers were at once on the qui vive to secure the new attraction.... My father had concluded the arrangement with the Bayadères before his brother managers arrived in Paris. Shortly afterwards, the Hindoo priestesses appeared at the Adelphi. They were utterly uninteresting, wholly unattractive. My father lost £2000 by the speculation; and in the family they were known as the 'Buy-em-dears' ever after."—Edmund Yates, Recollections, i. 29, 30 (1884).

BAYPARREE, BEOPARRY, s. H. bepārī, and byopārī (from Skt. vyāpārin); a trader, and especially a petty trader or dealer.

A friend long engaged in business in Calcutta (Mr J. F. Ogilvy, of Gillanders & Co.) communicates a letter from an intelligent Bengalee gentleman, illustrating the course of trade in country produce before it reaches the hands of the European shipper:

1878.—"... the enhanced rates ... do not practically benefit the producer in a marked, or even in a corresponding degree; for the lion's share goes into the pockets of certain intermediate classes, who are the growth of the above system of business.

"Following the course of trade as it flows into Calcutta, we find that between the cultivators and the exporter these are: 1st. The Bepparree, or petty trader; 2nd. The Aurut-dar;^[37] and 3rd. The Mahajun, interested in the Calcutta trade. As soon as the crops are cut, Bepparree appears upon the scene; he visits village after village, and goes from homestead to homestead, buying there, or at the village marts, from the ryots; he then takes his purchases to the Aurut-dar, who is stationed at a centre of trade, and to whom he is perhaps under advances, and from the Aurut-dar the Calcutta Mahajun obtains his supplies ... for eventual despatch to the capital. There is also a fourth class of dealers called Phoreas, who buy from the Mahajun and sell to the European exporter. Thus, between the cultivator and the shipper there are so many middlemen, whose participation in the trade involves a multiplication of profits, which goes a great way towards enhancing the price of commodities before they reach the shipper's hands."—Letter from Baboo Nobokissin Ghose. [Similar details for Northern India will be found in Hoey, Mon. Trade and Manufactures of Lucknow, 59 seqq.]

BAZAAR, s. H. &c. From P. bāzār, a permanent market or street of shops. The word has spread westward into Arabic, Turkish, and, in special senses, into European languages, and eastward into India, where it has generally been adopted into the vernaculars. The popular pronunciation is băzár. In S. India and Ceylon the word is used for a single shop or stall kept by a native. The word seems to have come to S. Europe very early. F. Balducci Pegolotti, in his Mercantile Handbook (c. 1340) gives Bazarra as a Genoese word for 'market-place' (Cathay, &c. ii. 286). The word is adopted into Malay as pāsār, [or in the poems pasara].

1474.—Ambrose Contarini writes of Kazan, that it is "walled like Como, and with bazars (bazzari) like it."—Ramusio, ii. f. 117.

1478.—Josafat Barbaro writes: "An Armenian Choza Mirech, a rich merchant in the bazar" (bazarro).—Ibid. f. 111v.

1563.—"... bazar, as much as to say the place where things are sold."—Garcia, f. 170.

1564.—A privilege by Don Sebastian of Portugal gives authority "to sell garden produce freely in the bazars (bazares), markets, and streets (of Goa) without necessity for consent or license from the farmers of the garden produce, or from any other person whatsoever."—Arch. Port. Or., fasc. 2, 157.

c. 1566.—"La Pescaria delle Perle ... si fa ogn' anno ... e su la costa all' in contro piantano vna villa di case, e bazarri di paglia."—Cesare de' Federici, in Ramusio, iii. 390.

1606.—"... the Christians of the Bazar."—Gouvea, 29.

1610.—"En la Ville de Cananor il y a vn beau marché tous les jours, qu'ils appellent Basare."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 325; [Hak. Soc. i. 448].

[1615.—"To buy pepper as cheap as we could in the busser."—Foster, Letters, iii. 114.]

[ " "He forbad all the bezar to sell us victuals or else...."—Ibid. iv. 80.]

[1623.—"They call it Bezari Kelan, that is the Great Merkat...."—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. i. 96. (P. Kalān, 'great').]

1638.—"We came into a Bussar, or very faire Market place."—W. Bruton, in Hakl. v. 50.

1666.—"Les Bazards ou Marchés sont dans une grande rue qui est au pié de la montagne."—Thevenot, v. 18.

1672.—"... Let us now pass the Pale to the Heathen Town (of Madras) only parted by a wide Parrade, which is used for a Buzzar or Mercate-place."—Fryer, 38.

[1826.—"The Kotwall went to the bazaar-master."—Pandurang Hari, ed. 1873, p. 156.]

1837.—"Lord, there is a honey bazar, repair thither."—Turnour's transl. of Mahawanso, 24.

1873.—"This, remarked my handsome Greek friend from Vienna, is the finest wife-bazaar in this part of Europe.... Go a little way east of this, say to Roumania, and you will find wife-bazaar completely undisguised, the ladies seated in their carriages, the youths filing by, and pausing before this or that beauty, to bargain with papa about the dower, under her very nose."—Fraser's Mag. N. S. vii. p. 617 (Vienna, by M. D. Conway).

BDELLIUM, s. This aromatic gum-resin has been identified with that of the Balsamodendron Mukul, Hooker, inhabiting the dry regions of Arabia and Western India; gugal of Western India, and moḳl in Arabic, called in P. bo-i-jahūdān (Jews' scent). What the Hebrew bdolah of the R. Phison was, which was rendered bdellium since the time of Josephus, remains very doubtful. Lassen has suggested musk as possible. But the argument is only this: that Dioscorides says some called bdellium μάδελκον; that μάδελκον perhaps represents Madālaka, and though there is no such Skt. word as madālaka, there might be madāraka, because there is madāra, which means some perfume, no one knows what! (Ind. Alterth. i. 292.) Dr. Royle says the Persian authors describe the Bdellium as being the product of the Doom palm (see Hindu Medicine, p. 90). But this we imagine is due to some ambiguity in the sense of moḳl. [See the authorities quoted in Encycl. Bibl. s.v. Bdellium which still leave the question in some doubt.]

c. A.D. 90.—"In exchange are exported from Barbarice (Indus Delta) costus, bdella...."—Periplus, ch. 39.

c. 1230.—"Bdallyūn. A Greek word which as some learned men think, means 'The Lion's Repose.' This plant is the same as moḳl."—Ebn El-Baithár, i. 125.

1612.—"Bdellium, the pund ... xxs."—Rates and Valuatiouns (Scotland), p. 298.

BEADALA, n.p. Formerly a port of some note for native craft on the Rāmnād coast (Madura district) of the Gulf of Manar, Vadaulay in the Atlas of India. The proper name seems to be Vēdālai, by which it is mentioned in Bishop Caldwell's Hist. of Tinnevelly (p. 235), [and which is derived from Tam. vedu, 'hunting,' and al, 'a banyan-tree' (Mad. Adm. Man. Gloss. p. 953)]. The place was famous in the Portuguese History of India for a victory gained there by Martin Affonso de Sousa (Capitão Mór do Mar) over a strong land and sea force of the Zamorin, commanded by a famous Mahommedan Captain, whom the Portuguese called Pate Marcar, and the Tuḥfat-al Mujāhidīn calls 'Ali Ibrahīm Markār, 15th February, 1538. Barros styles it "one of the best fought battles that ever came off in India." This occurred under the viceroyalty of Nuno da Cunha, not of Stephen da Gama, as the allusions in Camões seem to indicate. Captain Burton has too hastily identified Beadala with a place on the coast of Malabar, a fact which has perhaps been the cause of this article (see Lusiads, Commentary, p. 477).

1552.—"Martin Affonso, with this light fleet, on which he had not more than 400 soldiers, went round Cape Comorin, being aware that the enemy were at Beadalá...."—Barros, Dec. IV., liv. viii. cap. 13.

1562.—"The Governor, departing from Cochym, coasted as far as Cape Comoryn, doubled that Cape, and ran for Beadalá, which is a place adjoining the Shoals of Chilao [Chilaw]...."—Correa, iv. 324.

c. 1570.—"And about this time Alee Ibrahim Murkar, and his brother-in-law Kunjee-Alee-Murkar, sailed out with 22 grabs in the direction of Kaeel, and arriving off Bentalah, they landed, leaving their grabs at anchor.... But destruction overtook them at the arrival of the Franks, who came upon them in their galliots, attacking and capturing all their grabs.... Now this capture by the Franks took place in the latter part of the month of Shaban, in the year 944 [end of January, 1538]."—Tohfut-ul-Mujahideen, tr. by Rowlandson, 141.

1572.—

By Burton (but whose misconception of the locality has here affected his translation):

1814.—"Vaidálai, a pretty populous village on the coast, situated 13 miles east of Mutupetta, inhabited chiefly by Musulmans and Shánárs, the former carrying on a wood trade."—Account of the Prov. of Ramnad, from Mackenzie Collections in J. R. As. Soc. iii. 170.

BEAR-TREE, BAIR, &c. s. H. ber, Mahr. bora, in Central Provinces bor, [Malay bedara or bidara China,] (Skt. badara and vadara) Zizyphus jujuba, Lam. This is one of the most widely diffused trees in India, and is found wild from the Punjab to Burma, in all which region it is probably native. It is cultivated from Queensland and China to Morocco and Guinea. "Sir H. Elliot identifies it with the lotus of the ancients, but although the large juicy product of the garden Zizyphus is by no means bad, yet, as Madden quaintly remarks, one might eat any quantity of it without risk of forgetting home and friends."—(Punjab Plants, 43.)

1563.—"O. The name in Canarese is bor, and in the Decan bér, and the Malays call them vidaras, and they are better than ours; yet not so good as those of Balagate ... which are very tasty."—Garcia De O., 33.]

[1609.—"Here is also great quantity of gum-lack to be had, but is of the tree called Ber, and is in grain like unto red mastic."—Danvers, Letters, i. 30.]

BEARER, s. The word has two meanings in Anglo-Indian colloquial: a. A palanquin-carrier; b. (In the Bengal Presidency) a domestic servant who has charge of his master's clothes, household furniture, and (often) of his ready money. The word in the latter meaning has been regarded as distinct in origin, and is stated by Wilson to be a corruption of the Bengali vehārā from Skt. vyavahāri, a domestic servant. There seems, however, to be no historical evidence for such an origin, e.g. in any habitual use of the term vehārā, whilst as a matter of fact the domestic bearer (or sirdār-bearer, as he is usually styled by his fellow-servants, often even when he has no one under him) was in Calcutta, in the penultimate generation when English gentlemen still kept palankins, usually just what this literally implies, viz. the head-man of a set of palankin-bearers. And throughout the Presidency the bearer, or valet, still, as a rule, belongs to the caste of Kahārs (see KUHAR), or palki-bearers. [See BOY.]

a.—

c. 1760.—"... The poles which ... are carried by six, but most commonly four bearers."—Grose, i. 153.

1768-71.—"Every house has likewise ... one or two sets of berras, or palankeen-bearers."—Stavorinus, i. 523.

1771.—"Le bout le plus court du Palanquin est en devant, et porté par deux Beras, que l'on nomme Boys à la Côte (c'est-à-dire Garçons, Serviteurs, en Anglois). Le long bout est par derrière et porte par trois Beras."—Anquetil du Perron, Desc. Prelim. p. xxiii. note.

1778.—"They came on foot, the town having neither horses nor palankin-bearers to carry them, and Colonel Coote received them at his headquarters...."—Orme, iii. 719.

1803.—"I was ... detained by the scarcity of bearers."—Lord Valentia, i. 372.

b.—

1782.—"... imposition ... that a gentleman should pay a rascal of a Sirdar Bearer monthly wages for 8 or 10 men ... out of whom he gives 4, or may perhaps indulge his master with 5, to carry his palankeen."—India Gazette, Sept. 2.

c. 1815.—"Henry and his Bearer."—(Title of a well-known book of Mrs. Sherwood's.)

1824.—"... I called to my sirdar-bearer who was lying on the floor, outside the bedroom."—Seely, Ellora, ch. i.

1831.—"... le grand maître de ma garde-robe, sirdar beehrah."—Jacquemont, Correspondance, i. 114.

1876.—"My bearer who was to go with us (Eva's ayah had struck at the last moment and stopped behind) had literally girt up his loins, and was loading a diminutive mule with a miscellaneous assortment of brass pots and blankets."—A True Reformer, ch. iv.

BEEBEE, s. H. from P. bībī, a lady. [In its contracted form bī, it is added as a title of distinction to the names of Musulman ladies.] On the principle of degradation of titles which is so general, this word in application to European ladies has been superseded by the hybrids Mem-Ṣāhib, or Madam-Ṣāhib, though it is often applied to European maid-servants or other Englishwomen of that rank of life. [It retains its dignity as the title of the Bībī of Cananore, known as Bībī Valiya, Malayāl., 'great lady,' who rules in that neighbourhood and exercises authority over three of the islands of the Laccadives, and is by race a Moplah Mohammedan.] The word also is sometimes applied to a prostitute. It is originally, it would seem, Oriental Turki. In Pavet de Courteille's Dict. we have "Bībī, dame, épouse légitime" (p. 181). In W. India the word is said to be pronounced bobo (see Burton's Sind). It is curious that among the Sákaláva of Madagascar the wives of chiefs are termed biby; but there seems hardly a possibility of this having come from Persia or India. [But for Indian influence on the island, see Encycl. Britt. 9th ed. xv. 174.] The word in Hova means 'animal.'—(Sibree's Madagascar, p. 253.)

[c. 1610.—"Nobles in blood ... call their wives Bybis."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 217.]

1611.—"... the title Bibi ... is in Persian the same as among us, sennora, or doña."—Teixeira, Relacion ... de Hormuz. 19.

c. 1786.—"The word Lowndika, which means the son of a slave-girl, was also continually on the tongue of the Nawaub, and if he was angry with any one he called him by this name; but it was also used as an endearing fond appellation to which was attached great favour,^[38] until one day, Ali Zumán Khan ... represented to him that the word was low, discreditable, and not fit for the use of men of knowledge and rank. The Nawaub smiled, and said, 'O friend, you and I are both the sons of slave women, and the two Husseins only (on whom be good wishes and Paradise!) are the sons of a Bibi."—Hist. of Hydur Naik, tr. by Miles, 486.

[1793.—"I, Beebee Bulea, the Princess of Cannanore and of the Laccadives Islands, &c., do acknowledge and give in writing that I will pay to the Government of the English East India Company the moiety of whatever is the produce of my country...."—Engagement in Logan, Malabar, iii. 181.]

BEECH-DE-MER, s. The old trade way of writing and pronouncing the name, bicho-de-mar (borrowed from the Portuguese) of the sea-slug or holothuria, so highly valued in China. [See menu of a dinner to which the Duke of Connaught was invited, in Ball, Things Chinese, 3rd ed. p. 247.] It is split, cleaned, dried, and then carried to the Straits for export to China, from the Maldives, the Gulf of Manar, and other parts of the Indian seas further east. The most complete account of the way in which this somewhat important article of commerce is prepared, will be found in the Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indie, Jaarg. xvii. pt. i. See also SWALLOW and TRIPANG.

BEECHMÁN, also MEECHILMÁN, s. Sea-H. for 'midshipman.' (Roebuck).

BEEGAH, s. H. bīghā. The most common Hindu measure of land-area, and varying much in different parts of India, whilst in every part that has a bīghā there is also certain to be a pucka beegah and a kutcha beegah (vide CUTCHA and PUCKA), the latter being some fraction of the former. The beegah formerly adopted in the Revenue Survey of the N.W. Provinces, and in the Canal Department there, was one of 3025 sq. yards or ⅝ of an acre. This was apparently founded on Akbar's beegah, which contained 3600 sq. Ilāhi gaz, of about 33 inches each. [For which see Āīn, trans. Jarrett, ii. 62.] But it is now in official returns superseded by the English acre.

1763.—"I never seized a beega or beswa (1⁄20 bīghā) belonging to Calcutta, nor have I ever impressed your gomastahs." ... Nawāb Kāsim 'Ali, in Gleig's Mem. of Hastings, i. 129.

1823.—"A Begah has been computed at one-third of an acre, but its size differs in almost every province. The smallest Begah may perhaps be computed at one-third, and the largest at two-thirds of an acre."—Malcolm's Central India, ii. 15.

1877.—"The Resident was gratified at the low rate of assessment, which was on the general average eleven annas or 1s. 4½d. per beegah, that for the Nizam's country being upwards of four rupees."—Meadows Taylor, Story of my Life, ii. 5.

BEEGUM, BEGUM, &c. s. A Princess, a Mistress, a Lady of Rank; applied to Mahommedan ladies, and in the well-known case of the Beegum Sumroo to the professedly Christian (native) wife of a European. The word appears to be Or. Turki. bīgam, [which some connect with Skt. bhaga, 'lord,'] a feminine formation from Beg, 'chief, or lord,' like Khānum from Khān; hence P. begam. [Beg appears in the early travellers as Beage.]

[1614.—"Narranse saith he standeth bound before Beage for 4,800 and odd mamoodies."—Foster, Letters, ii. 282.]

[1505.—"Begum." See quotation under KHANUM.]

[1617.—"Their Company that offered to rob the Beagam's junck."—Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. ii. 454.]

1619.—"Behind the girl came another Begum, also an old woman, but lean and feeble, holding on to life with her teeth, as one might say."—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. ii. 6.

1653.—"Begun, Reine, ou espouse du Schah."—De la Boullaye le Gouz, 127.

[1708.—"They are called for this reason 'Begom,' which means Free from Care or Solicitude" (as if P. be-gham, 'without care'!)—Catrou, H. of the Mogul Dynasty in India, E. T., 287.]

1787.—"Among the charges (against Hastings) there is but one engaged, two at most—the Begum's to Sheridan; the Rannee of Goheed (Gohud) to Sir James Erskine. So please your palate."—Ed. Burke to Sir G. Elliot. L. of Ld. Minto, i. 119.

BEEJOO, s. Or 'Indian badger,' as it is sometimes called, H. bījū [bijjū], Mellivora indica, Jerdon, [Blanford, Mammalia, 176]. It is also often called in Upper India the Grave-digger, [gorkhodo] from a belief in its bad practices, probably unjust.

BEER, s. This liquor, imported from England, [and now largely made in the country], has been a favourite in India from an early date. Porter seems to have been common in the 18th century, judging from the advertisements in the Calcutta Gazette; and the Pale Ale made, it is presumed, expressly for the India market, appears in the earliest years of that publication. That expression has long been disused in India, and beer, simply, has represented the thing. Hodgson's at the beginning of this century, was the beer in almost universal use, replaced by Bass, and Allsopp, and of late years by a variety of other brands. [Hodgson's ale is immortalised in Bon Gualtier.]

1638.—"... the Captain ... was well provided with ... excellent good Sack, English Beer, French Wines, Arak, and other refreshments."—Mandelslo, E. T., p. 10.

1690.—(At Surat in the English Factory) "... Europe Wines and English Beer, because of their former acquaintance with our Palates, are most coveted and most desirable Liquors, and tho' sold at high Rates, are yet purchased and drunk with pleasure."—Ovington, 395.

1784.—"London Porter and Pale Ale, light and excellent ... 150 Sicca Rs. per hhd...."—In Seton-Karr, i. 39.

1810.—"Porter, pale-ale and table-beer of great strength, are often drank after meals."—Williamson, V. M. i. 122.

1814.—

From 'The Cadet, a Poem in 6 parts, &c. by a late resident in the East.' This is a most lugubrious production, the author finding nothing to his taste in India. In this respect it reads something like a caricature of "Oakfield," without the noble character and sentiment of that book. As the Rev. Hobart Caunter, the author seems to have come to a less doleful view of things Indian, and for some years he wrote the letter-press of the "Oriental Annual."

BEER, COUNTRY. At present, at least in Upper India, this expression simply indicates ale made in India (see COUNTRY) as at Masūri, Kasauli, and Ootacamund Breweries. But it formerly was (and in Madras perhaps still is) applied to ginger-beer, or to a beverage described in some of the quotations below, which must have become obsolete early in the last century. A drink of this nature called Sugar-beer was the ordinary drink at Batavia in the 17th century, and to its use some travellers ascribed the prevalent unhealthiness. This is probably what is described by Jacob Bontius in the first quotation:

1631.—There is a recipe given for a beer of this kind, "not at all less good than Dutch beer.... Take a hooped cask of 30 amphorae (?), fill with pure river water; add 2lb. black Java sugar, 4oz. tamarinds, 3 lemons cut up, cork well and put in a cool place. After 14 hours it will boil as if on a fire," &c.—Hist. Nat. et Med. Indiae Orient., p. 8. We doubt the result anticipated.

1789.—"They use a pleasant kind of drink, called Country-beer, with their victuals; which is composed of toddy ... porter, and brown-sugar; is of a brisk nature, but when cooled with saltpetre and water, becomes a very refreshing draught."—Munro, Narrative, 42.

1810.—"A temporary beverage, suited to the very hot weather, and called Country-beer, is in rather general use, though water artificially cooled is commonly drunk during the repasts."—Williamson, V. M. ii. 122.

BEER-DRINKING. Up to about 1850, and a little later, an ordinary exchange of courtesies at an Anglo-Indian dinner-table in the provinces, especially a mess-table, was to ask a guest, perhaps many yards distant, to "drink beer" with you; in imitation of the English custom of drinking wine together, which became obsolete somewhat earlier. In Western India, when such an invitation was given at a mess-table, two tumblers, holding half a bottle each, were brought to the inviter, who carefully divided the bottle between the two, and then sent one to the guest whom he invited to drink with him.

1848.—"'He aint got distangy manners, dammy,' Bragg observed to his first mate; 'he wouldn't do at Government House, Roper, where his Lordship and Lady William was as kind to me ... and asking me at dinner to take beer with him before the Commander-in-Chief himself....'"—Vanity Fair, II. ch. xxii.

1853.—"First one officer, and then another, asked him to drink beer at mess, as a kind of tacit suspension of hostilities."—Oakfield, ii. 52.

BEETLEFAKEE, n.p. "In some old Voyages coins used at Mocha are so called. The word is Bait-ul-fākiha, the 'Fruit-market,' the name of a bazar there." So C. P. Brown. The place is in fact the Coffee-mart of which Hodeida is the port, from which it is about 30 m. distant inland, and 4 marches north of Mocha. And the name is really Bait-al-Faḳīh, 'The House of the Divine,' from the tomb of the Saint Aḥmad Ibn Mūsā, which was the nucleus of the place.—(See Ritter, xii. 872; see also BEETLE-FACKIE, Milburn, i. 96.)

1690.—"Coffee ... grows in abundance at Beetle-fuckee ... and other parts."—Ovington, 465.

1710.—"They daily bring down coffee from the mountains to Betelfaquy, which is not above 3 leagues off, where there is a market for it every day of the week."—(French) Voyage to Arabia the Happy, E. T., London, 1726, p. 99.

1770.—"The tree that produces the Coffee grows in the territory of Betel-faqui, a town belonging to Yemen."—Raynal (tr. 1777), i. 352.

BEGAR, BIGARRY, s. H. begārī, from P. begār, 'forced labour' [be 'without,' gār (for kār), 'one who works']; a person pressed to carry a load, or do other work really or professedly for public service. In some provinces begār is the forced labour, and bigārī the pressed man; whilst in Karnāta, begārī is the performance of the lowest village offices without money payment, but with remuneration in grain or land (Wilson). C. P. Brown says the word is Canarese; but the P. origin is hardly doubtful.

[1519.—"It happened that one day sixty bigairis went from the Comorin side towards the fort loaded with oyster-shells."—Castanheda, Bk. V. ch. 38.]

[1525.—"The inhabitants of the villages are bound to supply begarins who are workmen."—Archiv. Port. Orient. Fasc. V. p. 126.]

[1535.—"Telling him that they fought like heroes and worked (at building the fort) like bygairys."—Correa, iii. 625.]

1554.—"And to 4 begguaryns, who serve as water carriers to the Portuguese and others in the said intrenchment, 15 leals a day to each...."—S. Botelho, Tombo, 78.

1673.—"Gocurn, whither I took a Pilgrimage, with one other of the Factors, Four Peons, and Two Biggereens, or Porters only."—Fryer, 158.

1800.—"The bygarry system is not bearable: it must be abolished entirely."—Wellington, i. 244.

1815.—Aitchison's Indian Treaties, &c., contains under this year numerous sunnuds issued, in Nepāl War, to Hill Chiefs, stipulating for attendance when required with "begarees and sepoys."—ii. 339 seqq.

1882.—"The Malauna people were some time back ordered to make a practicable road, but they flatly refused to do anything of the kind, saying they had never done any begâr labour, and did not intend to do any."—(ref. wanting.)

BEHAR, n.p. H. Bihār. That province of the Mogul Empire which lay on the Ganges immediately above Bengal, was so called, and still retains the name and character of a province, under the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, and embracing the ten modern districts of Patna, Sāran, Gāya, Shāhābād, Tirhut, Champāran, the Santāl Parganas, Bhāgalpūr, Monghyr, and Purnīah. The name was taken from the old city of Bihār, and that derived its title from being the site of a famous Vihāra in Buddhist times. In the later days of Mahommedan rule the three provinces of Bengal, Behar and Orissa were under one Subadar, viz. the Nawāb, who resided latterly at Murshidābād.

[c. 1590.—"Sarkar of Behar; containing 46 Mahals...."—Āīn (tr. Jarrett), ii. 153.]

[1676.—"Translate of a letter from Shausteth Caukne (Shaista Khan) ... in answer to one from Wares Cawne, Great Chancellor of the Province of Bearra about the English."—In Birdwood, Rep. 80].

The following is the first example we have noted of the occurrence of the three famous names in combination:

1679.—"On perusal of several letters relating to the procuring of the Great Mogul's Phyrmaund for trade, custome free, in the Bay of Bengall, the Chief in Council at Hugly is ordered to procure the same, for the English to be Customs free in Bengal, Orixa and Bearra...."—Ft. St. Geo. Cons., 20th Feb. in Notes and Exts., Pt. ii. p. 7.

BEHUT, n.p. H. Behat. One of the names, and in fact the proper name, of the Punjab river which we now call Jelum (i.e. Jhīlam) from a town on its banks: the Hydaspes or Bidaspes of the ancients. Both Behat and the Greek name are corruptions, in different ways, of the Skt. name Vitastā. Sidi 'Alī (p. 200) calls it the river of Bahra. Bahra or Bhera was a district on the river, and the town and taḥsīl still remain, in Shahpur Dist. [It "is called by the natives of Kaśmīr, where it rises, the Bedasta, which is but a slightly-altered form of its Skt. name, the Vitastā, which means 'wide-spread.'"—McCrindle, Invasion of India, 93 seqq.]

BEIRAMEE, BYRAMEE, also BYRAMPAUT, s. P. bairam, bairamī. The name of a kind of cotton stuff which appears frequently during the flourishing period of the export of these from India; but the exact character of which we have been unable to ascertain. In earlier times, as appears from the first quotation, it was a very fine stuff. [From the quotation dated 1609 below, they appear to have resembled the fine linen known as "Holland" (for which see Draper's Dict. s.v.).]

c. 1343.—Ibn Batuta mentions, among presents sent by Sultan Mahommed Tughlak of Delhi to the great Kaan, "100 suits of raiment called bairamīyah, i.e. of a cotton stuff, which were of unequalled beauty, and were each worth 100 dīnārs [rupees]."—iv. 2.

[1498.—"20 pieces of white stuff, very fine, with gold embroidery which they call Beyramies."—Correa, Hak. Soc. 197.]

1510.—"Fifty ships are laden every year in this place (Bengala) with cotton and silk stuffs ... that is to say bairam."—Varthema, 212.

[1513.—"And captured two Chaul ships laden with beirames."—Albuquerque, Cartas, p. 166.]

1554.—"From this country come the muslins called Candaharians, and those of Daulatābād, Berūpātri, and Bairami."—Sidi 'Ali, in J.A.S.B., v. 460.

" "And for 6 beirames for 6 surplices, which are given annually ... which may be worth 7 pardaos."—S. Botelho, Tombo, 129.

[1609.—"A sort of cloth called Byramy resembling Holland cloths."—Danvers, Letters, i. 29.]

[1610.—"Bearams white will vent better than the black."—Ibid. i. 75].

1615.—"10 pec. byrams nill (see ANILE) of 51 Rs. per corg...."—Cocks's Diary, i. 4.

[1648.—"Beronis." Quotation from Van Twist, s.v. GINGHAM.]

[c. 1700.—"50 blew byrampants" (read byrampauts, H. pāt, 'a length of cloth').—In Notes and Queries, 7th Ser. ix. 29.]

1727.—"Some Surat Baftaes dyed blue, and some Berams dyed red, which are both coarse cotton cloth."—A. Hamilton, ii. 125.

1813.—"Byrams of sorts," among Surat piece-goods, in Milburn, i. 124.

BEITCUL, n.p. We do not know how this name should be properly written. The place occupies the isthmus connecting Carwar Head in Canara with the land, and lies close to the Harbour of Carwar, the inner part of which is Beitcul Cove.

1711.—"Ships may ride secure from the South West Monsoon at Batte Cove (qu. BATTECOLE?), and the River is navigable for the largest, after they have once got in."—Lockyer, 272.

1727.—"The Portugueze have an Island called Anjediva [see ANCHEDIVA] ... about two miles from Batcoal."—A. Hamilton, i. 277.

BELGAUM, n.p. A town and district of the Bombay Presidency, in the S. Mahratta country. The proper name is said to be Canarese Vennu-grāmā, 'Bamboo-Town.' [The name of a place of the same designation in the Vizagapatam district in Madras is said to be derived from Skt. bila-grāma, 'cave-village.'—Mad. Admin. Man. Gloss. s.v.] The name occurs in De Barros under the form "Cidade de Bilgan" (Dec. IV., liv. vii. cap. 5).

BENAMEE, adj. P.—H. be-nāmī, 'anonymous'; a term specially applied to documents of transfer or other contract in which the name entered as that of one of the chief parties (e.g. of a purchaser) is not that of the person really interested. Such transactions are for various reasons very common in India, especially in Bengal, and are not by any means necessarily fradulent, though they have often been so. ["There probably is no country in the world except India, where it would be necessary to write a chapter 'On the practice of putting property into a false name.'"—(Mayne, Hindu Law, 373).] In the Indian Penal Code (Act XLV. of 1860), sections 421-423, "on fraudulent deeds and dispositions of Property," appear to be especially directed against the dishonest use of this benamee system.

It is alleged by C. P. Brown on the authority of a statement in the Friend of India (without specific reference) that the proper term is banāmī, adopted from such a phrase as banāmī chiṭṭhī, 'a transferable note of hand,' such notes commencing, 'ba-nām-i-fulāna,' 'to the name or address of' (Abraham Newlands). This is conceivable, and probably true, but we have not the evidence, and it is opposed to all the authorities: and in any case the present form and interpretation of the term be-nāmī has become established.

1854.—"It is very much the habit in India to make purchases in the name of others, and from whatever causes the practice may have arisen, it has existed for a series of years: and these transactions are known as 'Benamee transactions'; they are noticed at least as early as the year 1778, in Mr. Justice Hyde's Notes."—Ld. Justice Knight Bruce, in Moore's Reports of Cases on Appeal before the P. C., vol. vi. p. 72.

"The presumption of the Hindoo law, in a joint undivided family, is that the whole property of the family is joint estate ... where a purchase of real estate is made by a Hindoo in the name of one of his sons, the presumption of the Hindoo law is in favour of its being a benamee purchase, and the burthen of proof lies on the party in whose name it was purchased, to prove that he was solely entitled."—Note by the Editor of above Vol., p. 53.

1861.—"The decree Sale law is also one chief cause of that nuisance, the benamee system.... It is a peculiar contrivance for getting the benefits and credit of property, and avoiding its charges and liabilities. It consists in one man holding land, nominally for himself, but really in secret trust for another, and by ringing the changes between the two ... relieving the land from being attached for any liability personal to the proprietor."—W. Money, Java, ii. 261.

1862.—"Two ingredients are necessary to make up the offence in this section (§ 423 of Penal Code). First a fraudulent intention, and secondly a false statement as to the consideration. The mere fact that an assignment has been taken in the name of a person not really interested, will not be sufficient. Such ... known in Bengal as benamee transactions ... have nothing necessarily fraudulent."—J. D. Mayne's Comm. on the Penal Code, Madras, 1862, p. 257.

BENARES, n.p. The famous and holy city on the Ganges. H. Banāras from Skt. Vārānasī. The popular Pundit etymology is from the names of the streams Varaṇā (mod. Barnā) and Āsī, the former a river of some size on the north and east of the city, the latter a rivulet now embraced within its area; [or from the mythical founder, Rājā Bānār]. This origin is very questionable. The name, as that of a city, has been (according to Dr. F. Hall) familiar to Sanscrit literature since B.C. 120. The Buddhist legends would carry it much further back, the name being in them very familiar.

[c. 250 A.D.—"... and the Errenysis from the Mathai, an Indian tribe, unite with the Ganges."—Aelian, Indika, iv.]

c. 637.—"The Kingdom of P'o-lo-nis-se (Vârânaçî Bénarès) is 4000 li in compass. On the west the capital adjoins the Ganges...."—Hiouen Thsang, in Pèl. Boudd. ii. 354.

c. 1020.—"If you go from Bárí on the banks of the Ganges, in an easterly direction, you come to Ajodh, at the distance of 25 parasangs; thence to the great Benares (Bānāras) about 20."—Al-Birūnī, in Elliot, i. 56.

1665.—"Banarou is a large City, and handsomely built; the most part of the Houses being either of Brick or Stone ... but the inconveniency is that the Streets are very narrow."—Tavernier, E. T., ii. 52; [ed. Ball, i. 118. He also uses the forms Benarez and Banarous, Ibid. ii. 182, 225].

BENCOOLEN, n.p. A settlement on the West Coast of Sumatra, which long pertained to England, viz. from 1685 to 1824, when it was given over to Holland in exchange for Malacca, by the Treaty of London. The name is a corruption of Malay Bangkaulu, and it appears as Mangkoulou or Wénkouléou in Pauthier's Chinese geographical quotations, of which the date is not given (Marc. Pol., p. 566, note). The English factory at Bencoolen was from 1714 called Fort Marlborough.

1501.—"Bencolu" is mentioned among the ports of the East Indies by Amerigo Vespucci in his letter quoted under BACANORE.

1690.—"We ... were forced to bear away to Bencouli, another English Factory on the same Coast.... It was two days before I went ashoar, and then I was importuned by the Governour to stay there, to be Gunner of the Fort."—Dampier, i. 512.

1727.—"Bencolon is an English colony, but the European inhabitants not very numerous."—A. Hamilton, ii. 114.

1788.—"It is nearly an equal absurdity, though upon a smaller scale, to have an establishment that costs nearly 40,000l. at Bencoolen, to facilitate the purchase of one cargo of pepper."—Cornwallis, i. 390.

BENDAMEER, n.p. Pers. Bandamīr. A popular name, at least among foreigners, of the River Kur (Araxes) near Shiraz. Properly speaking, the word is the name of a dam constructed across the river by the Amīr Fanā Khusruh, otherwise called Aded-ud-daulah, a prince of the Buweih family (A.D. 965), which was thence known in later days as the Band-i-Amīr, "The Prince's Dam." The work is mentioned in the Geog. Dict. of Yāḳūt (c. 1220) under the name of Sikru Fannā-Khusrah Khurrah and Kirdu Fannā Khusrah (see Barb. Meynard, Dict. de la Perse, 313, 480). Fryer repeats a rigmarole that he heard about the miraculous formation of the dam or bridge by Band Haimero (!) a prophet, "wherefore both the Bridge and the Plain, as well as the River, by Boterus is corruptly called Bindamire" (Fryer, 258).

c. 1475.—"And from thense, a daies iorney, ye come to a great bridge vpon the Byndamyr, which is a notable great ryver. This bridge they said Salomon caused to be made."—Barbaro (Old E. T.), Hak. Soc. 80.

1621.—"... having to pass the Kur by a longer way across another bridge called Bend' Emir, which is as much as to say the Tie (ligatura), or in other words the Bridge, of the Emir, which is two leagues distant from Chehil minar ... and which is so called after a certain Emir Hamza the Dilemite who built it.... Fra Filippo Ferrari, in his Geographical Epitome, attributes the name of Bendemir to the river, but he is wrong, for Bendemir is the name of the bridge and not of the river."—P. della Valle, ii. 264.

1686.—"Il est bon d'observer, vue le commun Peuple appelle le Bend-Emir en cet endroit ab pulneu, c'est à dire le Fleuve du Pont Neuf; qu'on ne l'appelle par son nom de Bend-Emir que proche de la Digue, qui lui a fait donner ce nom."—Chardin (ed. 1711), ix. 45.

1809.—"We proceeded three miles further, and crossing the River Bend-emir, entered the real plain of Merdasht."—Morier (First Journey), 124. See also (1811) 2nd Journey, pp. 73-74, where there is a view of the Band-Amir.

1813.—"The river Bund Emeer, by some ancient Geographers called the Cyrus,^[39] takes its present name from a dyke (in Persian a bund) erected by the celebrated Ameer Azad-a-Doulah Delemi."—Macdonald Kinneir, Geog. Mem. of the Persian Empire, 59.

1817.—

1850.—"The water (of Lake Neyriz) ... is almost entirely derived from the Kur (known to us as the Bund Amir River)...."—Abbott, in J.R.G.S., xxv. 73.

1878.—We do not know whether the Band-i-Amīr is identical with the quasi-synonymous Pul-i-Khān by which Col. Macgregor crossed the Kur on his way from Shiraz to Yezd. See his Khorassan, i. 45.

BENDÁRA, s. A term used in the Malay countries as a title of one of the higher ministers of state—Malay bandahāra, Jav. bendårå, 'Lord.' The word enters into the numerous series of purely honorary Javanese titles, and the etiquette in regard to it is very complicated. (See Tijdschr. v. Nederl. Indie, year viii. No. 12, 253 seqq.). It would seem that the title is properly bānḍārā, 'a treasurer,' and taken from the Skt. bhāṇḍārin, 'a steward or treasurer.' Haex in his Malay-Latin Dict. gives Banḍàri, 'Oeconomus, quaestor, expenditor.' [Mr. Skeat writes that Clifford derives it from Benda-hara-an, 'a treasury,' which he again derives from Malay benda, 'a thing,' without explaining hara, while Wilkinson with more probability classes it as Skt.]

1509.—"Whilst Sequeira was consulting with his people over this matter, the King sent his Bendhara or Treasure-Master on board."—Valentijn, v. 322.

1539.—"There the Bandara (Bendara) of Malaca, (who is as it were Chief Justicer among the Mahometans), (o supremo no mando, na honra e ne justica dos mouros) was present in person by the express commandment of Pedro de Faria for to entertain him."—Pinto (orig. cap. xiv.), in Cogan, p. 17.

1552.—"And as the Bendara was by nature a traitor and a tyrant, the counsel they gave him seemed good to him."—Castanheda, ii. 359, also iii. 433.

1561.—"Então manson ... que dizer que matára o seu bandara polo mao conselho que lhe deve."—Correa, Lendas, ii. 225.

[1610.—An official at the Maldives is called Rana-bandery Tacourou, which Mr. Gray interprets—Singh. ran, 'gold,' bandhara, 'treasury,' ṭhakkura, Skt., 'an idol.'—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 58.]

1613.—"This administration (of Malacca) is provided for a three years' space with a governor ... and with royal officers of revenue and justice, and with the native Bendara in charge of the government of the lower class of subjects and foreigners."—Godinho de Eredia, 6v.

1631.—"There were in Malaca five principal officers of dignity ... the second is Bendará, he is the superintendent of the executive (veador da fazenda) and governs the Kingdom: sometimes the Bendará holds both offices, that of Puduca raja and of Bendará."—D'Alboquerque, Commentaries (orig.), 358-359.

1634.—

1726.—"Bandares or Adassing are those who are at the Court as Dukes, Counts, or even Princes of the Royal House."—Valentijn (Ceylon), Names of Officers, &c., 8.

1810.—"After the Raja had amused himself with their speaking, and was tired of it ... the bintara with the green eyes (for it is the custom that the eldest bintara should have green shades before his eyes, that he may not be dazzled by the greatness of the Raja, and forget his duty) brought the books and packets, and delivered them to the bintara with the black baju, from whose hands the Raja received them, one by one, in order to present them to the youths."—A Malay's account of a visit to Govt. House, Calcutta, transl. by Dr. Leyden in Maria Graham, p. 202.

1883.—"In most of the States the reigning prince has regular officers under him, chief among whom ... the Bandahara or treasurer, who is the first minister...."—Miss Bird, The Golden Chersonese, 26.

BENDY, BINDY, s.: also BANDICOY (q.v.), the form in S. India; H. bhinḍī, [bhenḍī], Dakh. bhenḍī, Mahr. bhenḍā; also in H. rāmturἀī; the fruit of the plant Abelmoschus esculentus, also Hibiscus esc. It is called in Arab. bāmiyah (Lane, Mod. Egypt, ed. 1837, i. 199: [5th ed. i. 184: Burton, Ar. Nights, xi. 57]), whence the modern Greek μπάμια. In Italy the vegetable is called corni de' Greci. The Latin name Abelmoschus is from the Ar. ḥabb-ul-mushk, 'grain of musk' (Dozy).