G (continued 2)

"The Godavery river, or Gonga Godowry, commonly called Ganga in European maps, and sometimes Gang in Indian histories, has generally been represented as the same river with that of Cattack.

"As we have no authority that I can find for supposing it, the opinion must have been taken up, on a supposition that there was no opening between the mouths of the Kistna and Mahanadee (or Cattack river) of magnitude sufficient for such a river as the Ganga" (pp. 74-75) [also ibid. 2nd ed. 244]. As to this error see also a quotation from D'Anville under KEDGEREE. It is probable that what that geographer says in his Éclaircissemens, p. 135, that he had no real idea of the Godavery. That name occurs in his book only as "la pointe de Gaudewari." This point, he says, is about E.N.E. of the "river of Narsapur," at a distance of about 12 leagues; "it is a low land, intersected by several river-arms, forming the mouths of that which the maps, esteemed to be most correct, call Wenseron; and the river of Narsapur is itself one of those arms, according to a MS. map in my possession." Narsaparam is the name of a taluk on the westernmost delta branch, or Vasishta Godāvarī [see Morris, Man. of Godavery Dist., 193]. Wenseron appears on a map in Baldaeus (1672), as the name of one of the two mouths of the Eastern or Gautamī Godāvarī, entering the sea near Coringa. It is perhaps the same name as Injaram on that branch, where there was an English Factory for many years.

In the neat map of "Regionum Choromandel, Golconda, et Orixa," which is in Baldaeus (1672), there is no indication of it whatever except as a short inlet from the sea called Gondewary.

1538.—"The noblest rivers of this province (Daquem or Deccan) are six in number, to wit: Crusna (Krishna), in many places known as Hinapor, because it passes by a city of this name (Hindapūr?); Bivra (read Bima?); these two rivers join on the borders of the Deccan and the land of Canara (q.v.), and after traversing great distances enter the sea in the Oria territory; Malaprare (Malprabha?); Guodavam (read Guodavari) otherwise called Gangua; Purnadi; Tapi. Of these the Malaprare enters the sea in the Oria territory, and so does the Guodavam; but Purnadi and Tapi enter the Gulf of Cambay at different points."—João de Castro, Primeiro Roteiro da Costa da India, pp. 6, 7.

c. 1590.—"Here (in Berar) are rivers in abundance; especially the Ganga of Gotam, which they also call Godovārī. The Ganga of Hindustan they dedicate to Mahadeo, but this Ganga to Gotam. And they tell wonderful legends of it, and pay it great adoration. It has its springs in the Sahyā Hills near Trimbak, and passing through the Wilāyat of Ahmadnagar, enters Berār and thence flows on to Tilingāna."—Āīn-i-Akbari (orig.) i. 476; [ed. Jarrett, ii. 228.] We may observe that the most easterly of the Delta branches of the Godavery is still called Gautami.

GODDESS, s. An absurd corruption which used to be applied by our countrymen in the old settlements in the Malay countries to the young women of the land. It is Malay gādīs, 'a virgin.'

c. 1772.—

1784.—"A lad at one of these entertainments, asked another his opinion of a gaddees who was then dancing. 'If she were plated with gold,' replied he, 'I would not take her for my concubine, much less for my wife.'"—Marsden's H. of Sumatra, 2nd ed., 230.

GODOWN, s. A warehouse for goods and stores; an outbuilding used for stores; a store-room. The word is in constant use in the Chinese ports as well as in India. The H. and Beng. gudām is apparently an adoption of the Anglo-Indian word, not its original. The word appears to have passed to the continent of India from the eastern settlements, where the Malay word gadong is used in the same sense of 'store-room,' but also in that of 'a house built of brick or stone.' Still the word appears to have come primarily from the South of India, where in Telugu giḍaṅgi, giḍḍangi, in Tamil kiḍaṅgu, signify 'a place where goods lie,' from kiḍu, 'to lie.' It appears in Singhalese also as gudāma. It is a fact that many common Malay and Javanese words are Tamil, or only to be explained by Tamil. Free intercourse between the Coromandel Coast and the Archipelago is very ancient, and when the Portuguese first appeared at Malacca they found there numerous settlers from S. India (see s.v. KLING). Bluteau gives the word as palavra da India, and explains it as a "logea quasi debaixo de chão" ("almost under ground"), but this is seldom the case.

[1513.—"... in which all his rice and a Gudam full of mace was burned."—Letter of F. P. Andrade to Albuquerque, Feb. 22, India Office, MSS. Corpo Chronologico, vol. I.

[1552.—"At night secretly they cleared their Gudams, which are rooms almost under ground, for fear of fire."—Barros, Dec. II. Bk. vi. ch. 3.]

1552.—"... and ordered them to plunder many godowns (gudoes) in which there was such abundance of clove, nutmeg, mace, and sandal wood, that our people could not transport it all till they had called in the people of Malacca to complete its removal."—Castanheda, iii. 276-7.

1561.—"... Godowns (Gudões), which are strong houses of stone, having the lower part built with lime."—Correa, II. i. 236. (The last two quotations refer to events in 1511.)

1570.—"... but the merchants have all one house or Magazon, which house they call Godon, which is made of brickes."—Caesar Frederike, in Hakl.

1585.—"In the Palace of the King (at Pegu) are many magazines both of gold and of silver.... Sandalwood, and lign-aloes, and all such things, have their gottons (gottoni), which is as much as to say separate chambers."—Gasparo Balbi, f. 111.

[c. 1612.—"... if I did not he would take away from me the key of the gadong."—Danvers, Letters, i. 195.]

1613.—"As fortelezas e fortificações de Malayos ordinariamente erão aedifficios de matte entaypado, de que havia muytas casas e armenyas ou godoens que são aedifficios sobterraneos, em que os mercadores recolhem as roupas de Choromandel per il perigo de fogo."—Godinho de Eredia, 22.

1615.—"We paid Jno. Dono 70 taies or plate of bars in full payment of the fee symple of the gadonge over the way, to westward of English howse, whereof 100 taies was paid before."—Cocks's Diary, i. 39; [in i. 15 gedonge].

[ " "An old ruined brick house or godung."—Foster, Letters, iii. 109.

[ " "The same goods to be locked up in the gaddones."—Ibid. iii. 159.]

1634.—

1680.—"Rent Rowle of Dwelling Houses, Goedowns, etc., within the Garrison in Christian Town."—In Wheeler, i. 253-4.

1683.—"I went to ye Bankshall to mark out and appoint a Plat of ground to build a Godown for ye Honble. Company's Salt Petre."—Hedges, Diary, March 5; [Hak. Soc. i. 67].

1696.—"Monday, 3rd August. The Choultry Justices having produced examinations taken by them concerning the murder of a child in the Black town, and the robbing of a godown within the walls:—it is ordered that the Judge-Advocate do cause a session to be held on Tuesday the 11th for the trial of the criminals."—Official Memorandum, in Wheeler, i. 303.

[1800.—"The cook-room and Zodoun at the Laul Baug are covered in."—Wellington, i. 66.]

1809.—"The Black Hole is now part of a godown or warehouse: it was filled with goods, and I could not see it."—Ld. Valentia, i. 237.

1880.—"These 'Godowns' ... are one of the most marked features of a Japanese town, both because they are white where all else is gray, and because they are solid where all else is perishable."—Miss Bird's Japan, i. 264.

GOGLET, GUGLET. s. A water-bottle, usually earthenware, of globular body with a long neck, the same as what is called in Bengal more commonly a surāhī (see SERAI, b., KOOZA). This is the usual form now; the article described by Linschoten and Pyrard, with a sort of cullender mouth and pebbles shut inside, was somewhat different. Corrupted from the Port. gorgoleta, the name of such a vessel. The French have also in this sense gargoulette, and a word gargouille, our medieval gurgoyle; all derivations from gorga, garga, gorge, 'the throat,' found in all the Romance tongues. Tom Cringle shows that the word is used in the W. Indies.

1598.—"These cruses are called Gorgoletta."—Linschoten, 60; [Hak. Soc. i. 207].

1599.—In Debry, vii. 28, the word is written Gorgolane.

c. 1610.—"Il y a une pièce de terre fort delicate, et toute percée de petits trous façonnez, et au dedans y a de petites pierres qui ne peuvent sortir, c'est pour nettoyer le vase. Ils appellent cela gargoulette: l'eau n'en sorte que peu à la fois."—Pyrard de Laval, ii. 43; [Hak Soc. ii. 74, and see i. 329].

[1616.—"... 6 Gorgoletts."—Foster, Letters, iv. 198.]

1648.—"They all drink out of Gorgelanes, that is out of a Pot with a Spout, without setting the Mouth thereto."—T. Van Spilbergen's Voyage, 37.

c. 1670.—"Quand on est à la maison on a des Gourgoulettes ou aiguières d'une certaine pierre poreuse."—Bernier (ed. Amst.), ii. 214; [and comp. ed. Constable, 356].

1688.—"L'on donne à chacun de ceux que leur malheur conduit dans ces saintes prisons, un pot de terre plein d'eau pour se laver, un autre plus propre de ceux qu'on appelle Gurguleta, aussi plein d'eau pour boire."—Dellon, Rel. de l'Inquisition de Goa, 135.

c. 1690.—"The Siamese, Malays, and Macassar people have the art of making from the larger coco-nut shells most elegant drinking vessels, cups, and those other receptacles for water to drink called Gorgelette, which they set with silver, and which no doubt by the ignorant are supposed to be made of the precious Maldive cocos."—Rumphius, I. iii.

1698.—"The same way they have of cooling their Liquors, by a wet cloth wrapped about their Gurgulets and Jars, which are vessels made of a porous Kind of Earth."—Fryer, 47.

1726.—"However, they were much astonished that the water in the Gorgolets in that tremendous heat, especially out of doors, was found quite cold."—Valentijn, Choro. 59.

1766.—"I perfectly remember having said that it would not be amiss for General Carnac to have a man with a Goglet of water ready to pour on his head, whenever he should begin to grow warm in debate."—Lord Clive, Consn. Fort William, Jan. 29. In Long, 406.

1829.—"Dressing in a hurry, find the drunken bheesty ... has mistaken your boot for the goglet in which you carry your water on the line of march."—Shipp's Memoirs, ii. 149.

c. 1830.—"I was not long in finding a bottle of very tolerable rum, some salt junk, some biscuit, and a goglet, or porous earthen jar of water, with some capital cigars."—Tom Cringle, ed. 1863, 152.

1832.—"Murwan sent for a woman named Joada, and handing her some virulent poison folded up in a piece of paper, said, 'If you can throw this into Hussun's gugglet, he on drinking a mouthful or two of water will instantly bring up his liver piece-meal.'"—Herklots, Qanoon-e-Islam, 156.

1855.—"To do it (gild the Rangoon Pagoda) they have enveloped the whole in an extraordinary scaffolding of bamboos, which looks as if they had been enclosing the pagoda in basketwork to keep it from breaking, as you would do with a water goglet for a dâk journey."—In Blackwood's Mag., May, 1856.

GOGO, GOGA, n.p. A town on the inner or eastern shore of Kattywar Peninsula, formerly a seaport of some importance, with an anchorage sheltered by the Isle of Peram (the Beiram of the quotation from Ibn Batuta). Gogo appears in the Catalan map of 1375. Two of the extracts will show how this unhappy city used to suffer at the hands of the Portuguese. Gogo is now superseded to a great extent by Bhaunagar, 8 m. distant.

1321.—"Dated from Caga the 12th day of October, in the year of the Lord 1321."—Letter of Fr. Jordanus, in Cathay, &c. i. 228.

c. 1343.—"We departed from Beiram and arrived next day at the city of Ḳūka, which is large, and possesses extensive bazars. We anchored 4 miles off because of the ebb tide."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 60.

1531.—"The Governor (Nuno da Cunha) ... took counsel to order a fleet to remain behind to make war upon Cambaya, leaving Antonio de Saldanha with 50 sail, to wit: 4 galeons, and the rest galleys and galeots, and rowing-vessels of the King's, with some private ones eager to remain, in the greed for prize. And in this fleet there stayed 1000 men with good will for the plunder before them, and many honoured gentlemen and captains. And running up the Gulf they came to a city called Goga, peopled by rich merchants; and the fleet entering by the river ravaged it by fire and sword, slaying much people...."—Correa, iii. 418.

[c. 1590.—"Ghogeh." See under SURATH.]

1602.—"... the city of Gogá, which was one of the largest and most opulent in traffic, wealth and power of all those of Cambaya.... This city lies almost at the head of the Gulf, on the western side, spreading over a level plain, and from certain ruins of buildings still visible, seems to have been in old times a very great place, and under the dominion of certain foreigners."—Couto, IV. vii. cap. 5.

1614.—"The passage across from Surrate to Goga is very short, and so the three fleets, starting at 4 in the morning, arrived there at nightfall.... The next day the Portuguese returned ashore to burn the city ... and entering the city they set fire to it in all quarters, and it began to blaze with such fury that there was burnt a great quantity of merchandize (fazendas de porte), which was a huge loss to the Moors.... After the burning of the city they abode there 3 days, both captains and soldiers content with the abundance of their booty, and the fleet stood for Dio, taking, besides the goods that were on board, many boats in tow laden with the same."—Bocarro, Decada, 333.

[c. 1660.—"A man on foot going by land to a small village named the Gauges, and from thence crossing the end of the Gulf, can go from Diu to Surat in four or five days...."—Tavernier, ed. Ball, ii. 37.]

1727.—"Goga is a pretty large Town ... has some Trade.... It has the Conveniences of a Harbour for the largest Ships, though they lie dry on soft Mud at low Water."—A. Hamilton, i. 143.

GOGOLLA, GOGALA, n.p. This is still the name of a village on a peninsular sandy spit of the mainland, opposite to the island and fortress of Diu, and formerly itself a fort. It was known in the 16th century as the Villa dos Rumes, because Melique Az (Malik Ayāz, the Mahom. Governor), not much trusting the Rumes (i.e. the Turkish Mercenaries), "or willing that they should be within the Fortress, sent them to dwell there." (Barros, II. iii. cap. 5).

1525.—"Paga dyo e gogolla a el Rey de Cambaya treze layques em tangas ... xiij laiques."—Lembrança, 34.

1538.—In Botelho, Tombo, 230, 239, we find "Alfandegua de Guogualaa."

1539.—"... terminating in a long and narrow tongue of sand, on which stands a fort which they call Gogala, and the Portuguese the Villa dos Rumes. On the point of this tongue the Portuguese made a beautiful round bulwark."—João de Castro, Primeiro Roteiro, p. 218.

GOLAH, s. Hind. golā (from gol, 'round'). A store-house for grain or salt; so called from the typical form of such store-houses in many parts of India, viz. a circular wall of mud with a conical roof. [One of the most famous of these is the Golā at Patna, completed in 1786, but never used.]

[1785.—"We visited the Gola, a building intended for a public granary."—In Forbes, Or. Mem. 2nd ed. ii. 445.]

1810.—"The golah, or warehouse."—Williamson, V. M. ii. 343.

1878.—"The villagers, who were really in want of food, and maddened by the sight of those golahs stored with grain, could not resist the temptation to help themselves."—Life in the Mofussil, ii. 77.

GOLD MOHUR FLOWER, s. Caesalpinia pulcherrima, Sw. The name is a corruption of the H. gulmor, which is not in the dictionaries, but is said to mean 'peacock-flower.'

[1877.—"The crowd began to press to the great Gool-mohur tree."—Allardyce, City of Sunshine, iii. 207.]

GOLE, s. The main body of an army in array; a clustered body of troops; an irregular squadron of horsemen. P.—H. ghol; perhaps a confusion with the Arab. jaul (gaul), 'a troop': [but Platts connects it with Skt. kula, 'an assemblage'].

1507.—"As the right and left are called Berânghâr and Sewânghâr ... and are not included in the centre which they call ghūl, the right and left do not belong to the ghūl."—Baber, 227.

1803.—"When within reach, he fired a few rounds, on which I formed my men into two gholes.... Both gholes attempted to turn his flanks, but the men behaved ill, and we were repulsed."—Skinner, Mil. Mem. i. 298.

1849.—"About this time a large gole of horsemen came on towards me, and I proposed to charge; but as they turned at once from the fire of the guns, and as there was a nullah in front, I refrained from advancing after them."—Brigadier Lockwood, Report of 2nd Cavalry Division at Battle of Goojerat.

GOMASTA, GOMASHTAH, s. Hind. from Pers. gumāshtah, part. 'appointed, delegated.' A native agent or factor. In Madras the modern application is to a clerk for vernacular correspondence.

1747.—"As for the Salem Cloth they beg leave to defer settling any Price for that sort till they can be advised from the Goa Masters (!) in that Province."—Ft. St. David Consn., May 11. MS. Records in India Office.

1762.—"You will direct the gentleman, Gomastahs, Muttasuddies (see MOOTSUDDY), and Moonshies, and other officers of the English Company to relinquish their farms, taalucs (see TALOOK), gunges, and golahs."—The Nabob to the Governor, in Van Sittart, i. 229.

1776.—"The Magistrate shall appoint some one person his gomastah or Agent in each Town."—Halhed's Code, 55.

1778.—"The Company determining if possible to restore their investment to the former condition ... sent gomastahs, or Gentoo factors in their own pay."—Orme, ed. 1803, ii. 57.

c. 1785.—"I wrote an order to my gomastah in the factory of Hughly."—Carraccioli's Life of Clive, iii. 448.

1817.—"The banyan hires a species of broker, called a Gomastah, at so much a month."—Mill's Hist. iii. 13.

1837.—"... (The Rajah) sent us a very good breakfast; when we had eaten it, his gomashta (a sort of secretary, at least more like that than anything else) came to say ..."—Letters from Madras, 128.

GOMBROON, n.p. The old name in European documents of the place on the Persian Gulf now known as Bandar 'Abbās, or 'Abbāsī. The latter name was given to it when Shāh 'Abbās, after the capture and destruction of the island city of Hormuz, established a port there. The site which he selected was the little town of Gamrūn. This had been occupied by the Portuguese, who took it from the 'King of Lar' in 1612, but two years later it was taken by the Shāh. The name is said (in the Geog. Magazine, i. 17) to be Turkish, meaning 'a Custom House.' The word alluded to is probably gumruḳ, which has that meaning, and which is again, through Low Greek, from the Latin commercium. But this etymology of the name seems hardly probable. That indicated in the extract from A. Hamilton below is from Pers. ḳamrūn, 'a shrimp,' or Port. camarão, meaning the same.

The first mention of Gombroon in the E. I. Papers seems to be in 1616, when Edmund Connok, the Company's chief agent in the Gulf, calls it "Gombraun, the best port in all Persia," and "that hopeful and glorious port of Gombroon" (Sainsbury, i. 484-5; [Foster, Letters, iv. 264]). There was an English factory here soon after the capture of Hormuz, and it continued to be maintained in 1759, when it was taken by the Comte d'Estaing. The factory was re-established, but ceased to exist a year or two after.

[1565.—"Bamdel Gombruc, so-called in Persian and Turkish, which means Custom-house."—Mestre Afonso's Overland Journey, Ann. Maritim. e Colon. ser. 4. p. 217.]

1614.—(The Captain-major) "under orders of Dom Luis da Gama returned to succour Comorão, but found the enemy's fleet already there and the fort surrendered.... News which was heard by Dom Luis da Gama and most of the people of Ormuz in such way as might be expected, some of the old folks of Ormuz prognosticating at once that in losing Comorão Ormuz itself would be lost before long, seeing that the former was like a barbican or outwork on which the rage of the Persian enemy spent itself, giving time to Ormuz to prepare against their coming thither."—Bocarro, Decada, 349.

1622.—"That evening, at two hours of the night, we started from below that fine tree, and after travelling about a league and a half ... we arrived here in Combrù, a place of decent size and population on the sea-shore, which the Persians now-a-days, laying aside as it were the old name, call the 'Port of Abbas,' because it was wrested from the Portuguese, who formerly possessed it, in the time of the present King Abbas."—P. della Valle, ii. 413; [in Hak. Soc. i. 3, he calls it Combu].

c. 1630.—"Gumbrown (or Gomroon, as some pronounce it) is by most Persians Κατ' ἐξοχὴν cald Bander or the Port Towne ... some (but I commend them not) write it Gamrou, others Gomrow, and other-some Cummeroon.... A Towne it is of no Antiquity, rising daily out of the ruines of late glorious (now most wretched) Ormus."—Sir T. Herbert, 121.

1673.—"The Sailors had stigmatized this place of its Excessive Heat, with this sarcastical Saying, That there was but an Inch-Deal between Gomberoon and Hell"—Fryer, 224.

Fryer in another place (marginal rubric, p. 331) says: "Gombroon ware, made of Earth, the best next China." Was this one of the sites of manufacture of the Persian porcelain now so highly prized? ["The main varieties of this Perso-Chinese ware are the following:—(1) A sort of semi-porcelain, called by English dealers, quite without reason, 'Gombroon ware,' which is pure white and semi-transparent, but, unlike Chinese porcelain, is soft and friable where not protected by the glaze."—Ency. Brit. 9th ed. xix. 621.]

1727.—"This Gombroon was formerly a Fishing Town, and when Shaw Abass began to build it, had its Appellation from the Portugueze, in Derision, because it was a good place for catching Prawns and Shrimps, which they call Camerong."—A. Hamilton, i. 92; [ed. 1744, i. 93].

1762.—"As this officer (Comte d'Estaing) ... broke his parole by taking and destroying our settlements at Gombroon, and upon the west Coast of Sumatra, at a time when he was still a prisoner of war, we have laid before his Majesty a true state of the case."—In Long, 288.

GOMUTÍ, s. Malay gumuti [Scott gives gāmūti]. A substance resembling horsehair, and forming excellent cordage (the cabos negros of the Portuguese—Marre, Kata-Kata Malayou, p. 92), sometimes improperly called coir (q.v.), which is produced by a palm growing in the Archipelago, Arenga saccharifera, Labill. (Borassus Gomutus, Lour.). The tree also furnishes ḳalams or reed-pens for writing, and the material for the poisoned arrows used with the blow-tube. The name of the palm itself in Malay is anau. (See SAGWIRE.) There is a very interesting account of this palm in Rumphius, Herb. Amb., i. pl. xiii. Dampier speaks of the fibre thus:

1686.—"... There is another sort of Coire cables ... that are black, and more strong and lasting, and are made of Strings that grow like Horse-hair at the Heads of certain Trees, almost like the Coco-trees. This sort comes mostly from the Island of Timor."—i. 295.

GONG, s. This word appears to be Malay (or, according to Crawfurd, originally Javanese), gong or agong. ["The word gong is often said to be Chinese. Clifford and Swettenham so mark it; but no one seems to be able to point out the Chinese original" (Scott, Malayan Words in English, 53).] Its well-known application is to a disk of thin bell-metal, which when struck with a mallet, yields musical notes, and is used in the further east as a substitute for a bell. ["The name gong, agong, is considered to be imitative or suggestive of the sound which the instrument produces" (Scott, loc. cit. 51).] Marcel Devic says that the word exists in all the languages of the Archipelago; [for the variants see Scott, loc. cit.]. He defines it as meaning "instrument de musique aussi appelé tam-tam"; but see under TOM-TOM. The great drum, to which Dampier applies the name, was used like the metallic gong for striking the hour. Systems of gongs variously arranged form harmonious musical instruments among the Burmese, and still more elaborately among the Javanese.

The word is commonly applied by Anglo-Indians also to the H. ghanṭā (ganṭa, Dec.) or ghaṛī, a thicker metal disc, not musical, used in India for striking the hour (see GHURRY). The gong being used to strike the hour, we find the word applied by Fryer (like gurry) to the hour itself, or interval denoted.

c. 1590.—"In the morning before day the Generall did strike his Gongo, which is an instrument of War that soundeth like a Bell."—(This was in Africa, near Benguela). Advent. of Andrew Battel, in Purchas, ii. 970.

1673.—"They have no Watches nor Hour-Glasses, but measure Time by the dropping of Water out of a Brass Bason, which holds a Ghong, or less than half an Hour; when they strike once distinctly, to tell them it's the First Ghong, which is renewed at the Second Ghong for Two, and so Three at the End of it till they come to Eight; when they strike on the Brass Vessel at their liberty to give notice the Pore (see PUHUR) is out, and at last strike One leisurely to tell them it is the First Pore."—Fryer, 186.

1686.—"In the Sultan's Mosque (at Mindanao) there is a great Drum with but one Head, called a Gong; which is instead of a Clock. This Gong is beaten at 12 a Clock, at 3, 6, and 9."—Dampier, i. 333.

1726.—"These gongs (gongen) are beaten very gently at the time when the Prince is going to make his appearance."—Valentijn, iv. 58.

1750-52.—"Besides these (in China) they have little drums, great and small kettle drums, gungungs or round brass basons like frying pans."—Olof Toreen, 248.

1817.—

Tremendous sham poetry!

1878.—"... le nom plébéien ... sonna dans les salons.... Comme un coup de cymbale, un de ces gongs qui sur les théâtres de féerie annoncent les apparitions fantastiques."—Alph. Daudet, Le Nabab, ch. 4.

GOODRY, s. A quilt; H. gudṛī. [The gudṛī, as distinguished from the razāi (see ROZYE), is the bundle of rags on which Faḳīrs and the very poorest people sleep.]

1598.—"They make also faire couerlits, which they call Godoriins [or] Colchas, which are very faire and pleasant to the eye, stitched with silke; and also of cotton of all colours and stitchinges."—Linschoten, ch. 9; [Hak. Soc. i. 61].

c. 1610.—"Les matelats et les couvertures sont de soye ou de toille de coton façonnée à toutes sortes de figures et couleur. Ils appellent cela Gouldrins."—Pyrard de Laval, ii. 3; [Hak. Soc. ii. 4].

1653.—"Goudrin est vn terme Indou et Portugais, qui signifie des couuertures picquées de cotton."—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, p. 539.

[1819.—"He directed him to go to his place, and take a godhra of his (a kind of old patched counterpane of shreds, which Fuqueers frequently have to lie down upon and throw over their shoulders)."—Tr. Lit. Soc. Bo. i. 113.]

GOOGUL, s. H. gugal, guggul, Skt. guggula, guggulu. The aromatic gum-resin of the Balsamodendron Mukul, Hooker (Amyris agallocha, Roxb.), the muḳl of the Arabs, and generally supposed to be the bdellium of the ancients. It is imported from the Beyla territory, west of Sind (see Bo. Govt. Selections (N.S.), No. xvii. p. 326).

1525.—(Prices at Cambay). "Gugall d'orumuz (the maund), 16 fedeas."—Lembrança, 43.

1813.—"Gogul is a species of bitumen much used at Bombay and other parts of India, for painting the bottom of ships."—Milburn, i. 137.

GOOJUR, n.p. H. Gūjar, Skt. Gurjjara. The name of a great Hindu clan, very numerous in tribes and in population over nearly the whole of Northern India, from the Indus to Rohilkhand. In the Delhi territory and the Doab they were formerly notorious for thieving propensities, and are still much addicted to cattle-theft; and they are never such steady and industrious cultivators as the Jāts, among whose villages they are so largely interspersed. In the Punjab they are Mahommedans. Their extensive diffusion is illustrated by their having given name to Gujarāt (see GOOZERAT) as well as to Gujrāt and Gujrānwāla in the Punjab. And during the 18th century a great part of Sahāranpūr District in the Northern Doab was also called Gujrāt (see Elliot's Races, by Beames, i. 99 seqq.).

1519.—"In the hill-country between Nilâb and Behreh ... and adjoining to the hill-country of Kashmīr, are the Jats, Gujers, and many other men of similar tribes."—Memoirs of Baber, 259.

[1785.—"The road is infested by tribes of banditti called googurs and mewatties."—In Forbes, Or. Mem. 2nd ed. II. 426.]

GOOLAIL, s. A pellet-bow. H. gulel, probably from Skt. guḍa, gula, the pellet used. [It is the Arabic Kaus-al-bandūk, by using which the unlucky Prince in the First Kalandar's Tale got into trouble with the Wazīr (Burton, Arab. Nights, i. 98).]

1560.—Busbeck speaks of being much annoyed with the multitude and impudence of kites at Constantinople: "ego interim cum manuali balista post columnam sto, modo hujus, modo illius caudae vel alarum, ut casus tulerit, pinnas testaceis globis verberans, donec mortifero ictu unam aut alteram percussam decutio...."—Busbeq. Epist. iii. p. 163.

[c. 1590.—"From the general use of pellet bows which are fitted with bowstrings, sparrows are very scarce (in Kashmīr)."—Āīn, ed. Jarrett, ii. 351. In the original kamān-i-guroha, guroha, according to Steingass, Dict., being "a ball ... ball for a cannon, balista, or cross-bow."]

1600.—"O for a stone-bow to hit him in the eye."—Twelfth Night, ii. 5.

1611.—

[1870.—"The Gooleil-bans, or pellet-bow, generally used as a weapon against crows, is capable of inflicting rather severe injuries."—Chevers, Ind. Med. Jurisprudence, 337.]

GOOLMAUL, GOOLMOOL, s. H. gol-māl, 'confusion, jumble'; gol-māl karnā, 'to make a mess.'

[1877.—"The boy has made such a gol-mol (uproar) about religion that there is a risk in having anything to do with him."—Allardyce, City of Sunshine, ii. 106.]

[GOOMTEE, n.p. A river of the N.W.P., rising in the Shāhjahānpur District, and flowing past the cities of Lucknow and Jaunpur, and joining the Ganges between Benares and Ghāzipur. The popular derivation of the name, as in the quotation, is, as if Ghūmtī, from H. ghūmnā, 'to wind,' in allusion to its winding course. It is really from Skt. gomati, 'rich in cattle.'

[1848.—"The Ghumti, which takes its name from its windings...."—Buyers, Recoll. of N. India, 240.]

GOONT, s. H. gūnṭh, gūṭh. A kind of pony of the N. Himālayas, strong but clumsy.

c. 1590.—"In the northern mountainous districts of Hindustan a kind of small but strong horses is bred, which is called guṭ; and in the confines of Bengal, near Kúch, another kind of horses occurs, which rank between the guṭ and Turkish horses, and are called tánghan (see TANGUN); they are strong and powerful."—Āīn, i. 183; [also see ii. 280].

1609.—"On the further side of Ganges lyeth a very mighty Prince, called Raiaw Rodorow, holding a mountainous Countrey ... thence commeth much Muske, and heere is a great breed of a small kind of Horse, called Gunts, a true travelling scale-cliffe beast."—W. Finch, in Purchas, i. 438.

1831.—"In Cashmere I shall buy, without regard to price, the best ghounte in Tibet."—Jacquemont's Letters, E.T. i. 238.

1838.—"Give your gūnth his head and he will carry you safely ... any horse would have struggled, and been killed; these gūnths appear to understand that they must be quiet, and their master will help them."—Fanny Parkes, Wanderings of a Pilgrim, ii. 226.

GOORKA, GOORKALLY, n.p. H. Gurkhā, Gurkhālī. The name of the race now dominant in Nepāl, and taking their name from a town so called 53 miles W. of Khatmandu. [The name is usually derived from the Skt. go-raksha, 'cow-keeper.' For the early history see Wright, H. of Nepāl, 147]. They are probably the best soldiers of modern India, and several regiments of the Anglo-Indian army are recruited from the tribe.

1767.—"I believe, Sir, you have before been acquainted with the situation of Nipal, which has long been besieged by the Goorcully Rajah."—Letter from Chief at Patna, in Long, 526.

[ " "The Rajah being now dispossessed of his country, and shut up in his capital by the Rajah of Goercullah, the usual channel of commerce has been obstructed."—Letter from Council to E.I. Co., in Verelst, View of Bengal, App. 36.]

GOOROO, s. H. gurū, Skt. guru; a spiritual teacher, a (Hindu) priest.

(Ancient).—"That brahman is called guru who performs according to rule the rites on conception and the like, and feeds (the child) with rice (for the first time)."—Manu, ii. 142.

c. 1550.—"You should do as you are told by your parents and your Guru."—Rāmāyana of Tulsī Dās, by Growse (1878), 43.

[1567.—"Grous." See quotation under CASIS.]

1626.—"There was a famous Prophet of the Ethnikes, named Goru."—Purchas, Pilgrimage, 520.

1700.—"... je suis fort surpris de voir à la porte ... le Pénitent au colier, qui demandoit à parler au Gourou."—Lettres Edif., x. 95.

1810.—"Persons of this class often keep little schools ... and then are designated gooroos; a term implying that kind of respect we entertain for pastors in general."—Williamson, V. M. ii. 317.

1822.—"The Adventures of the Gooroo Paramartan; a tale in the Tamul Language" (translated by B. Babington from the original of Padre Beschi, written about 1720-1730), London.

1867.—"Except the guru of Bombay, no priest on earth has so large a power of acting on every weakness of the female heart as a Mormon bishop at Salt Lake."—Dixon's New America, 330.

GOORUL, s. H. gūral, goral; the Himālayan chamois; Nemorhoedus Goral of Jerdon. [Cemas Goral of Blanford (Mammalia, 516).]

[1821.—"The flesh was good and tasted like that of the ghorul, so abundant in the hilly belt towards India."—Lloyd & Gerard's Narr., ii. 112.

[1886.—"On Tuesday we went to a new part of the hill to shoot 'gurel,' a kind of deer, which across a khud, looks remarkably small and more like a hare than a deer."—Lady Dufferin, Viceregal Life, 235.]

[GOORZEBURDAR, s. P. gurz-bardār, 'a mace-bearer.'

[1663.—"Among the Kours and the Mansebdars are mixed many Gourze-berdars, or mace-bearers chosen for their tall and handsome persons, and whose business it is to preserve order in assemblies, to carry the King's orders, and execute his commands with the utmost speed."—Bernier, ed. Constable, 267.

[1717.—"Everything being prepared for the Goorzeburdar's reception."—In Yule, Hedges' Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. ccclix.

[1727.—"Goosberdar." See under HOSBOLHOOKUM.]

GOOZERAT, GUZERAT, n.p. The name of a famous province in Western India, Skt. Gurjjara, Gurjjara-rāshtra, Prakrit passing into H. and Mahr. Gujarāt, Gujrāt, taking its name from the Gūjar (see GOOJUR) tribe. The name covers the British Districts of Surat, Broach, Kaira, Panch Mahals, and Ahmedābād, besides the territories of the Gaekwar (see GUICOWAR) of Baroda, and a multitude of native States. It is also often used as including the peninsula of Kāthiāwāṛ or Surāshtra, which alone embraces 180 petty States.

c. 640.—Hwen T'sang passes through Kiu-chi-lo, i.e. Gurjjara, but there is some difficulty as to the position which he assigns to it.—Pèlerins Bouddh., iii. 166; [Cunningham, Arch. Rep. ii. 70 seqq.].

1298.—"Gozurat is a great Kingdom.... The people are the most desperate pirates in existence...."—Marco Polo, Bk. iii. ch. 26.

c. 1300.—"Guzerat, which is a large country, within which are Kambáy, Somnát, Kanken-Tána, and several other cities and towns."—Rashíduddín, in Elliot, i. 67.

1300.—"The Sultan despatched Ulugh Khán to Ma'bar and Gujarát for the destruction of the idol-temple of Somnát, on the 20th of Jumádá'-l awwal, 698 H...."—Amīr Khusrū, in Elliot, iii. 74.

[c. 1330.—"Juzrat." See under LAR.]

1554.—"At last we made the land of Guchrát in Hindustan."—Sidi 'Ali, p. 79.

The name is sometimes used by the old writers for the people, and especially for the Hindu merchants or banyans (q.v.) of Guzerat. See Sainsbury, i. 445 and passim.

[c. 1605.—"And alsoe the Guzatts do saile in the Portugalls shipps in euery porte of the East Indies...."—Birdwood, First Letter Book, 85.]

GOOZUL-KHANA, s. A bathroom; H. from Ar.—P. ghusl-khāna, of corresponding sense. The apartment so called was used by some of the Great Moghuls as a place of private audience.

1616.—"At eight, after supper he comes down to the guzelcan (v.l. gazelcan), a faire Court wherein in the middest is a Throne erected of freestone."—Sir T. Roe, in Purchas, ii.; [Hak. Soc. i. 106].

" "The thirteenth, at night I went to the Gussell Chan, where is best opportunitie to doe business, and tooke with me the Italian, determining to walk no longer in darknesse, but to prooue the King...."—Ibid. p. 543; [in Hak. Soc. i. 202, Guzel-chan; in ii. 459, Gushel choes].

c. 1660.—"The grand hall of the Am-Kas opens into a more retired chamber, called the gosel-kane, or the place to wash in. But few are suffered to enter there.... There it is where the king is seated in a chair ... and giveth a more particular Audience to his officers."—Bernier, E.T. p. 85; [ed. Constable, 265; ibid. 361 gosle-kane].

GOPURA, s. The meaning of the word in Skt. is 'city-gate,' go 'eye,' pura, 'city.' But in S. India the gopuram is that remarkable feature of architecture, peculiar to the Peninsula, the great pyramidal tower over the entrance-gate to the precinct of a temple. See Fergusson's Indian and Eastern Architecture, 325, &c. [The same feature has been reproduced in the great temple of the Seth at Brindāban, which is designed on a S. Indian model. (Growse, Mathura, 260).] This feature is not, in any of the S. Indian temples, older than the 15th or 16th cent., and was no doubt adopted for purposes of defence, as indeed the Śilpa-śāstra ('Books of Mechanical Arts') treatises imply. This fact may sufficiently dispose of the idea that the feature indicates an adoption of architecture from ancient Egypt.

1862.—"The gopurams or towers of the great pagoda."—Markham, Peru and India, 408.

GORA, s. H. gorā, 'fair-complexioned.' A white man; a European soldier; any European who is not a sahib (q.v.). Plural gorā-lōg, 'white people.'

[1861.—"The cavalry ... rushed into the lines ... declaring that the Gora Log (the European soldiers) were coming down upon them."—Cave Browne, Punjab and Delhi, i. 243.]

GORAWALLAH, s. H. ghoṛā-wālā, ghoṛā, 'a horse.' A groom or horsekeeper; used at Bombay. On the Bengal side syce (q.v.) is always used, on the Madras side horsekeeper (q.v.).

1680.—Gurrials, apparently for ghoṛā-wālās (Gurrials would be alligators, Gavial), are allowed with the horses kept with the Hoogly Factory.—See Fort St. Geo. Consns. on Tour, Dec. 12, in Notes and Exts., No. ii. 63.

c. 1848.—"On approaching the different points, one knows Mrs. —— is at hand, for her Gorahwallas wear green and gold puggries."—Chow-Chow, i. 151.

GORAYT, s. H. goṛeṭ, goṛaiṭ, [which has been connected with Skt. ghur, 'to shout']; a village watchman and messenger, [in the N.W.P. usually of a lower grade than the chokidar, and not, like him, paid a cash wage, but remunerated by a piece of rent-free land; one of the village establishment, whose special duty it is to watch crops and harvested grain].

[c. 1808.—"Fifteen messengers (gorayits) are allowed ¼ ser on the man of grain, and from 1 to 5 bigahs of land each."—Buchanan, Eastern India, ii. 231.]

GORDOWER, GOORDORE, s. A kind of boat in Bengal, described by Ives as "a vessel pushed on by paddles." Etym. obscure. Ghuṛdauṛ is a horse-race, a race-course; sometimes used by natives to express any kind of open-air assemblage of Europeans for amusement. [The word is more probably a corr. of P. girdāwā, 'a patrol'; girdāwar, 'all around, a supervisor,' because such boats appear to be used in Bengal by officials on their tours of inspection.]

1757.—"To get two bolias (see BOLIAH), a goordore, and 87 dandies (q.v.) from the Nazir."—Ives, 157.

GOSAIN, GOSSYNE, &c. s. H. and Mahr. Gosāīn, Gosāī, Gosāvī, Gusā'īn, &c., from Skt. Goswāmī, 'Lord of Passions' (lit. 'Lord of cows'), i.e. one who is supposed to have subdued his passions and renounced the world. Applied in various parts of India to different kinds of persons not necessarily celibates, but professing a life of religious mendicancy, and including some who dwell together in convents under a superior, and others who engage in trade and hardly pretend to lead a religious life.

1774.—"My hopes of seeing Teshu Lama were chiefly founded on the Gosain."—Bogle, in Markham's Tibet, 46.

c. 1781.—"It was at this time in the hands of a Gosine, or Hindoo Religious."—Hodges, 112. (The use of this barbarism by Hodges is remarkable, common as it has become of late years.)

[1813.—"Unlike the generality of Hindoos, these Gosaings do not burn their dead...."—Forbes, Or. Mem. 2nd ed. i. 312-3; in i. 544 he writes Gosannee.]

1826.—"I found a lonely cottage with a light in the window, and being attired in the habit of a gossein, I did not hesitate to request a lodging for the night."—Pandurang Hari, 399; [ed. 1873, ii. 275].

GOSBECK, COSBEAGUE, s. A coin spoken of in Persia (at Gombroon and elsewhere). From the quotation from Fryer it appears that there was a Goss and a Gosbegi, corresponding to Herbert's double and single Cozbeg. Mr. Wollaston in his English-Persian Dict. App. p. 436, among "Moneys now current in Persia," gives "5 dínár = 1 ghāz; also a nominal money." The ghāz, then, is the name of a coin (though a coin no longer), and ghāz-begī was that worth 10 dīnārs. Marsden mentions a copper coin, called kazbegi = 50 (nominal) dīnārs, or about 3½d. (Numism. Orient., 456.) But the value in dīnārs seems to be in error. [Prof. Browne, who referred the matter to M. Husayn Kuli Khān, Secretary of the Persian Embassy in London, writes: "This gentleman states that he knows no word ghāzī-beg, or g̣āzī-beg, but that there was formerly a coin called ghāz, of which 5 went to the shāhī; but this is no longer used or spoken of." The ghāz was in use at any rate as late as the time of Hajji Baba; see below.]

[1615.—"The chiefest money that is current in Persia is the Abase, which weigheth 2 metzicales. The second is the mamede, which is half an abesse. The third is the shahey and is a quarter of an abbesse. In the rial of eight are 13 shayes. In the cheken of Venetia 20 shayes. In a shaye are 2½ bisties or casbeges 10. One bistey is 4 casbeges or 2 tanges. The Abasse, momede and Shahey and bistey are of silver; the rest are of copper like to the pissas of India."—Foster, Letters, iii. 176.]

c. 1630.—"The Abbasee is in our money sixteene pence; Larree ten pence; Mamoodee eight pence; Bistee two pence; double Cozbeg one penny; single Cozbeg one half-penny; Fluces are ten to a Cozbeg."—Sir T. Herbert, ed. 1638, p. 231.

1673.—"A Banyan that seemingly is not worth a Gosbeck (the lowest coin they have)."—Fryer, 113. See also p. 343.

" "10 cosbeagues is 1 Shahee; 4 Shahees is one Abassee or 16d."—Ibid. 211.

"

1711.—"10 Coz, or Pice, a Copper Coin, are 1 Shahee."—Lockyer, 241.

1727.—"1 Shahee is ... 10 Gaaz or Cosbegs."—A. Hamilton, ii. 311; [ed. 1744].

1752.—"10 cozbaugues or Pice (a Copper Coin) are 1 Shatree" (read Shahee).—Brooks, p. 37. See also in Hanway, vol. i. p. 292, Kazbegie; [in ii. 21, Kazbekie].

[1824.—"But whatever profit arose either from these services, or from the spoils of my monkey, he alone was the gainer, for I never touched a ghauz of it."—Hajji Baba, 52 seq.]

1825.—"A toman contains 100 mamoodies; a new abassee, 2 mamoodies or 4 shakees ... a shakee, 10 coz or cozbaugues, a small copper coin."—Milburn, 2nd ed. p. 95.

GOSHA, adj. Used in some parts, as an Anglo-Indian technicality, to indicate that a woman was secluded, and cannot appear in public. It is short for P. gosha-nishīn, 'sitting in a corner'; and is much the same as parda-nishīn (see PURDAH).

GOUNG, s. Burm. gaung; a village head man. ["Under the Thoogyee were Rwa-goung, or heads of villages, who aided in the collection of the revenue and were to some extent police officials." (Gazetteer of Burma, i. 480.)]

a. GOUR, s. H. gāur, gāuri gāē, (but not in the dictionaries), [Platts gives gaur, Skt. gaura, 'white, yellowish, reddish, pale red']. The great wild ox, Gavaeus Gaurus, Jerd.; [Bos gaurus, Blanford (Mammalia), 484 seq.], the same as the Bison (q.v.). [The classical account of the animal will be found in Forsyth, Highlands of Central India, ed. 1889, pp. 109 seqq.]

1806.—"They erect strong fences, but the buffaloes generally break them down.... They are far larger than common buffaloes. There is an account of a similar kind called the Gore; one distinction between it and the buffalo is the length of the hoof."—Elphinstone, in Life, i. 156.

b. GOUR, s. Properly Can. gauḍ, gauṛ, gauḍa. The head man of a village in the Canarese-speaking country; either as corresponding to patel, or to the Zemindar of Bengal. [See F. Buchanan, Mysore, i. 268; Rice, Mysore, i. 579.]

c. 1800.—"Every Tehsildary is farmed out in villages to the Gours or head-men."—In Munro's Life, iii. 92.

c. GOUR, n.p. Gauṛ, the name of a medieval capital of Bengal, which lay immediately south of the modern civil station of Malda, and the traces of which, with occasional Mahommedan buildings, extend over an immense area, chiefly covered with jungle. The name is a form of the ancient Gauḍa, meaning, it is believed, 'the country of sugar,' a name applied to a large part of Bengal, and specifically to the portion where those remains lie. It was the residence of a Hindu dynasty, the Senas, at the time of the early Mahommedan invasions, and was popularly known as Lakhnāotī; but the reigning king had transferred his seat to Nadiya (70 m. above Calcutta) before the actual conquest of Bengal in the last years of the 12th century. Gaur was afterwards the residence of several Mussulman dynasties. [See Ravenshaw, Gaur, its Ruins and Inscriptions, 1878.]

1536.—"But Xercansor [Shīr Khān Sūr, afterwards King of Hindustan as Shīr Shāh] after his success advanced along the river till he came before the city of Gouro to besiege it, and ordered a lodgment to be made in front of certain verandahs of the King's Palace which looked upon the river; and as he was making his trenches certain Rumis who were resident in the city, desiring that the King should prize them highly (d'elles fizesse cabedal) as he did the Portuguese, offered their service to the King to go and prevent the enemy's lodgment, saying that he should also send the Portuguese with them."—Correa, iii. 720.

[1552.—"Caor." See under BURRAMPOOTER.]

1553.—"The chief city of the Kingdom (of Bengala) is called Gouro. It is situated on the banks of the Ganges, and is said to be 3 of our leagues in length, and to contain 200,000 inhabitants. On the one side it has the river for its defence, and on the landward faces a wall of great height ... the streets are so thronged with the concourse and traffic of people ... that they cannot force their way past ... a great part of the houses of this city are stately and well-wrought buildings."—Barros, IV. ix. cap. 1.

1586.—"From Patanaw I went to Tanda which is in the land of the Gouren. It hath in times past been a kingdom, but is now subdued by Zelabdin Echebar ..."—R. Fitch, in Hakluyt, ii. 389.

1683.—"I went to see ye famous Ruins of a great Citty and Pallace called [of] GOWRE ... we spent 3½ hours in seeing ye ruines especially of the Pallace which has been ... in my judgment considerably bigger and more beautifull than the Grand Seignor's Seraglio at Constantinople or any other Pallace that I have seen in Europe."—Hedges, Diary, May 16; [Hak. Soc. i. 88].

GOVERNOR'S STRAITS, n.p. This was the name applied by the Portuguese (Estreito do Gobernador) to the Straits of Singapore, i.e. the straits south of that island (or New Strait). The reason of the name is given in our first quotation. The Governor in question was the Spaniard Dom João da Silva.

1615.—"The Governor sailed from Manilha in March of this year with 10 galleons and 2 galleys.... Arriving at the Straits of Sincapur, * * * * and passing by a new strait which since has taken the name of Estreito do Governador, there his galleon grounded on the reef at the point of the strait, and was a little grazed by the top of it."—Bocarro, 428.

1727.—"Between the small Carimon and Tanjong-bellong on the Continent, is the entrance of the Streights of Sincapure before mentioned, and also into the Streights of Governadore, the largest and easiest Passage into the China Seas."—A. Hamilton, ii. 122.

1780.—"Directions for sailing from Malacca to Pulo Timoan through Governor's Straits, commonly called the Straits of Sincapour."—Dunn's N. Directory, 5th ed. p. 474. See also Lettres Edif., 1st ed. ii. 118.

1841.—"Singapore Strait, called Governor Strait, or New Strait, by the French and Portuguese."—Horsburgh, 5th ed. ii. 264.

GOW, GAOU, s. Dak. H. gau. An ancient measure of distance preserved in S. India and Ceylon. In the latter island, where the term still is in use, the gawwa is a measure of about 4 English miles. It is Pali gāvuta, one quarter of a yojana, and that again is the Skt. gavyūti with the same meaning. There is in Molesworth's Mahr. Dictionary, and in Wilson, a term gaukos (see COSS), 'a land measure' (for which read 'distance measure'), the distance at which the lowing of a cow may be heard. This is doubtless a form of the same term as that under consideration, but the explanation is probably modern and incorrect. The yojana with which the gau is correlated, appears etymologically to be 'a yoking,' viz. "the stage, or distance to be gone in one harnessing without unyoking" (Williams); and the lengths attributed to it are very various, oscillating from 2½ to 9 miles, and even to 8 krośas (see COSS). The last valuation of the yojana would correspond with that of the gau at ¼.

c. 545.—"The great Island (Taprobane), according to what the natives say, has a length of 300 gaudia, and a breadth of the same, i.e. 900 miles."—Cosmas Indicopleustes, (in Cathay, clxxvii.).

1623.—"From Garicota to Tumbre may be about a league and a half, for in that country distances are measured by gaù, and each gaù is about two leagues, and from Garicòta to Tumbre they said was not so much as a gaù of road."—P. della Valle, ii. 638; [Hak. Soc. ii. 230].

1676.—"They measure the distances of places in India by Gos and Costes. A Gos is about 4 of our common leagues, and a Coste is one league."—Tavernier, E.T. ii. 30; [ed. Ball, i. 47].

1860.—"A gaou in Ceylon expresses a somewhat indeterminate length, according to the nature of the ground to be traversed, a gaou across a mountainous country being less than one measured on level ground, and a gaou for a loaded cooley is also permitted to be shorter than for one unburthened, but on the whole the average may be taken under four miles."—Tennent's Ceylon, 4th ed. i. 467.

GRAB, s. This name, now almost obsolete, was applied to a kind of vessel which is constantly mentioned in the sea- and river-fights of India, from the arrival of the Portuguese down to near the end of the 18th century. That kind of etymology which works from inner consciousness would probably say: "This term has always been a puzzle to the English in India. The fact is that it was a kind of vessel much used by corsairs, who were said to grab all that passed the sea. Hence," &c. But the real derivation is different.

The Rev. Howard Malcom, in a glossary attached to his Travels, defines it as "a square-rigged Arab vessel, having a projecting stern (stem?) and no bowsprit; it has two masts." Probably the application of the term may have deviated variously in recent days. [See Bombay Gazetteer, xiii. pt. i. 348.] For thus again in Solvyns (Les Hindous, vol. i.) a grab is drawn and described as a ship with three masts, a sharp prow, and a bowsprit. But originally the word seems, beyond question, to have been an Arab name for a galley. The proper word is Arab. ghorāb, 'a raven,' though adopted into Mahratti and Konkani as gurāb. Jal says, quoting Reinaud, that ghorāb was the name given by the Moors to the true galley, and cites Hyde for the rationale of the name. We give Hyde's words below. Amari, in a work quoted below (p. 397), points out the analogous corvetta as perhaps a transfer of ghurāb:

1181.—"A vessel of our merchants ... making sail for the city of Tripoli (which God protect) was driven by the winds on the shore of that country, and the crew being in want of water, landed to procure it, but the people of the place refused it unless some corn were sold to them. Meanwhile there came a ghurāb from Tripoli ... which took and plundered the crew, and seized all the goods on board the vessel."^[140]—Arabic Letter from Ubaldo, Archbishop and other authorities of Pisa, to the Almohad Caliph Abu Yak'ub Yusuf, in Amari, Diplomi Arabi, p. 8.

The Latin contemporary version runs thus:

"Cum quidam nostri cari cives de Siciliâ cum carico frumenti ad Tripolim venirent, tempestate maris et vi ventorum compulsi, ad portum dictum Macri devenerunt; ibique aquâ deficiente, et cum pro eâ auriendâ irent, Barbarosi non permiserunt eos ... nisi prius eis de frumento venderent. Cumque inviti eis de frumento venderent galea vestra de Tripoli armata," &c.—Ibid. p. 269.

c. 1200.—Ghurāb, Cornix, Corvus, galea.

* * * * *

Galea, Ghurāb, Gharbān.—Vocabulista Arabico (from Riccardian Library), pubd. Florence, 1871, pp. 148, 404.

1343.—"Jalansi ... sent us off in company with his son, on board a vessel called al-'Ukairi, which is like a ghorāb, only more roomy. It has 60 oars, and when it engages is covered with a roof to protect the rowers from the darts and stone-shot."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 59.

1505.—In the Vocabulary of Pedro de Alcala, galera is interpreted in Arabic as gorâb.

1554.—In the narrative of Sidi 'Ali Kapudān, in describing an action that he fought with the Portuguese near the Persian Gulf, he says the enemy's fleet consisted of 4 barques as big as carracks (q.v.), 3 great ghurābs, 6 Karāwals (see CARAVEL) and 12 smaller ghurābs, or galliots (see GALLEVAT) with oars.—In J. As., ser. 1. tom. ix. 67-68.

[c. 1610.—"His royal galley called by them Ogate Gourabe (gourabe means 'galley,' and ogate 'royal')."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 312.]

1660.—"Jani Beg might attack us from the hills, the ghrábs from the river, and the men of Sihwān from the rear, so that we should be in a critical position."—Mohammed M'asum, in Elliot, i. 250. The word occurs in many pages of the same history.

[1679.—"My Selfe and Mr. Gapes Grob the stern most."—In Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. clxxxiv.]

1690.—"Galera ... ab Arabibus tam Asiaticis quam Africanis vocatur ... Ghorâb, i.e. Corvus, quasi piceâ nigredine, rostro extenso, et velis remisque sicut alis volans galera: unde et Vlacho Graece dicitur Μέλαινα."—Hyde, Note on Peritsol, in Synt. Dissertt. i. 97.

1673.—"Our Factors, having concerns in the cargo of the ships in this Road, loaded two Grobs and departed."—Fryer, 153.

1727.—"The Muskat War ... obliges them (the Portuguese) to keep an Armada of five or six Ships, besides small Frigates and Grabs of War."—A. Hamilton, i. 250; [ed. 1744, ii. 253].

1750-52.—"The ships which they make use of against their enemies are called goerabbs by the Dutch, and grabbs by the English, have 2 or 3 masts, and are built like our ships, with the same sort of rigging, only their prows are low and sharp as in gallies, that they may not only place some cannons in them, but likewise in case of emergency for a couple of oars, to push the grabb on in a calm."—Olof Toreen, Voyage, 205.

c. 1754.—"Our E. I. Company had here (Bombay) one ship of 40 guns, one of 20, one Grab of 18 guns, and several other vessels."—Ives, 43. Ives explains "Ketches, which they call grabs." This shows the meaning already changed, as no galley could carry 18 guns.

c. 1760.—"When the Derby, Captain Ansell, was so scandalously taken by a few of Angria's grabs."—Grose, i. 81.

1763.—"The grabs have rarely more than two masts, though some have three; those of three are about 300 tons burthen; but the others are not more than 150: they are built to draw very little water, being very broad in proportion to their length, narrowing, however, from the middle to the end, where instead of bows they have a prow, projecting like that of a Mediterranean galley."—Orme (reprint), i. 408-9.

1810.—"Here a fine English East Indiaman, there a grab, or a dow from Arabia."—Maria Graham, 142.

" "This Glab (sic) belongs to an Arab merchant of Muscat. The Nakhodah, an Abyssinian slave."—Elphinstone, in Life, i. 232.

[1820.—"We had scarce set sail when there came in a ghorab (a kind of boat) the Cotwal of Surat ..."—Trans. Lit. Soc. Bo. ii. 5.]

1872.—"Moored in its centre you saw some 20 or 30 ghurábs (grabs) from Maskat, Baghlahs from the Persian Gulf, Kotiyahs from Kach'h, and Pattimars or Batelas from the Konkan and Bombay."—Burton, Sind Revisited, i. 83.

GRAM, s. This word is properly the Portuguese grão, i.e. 'grain,' but it has been specially appropriated to that kind of vetch (Cicer arietinum, L.) which is the most general grain- (rather pulse-) food of horses all over India, called in H. chanā. It is the Ital. cece, Fr. pois chiche, Eng. chick-pea or Egypt. pea, much used in France and S. Europe. This specific application of grão is also Portuguese, as appears from Bluteau. The word gram is in some parts of India applied to other kinds of pulse, and then this application of it is recognised by qualifying it as Bengal gram. (See remarks under CALAVANCE.) The plant exudes oxalate of potash, and to walk through a gram-field in a wet morning is destructive to shoe-leather. The natives collect the acid.

[1513.—"And for the food of these horses (exported from the Persian Gulf) the factor supplied grãos."—Albuquerque, Cartas, p. 200, Letter of Dec. 4.

[1554.—(Describing Vijayanagar.) "There the food of horses and elephants consists of grãos, rice and other vegetables, cooked with jagra, which is palm-tree sugar, as there is no barley in that country."—Castanheda, Bk. ii. ch. 16.

[c. 1610.—"They give them also a certain grain like lentils."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. ii. 79.]

1702.—"... he confessing before us that their allowance three times a week is but a quart of rice and gram together for five men a day, but promises that for the future it shall be rectified."—In Wheeler, ii. 10.

1776.—"... Lentils, gram ... mustard seed."—Halhed's Code, p. 8 (pt. ii.).

1789.—"... Gram, a small kind of pulse, universally used instead of oats."—Munro's Narrative, 85.

1793.—"... gram, which it is not customary to give to bullocks in the Carnatic."—Dirom's Narrative, 97.

1804.—"The gram alone, for the four regiments with me, has in some months cost 50,000 pagodas."—Wellington, iii. 71.

1865.—"But they had come at a wrong season, gram was dear, and prices low, and the sale concluded in a dead loss."—Palgrave's Arabia, 290.

GRAM-FED, adj. Properly the distinctive description of mutton and beef fattened upon gram, which used to be the pride of Bengal. But applied figuratively to any 'pampered creature.'

c. 1849.—"By an old Indian I mean a man full of curry and of bad Hindustani, with a fat liver and no brains, but with a self-sufficient idea that no one can know India except through long experience of brandy, champagne, gram-fed mutton, cheroots and hookahs."—Sir C. Napier, quoted in Bos. Smith's Life of Ld. Lawrence, i. 338.

1880.—"I missed two persons at the Delhi assemblage in 1877. All the gram-fed secretaries and most of the alcoholic chiefs were there; but the famine-haunted villagers and the delirium-shattered opium-eating Chinaman, who had to pay the bill, were not present."—Ali Baba, 127.

GRANDONIC. (See GRUNTHUM and SANSKRIT).

GRASS-CLOTH, s. This name is now generally applied to a kind of cambric from China made from the Chuma of the Chinese (Boehmaria nivea, Hooker, the Rhea, so much talked of now), and called by the Chinese sia-pu, or 'summer-cloth.' We find grass-cloths often spoken of by the 16th century travellers, and even later, as an export from Orissa and Bengal. They were probably made of Rhea or some kindred species, but we have not been able to determine this. Cloth and nets are made in the south from the Neilgherry nettle (Girardinia heterophylla, D. C.)

c. 1567.—"Cloth of herbes (panni d'erba), which is a kinde of silke, which groweth among the woodes without any labour of man."—Caesar Frederike, in Hakl. ii. 358.

1585.—"Great store of the cloth which is made from Grasse, which they call yerua" (in Orissa).—R. Fitch, in Hakl. ii. 387.

[1598.—See under SAREE.

[c. 1610.—"Likewise is there plenty of silk, as well that of the silkworm as of the (silk) herb, which is of the brightest yellow colour, and brighter than silk itself."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 328.]

1627.—"Their manufactories (about Balasore) are of Cotton ... Silk, and Silk and Cotton Romals ...; and of Herba (a Sort of tough Grass) they make Ginghams, Pinascos, and several other Goods for Exportation."—A. Hamilton, i. 397; [ed. 1744].

1813.—Milburn, in his List of Bengal Piece-Goods, has Herba Taffaties (ii. 221).

GRASS-CUTTER, s. This is probably a corruption representing the H. ghāskhodā or ghāskāṭā, 'the digger, or cutter, of grass'; the title of a servant employed to collect grass for horses, one such being usually attached to each horse besides the syce or horse-keeper. In the north the grasscutter is a man; in the south the office is filled by the horsekeeper's wife. Ghāskaṭ is the form commonly used by Englishmen in Upper India speaking Hindustani; but ghasiyārā by those aspiring to purer language. The former term appears in Williamson's V. M. (1810) as gauskot (i. 186), the latter in Jacquemont's Correspondence as grassyara. No grasscutters are mentioned as attached to the stables of Akbar; only a money allowance for grass. The antiquity of the Madras arrangement is shown by a passage in Castanheda (1552): "... he gave him a horse, and a boy to attend to it, and a female slave to see to its fodder."—(ii. 58.)

1789.—"... an Horsekeeper and Grasscutter at two pagodas."—Munro's Narr. 28.

1793.—"Every horse ... has two attendants, one who cleans and takes care of him, called the horse-keeper, and the other the grasscutter, who provides for his forage."—Dirom's Narr. 242.

1846.—"Every horse has a man and a maid to himself—the maid cuts grass for him; and every dog has a boy. I inquired whether the cat had any servants, but I found he was allowed to wait upon himself."—Letters from Madras, 37.

[1850.—"Then there are our servants ... four Saises and four Ghascuts ..."—Mrs. Mackenzie, Life in the Mission, ii. 253.]

1875.—"I suppose if you were to pick up ... a grasscutter's pony to replace the one you lost, you wouldn't feel that you had done the rest of the army out of their rights."—The Dilemma, ch. xxxvii.

[GRASSHOPPER FALLS, n.p. An Anglo-Indian corruption of the name of the great waterfall on the Sheravati River in the Shimoga District of Mysore, where the river plunges down in a succession of cascades, of which the principal is 890 feet in height. The proper name of the place is Gersoppa, or Gerusappe, which takes its name from the adjoining village; geru, Can., 'the marking nut plant' (semecarpus anacardium, L.), soppu, 'a leaf.' See Mr. Grey's note on P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. ii. 218.]

GRASS-WIDOW, s. This slang phrase is applied in India, with a shade of malignity, to ladies living apart from their husbands, especially as recreating at the Hill stations, whilst the husbands are at their duties in the plains.

We do not know the origin of the phrase. In the Slang Dictionary it is explained: "An unmarried mother; a deserted mistress." But no such opprobrious meanings attach to the Indian use. In Notes and Queries, 6th ser. viii. 414, will be found several communications on this phrase. [Also see ibid. x. 436, 526; xi. 178; 8th ser. iv. 37, 75.] We learn from these that in Moor's Suffolk Words and Phrases, Grace-Widow occurs with the meaning of an unmarried mother. Corresponding to this, it is stated also, is the N.S. (?) or Low German gras-wedewe. The Swedish Gräsänka or -enka also is used for 'a low dissolute married woman living by herself.' In Belgium a woman of this description is called haecke-wedewe, from haecken, 'to feel strong desire' (to 'hanker'). And so it is suggested gräsenka is contracted from grädesenka, from gradig, 'esuriens' (greedy, in fact). In Danish Dict. graesenka is interpreted as a woman whose betrothed lover is dead. But the German Stroh-Wittwe, 'straw-widow' (which Flügel interprets as 'mock widow'), seems rather inconsistent with the suggestion that grass-widow is a corruption of the kind suggested. A friend mentions that the masc. Stroh-Wittwer is used in Germany for a man whose wife is absent, and who therefore dines at the eating-house with the young fellows. [The N.E.D. gives the two meanings: 1. An unmarried woman who has cohabited with one or more men; a discarded mistress; 2. A married woman whose husband is absent from her. "The etymological notion is obscure, but the parallel forms disprove the notion that the word is a 'corruption' of grace-widow. It has been suggested that in sense 1. grass (and G. stroh) may have been used with opposition to bed. Sense 2. may have arisen as an etymologizing interpretation of the compound after it had ceased to be generally understood; in Eng. it seems to have first appeared as Anglo-Indian." The French equivalent, Veuve de Malabar, was in allusion to Lemierre's tragedy, produced in 1770.]

1878.—"In the evening my wife and I went out house-hunting; and we pitched upon one which the newly incorporated body of Municipal Commissioners and the Clergyman (who was a Grass-widower, his wife being at home) had taken between them."—Life in the Mofussil, ii. 99-100.

1879.—The Indian newspaper's "typical official rises to a late breakfast—probably on herrings and soda-water—and dresses tastefully for his round of morning calls, the last on a grass-widow, with whom he has a tête-à-tête tiffin, where 'pegs' alternate with champagne."—Simla Letter in Times, Aug. 16.

1880.—"The Grass-widow in Nephelococcygia."—Sir Ali Baba, 169.

" "Pleasant times have these Indian grass-widows!"—The World, Jan. 21, 13.

GRASSIA, s. Grās (said to mean 'a mouthful') is stated by Mr. Forbes in the Rās Mālā (p. 186) to have been in old times usually applied to alienations for religious objects; but its prevalent sense came to be the portion of land given for subsistence to cadets of chieftains' families. Afterwards the term grās was also used for the blackmail paid by a village to a turbulent neighbour as the price of his protection and forbearance, and in other like meanings. "Thus the title of grassia, originally an honourable one, and indicating its possessor to be a cadet of the ruling tribe, became at last as frequently a term of opprobrium, conveying the idea of a professional robber" (Ibid. Bk. iv. ch. 3); [ed. 1878, p. 568].

[1584.—See under COOLY.]

c. 1665.—"Nous nous trouvâmes au Village de Bilpar, dont les Habitans qu'on nomme Gratiates, sont presque tous Voleurs."—Thevenot, v. 42.

1808.—"The Grasias have been shewn to be of different Sects, Casts, or families, viz., 1st, Colees and their Collaterals; 2nd, Rajpoots; 3rd, Syed Mussulmans; 4th, Mole-Islams or modern Mahomedans. There are besides many others who enjoy the free usufruct of lands, and permanent emolument from villages, but those only who are of the four aforesaid warlike tribes seem entitled by prescriptive custom ... to be called Grassias."—Drummond, Illustrations.

1813.—"I confess I cannot now contemplate my extraordinary deliverance from the Gracia machinations without feelings more appropriate to solemn silence, than expression."—Forbes, Or. Mem. iii. 393; [conf. 2nd ed. ii. 357].

1819.—"Grassia, from Grass, a word signifying 'a mouthful.' This word is understood in some parts of Mekran, Sind, and Kutch; but I believe not further into Hindostan than Jaypoor."—Mackmurdo, in Tr. Lit. Soc. Bo. i. 270. [On the use in Central India, see Tod, Annals, i. 175; Malcolm, Central India, i. 508.]

GRAVE-DIGGER. (See BEEJOO.)

GREEN-PIGEON. A variety of species belonging to the sub.-fam. Treroninae, and to genera Treron, Cricopus, Osmotreron, and Sphenocereus, bear this name. The three first following quotations show that these birds had attracted the attention of the ancients.

c. 180.—"Daimachus, in his History of India, says that pigeons of an apple-green colour are found in India."—Athenaeus, ix. 51.

c. A.D. 250.—"They bring also greenish (ὠχρὰς) pigeons which they say can never be tamed or domesticated."—Aelian, De Nat. Anim. xv. 14.

" "There are produced among the Indians ... pigeons of a pale green colour (χλωρόπτιλοι); any one seeing them for the first time, and not having any knowledge of ornithology, would say the bird was a parrot and not a pigeon. They have legs and bill in colour like the partridges of the Greeks."—Ibid. xvi. 2.

1673.—"Our usual diet was (besides Plenty of Fish) Water-Fowl, Peacocks, Green Pidgeons, Spotted Deer, Sabre, Wild Hogs, and sometimes Wild Cows."—Fryer, 176.

1825.—"I saw a great number of pea-fowl, and of the beautiful greenish pigeon common in this country...."—Heber, ii. 19.

GREY PARTRIDGE. The common Anglo-Indian name of the Hind. tītar, common over a great part of India, Ortygornis Ponticeriana, Gmelin. "Its call is a peculiar loud shrill cry, and has, not unaptly, been compared to the word Pateela-pateela-pateela, quickly repeated but preceded by a single note, uttered two or three times, each time with a higher intonation, till it gets, as it were, the key-note of its call."—Jerdon, ii. 566.

GRIBLEE, s. A graplin or grapnel. Lascars' language (Roebuck).

GRIFFIN, GRIFF, s.; GRIFFISH, adj. One newly arrived in India, and unaccustomed to Indian ways and peculiarities; a Johnny Newcome. The origin of the phrase is unknown to us. There was an Admiral Griffin who commanded in the Indian seas from Nov. 1746 to June 1748, and was not very fortunate. Had his name to do with the origin of the term? The word seems to have been first used at Madras (see Boyd, below). [But also see the quotation from Beaumont & Fletcher, below.] Three references below indicate the parallel terms formerly used by the Portuguese at Goa, by the Dutch in the Archipelago, and by the English in Ceylon.

[c. 1624.—"Doves beget doves, and eagles eagles, Madam: a citizen's heir, though never so rich, seldom at the best proves a gentleman."—Beaumont & Fletcher, Honest Man's Fortune, Act III. sc. 1, vol. iii. p. 389, ed. Dyce. Mr. B. Nicolson (3 ser. Notes and Queries, xi. 439) points out that Dyce's MS. copy, licensed by Sir Henry Herbert in 1624, reads "proves but a griffin gentleman." Prof. Skeat (ibid. xi. 504) quoting from Piers Plowman, ed. Wright, p. 96, "Gryffyn the Walshe," shows that Griffin was an early name for a Welshman, apparently a corruption of Griffith. The word may have been used abroad to designate a raw Welshman, and thus acquired its present sense.]

1794.—"As I am little better than an unfledged Griffin, according to the fashionable phrase here" (Madras).—Hugh Boyd, 177.

1807.—"It seems really strange to a griffin—the cant word for a European just arrived."—Ld. Minto, in India, 17.

1808.—"At the Inn I was tormented to death by the impertinent persevering of the black people; for every one is a beggar, as long as you are reckoned a griffin, or a new-comer."—Life of Leyden, 107.

1836.—"I often tire myself ... rather than wait for their dawdling; but Mrs. Staunton laughs at me and calls me a 'Griffin,' and says I must learn to have patience and save my strength."—Letters from Madras, 38.

" "... he was living with bad men, and saw that they thought him no better than themselves, but only more griffish...."—Ibid. 53.

1853.—"There were three more cadets on the same steamer, going up to that great griff depot, Oudapoor."—Oakfield, i. 38.

1853.—

"'Like drill?'

"'I don't dislike it much now: the goose-step was not lively.'

"'Ah, they don't give griffs half enough of it now-a-days; by Jove, Sir, when I was a griff'—and thereupon ..."—Ibid. i. 62.

[1900.—"Ten Rangoon sportsmen have joined to import ponies from Australia on the griffin system, and have submitted a proposal to the Stewards to frame their events to be confined to griffins at the forthcoming autumn meeting."—Pioneer Mail, May 18.]

The griffin at Goa also in the old days was called by a peculiar name. (See REINOL.)

1631.—"Haec exanthemata (prickly heat-spots) magis afficiunt recenter advenientes ut et Mosquitarum puncturae ... ita ut deridiculum ergo hic inter nostrates dicterium enatum sit, eum qui hoc modo affectus sit, esse Orang Barou, quod novitium hominem significat."—Jac. Bontii, Hist. Nat., &c., ii. cap. xviii. p. 33.

Here orang barou is Malay orang-baharu, i.e. 'new man'; whilst Orang-lama, 'man of long since,' is applied to old colonials. In connection with these terms we extract the following:—

c. 1790.—"Si je n'avois pas été un oorlam, et si un long séjour dans l'Inde ne m'avoit pas accoutumé à cette espèce de fleau, j'aurois certainement souffert l'impossible durant cette nuit."—Haafner, ii. 26-27.

On this his editor notes:

"Oorlam est un mot Malais corrumpu; il faut dire Orang-lama, ce qui signifie une personne qui a déjà été long-temps dans un endroit, ou dans un pays, et c'est par ce nom qu'on designe les Européens qui ont habité depuis un certain temps dans l'Inde. Ceux qui ne font qu'y arriver, sont appelés Baar; denomination qui vient du mot Malais Orang-Baru ... un homme nouvellement arrivé."

[1894.—"In the Standard, Jan. 1, there appears a letter entitled 'Ceylon Tea-Planting—a Warning,' and signed 'An Ex-creeper.' The correspondent sends a cutting from a recent issue of a Ceylon daily paper—a paragraph headed 'Creepers Galore.' From this extract it appears that Creeper is the name given in Ceylon to paying pupils who go out there to learn tea-planting."—Mr. A. L. Mayhew, in 8 ser. Notes and Queries, v. 124.]

GROUND, s. A measure of land used in the neighbourhood of Madras. [Also called Munny, Tam. manai.] (See under CAWNY.)

GRUFF, adj. Applied to bulky goods. Probably the Dutch grof, 'coarse.'

[1682-3.—"... that for every Tunne of Saltpetre and all other Groffe goods I am to receive nineteen pounds."—Pringle, Diary, Ft. St. Geo. 1st ser. vol. ii. 3-4.]

1750.—"... all which could be called Curtins, and some of the Bastions at Madrass, had Warehouses under them for the Reception of Naval Stores, and other gruff Goods from Europe, as well as Salt Petre from Bengal."—Letter to a Propr. of the E. I. Co., p. 52.

1759.—"Which by causing a great export of rice enhances the price of labour, and consequently of all other gruff, piece-goods and raw silk."—In Long, 171.

1765.—"... also foole sugar, lump jaggre, ginger, long pepper, and piply-mol ... articles that usually compose the gruff cargoes of our outward-bound shipping."—Holwell, Hist. Events, &c., i. 194.

1783.—"What in India is called a gruff (bulky) cargo."—Forrest, Voyage to Mergui, 42.

GRUNTH, s. Panjābī Granth, from Skt. grantha, lit. 'a knot,' leaves tied together by a string. 'The Book,' i.e. the Scripture of the Sikhs, containing the hymns composed or compiled by their leaders from Nānak (1469-1539) onwards. The Granth has been translated by Dr. Trumpp, and published, at the expense of the Indian Government.

1770.—"As the young man (Nānak) was early introduced to the knowledge of the most esteemed writings of the Mussulmen ... he made it a practice in his leisure hours to translate literally or virtually, as his mind prompted him, such of their maxims as made the deepest impression on his heart. This was in the idiom of Pendjab, his maternal language. Little by little he strung together these loose sentences, reduced them into some order, and put them in verses.... His collection became numerous; it took the form of a book which was entitled Grenth."—Seir Mutaqherin, i. 89.

1798.—"A book entitled the Grunth ... is the only typical object which the Sicques have admitted into their places of worship."—G. Forster's Travels, i. 255.

1817.—"The fame of Nannak's book was diffused. He gave it a new name, Kirrunt."—Mill's Hist. ii. 377.

c. 1831.—"... Au centre du quel est le temple d'or où est gardé le Grant ou livre sacré des Sikes."—Jacquemont, Correspondance, ii. 166.

[1838.—"There was a large collection of priests, sitting in a circle, with the Grooht, their holy book, in the centre...."—Miss Eden, Up the Country, ii. 7.]

GRUNTHEE, s. Panj. granthī from granth (see GRUNTH). A sort of native chaplain attached to Sikh regiments. [The name Granthī appears among the Hindi mendicant castes of the Panjab in Mr. Maclagan's Census Rep., 1891, p. 300.]

GRUNTHUM, s. This (grantham) is a name, from the same Skt. word as the last, given in various odd forms to the Sanskrit language by various Europeans writing in S. India during the 16th and 17th centuries. The term properly applied to the character in which the Sanskrit books were written.

1600.—"In these verses is written, in a particular language, called Gerodam, their Philosophy and Theology, which the Bramens study and read in Universities all over India."—Lucena, Vida do Padre F. Xavier, 95.

1646.—"Cette langue correspond à la nostre Latine, parceque les seules Lettrés l'apprennent; il se nomment Guirindans."—Barretto, Rel. de la Prov. de la Malabar, 257.

1727.—"... their four law-books, Sama Vedam, Urukku Vedam, Edirwarna Vedam, and Adir Vedam, which are all written in the Girandams, and are held in high esteem by the Bramins."—Valentijn, v. (Ceylon), 399.

" "Girandam (by others called Kerendum, and also Sanskrits) is the language of the Bramins and the learned."—Ibid. 386.

1753.—"Les Indiens du pays se donnent le nom de Tamules, et on sait que la langue vulgaire différente du Sanskret, et du Grendam, qui sont les langues sacrées, porte le même nom."—D'Anville, 117.

GUANA, IGUANA, s. This is not properly an Indian term, nor the name of an Indian species, but, as in many other cases, it has been applied by transfer from superficially resembling genera in the new Indies, to the old. The great lizards, sometimes called guanas in India, are apparently monitors. It must be observed, however, that approximating Indian names of lizards have helped the confusion. Thus the large monitor to which the name guana is often applied in India, is really called in Hindi goh (Skt. godhā), Singhalese goyā. The true iguana of America is described by Oviedo in the first quotation under the name of iuana. [The word is Span. iguana, from Carib iwana, written in early writers hiuana, igoana, iuanna or yuana. See N.E.D. and Stanf. Dict.]

c. 1535.—"There is in this island an animal called Iuana, which is here held to be amphibious (neutrale), i.e. doubtful whether fish or flesh, for it frequents the rivers and climbs the trees as well.... It is a Serpent, bearing to one who knows it not a horrid and frightful aspect. It has the hands and feet like those of a great lizard, the head much larger, but almost of the same fashion, with a tail 4 or 5 palms in length.... And the animal, formed as I have described, is much better to eat than to look at," &c.—Oviedo, in Ramusio, iii. f. 156v, 157.

c. 1550.—"We also used to catch some four-footed animals called iguane, resembling our lizards in shape ... the females are most delicate food."—Girolami Benzoni, p. 140.

1634.—"De Lacertae quâdam specie, Incolis Liguan. Est ... genus venenosissimum," &c.—Jac. Bontii, Lib. v. cap. 5. p. 57. (See GECKO.)

1673.—"Guiana, a Creature like a Crocodile, which Robbers use to lay hold on by their Tails, when they clamber Houses."—Fryer, 116.

1681.—Knox, in his Ceylon, speaks of two creatures resembling the Alligator—one called Kobbera guion, 5 or 6 feet long, and not eatable; the other called tolla guion, very like the former, but "which is eaten, and reckoned excellent meat ... and I suppose it is the same with that which in the W. Indies is called the guiana" (pp. 30, 31). The names are possibly Portuguese, and Kobbera guion may be Cobra-guana.

1704.—"The Guano is a sort of Creature, some of which are found on the land, some in the water ... stewed with a little Spice they make good Broth."—Funnel, in Dampier, iv. 51.

1711.—"Here are Monkeys, Gaunas, Lissards, large Snakes, and Alligators."—Lockyer, 47.

1780.—"They have here an amphibious animal called the guana, a species of the crocodile or alligator, of which soup is made equal to that of turtle. This I take upon hearsay, for it is to me of all others the most loathsome of animals, not less so than the toad."—Munro's Narrative, 36.

c. 1830.—"Had I known I was dining upon a guana, or large wood-lizard, I scarcely think I would have made so hearty a meal."—Tom Cringle (ed. 1863), 178.

1879.—"Captain Shaw asked the Imaum of one of the mosques of Malacca about alligator's eggs, a few days ago, and his reply was, that the young that went down to the sea became alligators, and those that came up the river became iguanas."—Miss Bird, Golden Chersonese, 200.

1881.—"The chief of Mudhol State belongs to the Bhonslá family.... The name, however, has been entirely superseded by the second designation of Ghorpade, which is said to have been acquired by one of the family who managed to scale a fort previously deemed impregnable, by fastening a cord around the body of a ghorpad or iguana."—Imperial Gazetteer, vi. 437.

1883.—"Who can look on that anachronism, an iguana (I mean the large monitor which Europeans in India generally call an iguana, sometimes a guano!) basking, four feet long, on a sunny bank ..."—Tribes on My Frontier, 36.

1885.—"One of my moonshis, José Prethoo, a Concani of one of the numerous families descended from Xavier's converts, gravely informed me that in the old days iguanas were used in gaining access to besieged places; for, said he, a large iguana, sahib, is so strong that if 3 or 4 men laid hold of its tail he could drag them up a wall or tree!"—Gordon Forbes, Wild Life in Canara, 56.

GUARDAFUI, CAPE, n.p. The eastern horn of Africa, pointing towards India. We have the name from the Portuguese, and it has been alleged to have been so called by them as meaning, 'Take you heed!' (Gardez-vous, in fact.) But this is etymology of the species that so confidently derives 'Bombay' from Boa Bahia. Bruce, again (see below), gives dogmatically an interpretation which is equally unfounded. We must look to history, and not to the 'moral consciousness' of anybody. The country adjoining this horn of Africa, the Regio Aromatum of the ancients, seems to have been called by the Arabs Hafūn, a name which we find in the Periplus in the shape of Opōnē. This name Hafūn was applied to a town, no doubt the true Opōnē, which Barbosa (1516) mentions under the name of Afuni, and it still survives in those of two remarkable promontories, viz. the Peninsula of Rās Hafūn (the Chersonnesus of the Periplus, the Zingis of Ptolemy, the Cape d'Affui and d'Orfui of old maps and nautical directories), and the cape of Jard-Hafūn (or according to the Egyptian pronunciation, Gard-Hafūn), i.e. Guardafui. The nearest possible meaning of jard that we can find is 'a wide or spacious tract of land without herbage.' Sir R. Burton (Commentary on Camõens, iv. 489) interprets jard as = Bay, "from a break in the dreadful granite wall, lately provided by Egypt with a lighthouse." The last statement is unfortunately an error. The intended light seems as far off as ever. [There is still no lighthouse, and shipowners differ as to its advantage; see answer by Secretary of State, in House of Commons, Times, March 14, 1902.] We cannot judge of the ground of his interpretation of jard.

An attempt has been made to connect the name Hafūn with the Arabic af'a, 'pleasant odours.' It would then be the equivalent of the ancient Reg. Aromatum. This is tempting, but very questionable. We should have mentioned that Guardafui is the site of the mart and Promontory of the Spices described by the author of the Periplus as the furthest point and abrupt termination of the continent of Barbarice (or eastern Africa), towards the Orient (τὸ τῶν Ἀρωματών ἐμπόριον καὶ ἀκρωτήριον τελευταῖον τῆς βαρβαρικῆς ἠπείρου πρὸς ἀνατολὴν ἀποκόπον).

According to C. Müller our Guardafui is called by the natives Rās Aser; their Rās Jardafūn being a point some 12 m. to the south, which on some charts is called Rās Shenarif, and which is also the Τάβαι of the Periplus (Geog. Gr. Minores, i. 263).

1516.—"And that the said ships from his ports (K. of Coulam's) shall not go inwards from the Strait and Cape of Guoardaffuy, nor go to Adem, except when employed in our obedience and service ... and if any vessel or Zambuque is found inward of the Cape of Guoardaffuy it shall be taken as good prize of war."—Treaty between Lopo Soares and the K. of Caulam, in Botelho, Tombo, 33.

" "After passing this place (Afuni) the next after it is Cape Guardafun, where the coast ends, and trends so as to double towards the Red Sea."—Barbosa, 16.

c. 1530.—"This province, called of late Arabia, but which the ancients called Trogloditica, begins at the Red Sea and the country of the Abissines, and finishes at Magadasso ... others say it extends only to the Cape of Guardafuni."—Sommario de' Regni, in Ramusio, i. f. 325.

1553.—"Vicente Sodre, being despatched by the King, touched at the Island of Çocotora, where he took in water, and thence passed to the Cape of Guardafu, which is the most easterly land of Africa."—De Barros, I. vii. cap. 2.

1554.—"If you leave Dábúl at the end of the season, you direct yourselves W.S.W. till the pole is four inches and an eighth, from thence true west to Kardafún."—Sidi 'Ali Kapudān, The Mohit, in J. As. Soc. Ben., v. 464.

" "You find such whirlpools on the coasts of Kardafūn...."—The same, in his narrative, Journ. As. ser. 1. tom. ix. p. 77.

1572.—

Englished by Burton:

1602.—"Eitor da Silveira set out, and without any mishap arrived at the Cape of Gardafui."—Couto, IV. i. 4.

1727.—"And having now travell'd along the Shore of the Continent, from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Guardafoy, I'll survey the Islands that lie in the Ethiopian Sea."—A. Hamilton, i. 15; [ed. 1744].

1790.—"The Portuguese, or Venetians, the first Christian traders in these parts, have called it Gardefui, which has no signification in any language. But in that part of the country where it is situated, it is called Gardefan and means the Straits of Burial, the reason of which will be seen afterwards."—Bruce's Travels, i. 315.

[1823.—"... we soon obtained sight of Cape Gardafui.... It is called by the natives Ras Assere, and the high mountain immediately to its south is named Gibel Jordafoon.... Keeping about nine miles off shore we rounded the peninsula of Hafoon.... Hafoon appears like an island, and belongs to a native Somauli prince...."—Owen, Narr. i. 353.]

GUAVA, s. This fruit (Psidium Guayava, L., Ord. Myrtaceae; Span. guayava, Fr. goyavier, [from Brazilian guayaba, Stanf. Dict.]), Guayabo pomifera Indica of Caspar Bauhin, Guayava of Joh. Bauhin, strangely appears by name in Elliot's translation from Amīr Khosrū, who flourished in the 13th century: "He who has placed only guavas and quinces in his throat, and has never eaten a plantain, will say it is like so much jujube" (iii. 556). This must be due to some ambiguous word carelessly rendered. The fruit and its name are alike American. It appears to be the guaiabo of Oviedo in his History of the Indies (we use the Italian version in Ramusio, iii. f. 141v). There is no mention of the guava in either De Orta or Acosta. Amrūd, which is the commonest Hindustani (Pers.) name for the guava, means properly 'a pear'; but the fruit is often called safarī ām, 'journey mango' (respecting which see under ANANAS). And this last term is sometimes vulgarly corrupted into supārī ām (areca-mango!). In the Deccan (according to Moodeen Sheriff) and all over Guzerat and the Central Provinces (as we are informed by M.-Gen. Keatinge), the fruit is called jām, Mahr. jamba, which is in Bengal the name of Syzigium jambolanum (see JAMOON), and in Guzerāti jāmrūd, which seems to be a factitious word in imitation of āmrūd.

The guava, though its claims are so inferior to those of the pine-apple (indeed except to stew, or make jelly, it is nobis judicibus, an utter impostor), [Sir Joseph Hooker annotates: "You never ate good ones!"] must have spread like that fruit with great rapidity. Both appear in Blochmann's transl. of the Āīn (i. 64) as served at Akbar's table; though when the guava is named among the fruits of Tūrān, doubts again arise as to the fruit intended, for the word used, amrūd, is ambiguous. In 1688 Dampier mentions guavas at Achin, and in Cochin China. The tree, like the custard-apple, has become wild in some parts of India. See Davidson, below.

c. 1550.—"The guaiava is like a peach-tree, with a leaf resembling the laurel ... the red are better than the white, and are well-flavoured."—Girol. Benzoni, p. 88.

1658.—There is a good cut of the guava, as guaiaba, in Piso, pp. 152-3.

1673.—"... flourish pleasant Tops of Plantains, Cocoes, Guiavas, a kind of Pear."—Fryer, 40.

1676.—"The N.W. part is full of Guaver Trees of the greatest variety, and their Fruit the largest and best tasted I have met with."—Dampier, ii. 107.

1685.—"The Guava ... when the Fruit is ripe, it is yellow, soft, and very pleasant. It bakes well as a Pear."—Ibid. i. 222.

c. 1750-60.—"Our guides too made us distinguish a number of goyava, and especially plumb-trees."—Grose, i. 20.

1764.—

1843.—"On some of these extensive plains (on the Mohur R. in Oudh) we found large orchards of the wild Guava ... strongly resembling in their rough appearance the pear-trees in the hedges of Worcestershire."—Col. C. J. Davidson, Diary of Travels, ii. 271.

GUBBER, s. This is some kind of gold ducat or sequin; Milburn says 'a Dutch ducat.' It may have adopted this special meaning, but could hardly have held it at the date of our first quotation. The name is probably gabr (dīnār-i-gabr), implying its being of infidel origin.

c. 1590.—"Mirza Jani Beg Sultán made this agreement with his soldiers, that every one who should bring in an enemy's head should receive 500 gabars, every one of them worth 12 mírís ... of which 72 went to one tanka."—Táríkh-i-Táhiri, in Elliot, i. 287.

1711.—"Rupees are the most current Coin; they have Venetians, Gubbers, Muggerbees, and Pagodas."—Lockyer, 201.

" "When a Parcel of Venetian Ducats are mixt with others the whole goes by the name of Chequeens at Surat, but when they are separated, one sort is called Venetians, and all the others Gubbers indifferently."—Ibid. 242.

1762.—"Gold and Silver Weights:

GUBBROW, v. To bully, to dumbfound, and perturb a person. Made from ghabrāo, the imperative of ghabrānā. The latter, though sometimes used transitively, is more usually neuter, 'to be dumbfounded and perturbed.'

GUDDA, s. A donkey, literal and metaphorical. H. gadhā: [Skt. gardabha, 'the roarer']. The coincidence of the Scotch cuddy has been attributed to a loan from H. through the gypsies, who were the chief owners of the animal in Scotland, where it is not common. On the other hand, this is ascribed to a nickname Cuddy (for Cuthbert), like the English Neddy, similarly applied. [So the N.E.D. with hesitation.] A Punjab proverbial phrase is gadōṅ khurkī, "Donkeys' rubbing" their sides together, a sort of 'claw me and I'll claw thee.'

GUDDY, GUDDEE, s. H. gaddī, Mahr. gādī. 'The Throne.' Properly it is a cushion, a throne in the Oriental sense, i.e. the seat of royalty, "a simple sheet, or mat, or carpet on the floor, with a large cushion or pillow at the head, against which the great man reclines" (Wilson). "To be placed on the guddee" is to succeed to the kingdom. The word is also used for the pad placed on an elephant's back.

[1809.—"Seendhiya was seated nearly in the centre, on a large square cushion covered with gold brocade; his back supported by a round bolster, and his arms resting upon two flat cushions; all covered with the same costly material, and forming together a kind of throne, called a musnud, or guddee."—Broughton, Letters from a Mahratta Camp, ed. 1892, p. 28.]

GUDGE, s. P.—H. gaz, and corr. gaj; a Persian yard measure or thereabouts; but in India applied to measures of very varying lengths, from the hāth, or natural cubit, to the English yard. In the Āīn [ed. Jarrett, ii. 58 seqq.] Abu'l Faẓl details numerous gaz which had been in use under the Caliphs or in India, varying from 18 inches English (as calculated by J. Prinsep) to 52⅛. The Ilāhī gaz of Akbar was intended to supersede all these as a standard; and as it was the basis of all records of land-measurements and rents in Upper India, the determination of its value was a subject of much importance when the revenue surveys were undertaken about 1824. The results of enquiry were very discrepant, however, and finally an arbitrary value of 33 inches was assumed. The bīghā (see BEEGAH), based on this, and containing 3600 square gaz = ⅝ of an acre, is the standard in the N.W.P., but statistics are now always rendered in acres. See Gladwin's Ayeen (1800) i. 302, seqq.; Prinsep's Useful Tables, ed. Thomas, 122; [Madras Administration Manual, ii. 505.]

[1532.—"... and if in quantity the measure and the weight, and whether ells, roods or gazes."—Archiv. Port. Orient. f. 5, p. 1562.]

1754.—"Some of the townsmen again demanded of me to open my bales, and sell them some pieces of cloth; but ... I rather chose to make several of them presents of 2¼ gaz of cloth, which is the measure they usually take for a coat."—Hanway, i. 125.