Note 1823 — SECTION III. HINDŪSTĀN

As the Ḥai. MS. and also I.O. 216 f. 137 (Pers. trs.) write kalah (galah)-fish, this may be a large cray-fish. One called by a name approximating to galah-fish is found in Malāyan waters, viz. the galah-prawn (hūdang) (cf. Bengālī gūla-chingrī, gūla-prawn, Haughton). Galah and gūla may express lament made when the fish is caught (Haughton pp. 931, 933, 952); or if kalah be read, this may express scolding. Two good MSS. of the Wāqi‘āt-i-bāburī (Pers. trs.) write kaka; and their word cannot but have weight. Erskine reproduces kaka but offers no explanation of it, a failure betokening difficulty in his obtaining one. My husband suggests that kaka may represent a stuttering sound, doing so on the analogy of Vullers’ explanation of the word,—Vir ridiculus et facetus qui simul balbutiat; and also he inclines to take the fish to be a crab (kakra). Possibly kaka is a popular or vulgar name for a cray-fish or a crab. Whether the sound is lament, scolding, or stuttering the fisherman knows! Shaikh Zain enlarges Bābur’s notice of this fish; he says the bones are prolonged (bar āwarda) from the ears, that these it agitates at time of capture, making a noise like the word kaka by which it is known, that it is two wajab (18 in.) long, its flesh surprisingly tasty, and that it is very active, leaping a gaz (cir. a yard) out of the water when the fisherman’s net is set to take it. For information about the Malāyan fish, I am indebted to Mr. Cecil Wray.