Note 16 — INTRODUCTION.

Mr J. W. Redhouse has kindly furnished me, as follows, with the various meanings attached to the word Ghulām; which in the Malay romance seems to be employed as a proper name: “Gulām (not Ghulām), an Arabic word, signifies ‘a boy,’ ‘a lad.’ The Persians have made it, in their language, signify ‘a slave,’ and thence ‘a life-guardsman,’ and ‘a king’s messenger;’ whence ‘any post-messenger who travels on horse-back’—or by rail, now, in some places: all these really mean ‘a lad.’ The Turks use the word in the first and last senses—‘a lad,’ ‘a Persian post-courier.’”