Indian Antiquary Vol 52

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 109

MAY, 1923)
SOME DISCURSIVE COMMENTS ON BARBOSA
been a crushing blow to the prosperity of the Arabian seaboard, and its effect on the peoples thereon is evidenced by the serious, though ineffectual, attempts of the Mamlak Sultan of Egypt on his own behalf to drive out the Portuguese by an expedition to the Indian sea. coast itself. Indeed, the situation created by European aggression in regard to the ancient Indo-Arabian trade is quite pathetic.
A most interesting survival of the Portuguese days in India is pointed out in the use of the term "Canarim” (Canarin or Canarese) for "Eurasian," resulting in the well-known Anglo-Indian metathesized expression Karani, degenerating in many places into a vernacular term for any kind of native or Eurasian clerk.
Occasionally Dames passes over Indian expressions without comment, e.g., Gingelly oil, and on p. 90 he has no explanation of what is referred to by the fish at Basra, "which the more they are boiled or roasted, the more they bleed." Nor does he explain what kind of a shore boat is meant by the term "terada " beyond a reference on p. 97 to the commentaries; and as he has a note on the Turkish composite bow and says it is still made on the Indian frontiers, it is a pity he does not explain what kind of a bow it is.
The vagueness of the term "India" as used by the Portuguese comes out clearly when among the imports into Diul (in Sindh) are mentioned "certain canes which are found in India and are of the thickness of a man's leg." The reference is, of course, to the Giant Bamboo, and "India" must be the Malabar Coast, or Burma or the Malay Archipelago. On the "rhubarb of Babylonia" Dames has an illuminating note (pp. 93-4). "Scarletin-grain" is a term which Dames uses several times, meaning thereby cloth dyed scarlet, and of this he gives an admirable explanation in his second volume, p. 77, note 1. On p. 10 there is an interesting statement as to the "Heathen whom the Moors name Cafres." meaning the inhabitants of South Africa (Zulus and Bantus), and showing the origin of the term Kafir as applied to any “Heathen " and of the spelling " Cafre."
Dames is always valuable when dealing with numismatics, and I personally am grateful for his remarks on "cruzado" (p. 65), on “pardao" (p. 191), and on the coinage of Ormus (pp. 99-100), and for his note on weights and measures on p. 167, and on "fardo, farden," meaning a bundle (p. 194).
The bulk of Dames' miscellaneous notes are naturally in explanation of the Portuguese forms of Oriental terms found in the text; in fact, of Hobson-Jobsons. Many of these are very valuable to the student, and some are new to myself. I would note a few here. The term almadia (p. 14) for a canoe was carried to the Indian coast, as was noted by Mandelslo. The origin of assegai is explained as the Port. azagaia for Berber zaghaya. There are, too, A series of notes on aleguegua and babagoure for carnelian and chaloedony, and on the chalcedony mines of Limodra in the Rajpipla State (pp. 137 and 144). And further, there is a neat note explaining how the Indian term Deccan (Dakhim, Dakhan), the Kingdom on the right hand, i.e., the Southern Kingdom, became to the Portuguese Daquem, D'aquem, the Kingdom on this side, i.e., the Hither Kingdom, by pure folk-etymology. Attention is also drawn to the r in " lacquer" (lac) and in almiscar (musk), which is absent in the original vernacular (p. 56).
One could go on almost indefinitely on the etymological notes, but I will content myself with expressing gratitude for those on "camlet" (woollen) and." cambolim" and "cameline" (otton) cloths (pp. 63, 93, 120), though I doubt if tafeta over meant anything but milk cloth. and I should like to see proof that it was at any time a mixture of camlet and slk (p. 93). Especially am I grateful for an explanation of Sentes brocades and Jannábija cloth (p. 79);