Chapter BUDGE-BUDGE to BUDGEROW of B by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

BUDGE-BUDGE to BUDGEROW

BUDGE-BUDGE, n. p. A village on the Hooghly R., 15 m. below Calcutta, where stood a fort which was captured by Clive when advancing on Calcutta to recapture it, in December, 1756. The Imperial Gazetteer gives the true name as Baj-baj, [but Hamilton writes Bhuja-bhuj].

1756.—“On the 29th December, at six o’clock in the morning, the admiral having landed the Company’s troops the evening before at Mayapour, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Clive, cannonaded Bougee Bougee Fort, which was strong and built of mud, and had a wet ditch round it.” —Ives, 99.

1757.—The Author of Memoir of the Revolution in Bengal calls it Busbudgia; (1763), Luke Scrafton Budge Boodjee.

BUDGEROW, s. A lumbering keelless barge, formerly much used by Europeans travelling on the Gangetic rivers. Two-thirds of the length aft was occupied by cabins with Venetian windows. Wilson gives the word as H. and B. bajra; Shakespear gives H. bajra and bajra, with an improbable suggestion of derivation from bajar, ‘hard or heavy.’ Among Blochmann’s extracts from Mahommedan accounts of the conquest of Assam we find, in a detail of Mir Jumla’s fleet in his expedition of 1662, mention of 4 bajras (J. As. Soc. Ben. xli. pt. i. 73). The same extracts contain mention of war-sloops called bach’haris (pp. 57, 75, 81), but these last must be different. Bajra may possibly have been applied in the sense of ‘thunder- bolt.’ This may seem unsuited to the modern budgerow, but is not more so than the title of ‘lightning- darter’ is to the modern Burkundauze (q.v.)! We remember how Joinville says of the approach of the great galley of the Count of Jaffa:—“Sembloit que foudre cheist des ciex.” It is however perhaps more probable that bajra may have been a variation of bagla. And this is especially suggested by the existence of the Portuguese form pajeres, and of the Ar. form bagara (see under BUGGALOW). Mr. Edye, MasterShipwright of the Naval Yard in Trincomalee, in a paper on the Native Craft of India and Ceylon, speaks of the Baggala or Budgerow, as if he had been accustomed to hear the words used indiscriminately. (See J. R. A. S., vol. i. p. 12). [There is a drawing of a modern Budgerow in Grant, Rural Life, p. 5.]

c. 1570.—“Their barkes be light and armed with oares, like to Foistes … and they call these barkes Bazaras and Patuas” (in Bengal).—Cœsar Fredericke, E. T. in Hakl. ii. 358.

1662.—(Blochmann’s Ext. as above).

1705.—“… des Bazaras qui sont de grands bateaux.”—Luillier, 52.

1723.—“Le lendemain nous passâmes sur les Bazaras de la compagnie de France.”— Lett. Edif. xiii. 269.

1727.—“… in the evening to recreate themselves in Chaises or Palankins; … or by water in their Budgeroes, which is a convenient Boat.”—A. Hamilton, ii. 12.

1737.—“Charges, Budgrows … Rs. 281. 6. 3.”—MS. Account from Ft. William, in India Office.

1780.—“A gentleman’s Bugerow was drove ashore near Chaun-paul Gaut …” —Hicky’s Bengal Gazette, May 13th.

1781.—“The boats used by the natives for travelling, and also by the Europeans, are the budgerows, which both sail and row.”—Hodges, 39.

1783.—“… his boat, which, though in Kashmire (it) was thought magnificent, would not have been disgraced in the station of a Kitchen-tender to a Bengal budgero.”—G. Forster, Journey, ii. 10.

1784.—“I shall not be at liberty to enter my budgerow till the end of July, and must be again at Calcutta on the 22nd of October.”—Sir W. Jones, in Mem. ii. 38.

1785.—“Mr. Hastings went aboard his Budgerow, and proceeded down the river, as soon as the tide served, to embark for Europe on the Berrington.”—In Seton-Karr, i. 86.

1794.—“By order of the Governor-General in Council … will be sold the Hon’ble Company’s Budgerow, named the Sonamookhee¹ … the Budgerow lays in the nullah opposite to Chitpore.”—Ibid. ii. 114.

1830.—

“Upon the bosom of the tide
Vessels of every fabric ride;
The fisher’s skiff, the light canoe,
The Bujra broad, the Bholia trim,
Or Pinnaces that gallant swim,
With favouring breeze—or dull and slow
Against the heady current go.…”

H. H. Wilson, in Bengal Annual, 29.