Chapter BUGGALOW to BUGIS of B by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

BUGGALOW to BUGIS

BUGGALOW, s. Mahr. bagla, bagala. A name commonly given on the W. coast of India to Arab vessels of the old native form. It is also in common use in the Red Sea (bakala) for the larger native vessels, all built of teak from India. It seems to be a corruption of the Span. and Port. bajel, baxel, baixel, baxella, from the Lat. vascellum (see Diez, Etym. Wörterb. i. 439, s. v.). Cobarruvias (1611) gives in his Sp. Dict. “Baxel, quasi vasel” as a generic name for a vessel of any kind going on the sea, and quotes St. Isidore, who identifies it with phaselus, and from whom we transcribe the passage below. It remains doubtful whether this word was introduced into the East by the Portuguese, or had at an earlier date passed into Arabic marine use. The latter is most probable. In Correa (c. 1561) this word occurs in the form pajer, pl. pajeres (j and x being interchangeable in Sp. and Port. See Lendas, i. 2, pp. 592, 619, &c.). In Pinto we have another form. Among the models in the Fisheries Exhibition (1883), there was “A Zaroogat or Bagarah from Aden.” [On the other hand Burton (Ar. Nights, i. 119) derives the word from the Ar. baghlah, ‘a she-mule.’ Also see BUDGEROW.}

c. 636.—“Phaselus est navigium quod nos corrupte baselum dicimus. De quo Virgilius: Pictisque phaselis.”—Isodorus Hispalensis, Originum et Etymol. lib. xix.

c. 1539.—“Partida a nao pera Goa, Fernão de Morais … seguio sua viage na volta do porto de Dabul, onde chegou ao outro dia as nove horas, e tomando nelle hu paguel de Malavares, carregado de algodao e de pimenta, poz logo a tormento o Capitano e o piloto delle, os quaes confessarão. …”—Pinto, ch. viii.

1842.—“As store and horse boats for that service, Capt. Oliver, I find, would prefer the large class of native buggalas, by which so much of the trade of this coast with Scinde, Cutch … is carried on.”—Sir G. Arthur, in Ind. Admin. of Lord Ellenborough, 222.

[1900.—“His tiny baggala, which mounted ten tiny guns, is now employed in trade.”—Bent, Southern Arabia, 8.]

BUGGY, s. In India this is a (two-wheeled) gig with a hood, like the gentleman’s cab that was in vogue in London about 1830-40, before broughams came in. Latham puts a (?) after the word, and the earliest examples that he gives are from the second quarter of this century (from Praed and I. D’Israeli). Though we trace the word much further back, we have not discovered its birthplace or etymology. The word, though used in England, has never been very common there; it is better known both in Ireland and in America. Littré gives boghei as French also. The American buggy is defined by Noah Webster as “a light, one-horse, four-wheel vehicle, usually with one seat, and with or without a calash-top.” Cuthbert Bede shows (N. & Q. 5 ser. v. p. 445) that the adjective ‘buggy’ is used in the Eastern Midlands for ‘conceited.’ This suggests a possible origin. “When the Hunterian spelling-controversy raged in India, a learned Member of Council is said to have stated that he approved the change until —— —— began to spell buggy as bagi. Then he gave it up.”—(M.-G. Keatinge). I have recently seen this spelling in print. [The N.E.D. leaves the etymology unsettled, merely saying that it has been connected with bogie and bug. The earliest quotation given is that of 1773 below.]

1773.—“Thursday 3d (June). At the sessions at Hicks’s Hall two boys were indicted for driving a post- coach and four against a single horse-chaise, throwing out the driver of it, and breaking the chaise to pieces. Justice Welch, the Chairman, took notice of the frequency of the brutish custom among the post drivers, and their insensibility in making it a matter of sport, ludicrously denominating mischief of this kind ‘Running down the Buggies.’—The prisoners were sentenced to be confined in Newgate for 12 months.”—Gentleman’s Magazine, xliii. 297.

1780.—

“Shall D(onal)d come with Butts and tons
And knock down Epegrams and Puns?
With Chairs, old Cots, and Buggies trick
ye?
Forbid it, Phœbus and forbid it, Hicky!”

In Hicky’s Bengal Gazette, May 13th.

„ “… go twice round the Race-Course as hard as we can set legs to ground, but we are beat hollow by Bob Crochet’s Horses driven by Miss Fanny Hardheart, who in her career oversets Tim Capias the Attorney in his Buggy.…”—In India Gazette, Dec. 23rd.

1782.—“Wanted, an excellent Buggy Horse about 15 Hands high, that will trot 15 miles an hour.”—India Gazette, Sept. 14.

1784.—“For sale at Mr. Mann’s,