Chapter BULBUL to BUNCUS of B by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

its early adoption into an Eastern language. The word is applied at Ahmedabad to the watertowers, but this is modern; [and so is the general application of the word in N. India to a canal distributary].

1572.—

“Alija, disse o mestre rijamente,
Alija tudo ao mar, não falte acordo
Vão outros dar á bomba, não cessando;
A’ bomba que nos imos alagando.’ ”

Camôes, vi. 72.

By Burton:

“ ‘Heave!’ roared the Master with a mighty roar,
‘Heave overboard your all, together’s
the word!
Others go work the pumps, and with a
will:
The pumps! and sharp, look sharp, before
she fill!’ ”

BUMMELO, s. A small fish, abounding on all the coasts of India and the Archipelago; Harpodon nehereus of Buch. Hamilton; the specific name being taken from the Bengali name nehare. The fish is a great delicacy when fresh caught and fried. When dried it becomes the famous Bombay Duck (see DUCKS, BOMBAY), which is now imported into England.

The origin of either name is obscure. Molesworth gives the word as Mahratti with the spelling bombil, or bombila (p. 595 a). Bummelo occurs in the Supp. (1727) to Bluteau’s Dict. in the Portuguese from bambulim, as “the name of a very savoury fish in India.” The same word bambulim is also explained to mean ‘humas pregas na saya a moda,’ ‘certain plaits in the fashionable ruff,’ but we know not if there is any connection between the two. The form Bombay Duck has an analogy to Digby Chicks which are sold in the London shops, also a kind of dried fish, pilchards we believe, and the name may have originated in imitation of this or some similar English name. [The Digby Chick is said to be a small herring cured in a peculiar manner at Digby, in Lincolnshire: but the Americans derive them from Digby in Nova Scotia; see 8 ser. N. & Q. vii. 247.]

In an old chart of Chittagong River (by B. Plaisted, 1764, published by A. Dalrymple, 1785) we find a point called Bumbello Point.

1673.—“Up the Bay a Mile lies Massigoung, a great Fishing-Town, peculiarly notable for a Fish called Bumbelow, the Sustenance of the Poorer sort.”—Fryer, 67.

1785.—“My friend General Campbell, Governor of Madras, tells me that they make Speldings in the East Indies, particularly at Bombay, where they call them Bumbaloes.”—Note by Boswell in his Tour to the Hebrides, under August 18th, 1773.

1810.—“The bumbelo is like a large sandeel; it is dried in the sun, and is usually eaten at breakfast with kedgeree.”—Maria Graham, 25.

1813.—Forbes has bumbalo; Or. Mem., i. 53; [2nd ed., i. 36].

1877.—“Bummalow or Bobil, the dried fish still called ‘Bombay Duck.’ ”—Burton, Sind Revisited, i. 68.

BUNCUS, BUNCO, s. An old word for cheroot. Apparently from the Malay bungkus, ‘a wrapper, bundle, thing wrapped.’

1711.—“Tobacco … for want of Pipes they smoke in Buncos, as on the Coromándel Coast. A Bunco is a little Tobacco wrapt up in the Leaf of a Tree, about the Bigness of one’s little Finger, they light one End, and draw the Smoke thro’ the other … these are curiously made up, and sold 20 or 30 in a bundle.”—Lockyer, 61.

1726.—“After a meal, and on other occasions it is one of their greatest delights, both men and women, old and young, to eat Pinang (areca), and to smoke tobacco, which the women do with a Bongkos, or dry leaf rolled up, and the men with a Gorregorri (a little can or flower pot) whereby they both manage to pass most of their time.”— Valentijn, v. Chorom., 55. [Gorregorri is Malay guri- guri, ‘a small earthenware pot, also used for holding provisions’ (Klinkert).]

„ (In the retinue of Grandees in Java):

“One with a coconut shell mounted in gold or silver to hold their tobacco or bongkooses (i.e. tobacco in rolled leaves).” —Valentijn, iv. 61.

c. 1760.—“The tobacco leaf, simply rolled up, in about a finger’s length, which they call a buncus, and is, I fancy, of the same make as what the West Indians term a segar; and of this the Gentoos chiefly make use.”—Grose, i. 146.