Chapter BUND to BUNGALOW of B by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

BUND to BUNGALOW

BUND, s. Any artificial embankment, a dam, dyke, or causeway. H. band. The root is both Skt. (bandh) and P., but the common word, used as it is without aspirate, seems to have come from the latter. The word is common in Persia (e.g. see BENDAMEER). It is also naturalised in the Anglo-Chinese ports. It is there applied especially to the embanked quay along the shore of the settlements. In Hong Kong alone this is called (not bund, but) praia (Port. ‘shore’ [see PRAYA]), probably adopted from Macao.

1810.—“The great bund or dyke.”— Williamson, V. M. ii. 279.

1860.—“The natives have a tradition that the destruction of the bund was effected by a foreign enemy.”—Tennent’s Ceylon, ii. 504.

1875.—“… it is pleasant to see the Chinese … being propelled along the bund in their hand carts.”—Thomson’s Malacca, &c., 408.

1876.—“… so I took a stroll on Tien-Tsin bund.”—Gill, River of Golden Sand, i. 28.

BUNDER, s. P. bandar, a landing-place or quay; a seaport; a harbour; (and sometimes also a custom- house). The old Ital. scala, mod. scalo, is the nearest equivalent in most of the senses that occurs to us. We have (c. 1565) the Mir-bandar, or Port Master, in Sind (Elliot, i. 277) [cf. Shabunder]. The Portuguese often wrote the word bandel. Bunder is in S. India the popular native name of Masulipatam, or Machli-bandar.

c. 1344.—“The profit of the treasury, which they call bandar, consists in the right of buying a certain portion of all sorts of cargo at a fixed price, whether the goods be only worth that or more; and this is called the Law of the Bandar.”—Ibn Batuta, iv. 120.

c. 1346.—“So we landed at the bandar, which is a large collection of houses on the sea-shore.”—Ibid. 228.

1552.—“Coga-atar sent word to Affonzo d’Alboquerque that on the coast of the main land opposite, at a port which is called Bandar Angon … were arrived two ambassadors of the King of Shiraz.”—Barros, II. ii. 4.

[1616.—“Besides the danger in intercepting our boats to and from the shore, &c., their firing from the Banda would be with much difficulty.”—Foster, Letters, iv. 328.]

1673.—“We fortify our Houses, have Bunders or Docks for our Vessels, to which belong Yards for Seamen, Soldiers, and Stores.”—Fryer, 115.

1809.—“On the new bunder or pier.”— Maria Graham, 11.

[1847, 1860.—See quotations under APOLLO BUNDER.]

BUNDER-BOAT, s. A boat in use on the Bombay and Madras coast for communicating with ships at anchor, and also much employed by officers of the civil departments (Salt, &c.) in going up and down the coast. It is rigged as Bp. Heber describes, with a cabin amidships.

1825.—“We crossed over … in a stout boat called here a bundur boat. I suppose from ‘bundur’ a harbour, with two masts, and two lateen sails.…”—Heber, ii. 121, ed. 1844.

BUNDOBUST, s. P.-H.—band-o-bast, lit. ‘tying and binding.’ Any system or mode of regulation; discipline; a revenue settlement. [1768.—“Mr. Rumbold advises us … he proposes making a tour through that province … and to settle the Bandobust for the ensuing year.”—Letter to the Court of Directors, in Verelst, View of Bengal, App. 77.]

c. 1843.—“There must be bahut achch’ha bandobast (i.e. very good order or discipline) in your country,” said an aged Khansama (in Hindustani) to one of the present writers. “When I have gone to the Sandheads to meet a young gentleman from Bilayat, if I gave him a cup of tea, ‘tanki tanki,’ said he. Three months afterwards this was all changed; bad language, violence, no more tanki.”

1880.—“There is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your travelling M.P. This unhappy creature, whose mind is a perfect blank regarding Faujdari and Bandobast. …”—Ali Baba, 181.

BUNDOOK, s. H. banduk, from Ar. bunduk. The common H. term for a musket or matchlock. The history of the word is very curious. Bunduk, pl. banadik, was a name applied by the Arabs to filberts (as some allege) because they came from Venice (Banadik, comp. German Venedig). The name was transferred to the nut-like pellets shot from cross-bows, and thence the cross-bows or arblasts were called bunduk, elliptically for kaus al-b., ‘pellet-bow.’ From cross-bows the name was transferred again to fire-arms, as in the parallel case of arquebus. [Al-B an