Chapter FIRMAUN to FOOL’S RACK of F by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

former says that flying-foxes in confinement drink at all hours, lapping with their tongues. The latter has noticed many other bats drink in the evening as well as the flying-foxes.” (Mammalia of India, 258).] 1298.—“… all over India the birds and beasts are entirely different from ours, all but … the Quail. … For example, they have bats—I mean those birds that fly by night and have no feathers of any kind; well, their birds of this kind are as big as a goshawk!”—Marco Polo, Bk. iii. ch. 17.

c. 1328:—“There be also bats really and truly as big as kites. These birds fly no-whither by day, but only when the sun sets. Wonderful! By day they hang themselves up on trees by the feet, with their bodies downwards, and in the daytime they look just like big fruit on the tree.”—Friar Jordanus, p. 19.

1555.—“On the road we occasionally saw trees whose top reached the skies, and on which one saw marvellous bats, whose wings stretched some 14 palms. But these bats were not seen on every tree.”—Sidi’Ali, 91.

[c. 1590.—Writing of the Sarkar of Kabul, ’Abul Fazl says: “There is an animal called a flying-fox, which flies upward about the space of a yard.” This is copied from Baber, and the animal meant is perhaps the flying squirrel.—Ain, ed. Jarrett, ii. 406.

[1623.—“I saw Batts as big as Crows.”— P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. i. 103.]

1813.—“The enormous bats which darken its branches frequently exceed 6 feet in length from the tip of each wing, and from their resemblance to that animal are not improperly called flying-foxes.”—Forbes, Or. Mem. iii. 246; [2nd ed. ii. 269].

[1869.—“They (in Batchian) are almost the only people in the Archipelago who eat the great fruit-eating bats called by us ‘flying foxes’ … they are generally cooked with abundance of spices and condiments, and are really very good eating, something like hare.”—Wallace, Malay Archip., ed. 1890, p. 256.]

1882.—“… it is a common belief in some places that emigrant coolies hang with heads downward, like flying-foxes, or are ground in mills for oil.”—Pioneer Mail, Dec. 13, p. 579.

FOGASS, s. A word of Port. origin used in S. India; fogaça, from fogo, ‘fire,’ a cake baked in embers. It is composed of minced radish with chillies, &c., used as a sort of curry, and eaten with rice.

1554.—“… fecimus iter per amoenas et non infrugiferas Bulgarorum convalles: quo fere tempore pani usu sumus subcinericio, fugacias vocant.”—Busbequii Epist. i. p. 42.

FOLIUM INDICUM. (See MALABATHRUM.) The article appears under this name in Milburn (1813, i. 283), as an article of trade.

FOOL’S RACK, s. (For Rack see ARRACK.) Fool Rack is originally, as will be seen from Garcia and Acosta, the name of the strongest distillation from toddy or sura, the ‘flower’ (p’hul, in H. and Mahr.) of the spirit. But the ‘striving after meaning’ caused the English corruption of this name to be applied to a peculiarly abominable and pernicious spirit, in which, according to the statement of various old writers, the stinging sea-blubber was mixed, or even a distillation of the same, with a view of making it more ardent.

1563.—“… this çura they distil like brandy (agna ardente): and the result is a liquor like brandy; and a rag steeped in this will burn as in the case of brandy; and this fine spirit they call fula, which means ‘flower’; and the other quality that remains they call orraca, mixing with it a small quantity of the first kind. …”—Garcia, f. 67.

1578.—“… la qual (sura) en vasos despues distilan, para hazer agua ardiente, de la qual una, a que ellos llaman Fula, que quiere dezir ‘flor,’ es mas fina … y la segunda, que llaman Orraca, no tanto.”— Acosta, p. 101.

1598.—“This Sura being [beeing] distilled, is called Fula or Nipe [see NIPA], and is as excellent aqua vita as any is made in Dort of their best renish [rennish] wine, but this is of the finest kinde of distillation.”— Linschoten, 101; [Hak. Soc. ii. 49].

1631.—“DURAEUS … Apparet te etiam a vino adusto, nec Arac Chinensi, abhorrere? BONTIUS. Usum commendo, abusum abominor … at cane pejus et angue vitandum est quod Chinenses avarissimi simul et astutissimi bipedum, mixtis Holothuriis in mari fluctuantibus, parant … eaque tam exurentis sunt caloris ut solo attactu vesicas in cute excitent. …”—Jac. Bontii, Hist. Nat. et Med. Ind., Dial. iii.

1673.—“Among the worst of these (causes of disease) Fool Rack (Brandy made of Blubber, or Carvil, by the Portugals, because it swims always in a Blubber, as if nothing else were in it; but touch it, and it stings like nettles; the latter, because sailing on the Waves it bears up like a Portuguese Carcil (see CARAVEL): It is, being taken, a Gelly, and distilled causes those that take it to be Fools. …”—Fryer, 68-69.

[1753.—“… that fiery, single and simple distilled