Chapter HACKERY to HADGEE of H by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

HACKERY to HADGEE

HACKERY, s. In the Bengal Presidency this word is now applied only to the common native bullock- cart used in the slow draught of goods and materials. But formerly in Bengal, as still in Western India and Ceylon, the word was applied to lighter carriages (drawn by bullocks) for personal transport. In Broughton’s Letters from a Mahratta Camp (p. 156; [ed. 1892, p. 117]) the word is used for what in Upper India is commonly called an ekka (q.v.), or light native pony-carriage; but this is an exceptional application. Though the word is used by Englishmen almost universally in India, it is unknown to natives, or if known is regarded as an English term; and its origin is exceedingly obscure. The word seems to have originated on the west side of India, where we find it in our earliest quotations. It is probably one of those numerous words which were long in use, and undergoing corruption by illiterate soldiers and sailors, before they appeared in any kind of literature. Wilson suggests a probable Portuguese origin, e.g. from acarretar, ‘to convey in a cart.’ It is possible that the mere Portuguese article and noun ‘a carreta’ might have produced the Anglo-Indian hackery. Thus in Correa, under 1513, we have a description of the Surat hackeries; “and the carriages (as carretas) in which he and the Portuguese travelled, were elaborately wrought, and furnished with silk hangings, covering them from the sun; and these carriages (as carretas) run so smoothly (the country consisting of level plains) that the people travelling in them sleep as tranquilly as on the ground” (ii. 369).

But it is almost certain that the origin of the word is the H. chhakra, ‘a two-wheeled cart’; and it may be noted that in old Singhalese chakka, ‘a cart-wheel,’ takes the forms haka and saka (see Kuhn, On Oldest Aryan Elements of Singhalese, translated by D. Ferguson in Indian Ant. xii. 64). [But this can have no connection with chhakra, which represents Skt. sakata, ‘a waggon.’]

1673.—“The Coach wherein I was breaking, we were forced to mount the Indian Hackery, a Two-wheeled Chariot, drawn by swift little Oxen.”—Fryer, 83. [For these swift oxen, see quot. from Forbes below, and from Aelian under GYNEE].

1690.—“Their Hackeries likewise, which are a kind of Coach, with two Wheels, are all drawn by Oxen.”—Ovington, 254.

1711.—“The Streets (at Surat) are wide and commodious; otherwise the Hackerys, which are very common, would be an Inconveniency. These are a sort of Coaches drawn by a Pair of Oxen.”—Lockyer, 259.

1742.—“The bridges are much worn, and out of repair, by the number of Hackaries and other carriages which are continually passing over them.”—In Wheeler, iii. 262.

1756.—“The 11th of July the Nawab arrived in the city, and with him Bundoo Sing, to whose house we were removed that afternoon in a hackery.”—Holwell, in Wheeler’s Early Records, 249.

c. 1760.—“The hackrees are a conveyance drawn by oxen, which would at first give an idea of slowness that they do not deserve…they are open on three sides, covered a-top, and are made to hold two people sitting cross-legged.”—Grose, i. 155–156.

1780.—“A hackery is a small covered carriage upon two wheels drawn by bullocks, and used generally for the female part of the family.”—Hodges, Travels, 5.

c. 1790.—“Quant aux palankins et hakkaries (voitures à deux roues), on les passe sur une double sangarie” (see JANGAR).—Haafner, ii. 173.

1793.—“To be sold by Public Auction…a new Fashioned Hackery.”—Bombay Courier, April 13.

1798.—“At half-past six o’clock we each got into a hackeray.”—Stavorinus, tr. by Wilcocks, iii. 295.

1811.—Solvyns draws and describes the Hackery in the modern Bengal sense.

„ “Il y a cependant quelques endroits où l’on se sert de charettes couvertes à deux roues, appelées hickeris, devant lesquelles on attèle des bœufs, et qui servent à voyager.”—Editor of Haafner, Voyages, ii. 3.

1813.—“Travelling in a light hackaree, at the rate of five miles an hour.”—Forbes, Or. Mem. iii. 376; [2nd ed.ii. 352; in i. 150, hackeries, ii. 253, hackarees]. Forbes’s engraving represents such an ox-carriage as would be called in Bengal a baili (see BYLEE).

1829.—“The genuine vehicle of the country is the hackery. This is a sort of wee tent, covered more or less with tinsel and scarlet, and bells and gilding, and placed upon a clumsy two- wheeled carriage with a pole that seems to be also a kind of boot, as it is at least a foot deep. This is drawn by a pair of white bullocks.”—Mem. of Col. Mountain, 2nd ed., 84.

1860.—“Native gentlemen, driving fast trotting oxen in little hackery carts, hastened home from it.”—Tennent’s Ceylon, ii. 140.

[HADDY, s. A grade of troops in the Mogul service. According to Prof. Blochmann (Ain, i. 20, note) they corresponded to our “Warranted officers.” “Most clerks of the Imperial offices, the painters of the Court, the foremen in Akbar’s workshops, &c., belonged to this corps. They were called Ahadis, or single men, because they stood under Akbar’s immediate orders.” And Mr. Irvine writes: “Midway between the nobles or leaders (mansabdars) with the horsemen under them (tabinan) on the one hand, and the