Chapter NOL-KOLE to NUDDEEA RIVERS of N by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

NOL-KOLE to NUDDEEA RIVERS

NOL-KOLE, s. This is the usual Anglo-Indian name of a vegetable a good deal grown in India, perhaps less valued in England than it deserves, and known here (though rarely seen) as Kol-rabi, kohl-rabi, ‘cabbage-turnip.’ It is the Brassica oleracea, var. caulorapa. The stalk at one point expands into a globular mass resembling a turnip, and this is the edible part. I see my friend Sir G. Birdwood in his Bombay Products spells it Knolkhol. It is apparently Dutch, ‘Knollkool’ ‘Turnip-cabbage ; Chouxrave of the French.’

NON-REGULATION, adj. The style of certain Provinces of British India (administered for the most part under the more direct authority of the Central Government in its Foreign Department), in which the ordinary Laws (or Regulations, as they were formerly called) are not in force, or are in force only so far as they are specially declared by the Government of India to be applicable. The original theory of administration in such Provinces was the union of authority in all departments under one district chief, and a kind of paternal depotism in the hands of that chief. But by the gradual restriction of personal rule, and the multiplication of positive laws and rules of administration, and the division of duties, much the same might now be said of the difference between Regulation and Non-regulation Provinces that a witty Frenchman said of Intervention and Non-intervention :—“La Non-intervention est une phrase politique et technique qui veut dire enfin à-peu-près la même chose que l’Intervention.”

Our friend Gen. F. C. Cotton, R.E., tells us that on Lord Dalhousie’s visit to the Neilgherry Hills, near the close of his government, he was riding with the Governor-General to visit some new building. Lord Dalhousie said to him : “It is not a thing that one must say in public, but I would give a great deal that the whole of India should be Non- regulation.”

The Punjab was for many years the greatest example of a Non-regulation Province. The chief survival of that state of things is that there, as in Burma and a few other provinces, military men are still eligible to hold office in the civil administration.

1860.—“…Nowe what ye ffolke of Bengala worschyppen Sir Jhone discourseth lityl. This moche wee gadere. Some worschyppin ane Idole yclept Regulacionn and some worschyppen Non-regulacion (veluti Log et Magog).…”—Ext. from a MS. of The Travels of Sir John Mandevill in the E. Indies, lately discovered.

1867.—“…We believe we should indicate the sort of government that Sicily wants, tolerably well to Englishmen who know anything of India, by saying that it should be treated in great measure as a ‘non - regulation’ province.” —Quarterly Review, Jan. 1867, p. 135.

1883.—“The Delhi district, happily for all, was a non- regulation province.”—Life of Ld. Lawrence, i. 44.

NORIMON, s. Japanese word. A sort of portable chair used in Japan.

[1615.—“He kept himselfe close in a neremon.”—Cocks’s Diary, i. 164.]

1618.—“As we were going out of the towne, the street being full of hackneymen and horses, they would not make me way to passe, but fell a quarreling with my neremoners, and offred me great abuse. …”—Cocks’s Diary, ii. 99 ; [neremonnears in ii. 23].

1768–17.—“Sedan-chairs are not in use here (in Batavia). The ladies, however, sometimes employ a conveyance that is somewhat like them, and is called a norimon.”—Stavorinus, E.T. i. 324.

NOR’-WESTER, s. A sudden and violent storm, such as often occurs in the hot weather, bringing probably a ‘dust-storm’ at first, and culminating in hail or torrents of rain. (See TYPHOON.)

1810.—“…those violent squalls called ‘north-westers,’ in consequence of their usually either commencing in, or veering round to that quarter.…The force of these north-westers is next to incredible.”—Williamson, V. M. ii. 35.

[1827.—“A most frightful nor’ wester had come on in the night, every door had burst open, the peals of thunder and torrents of rain were so awful.…”—Mrs. Fenton, Diary, 98.]

NOWBEHAR, n.p. This is a name which occurs in various places far apart, a monument of the former extension of Buddhism. Thus, in the early history of the Mahommedans in Sind, we find repeated mention of a temple called Nauvihar (Nava-vihara, ‘New Monastery’). And the same name occurs at Balkh, near the Oxus. (See VIHARA).