Chapter PEGU to PELICAN of P by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

PEKING, n.p. This name means ‘North-Court,’ and in its present application dates from the early reigns of the Ming Dynasty in China. When they dethroned the Mongol descendants of Chinghiz and Kublai (1368) they removed the capital from Taitu or Khanbaligh (Cambaluc of Polo) to the great city on the Yangtsze which has since been known as Nan-King or ‘South-Court.’ But before many years the Mongol capital was rehabilitated as the imperial residence, and became Pe-King accordingly. Its preparation for reoccupation began in 1409. The first English mention that we have met with is that quoted by Sainsbury, in which we have the subjects of more than one allusion in Milton.

1520.—“Thomé Pires, quitting this pass, arrived at the Province of Nanquij, at its chief city called by the same name, where the King dwelt, and spent in coming thither always travelling north, four months; by which you may take note how vast a matter is the empire of this gentile prince. He sent word to Thomé Pires that he was to wait for him at Pequij, where he would despatch his affair. This city is in another province so called, much further north, in which the King used to dwell for the most part, because it was on the frontier of the Tartars.…”—Barros, III. vi. 1.

1541.—“This City of Pequin…is so prodigious, and the things therein so remarkable, as I do almost repent me for undertaking to discourse of it.…For one must not imagine it to be, either as the City of Rome, or Constantinople, or Venice, or Paris, or London, or Sevill, or Lisbon. …Nay I will say further, that one must not think it to be like to Grand Cairo in Egypt, Tauris in Persia, Amadaba (Amadabad, Avadavat) in Cambaya, Bisnaga(r) in Narsingaa, Goura (Gouro) in Bengala, Ava in Chalen, Timplan in Calaminham, Martaban (Martavão) and Bagou in Pegu, Guimpel and Tinlau in Siammon, Odia in the Kingdom of Sornau, Passavan and Dema in the Island of Java, Pangor in the Country of the Lequiens (no Lequio) Usangea (Uzãgnè) in the Grand Cauchin, Lancama (Laçame) in Tartary, and Meaco (Mioco) in Jappun…for I dare well affirm that all those same are not to be compared to the least part of the wonderful City of Pequin.…”—Pinto (in Cogan), p. 136 (orig. cap. cvii.).

[c. 1586.—“The King maketh alwayes his abode in the great city Pachin, as much as to say in our language…the towne of the kingdome.”—Reports of China, in Hakl. ii. 546.]

1614.—“Richard Cocks writing from Ferando understands there are great cities in the country of Corea, and between that and the sea mighty bogs, so that no man can travel there; but great waggons have been invented to go upon broad flat wheels, under sail as ships do, in which they transport their goods…the deceased Emperor of Japan did pretend to have conveyed a great army in these sailing waggons, to assail the Emperor of China in his City of Paquin.”—In Sainsbury, i. 343.

166¹

“from the destined walls
Of Cambalu, seat of Cathaian Can,
And Samarchand by Oxus, Temer’s throne,
To Paquin of Sinaean Kings.…”

Paradise Lost, xi. 387–390.

PELICAN, s. This word, in its proper application to the Pelicanus onocrotalus, L., is in no respect peculiar to Anglo-India, though we may here observe that the bird is called in Hindi by the poetical name gagan- bher, i.e. ‘Sheep of the Sky,’ which we have heard natives with their strong propensity to metathesis convert into the equally appropriate Ganga-bheri or ‘Sheep of the Ganges.’ The name may be illustrated by the old term ‘Cape-sheep’ applied to the albatross.* But Pelican is habitually misapplied by the British soldier in India to the bird usually called Adjutant (q.v.). We may remember how Prof. Max Müller, in his Lectures on Language, tells us that the Tahitians show respect to their sovereign by ceasing to employ in common language those words which form part or the whole of his name, and invent new terms to supply their place. “The object was clearly to guard against the name of the sovereign being ever used, even by accident, in ordinary conversation,” 2nd ser. 1864, p. 35, [Frazer, Golden Bough, 2nd ed. i. 421 seqq.]). Now, by an analogous process, it is possible that some martinet, holding the office of adjutant, at an early date in the Anglo-Indian history, may have resented the ludicrously appropriate employment of the usual name of the bird, and so may have introduced the entirely inappropriate name of pelican in its place. It is in the recollection of one of the present writers that a worthy northern matron, who with her husband had risen from the ranks in the —th Light Dragoons, on being challenged for speaking of