Chapter ROCK-PIGEON to ROHILLA of R by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

ROCK-PIGEON to ROHILLA

ROCK-PIGEON. The bird so called by sportsmen in India is the Pterocles exustus of Temminck, belonging to the family of sand-grouse (Pteroclidae). It occurs throughout India, except in the more wooded parts. In their swift high flight these birds look something like pigeons on the wing, whence perhaps the misnomer.

ROGUE (Elephant), s. An elephant (generally, if not always a male) living in apparent isolation from any herd, usually a bold marauder, and a danger to travellers. Such an elephant is called in Bengal, according to Williamson, saun, i.e. san [Hind. sand, Skt. shanda]; sometimes it would seem gunda [Hind. gunda, ‘a rascal’]; and by the Sinhalese hora. The term rogue is used by Europeans in Ceylon, and its origin is somewhat obscure. Sir Emerson Tennent finds such an elephant called, in a curious book of the 18th century, ronkedor or runkedor, of which he supposes that rogue may perhaps have been a modification. That word looks like Port. roncador, ‘a snorer, a noisy fellow, a bully,’ which gives a plausible sense. But Littré gives rogue as a colloquial French word conveying the idea of arrogance and rudeness. In the following passage which we have copied, unfortunately without recording the source, the word comes still nearer the sense in which it is applied to the elephant: “On commence à s’apperceuoir dés Bayonne, que l’humeur de ces peuples tient vn peu de celle de ses voisins, et qu’ils sont rogues et peu communicatifs avec l’Estranger.” After all however it is most likely that the word is derived from an English use of the word. For Skeat shows that rogue, from the French sense of ‘malapert, saucy, rude, surly,’ came to be applied as a cant term to beggars, and is used, in some old English passages which he quotes, exactly in the sense of our modern ‘tramp.’ The transfer to a vagabond elephant would be easy. Mr. Skeat refers to Shakspeare:—

“And wast thou fain, poor father,
To hovel thee with swine, and rogues forlorn?”

K. Lear, iv. 7.

1878.—“Much misconception exists on the subject of rogue or solitary elephants. The usually accepted belief that these elephants are turned out of the herds by their companions or rivals is not correct. Most of the so-called solitary elephants are the lords of some herds near. They leave their companions at times to roam by themselves, usually to visit cultivation or open country…sometimes again they make the expedition merely for the sake of solitude. They, however, keep more or less to the jungle where their herd is, and follow its movements.”—Sanderson, p. 52.

ROGUE’S RIVER, n.p. The name given by Europeans in the 17th and 18th centuries to one of the Sunderbund channels joining the Lower Hoogly R. from the eastward. It was so called from being frequented by the Arakan Rovers, sometimes Portuguese vagabonds, sometimes native Muggs, whose vessels lay in this creek watching their opportunity to plunder craft going up and down the Hoogly.

Mr. R. Barlow, who has partially annotated Hedges’ Diary for the Hakluyt Society, identifies Rogue’s River with Channel Creek, which is the channel between Saugor Island and the Delta. Mr. Barlow was, I believe, a member of the Bengal Pilot service, and this, therefore, must have been the application of the name in recent tradition. But I cannot reconcile this with the sailing directions in the English Pilot (1711), or the indications in Hamilton, quoted below.

The English Pilot has a sketch chart of the river, which shows, just opposite Buffalo Point, “R. Theeves,” then, as we descend, the R. Rangafula, and, close below that, “Rogues” (without the word River), and still further below, Chanell Creek or R. Jessore. Rangafula R. and Channel Creek we still have in the charts.

After a careful comparison of all the notices, and of the old and modern charts, I come to the conclusion that the R. of Rogues must have been either what is now called Ch ingri Khal, entering immediately below Diamond Harbour, or Kalpi Creek, about 6 m. further down, but the preponderance of argument is in favour of Chingri Khal. The position of this quite corresponds with the R. Theeves of the old English chart; it corresponds in distance from Saugor (the Gunga Saugor of those days, which forms the extreme S. of what is styled Saugor Island now) with that stated by Ham ilton, and also in being close to the “first safe anchoring place in the River,” viz. Diamond Harbour. The Rogue’s River was apparently a little ‘above the head of the Grand Middle Ground’ or great shoals of the Hoogly, whose upper termination is now some 7½ m. below Chingrl Khal. One of the extracts from the English Pilot speaks of the “R. of Rogues, commonly called by the Country People, Adegom.” Now there is a town on the Chingri Khal, a few miles from its entrance into the Hoogly, which is called in