Chapter SAIVA to SALEMPOORY of S by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

SALEB, SALEP, s. This name is applied to the tubers of various species of orchis found in Europe and Asia, which from ancient times have had a great reputation as being restorative and highly nutritious. This reputation seems originally to have rested on the ‘doctrine of signatures,’ but was due partly no doubt to the fact that the mucilage of saleb has the property of forming, even with the addition of 40 parts of water, a thick jelly. Good modern authorities quite disbelieve in the virtues ascribed to saleb, though a decoction of it, spiced and sweetened, makes an agreeable drink for invalids. Saleb is identified correctly by Ibn Baithar with the Satyrium of Dioscorides and Galen. The full name in Ar. (analogous to the Greek orchis) is Khusi-al-tha’lab, i.e. ‘testiculus vulpis’; but it is commonly known in India as sa’lab misri, i.e. Salep of Egypt, or popularly salep-misry. In Upper India saleb is derived from various species of Eulophia, found in Kashmir and the Lower Himalaya. Saloop, which is, or used to be, supplied hot in winter mornings by itinerant vendors in the streets of London, is, we believe, a representative of Saleb; but we do not know from what it is prepared. [In 1889 a correspondent to Notes & Queries (7 ser. vii. 35) stated that “within the last twenty years saloop vendors might have been seen plying their trade in the streets of London. The term saloop was also applied to an infusion of the sassafras bark or wood. In Pereira’s Materia Medica, published in 1850, it is stated that ‘sassafras tea, flavoured with milk and sugar, is sold at daybreak in the streets of London under the name of saloop.’ Saloop in balls is still sold in London, and comes mostly from Smyrna.”]

In the first quotation it is doubtful what is meant by salif; but it seems possible that the traveller may not have recognised the tha’lab, sa’lab in its Indian pronunciation.

c. 1340.—“After that, they fixed the amount of provision to be given by the Sultan, viz. 1000 Indian ritls of flour … 1000 of meat, a large number of ritls (how many I don’t now remember) of sugar, of ghee, of salif, of areca, and 1000 leaves of betel.”—Ibn Batuta, iii. 382.

1727.—“They have a fruit called Salob, about the size of a Peach, but without a stone. They dry it hard … and being beaten to Powder, they dress it as Tea and Coffee are. … They are of opinion that it is a great restorative.”—A. Hamilton, i. 125; [ed. 1744, i. 126].

[1754.—In his list of Indian drugs Ives (p. 44) gives “Rad. Salop, Persia Rs. 35 per maund.”]

1838.—“Saleb Misree, a medicine, comes (a little) from Russia. It is considered a good nutritive for the human constitution, and is for this purpose powdered and taken with milk. It is in the form of flat oval pieces of about 80 grains each. … It is sold at 2 or 3 Rupees per ounce.”—Desc. of articles found in Bazars of Cabool. In Punjab Trade Report, 1862, App. vi.

1882 (?).—“Here we knock against an ambulant salep- shop (a kind of tea which people drink on winter mornings); there against roaming oil, salt, or water- vendors, bakers carrying brown bread on wooden trays, pedlars with cakes, fellows offering dainty little bits of meat to the knowing purchaser.”—Levkosia, The Capital of Cyprus, ext. in St. James’s Gazette, Sept. 10.

SALEM, n.p. A town and inland district of S. India. Properly Shelam, which is perhaps a corruption of Chera, the name of the ancient monarchy in which this district was embraced. [“According to one theory the town of Salem is said to be identical with Seran or Sheran, and occasionally to have been named Sheralan; when S. India was divided between the three dynasties of Chola, Sera and Pandia, according to the generally accepted belief, Karur was the place where the three territorial divisions met; the boundary was no doubt subject to vicissitudes, and at one time possibly Salem or Serar was a part of Sera.”— Le Fanu, Man. of Salem, ii. 18.]

SALEMPOORY, s. A kind of chintz. See allusions under PALEMPORE. [The Madras Gloss., deriving the word from Tel. sale, ‘weaver,’ pura, Skt. ‘town,’ describes it as “a kind of cotton cloth formerly manufactured at Nellore; half the length of ordinary Punjums” (see PIECE-GOODS). The third quotation indicates that it was sometimes white.]

[1598.—“Sarampuras.”—Linschoten, Hak. Soc. i. 95.

[1611.—“I … was only doubtful about the white Betteelas and Salempurys.”— Danvers, Letters, i. 155.

[1614.—“Salampora, being a broad white cloth.”—Foster, ibid. ii. 32.]

1680.—“Certain goods for Bantam priced as follows:—

“Salampores, Blew, at 14 Pagodas per corge. …”—Ft. St. Geo. Consn., April 22. In Notes and Exts. iii. 16; also ibid. p. 24.

1747.—“The Warehousekeeper reported that on the 1st inst. when the French entered our Bounds and attacked us … it appeared that 5 Pieces of Long Cloth and 10 Pieces of Salampores were stolen, That Two Pieces