Chapter SHADDOCK to SHALEE of S by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

de croupe d’âne,” &c.—Thevenot, Voyages, iii. 115–116.

1862.—“Saghree, or Keemookt, Horse or Ass- Hide.”—Punjab Trade Report, App. ccxx.; [For an account of the manufacture of kimukht, see Hoey, Mon. on Trades and Manufactures of N. India, 94.]

SHAITAN, Ar. ‘The Evil One; Satan.’ Shaitan ka bhai, ‘Brother of the Arch-Enemy,’ was a title given to Sir C. Napier by the Amirs of Sind and their followers. He was not the first great English soldier to whom this title had been applied in the East. In the romance of Cœur de Lion, when Richard entertains a deputation of Saracens by serving at table the head of one of their brethren, we are told:

“Every man sat stylle and pokyd othir;
They saide: ‘This is the Develys brothir,
That sles our men, and thus hem eetes…”

[c. 1630.—“But a Mountebank or Impostor is nick-named Shitan. Tabib, i.e. the Devil’s Chirurgion.”—Sir T. Herbert, ed. 1677, p. 304.

1753.—“God preserve me from the Scheithan Alragim.”—Hanway, iii. 90.]

1863.—“Not many years ago, an eccentric gentleman wrote from Sikkim to the Secretary of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta, stating that, on the snows of the mountains there were found certain mysterious foot-steps, more than 30 or 40 paces asunder, which the natives alleged to be Shaitan’s. The writer at the same time offered, if Government would give him leave of absence for a certain period, etc., to go and trace the author of these mysterious vestiges, and thus this strange creature would be discovered without any expense to Government. The notion of catching Shaitan without any expense to Government was a sublime piece of Anglo-Indian tact, but the offer was not accepted.”—Sir H. Yule, Notes to Friar Jordanus, 37.

SHALEE, SHALOO, SHELLA, SALLO, &c., s. We have a little doubt as to the identity of all these words; the two latter occur in old works as names of cotton stuffs; the first two (Shakespear and Fallon give salu) are names in familiar use for a soft twilled cotton stuff, of a Turkey-red colour, somewhat resembling what we call, by what we had judged to be a modification of the word, shaloon. But we find that Skeat and other authorities ascribe the latter word to a corruption of Chalons, which gave its name to certain stuffs, apparently bed-coverlets of some sort. Thus in Chaucer:

“With shetes and with chalons faire yspredde.”—The Reve’s Tale.

On which Tyrwhitt quotes from the Monasticon, “… aut pannos pictos qui vocantur chalons loco lectisternii.” See also in Liber Albus:

“La charge de chalouns et draps de Reynes. …”—p. 225, also at p. 231.

c. 1343.—“I went then to Shaliyat (near Calicut—see CHALIA) a very pretty town, where they make the stuffs (qu. shali?) that bear its name.”—Ibn Batuta, iv. 109.

[It is exceedingly difficult to disentangle the meanings and derivations of this series of words. In the first place we have saloo.

[c. 1590.—“Sálu, per piece, 3 R. to 2 M.” —Ain, i. 94.

[1610.—“Sallallo, blue and black.”— Danvers, Letters, i. 72.

[1672.—“Salloos, made at Gulcundah, and brought from thence to Surat, and go to England.”—In Birdwood, Report on Old Records, 62.

[1896.—“Salu is another fabric of a red colour prepared by dyeing English cloth named markin (‘American’) in the al dye, and was formerly extensively used for turbans, curtains, borders of female coats and female dress.”—Muhammad Hadi, Mon. on Dyes, 34.
Next we have shelah, which may be identical with Hind. sela, which Platts connects with Skt. chela, chaila, ‘a piece of cloth,’ and defines as “a kind of scarf or mantle (of silk, or lawn, or muslin; usually composed of four breadths depending from the shoulders loosely over the body: it is much worn and given as a present, in the Dakkhan); silk turban.” In the Deccan it seems to be worn by men (Herklots, Qanoon-e-Islam, Madras reprint, 18). The Madras Gloss. gives sheelay, Mal. shila, said to be from Skt. chira, ‘a strip of cloth,’ in the sense of clothes; and sullah, Hind. sela, ‘gauze for turbans.’

[c. 1590.—“Shelah, from the Dek’han, per piece, ½ to 2 M.”—Ain, i. 95.

[1598.—“Cheyla,” in Linschoten, i. 91.

[1800.—“Shillas,” or thin white muslins. … They are very coarse, and are sometimes striped, and then called Dupattas (see DOOPUTTY).”—Buchanan, Mysore, ii. 240.]

1809.—“The shalie, a long piece of coloured silk or cotton, is wrapped round the waist in the form of a petticoat, which leaves part of one leg bare, whilst the other is covered to the ancle with long and graceful folds, gathered up in front, so as to leave one end of the shalie to cross the breast, and form a drapery, which is sometimes thrown over the head as a veil.”— Maria Graham, 3. [But, as Sir H. Yule suggested, in this form the word may represent Saree.]

1813.—“Red Shellas or Salloes. …”—