Chapter ANILE to APOLLO BUNDER of A by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

of Godolphin’s Award between the Old and the New E. I. Co., in Charters, &c., p. 358.

1727.—“The current money in Surat:

Bitter Almonds go 32 to a Pice:

1 Annoe is	4 Pice.
1 Rupee	16 Annoes.

In Bengal their Accounts are kept in Pice:

12 to an Annoe.

16 Annoes to a Rupee.” A. Hamilton, ii. App. pp. 5, 8.

ANT, WHITE, s. The insect (Termes bellicosus of naturalists) not properly an ant, of whose destructive powers there are in India so many disagreeable experiences, and so many marvellous stories. The phrase was perhaps taken up by the English from the Port. formigas branchas, which is in Bluteau’s Dict. (1713, iv. 175). But indeed exactly the same expression is used in the 14th century by our medieval authority. It is, we believe, a fact that these insects have been established at Rochelle in France, for a long period, and more recently at St. Helena. They exist also at the Convent of Mt. Sinai, and a species in Queensland.

A.D. c. 250.—It seems probable that Aelian speaks of White Ants.—“But the Indian ants construct a kind of heaped-up dwellings, and these not in depressed or flat positions easily liable to be flooded, but in lofty and elevated positions…”—De Nat. Animal. xvi. cap. 15.

c. 1328.—“Est etiam unum genus parvissimarum formicarum sicut lana albarum, quarum durities dentium tanta est quod etiam ligna rodunt et venas lapidum; et quotquot breviter inveniunt siccum super terram, et pannos laneos, et bombycinos laniant; et faciunt ad modum muri crustam unam de arenâ minutissimâ, ita quod sol non possit eas tangere; et sic remanent coopertae; verum est quod si contingat illam crustam frangi, et solem eas tangere, quam citius moriuntur.—Fr. Jordanus, p. 53.

1679.—“But there is yet a far greater inconvenience in this Country, which proceeds from the infinite number of white Emmets, which though they are but little, have teeth so sharp, that they will eat down a wooden Post in a short time. And if great care be not taken in the places where you lock up your Bales of Silk, in four and twenty hours they will eat through a Bale, as if it had been saw’d in two in the middle.”—Tacernier’s Tunquin, E. T., p. 11.

1688.—“Here are also abundance of Ants of several sorts, and Wood-lice, called by the English in the East Indies, White Ants.” —Dampier, ii. 127.

1713.—“On voit encore des fourmis de plusieurs espèces; la plus pernicieuse est celle que les Européens ont nommé fourmi blanche.”—Lettres Edifiantes, xii. 98.

1727.—“He then began to form Projects how to clear Accounts with his Master’s Creditors, without putting anything in their Pockets. The first was on 500 chests of Japon Copper.…and they were brought into Account of Profit and Loss, for so much eaten up by the White Ants.”—A. Hamilton, ii. 169.

1751.—“.… concerning the Organ, we sent for the Revd. Mr. Bellamy, who declared that when Mr. Frankland applied to him for it that he told him that it was not in his power to give it, but wished it was removed from thence, as Mr. Pearson informed him it was eaten up by the White Ants.”—Ft. Will. Cons., Aug. 12. In Long, 25.

1789.—“The White Ant is an insect greatly dreaded in every house; and this is not to be wondered at, as the devastation it occasions is almost incredible.”—Munro, Narrative, 31.

1876.—“The metal cases of his baggage are disagreeably suggestive of White Ants, and such omnivorous vermin.”—Sat. Review, No. 1057, p. 6.

APIL, s. Transfer of Eng. ‘Appeal’; in general native use, in connection with our Courts.

1872.—“There is no Sindi, however wild, that cannot now understand ‘Rasid’ (receipt) [Raseed] and ‘Apil’ (appeal).”—Burton, Sind Revisited, i. 283.

APOLLO BUNDER, n.p. A well-known wharf at Bombay. A street near it is called Apollo Street, and a gate of the Fort leading to it ‘the Apollo Gate.’ The name is said to be a corruption, and probably is so, but of what it is a corruption is not clear. The quotations given afford different suggestions, and Dr Wilson’s dictum is entitled to respect, though we do not know what palawa here means Sir G. Birdwood writes that it used to be said in Bombay, that Apollo-bandar was a corr. of palwa-bandar, because the pier was the place where the boats used to land palwa fish. But we know of no fish so called; it is however possible that the palla or Sable-fish (Hilsa) is meant, which is so called in Bombay, as well as in Sind. [The Ain (ii. 338) speaks of “a kind of fish called palwah which comes up into the Indus from the sea, unrivalled for its fine and exquisite flavour,” which is the Hilsa.] On the other hand we may observe that there was at Calcutta in 1748 a frequented tavern called the Apollo (see Long, p. 11). And it is not impossible that a house of the same name may have given its title to the Bombay