Chapter BABA to BABOOL of B by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

calls White Baboos.”— Aberigh-Mackay, Twenty-one Days, p. 104.]

N.B.—In Java and the further East bibu means a nurse or female servant (Javanese word).

BABOOL, s. H. babul, babur (though often mispronounced babul, as in two quotations below); also called kikar. A thorny mimosa common in most parts of India except the Malabar Coast; the Acacia arabica, Willd. The Bhils use the gum as food.

1666.—“L’eau de Vie de ce Païs.… qu’on y boit ordinairement, est faicte de jagre ou sucre noir, qu’on met dans l’eau avec de l’écorce de l’arbre Baboul, pour y donner quelque force, et ensuite on les distile ensemble.”— Thevenot, v. 50.

1780.—“Price Current. Country Produce: Bable Trees, large, 5 pc. each tree.”— Hickey’s Bengal Gazette, April 29. [This is babla, the Bengali form of the word.]

1824.—“Rampoor is … chiefly remarkable for the sort of fortification which surrounds it. This is a high thick hedge … of bamboos … faced on the outside by a formidable underwood of cactus and bâbool.”— Heber, ed. 1844, i. 290.

1849.—“Look at that great tract from Deesa to th e Hala mountains. It is all sand; sometimes it has a little ragged clothing of babul or milk-bush.”—Dry Leaves from Young Egypt, 1.