Chapter BEAR-TREE to BEECH-DE-MER of B by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

from Persia or India. [But for Indian influence on the island, see Encycl. Britt. 9th ed. xv. 174.] The word in Hova means ‘animal.’—(Sibree’s Madagascar, p. 253.)

[c. 1610.—“Nobles in blood.…call their wives Bybis.”—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 217.]

1611.—“…the title Bibi…is in Persian the same as among us, sennora, or doña.”—Teixeira, Relacion…de Hormuz. 19.

c. 1786.—“The word Lowndika, which means the son of a slave-girl, was also continually on the tongue of the Nawaub, and if he was angry with any one he called him by this name; but it was also used as an endearing fond appellation to which was attached great favour,¹ until one day, Ali Zumán Khan…represented to him that the word was low, discreditable, and not fit for the use of men of knowledge and rank. The Nawaub smiled, and said, ‘O friend, you and I are both the sons of slave women, and the two Husseins only (on whom be good wishes and Paradise!) are the sons of a Bibi.”—Hist. of Hydur Naik, tr. by Miles, 486.

[1793.—“I, Beebee Bulea, the Princess of Cannanore and of the Laccadives Islands, &c., do acknowledge and give in writing that I will pay to the Government of the English East India Company the moiety of whatever is the produce of my country.…”—Engagement in Logan, Malabar, iii. 181.]

BEECH-DE-MER, s. The old trade way of writing and pronouncing the name, bicho-de-mar (borrowed from the Portuguese) of the sea-slug or holothuria, so highly valued in China. [See menu of a dinner to which the Duke of Connaught was invited, in Ball, Things Chinese, 3rd ed. p. 247.] It is split, cleaned, dried, and then carried to the Straits for export to China, from the Maldives, the Gulf of Manar, and other parts of the Indian seas further east. The most complete account of the way in which this somewhat important article of commerce is prepared, will be found in the Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indie, Jaarg, xvii. pt. i. See also SWALLOW and TRIPANG.