Chapter BORNEO to BOWLY of B by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

generally with landings and loggie where travellers may rest in the shade. This kind of structure, almost peculiar to Western and Central India, though occasionally met with in Northern India also, is a favourite object of private native munificence, and though chiefly beneath the level of the ground, is often made the subject of most effective architecture. Some of the finest specimens are in Guzerat, where other forms of the word appear to be wao and wain. One of the most splendid of these structures is that at Asarwa in the suburbs of Ahmedabad, known as the Well of Dhai (or ‘the Nurse’) Harir, built in 1485 by a lady of the household of Sultan Mohammed Bigara (that famous ‘Prince of Cambay’ celebrated by Butler—see under CAMBAY), at a cost of 3 lakhs of rupees. There is an elaborate model of a great Guzerati baoli in the Indian Museum at S. Kensington.

We have seen in the suburbs of Palermo a regular baoli, excavated in the tufaceous rock that covers the plain. It was said to have been made at the expense of an ancestor of the present proprietor (Count Ranchibile) to employ people in a time of scarcity.

c. 1343.—“There was also a bain, a name by which the Indians designate a very spacious kind of well, revetted with stone, and provided with steps for descent to the water’s brink. Some of these wells have in the middle and on each side pavilions of stone, with seats and benches. The Kings and chief men of the country rival each other in the construction of such reservoirs on roads that are not supplied with water.” —Ibn Batuta, iv. 13.

1526.—“There was an empty space within the fort (of Agra) between Ibrahim’s palace and the ramparts. I directed a large wâin to be constructed on it, ten gez by ten. In the language of Hindostân they denominate a large well having a staircase down it wâin.” —Baber, Mem., 342.

1775.—“Near a village called Sevasee Contra I left the line of march to sketch a remarkable building … on a near approach I discerned it to be a well of very superior workmanship, of that kind which the natives call Bhouree or Bhoulie.”—Forbes, Or. Mem. ii. 102; [2nd ed. i. 387].

1808.—“ ‘Who-so digs a well deserves the love of creatures and the grace of God,’ but a Vavidee is said to value 10 Kooas (or wells) because the water is available to bipeds without the aid of a rope.”—R. Drummond, Illustrations of Guzerattee, &c.

1825.—“These boolees are singular contrivances, and some of them extremely handsome and striking.…”—Heber, ed. 1844, ii. 37.

1856.—“The wav (Sansk. wápeeká) is a large edifice of a picturesque and stately as well as peculiar character. Above the level of the ground a row of four or five open pavilions at regular distances from each other … is alone visible.… The entrance to the wav is by one of the end pavilions.” —Forbes, Ras Mala, i. 257; [reprint 1878, p. 197].

1876.—“To persons not familiar with the East such an architectural object as a bowlee may seem a strange perversion of ingenuity, but the grateful coolness of all subterranean apartments, especially when accompanied by water, and the quiet gloom of these recesses, fully compensate in the eyes of the Hindu for the more attractive magnificence of the ghâts. Consequently the descending flights of which we are now speaking, have often been more elaborate and expensive pieces of architecture than any of the buildings above-ground found in their vicinity.”—Fergusson, Indian and Eastern Architecture, 486.