Chapter CALEEOON to CALPUTTEE of C by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

i. 241 note) gives koli, ‘fowl,’ and kottu, ‘corner or empty space,’ or kotta, ‘a fort.’ There was a legend, of the Dido type, that all the space within cock-crow was once granted to the Zamorin.]

c. 1343.—“We proceeded from Fandaraina to Kalikut, one of the chief ports of Mulibar. The people of Chin, of Java, of Sailan, of Mahal (Maldives), of Yemen, and Fars frequent it, and the traders of different regions meet there. Its port is among the greatest in the world.”—Ibn Batuta, iv. 89.

c. 1430.—“Collicuthiam deinceps petiit, urbem maritimam, octo millibus passuum ambitu, nobile totius Indiae emporium, pipere, lacca, gingibere, cinnamomo crassiore,¹ kebulis, zedoaria fertilis.”—Conti, in Poggius, De Var. Fortunae.

1442.—“Calicut is a perfectly secure harbour, which like that of Ormuz brings together merchants from every city and from every country.”—Abdurrazzak, in India in XVth Cent., p. 13.

c. 1475.—“Calecut is a port for the whole Indian sea.… The country produces pepper, ginger, colour plants, muscat [nutmeg?], cloves, cinnamon, aromatic roots, adrach [green ginger] … and everything is cheap, and servants and maids are very good.”—Ath. Nikitin., ibid. p. 20.

1498.—“We departed thence, with the pilot whom the king gave us, for a city which is called Qualecut.”—Roteiro de V. da Gama, 49.

1572.—

“Já fóra de tormenta, e dos primeiros
Mares, o temor vão do peito voa;
Disse alegre o Piloto Melindano,
‘Terra he de Calecut, se não me engano.’ ”

Camões, vi. 92.

By Burton:

“now, ’scaped the tempest and the first sea-dread,
fled from each bosom terrors vain, and cried
the Melindanian Pilot in delight,
‘Calecut-land, if aught I see aright!’ ”

1616.—“Of that wool they make divers sorts of Callico, which had that name (as I suppose) from Callicutts, not far from Goa, where that kind of cloth was first bought by the Portuguese.”—Terry, in Purchas. [In ed. 1777, p. 105, Callicute.]

CALINGULA, s. A sluice or escape. Tam. kalingal; much used in reports of irrigation works in S. India. [1883.—“Much has been done in the way of providing sluices for minor channels of supply, and calingulahs, or water weirs for surplus vents.”—Venkasami Row, Man. of Tanjore, p. 332.]

CALPUTTEE, s. A caulker; also the process of caulking; H. and Beng. kalapatti and kalapatti, and these no doubt from the Port. calafate. But this again is oriental in origin, from the Arabic kalafat, the ‘process of caulking.’ It is true that Dozy (see p. 376) and also Jal (see his Index, ii. 589) doubt the last derivation, and are disposed to connect the Portuguese and Spanish words, and the Italian calafattare, &c., with the Latin calefacere, a view which M. Marcel Devic rejects. The latter word would apply well enough to the process of pitching a vessel as practised in the Mediterranean, where we have seen the vessel careened over, and a great fire of thorns kindled under it to keep the pitch fluid. But caulking is not pitching; and when both form and meaning correspond so exactly, and when we know so many other marine terms in the Mediterranean to have been taken from the Arabic, there does not seem to be room for reasonable doubt in this case. The Emperor Michael V. (A.D. 1041) was called [Greek Text] kalafathz because he was the son of a caulker (see Ducange, Gloss. Graec., who quotes Zonaras).

1554.—(At Mozambique) … “To two calafattes … of the said brigantines, at the rate annually of 20,000 reis each, with 9000 reis each for maintenance and 6 measures of millet to each, of which no count is taken.”—Simão Botelho, Tombo, 11.

c. 1620.—“S’il estoit besoin de calfader le Vaisseau … on y auroit beaucoup de peine dans ce Port, principalement si on est constraint de se seruir des Charpentiers et des Calfadeurs du Pays; parce qu’ils dependent tous du Gouverneur de Bombain.” —Routier … des Indes Orient., par Aleixo da Motta, in Thevenot’s Collection.

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