Chapter COIMBATORE to COLEROON of C by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

Hodges Shaughsware, the chiefest servant to the King of Persia for twenty years. …”—Inscription on the tomb of “Coya Shawsware, a Persin in St. Botolph’s Churchyard, Bishops-gate,” New View of London, p. 169.]

1786.—“I also beg to acquaint you I sent for Retafit Ali Khân, the Cojah who has the charge of (the women of Oudh Zenanah) who informs me it is well grounded that they have sold everything they had, even the clothes from their backs, and now have no means to subsist.”—Capt. Jaques in Articles of Charge, &c., Burke, vii. 27.

1838.—“About a century back Khan Khojah, a Mohamedan ruler of Kashghar and Yarkand, eminent for his sanctity, having been driven from his dominions by the Chinese, took shelter in Badakhshan.”— Wood’s Oxus, ed. 1872, p. 161.

COLAO, s. Chin. koh-lao. ‘Council Chamber Elders’ (Bp. Moule). A title for a Chinese Minister of State, which frequently occurs in the Jesuit writers of the 17th century.

COLEROON, n.p. The chief mouth, or delta-branch, of the Kaveri River (see CAUVERY). It is a Portuguese corruption of the proper name Kôllidam, vulg. Kolladam. This name, from Tam. kôl, ‘to receive,’ and ‘idam,’ ‘place,’ perhaps answers to th e fact of this channel having been originally an escape formed at the construction of the great Tanjo re irrigation works in the 11th century. In full flood the Coleroon is now, in places, nearly a mile wide, whilst the original stream of the Kaveri disappears before reaching the sea. Besides the etymology and the tradition, the absence of notice of the Coleroon in Ptolemy’s Tables is (quantum valeat) an indication of its modern origin. As the sudden rise of floods in the rivers of the Coromandel coast often causes fatal accidents, there seems a curious popular tendency to connect the names of the rivers with this fact. Thus Kôllidam, with the meaning that has been explained, has been commonly made into Kollidam, ‘Killing-place.’ [So the Madras Gloss. which connects the name with a tradition of the drowning of workmen when the Srirangam temple was built, but elsewhere (ii. 213) it is derived from Tam. kollayi, ‘a breach in a bank.’] Thus also the two rivers Pennar are popularly connected with pinam, ‘corpse.’ Fra Paolino gives the name as properly Colárru, and as meaning ‘the River of Wild Boars.’ But his etymologies are often wild as the supposed Boars.

1553.—De Barros writes Coloran, and speaks of it as a place (lugar) on the coast, not as a river.—Dec. I. liv. ix. cap. 1.

1672.—“From Trangebar one passes by Trinilivaas to Colderon; here a Sandbank stretches into the sea which is very dangerous.”—Baldaeus, 150. (He does not speak of it as a River either.)

c. 1713.—“Les deux Princes … se liguèrent contre l’ennemi commun, à fin de le contraindre par la force des armes à rompre une digue si préjudiciable à leurs Etats. Ils faisoient déjà de grands preparatifs, lorsque le fleuve Coloran vengea par lui-même (comme on s’exprimoit ici) l’affront que le Roi faisoit a ses eaux en les retenant captives.”—Lettres Edifiantes, ed. 1781, xi. 180.

1753.—“… en doublant le Cap Callamedu, jusqu’à la branche du fleuve Caveri qui porte le nom de Colh-ram, et dont l’embouchure est la plus septentrionale de celles du Caveri.”—D’Anville, 115.

c. 1760.—“… the same river being written Collarum by M. la Croze, and Collodham by Mr. Ziegenbalg.”—Grose, i. 281.

1761.—“Clive dislodged a strong body of the Nabob’s troops, who had taken post at Sameavarem, a fort and temple situated on the river Kalderon.”—Complete H. of the War in India, from 1749 to 1761 (Tract), p. 12.

1780.—“About 3 leagues north from the river Triminious [?Tirumullavasel], is that of Coloran. Mr. Michelson calls this river Danecotta.”—Dunn, N. Directory, 138.

The same book has “Coloran or Colderoon.”

1785.—“Sundah Saheb having thrown some of his wretched infantry into a temple, fortified according to the Indian method, upon the river Kaldaron, Mr. Clive knew there was no danger in investing it.”— Carraccioli’s Life of Clive, i. 20.