Chapter COTIA to COUNTRY of C by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

Camões, vii. 44.

By Burton:

“There stood a Regent of the Realm ashore, a chief, in native parlance ‘Cat’ual’ hight.”

also the plural:

“Mas aquelles avaros Catuais
Que o Gentilico povo governavam.”

Ibid. viii. 56.

1616.—Roe has Cutwall passim; [e.g. Hak. Soc. i. 90. &c.].

1727.—“Mr. Boucher being bred a Druggist in his youth, presently knew the Poison, and carried it to the Cautwaul or Sheriff, and showed it.”—A. Hamilton, ii. 199. [In ed. 1744, ii. 199, cautwal].

1763.—“The Catwal is the judge and executor of justice in criminal cases.”—Orme (ed. 1803), i. 26.

1812.—“…an officer retained from the former system, denominated cutwal, to whom the general police of the city and regulation of the market was entrusted.”—Fifth Report, 44.

1847.—“The Kutwal…seems to have done his duty resolutely and to the best of his judgment.”—G. O. by Sir C. Napier, 121.

[1880.—“The son of the Raja’s Kotwal was the prince’s great friend.”—Miss Stokes, Indian Fairy Tales, 209.]

COUNSILLEE, s. This is the title by which the natives in Calcutta generally designate English barristers. It is the same use as the Irish one of Counsellor, and a corruption of that word.

COUNTRY, adj. This term is used colloquially, and in trade, as an adjective to distinguish articles produced in India (generally with a sub-indication of disparagement), from such as are imported, and especially imported from Europe. Indeed Europe (q.v.) was, and still occasionally is, used as the contrary adjective. Thus, ‘country harness’ is opposed to ‘Europe harness’; ‘country-born’ people are persons of European descent, but born in India; ‘country horses’ are Indian-bred in distinction from Arabs, Walers (q.v.), English horses, and even from ‘stud-breds,’ which are horses reared in India, but from foreign sires; ‘country ships’ are those which are owned in Indian ports, though often officered by Europeans; country bottled beer is beer imported from England in cask and bottled in India; [‘country-wound’ silk is that reeled in the crude native fashion] The term, as well as the H. desi, of which country is a translation, is also especially used for things grown or made in India as substitutes for certain foreign articles. Thus the Cicca disticha in Bombay gardens is called ‘Country gooseberry’; Convolvulus batatas, or sweet potato, is sometimes called the ‘country potato.’ It was, equally with our quotidian root which has stolen its name, a foreigner in India, but was introduced and familiarised at a much earlier date. Thus again desi badam, or ‘country almond,’ is applied in Bengal to the nut of the Terminalia Catappa. On desi, which is applied, among other things, to silk, the great Ritter (dormitans Homerus) makes the odd remark that desi is just Seide reversed! But it would be equally apposite to remark that Trigon-ometry is just Country- ometry reversed!
Possibly the idiom may have been taken up from the Portuguese, who also use it, e.g. ‘açafrao da terra,’ ‘country saffron,’ i.e. safflower, otherwise called bastard saffron, the term being sometimes applied to turmeric. But the source of the idiom is general, as the use of desi shows. Moreover the Arabic baladi, having the same literal meaning, is applied in a manner strictly analogous, including the note of disparagement, insomuch that it has been naturalised in Spanish as indicating ‘of little or no value.’ Illustrations of the mercantile use of beledi (i.e. baladi) will be found in a note to Marco Polo, 2nd ed. ii. 370. For the Spanish use we may quote the Dict. of Cobarruvias (1611): “Baladi, the thing which is produced at less cost, and is of small duration and profit.” (See also Dozy and Engelmann, 232 seq.)

1516.—“Beledyn ginger grows at a distance of two or three leagues all round the city of Calicut.…In Bengal there is also much ginger of the country (Gengivre Beledi).”—Barbosa, 221 seq.

[1530.—“I at once sent some of these country men (homeens valadis) to the Thanas.”—Alboquerque, Cartas, p. 148.]

1582.—“The Nayres maye not take anye Countrie women, and they also doe not marrie.”—Castañeda, (by N. L.), f. 36.

[1608.—“The Country here are at dissension among themselves.”—Danvers, Letters, i. 20.]

1619.—“The twelfth in the morning Master Methwold came from Messalipatam in one of the Countrey Boats.”—Pring, in Purchas, i. 638.

1685.—“The inhabitants of the Gentoo Town, all in arms, bringing with them also elephants, kettle-drums, and all the Country music.”—Wheeler, i. 140.

1747.—“It is resolved and ordered that a Serjeant with two Troopers and a Party of Country House, to be sent to Markisnah Puram to patroll.…”—Ft. St. David Council of War, Dec. 25. MS. Records in India Office.

1752.—“Captain Clive did not despair…and at ten at night sent one Shawlum, a serjeant