Chapter CREDERE to CROW-PHEASANT of C by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

of rupees…in procuring amusement, he had never found one so pleasing to him.”—Teignmouth, Mem. i. 407.

1879.—

“ ‘Tell me what lies beyond our brazen gates.’
Then one replied, ‘The city first, fair Prince!
And next King Bimbasâra’s realm, and then
The vast flat world with crores on crores of folk.’ ”

Sir E. Arnold, The Light of Asia, iii.

[CRORI, s. “The possessor or collector of a kror, or ten millions, of any given kind of money; it was especially applied as an official designation, under the Mohammedan government, to a collector of revenue to the extent of a kror of dams, or 250,000 rupees, who was also at various times invested with the general superintendence of the lands in his district, and the charge of the police.” (Wilson.)

[c. 1590.—See quotation under CRORE.

[1675.—“Nor does this exempt them from pishcashing the Nabob’s Crewry or Governour:”—Yule, Hedges’ Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. ccxxxix.]

[CROTCHEY, KURACHEE, properly Karachi, the sea-port and chief town of the province of Sind, which is a creation of the British rule, no town appearing to have existed on the site before 1725. In As Suyuti’s History of the Caliphs (E.T. p. 229) the capture of Kirakh or Kiraj is mentioned. Sir H. M. Elliot thinks that this place was probably situated in if not named from Kachh. Jarrett (Ain, ii. 344, note) supposes this to be Karachi, which Elliot identified with the Krokala of Arrian. H ere, according to Curtius, dwelt the Arabioi or Arabitai. The harbour of Karachi was possibly the Portus Alexandri, where Nearchus was detained by the monsoon for twenty-four days (see McCrindle, Ancient India, 167, 262).

[1812.—“From Crotchey to Cape Monze the people call themselves Balouches.”—Morier, Journey through Persia, p. 5.

[1839.—“…spices of all kinds, which are carried from Bombay…to Koratchee or other ports in Sind.”—Elphinstone’s Caubul, i. 384.]

CROW-PHEASANT, s. The popular Anglo-Indian name of a somewhat ignoble bird (Fam. Cuculidae), common all over the plains of India, in Burma, and the Islands, viz. Centropus rufipennis, Illiger. It is held in India to give omens.

1878.—“The crow-pheasant stalks past with his chestnut wings drooping by his side.”—Phil. Robinson, In My Indian Garden, 7.

1883.—“There is that ungainly object the coucal, crow-pheasant, jungle-crow, or whatever else you like to call the miscellaneous thing, as it clambers through a creeper-laden bush or spreads its reddish-bay wings and makes a slow voyage to the next tree. To judge by its appearance only it might be a crow developing for a peacock, but its voice seems to have been borrowed from a black-faced monkey.”—Tribes on my Frontier, 155.