Chapter GALEE to GALLEGALLE of G by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

GALEE to GALLEGALLE

GALEE, s. H. gali, abuse; bad language.

[1813.—“… the grossest galee, or abuse, resounded throughout the camp.”—Broughton; Letters from a Mahr. Camp., ed. 1892, p. 205.

[1877.—“You provoke me to give you gali (abuse), and then you cry out like a neglected wife.”—Allardyce, The City of Sunshine, ii. 2.]

GALLEECE, s. Domestic Hindustani galis, ‘a pair of braces,’ from the old-fashioned gallows, now obsolete, except in Scotland, [S. Ireland and U.S.,] where the from is gallowses.

GALLE, POINT DE, n.p. A rocky cape, covering a small harbour and a town with old fortifications, in the S.W. of Ceylon, familiar to all Anglo-Indians for many years as a coaling-place of mail-steamers. The Portuguese gave the town for crest a cock (Gallo), a legitimate pun. The serious derivations of the name are numerous. Pridham says that it is Galla, ‘a Rock,’ which is probable. But Chitty says it means ‘a Pound,’ and was so called according to the Malabars (i.e. Tamil people) from “… this part of the country having been anciently set aside by Ravana for the breeding of his cattle” (Ceylon Gazetteer, 1832, p. 92). Tennent again says it was called after a tribe, the Gallas, inhabiting the neighbouring district (see ii. 105, &c.). [Prof. Childers (5 ser. Notes & Queries, iii. 155) writes: “In Sinhalese it is Galla, the etymology of which is unknown; but in any case it can have nothing to do with ‘rock,’ the Sinhalese for which is gala with a short a and a single l.”] Tennent has been entirely misled by Reinaud in supposing that Galle could be the Kala of the old Arab voyages to China, a port which certainly lay in the Malay seas. (See CALAY.)

1518.—“He tried to make the port of Columbo, before which he arrived in 3 days, but he could not make it because the wind was contrary, so he tacked about for 4 days till he made the port of Galle, which is in the south part of the island, and entered it with his whole squadron; and then our people went ashore killing cows and plundering whatever they could find.”—Correa, ii. 540.

1553.—“In which Island they (the Chinese), as the natives say, left a language which they call Chingálla, and the people themselves Chingállas, particularly those who dwell from Ponta de Gálle onwards, facing the south and east. For adjoining that point they founded a City called Tanabaré (see DONDERA HEAD), of which a large part still stands; and from being hard by that Cape of Gálle, the rest of the people, who dwelt from the middle of the Island upwards, called the inhabitants of this part Chingálla, and their language the same, as if they would say language or people of the Chins of Gálle.”—Barros, III. ii. cap. 1. (This is, of course, all fanciful.)

[1554.—“He went to the port of Gabaliquama, which our people now call Porto de Gale.”—Castanheda, ii. ch. 23.]

c. 1568.—“Il piotta s’ingannò per ciochè il Capo di Galli dell’ Isola di Seilan butta assai in mare.”—Cesare de’ Federici, in Ramusio, iii. 396v.

1585.—“Dopo haver nauigato tre giorni senza veder terra, al primo di Maggio fummo in vista di Punta di Gallo, laquale è assai pericolosa da costeggiare.”—G. Balbi, f. 19.

1661.—“Die Stadt Punto-Gale ist im Jahr 1640 vermittelst Gottes gnadigem Seegen durch die Tapferkeit des Commandanten Jacob Koster den Neiderländen zu teil geworden.”—W. Schulze, 190.

1691.—“We passed by Cape Comoryn, and came to Puntogale.”—Valentijn, ii. 540.

GALLEGALLE, s. A mixture of lime and linseed oil, forming a kind of mortar impenetrable to water (Shakespear), Hind. galgal.

1621.—“Also the justis, Taccomon Done, sent us word to geve ouer making gallegalle in our howse we hired of China Capt., because the white lyme did trowble the player or singing man, next neighbour.…” —Cocks’s Diary, ii. 190.