Chapter a. GOUR to GRAM of G by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

from Malacca to Pulo Timoan through Governor’s Straits, commonly called the Straits of Sincapour.”—Dunn’s N. Directory, 5th ed. p. 474. See also Lettres Edif., 1st ed. ii. 118.

1841.—“Singapore Strait, called Governor Strait, or New Strait, by the French and Portuguese.”—Horsburgh, 5th ed. ii. 264.

GOW, GAOU, s. Dak. H. gau. An ancient measure of distance preserved in S. India and Ceylon. In the latter island, where the term still is in use, the gawwa is a measure of about 4 English miles. It is Pali gavuta, one quarter of a yojana, and that again is the Skt. gavyuti with the same meaning. There is in Molesworth’s Mahr. Dictionary, and in Wilson, a term gaukos (see COSS), ‘a land measure’ (for which read ‘distance measure’), the distance at which the lowing of a cow may be heard. This is doubtless a form of the same term as that under consideration, but the explanation is probably modern and incorrect. The yojana with which the gau is correlated, appears etymologically to be ‘a yoking,’ viz. “the stage, or distance to be gone in one harnessing without unyoking” (Williams); and the lengths attributed to it are very various, oscillating from 2½ to 9 miles, and even to 8 krosas (see COSS). The last valuation of the yojana would correspond with that of the gau at ¼.

c. 545.—“The great Island (Taprobane), according to what the natives say, has a length of 300 gaudia, and a breadth of the same, i.e. 900 miles.”—Cosmas Indicopleustes, (in Cathay, clxxvii.).

1623.—“From Garicota to Tumbre may be about a league and a half, for in that country distances are measured by gaù, and each gaù is about two leagues, and from Garicòta to Tumbre they said was not so much as a gaù of road.”—P. della Valle, ii. 638; [Hak. Soc. ii. 230].

1676.—“They measure the distances of places in India by Gos and Costes. A Gos is about 4 of our common leagues, and a Coste is one league.”—Tavernier, E.T. ii. 30; [ed. Ball, i. 47].

1860.—“A gaou in Ceylon expresses a somewhat indeterminate length, according to the nature of the ground to be traversed, a gaou across a mountainous country being less than one measured on level ground, and a gaou for a loaded cooley is also permitted to be shorter than for one unburthened, but on the whole the average may be taken under four miles.”—Tennent’s Ceylon, 4th ed. i. 467.

GRAB, s. This name, now almost obsolete, was applied to a kind of vessel which is constantly mentioned in the sea-and river-fights of India, from the arrival of the Portuguese down to near the end of the 18th century. That kind of etymology which works from inner consciousness would probably say: “This term has always been a puzzle to the English in India. The fact is that it was a kind of vessel much used by corsairs, who were said to grab all that passed the sea. Hence,” &c. But the real derivation is different.

The Rev. Howard Malcom, in a glossary attached to his Travels, defines it as “a square-rigged Arab vessel, having a projecting stern (stem?) and no bowsprit; it has two masts.” Probably the application of the term may have deviated variously in recent days. [See Bombay Gazetteer, xiii. pt. i. 348.] For thus again in Solvyns (Les Hindous, vol. i.) a grab is drawn and described as a ship with three masts, a sharp prow, and a bowsprit. But originally the word seems, beyond question, to have been an Arab name for a galley. The proper word is Arab, ghorab, ‘a raven,’ though adopted into Mahratti and Konkani as gurab Jal says, quoting Reinaud, that ghorab was the name given by the Moors to the true galley, and cites Hyde for the rationale of the name. We give Hyde’s words below. Amari, in a work quoted below (p. 397), points out the analogous corvetta as perhaps a transfer of ghurab:

1181.—“A vessel of our merchants…making sail for the city of Tripoli (which God protect) was driven by the winds on the shore of that country, and the crew being in want of water, landed to procure it, but the people of the place refused it unless some corn were sold to them. Meanwhile there came a ghurab from Tripoli…which took and plundered the crew, and seized all the goods on board the vessel.”¹—Arabic Letter from Ubaldo, Archbishop and other authorities of Pisa, to the Almohad Caliph Abu Yak’ub Yusuf, in Amari, Diplomi Arabi, p. 8.

The Latin contemporary version runs thus: “Cum quidam nostri cari cives de Siciliâ cum carico frumenti ad Tripolim venirent, tempestate maris et vi ventorum compulsi, ad portum dictum Macri devenerunt; ibique aquâ deficiente, et cum pro eâ auriendâ irent, Barbarosi non permiserunt eos…nisi prius eis de frumento venderent. Cumque inviti eis de frumento venderent galea vestra de Tripoli armata,” &c.—Ibid. p. 269.

c. 1200.—Ghurab, Cornix, Corvus, galea.

Galea, Ghurab, Gharban.—Vocabulista Arabico (from Riccardian Library),