Chapter HOOLY to HORSE-RADISH TREE of H by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

aps.”—Pandurang Hari, ed. 1873, i. 81.]

1860.—“Appas (called hoppers by the English) … supply their morning repast.” —Tennent’s Ceylon, ii. 161.

HOPPO, s. The Chinese Superintendent of Customs at Canton. Giles says: “The term is said to be a corruption of Hoo poo, the Board of Revenue, with which office the Hoppo, or Collector of duties, is in direct communication.” Dr. Williams gives a different account (see below). Neither affords much satisfaction. [The N.E.D. accepts the account given in the quotation from Williams.]

1711.—“The Hoppos, who look on Europe Ships as a great Branch of their Profits, will give you all the fair words imaginable.” —Lockyer, 101.

1727.—“I have staid about a Week, and found no Merchants come near me, which made me suspect, that there were some underhand dealings between the Hapoa and his Chaps, to my Prejudice.”—A. Hamilton, ii. 228; [ed. 1744, ii. 227]. (See also under HONG.)

1743.—“… just as he (Mr. Anson) was ready to embark, the Hoppo or Chinese Custom-house officer of Macao refused to grant a permit to the boat.”—Anson’s Voyage, 9th ed. 1756, p. 355.

1750-52.—“The hoppo, happa, or first inspector of customs … came to see us to-day.”—Osbeck, i. 359.

1782.—“La charge d’Opeou répond à celle d’intendant de province.”—Sonnerat, ii. 236.

1797.—“… the Hoppo or mandarine more immediately connected with Europeans.”—Sir G. Staunton, i. 239.

1842 (?).—“The term hoppo is confined to Canton, and is a corruption of the term hoi-po-sho, the name of the officer who has control over the boats on the river, strangely applied to the Collector of Customs by foreigners.”—Wells Williams, Chinese Commercial Guide, 221.

[1878.—“The second board or tribunal is named hoopoo, and to it is entrusted the care and keeping of the imperial revenue.” —Gray, China, i. 19.]

1882.—“It may be as well to mention here that the ‘Hoppo’ (as he was incorrectly styled) filled an office especially created for the foreign trade at Canton. … The Board of Revenue is in Chinese ‘Hoo-poo,’ and the office was locally misapplied to the officer in question.”—The Fankwae at Canton, p. 36.

HORSE-KEEPER, s. An old provincial English term, used in the Madras Presidency and in Ceylon, for ‘groom.’ The usual corresponding words are, in N. India, syce (q.v.), and in Bombay ghorawala (see GORAWALLAH).

1555.—“There in the reste of the Cophine made for the nones thei bewrie one of his dierest lemmans, a waityng manne, a Cooke, a Horse-keeper, a Lacquie, a Butler, and a Horse, whiche thei al at first strangle, and thruste in.”—W. Watreman, Fardle of Faciouns, N. I.

1609.—“Watermen, Lackeyes, Horsekeepers.”—Hawkins, in Purchas, i. 216.

1673.—“On St. George’s Day I was commanded by the Honourable Gerald Aungier … to embarque on a Bombaim Boat … waited on by two of the Governor’s servants … an Horsekeeper. …”—Fryer, 123.

1698.—“… followed by his boy … and his horsekeeper.”—In Wheeler, i. 300.

1829.—“In my English buggy, with lamps lighted and an English sort of a nag, I might almost have fancied myself in England, but for the black horse-keeper alongside of me.” —Mem. of Col. Mountain, 87.

1837.—“Even my horse pretends he is too fine to switch off his own flies with his own long tail, but turns his head round to order the horsekeeper … to wipe them off for him.”—Letters from Madras, 50.

HORSE-RADISH TREE, s. This is a common name, in both N. and S. India, for the tree called in Hind. sahajna; Moringa pterygosperma, Gaertn., Hyperanthera Moringa, Vahl. (N. O. Moringaceae), in Skt. sobhanjana. Sir G. Birdwood says: “A marvellous tree botanically, as no one knows in what order to put it; it has links with so many; and it is evidently a ‘head-centre’ in the progressive development of forms.” The name is given because the scraped root is used in place of horse-radish, which it closely resembles in flavour. In S. India the same plant is called the Drumstick - tree (q.v.), from the shape of the long slender fruit, which is used as a vegetable, or in curry, or made into a native pickle “most nauseous to Europeans” (Punjab Plants). It is a native of N.W. India, and also extensively cultivated in India and other tropical countries, and is used also for many purposes in the native pharmacopœia. [See MYROBALAN.]