Chapter HUCK to HYSON of H by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

from the Mahratta country, and are of the coombie or agricultural caste.”—Maria Graham, 2.

1813.—For Hamauls at Bussora, see Milburn, i. 126.

1840.—“The hamals groaned under the weight of their precious load, the Apostle of the Ganges” (Dr. Duff to wit).—Smith’s Life of Dr. John Wilson, 1878, p. 282.

1877.—“The ‘stately iron gate enclosing the front garden of the Russian Embassy was beset by a motley crowd. … Hamals, or street porters, bent double under the burden of heavy trunks and boxes, would come now and then up one or other of the two semicircular avenues.”—Letter from Constantinople, in Times, May 7.

HUMMING-BIRD, s. This name is popularly applied in some parts of India to the sun-birds (sub-fam. Nectarininae).

HUMP, s. ‘Calcutta humps’ are the salted humps of Indian oxen exported from that city. (See under BUFFALO.)

HURCARRA, HIRCARA, &c., s. Hind. harkara, ‘a messenger, a courier; an emissary, a spy’ (Wilson). The etymology, according to the same authority, is har, ‘every,’ kar, ‘business.’ The word became very familiar in the Gilchristian spelling Hurkaru, from the existence of a Calcutta newspaper bearing that title (Bengal Hurkaru, generally enunciated by non-Indians as Hurkêroó), for the first 60 years of last century, or thereabouts.

1747.—“Given to the Ircaras for bringing news of the Engagement. (Pag.) 4 3 0.”— Fort St David, Expenses of the Paymaster, under January. MS. Records in India Office.

1748.—“The city of Dacca is in the utmost confusion on account of … advices of a large force of Mahrattas coming by way of the Sunderbunds, and that they were advanced as far as Sundra Col, when first descried by their Hurcurrahs.”—In Long, 4.

1757.—“I beg you to send me a good alcara who understands the Portuguese language.”—Letter in Ives, 159.

„ “Hircars or Spies.”—Ibid. 161; [and comp. 67].

1761.—“The head Harcar returned, and told me this as well as several other secrets very useful to me, which I got from him by dint of money and some rum.”—Letter of Capt. Martin White, in Long, 260.

[1772.—“Hercarras.” (See under DALOVET.)]

1780.—“One day upon the march a Hircarrah came up and delivered him a letter from Colonel Baillie.”—Letter of T. Munro, in Life, i. 26.

1803.—“The hircarras reported the enemy to be at Bokerdun.”—Letter of A. Wellesley, ibid. 348.

c. 1810.—“We were met at the entrance of Tippoo’s dominions by four hircarrahs, or soldiers, whom the Sultan sent as a guard to conduct us safely.”—Miss Edgeworth, Lame Jervas. Miss Edgeworth has oddly misused the word here.

1813.—“The contrivances of the native halcarrahs and spies to conceal a letter are extremely clever, and the measures they frequently adopt to elude the vigilance of an enemy are equally extraordinary.”— Forbes, Or. Mem. iv. 129; [compare 2nd ed. i. 64; ii. 201].

HURTAUL, s. Hind. from Skt. haritalaka, hartal, harital, yellow arsenic, orpiment.

c. 1347.—Ibn Batuta seems oddly to confound it with camphor. “The best (camphor) called in the country itself al-hardala, is that which attains the highest degree of cold.”—iv. 241.

c. 1759.—“… hartal and Cotch, Earth-Oil and Wood-Oil.…”—List of Burmese Products, in Dalrymple’s Or. Reper. i. 109.

HUZRA, n.p. This name has two quite distinct uses.

(a.) Pers. Hazara. It is used as a generic name for a number of tribes occupying some of the wildest parts of Afghanistan, chiefly N.W. and S W. of Kabul. These tribes are in no respect Afghan, but are in fact most or all of them Mongol in features, and some of them also in language. The term at one time appears to have been used more generally for a variety of the wilder clans in the higher hill countries of Afghanistan and the Oxus basin, much as in Scotland of a century and a half ago they spoke of “the clans.” It appears to be merely from the Pers. hazar, 1000. The regiments, so to speak, of the Mongol hosts of Chinghiz and his immediate successors were called hazaras, and if we accept the belief that the Hazaras of Afghanistan were predatory bands of those hosts who settled in that region (in favour of which there is a good deal to be said), this name is intelligible. If so, its application to the non-Mongol people of Wakhan, &c., must have been a later transfer. [See the discussion by Bellew, who points out that “amongst themselves this people never use the term Hazarah as their national appellation, and yet they have no name for their people as a nation. They are only