Chapter JAVA-RADISH to JEMADAR of J by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

by a post of support called ‘Moir’s Picket’ … covered by a wide expanse of jheel, or lake, resulting from the rainy season. Foreseeing the probable drying up of the water, Lieut. Hutchinson, by a clever inspiration, marched all the transport elephants through and through the lake, and when the water disappeared, the dried clay-bed, pierced into a honey-combed surface of circular holes a foot in diameter and two or more feet deep, became a better protection against either cavalry or infantry than the water had been.…”—Letter to Lt.-Col. P. R. Innes from F. M. Lord Napier of Magdala, dd. April 15.

Jeel and bheel are both applied to the artificial lakes in Central India and Bundelkhand.

JEETUL, s. Hind. jital. A very old Indian denomination of copper coin, now entirely obsolete. It long survived on the western coast, and the name was used by the Portuguese for one of their small copper coins in the forms ceitils and zoitoles. It is doubtful, however, if ceitil is the same word. At least there is a medieval Portuguese coin called ceitil and ceptil (see Fernandes, in Memorias da Academia Real das Sciencias de Lisboa, 2da Classe, 1856); this may have got confounded with the Indian Jital. The jital of the Delhi coinage of Ala-ud-din (c. 1300) was, according to Mr. E. Thomas’s calculations, 1/64 of the silver tanga, the coin called in later days the rupee. It was therefore just the equivalent of our modern pice. But of course, like most modern denominations of coin, it has varied greatly.

c. 1193–4.—“According to Kut b-ud-Din’s command, Nizam-ud-Din Mohammad, on his return, brought them [the two slaves] along with him to the capital, Dihli; and Malik Kutb-ud-Din purchased both the Turks for the sum of 100,000 jitals.”—Raverty, Tabakat-i-Nasiri, p. 603.

c. 1290.—“In the same year … there was dearth in Dehli, and grain rose to a jital per sír (see SEER).”—Ziáh-ud-dín Barní, in Elliot, iii. 146.

c. 1340.—“The dirhem sultani is worth 1/3 of the dirhem shashtani … and is worth 3 fals, whilst the jital is worth 4 fals; and the dirhem hashtkani, which is exactly the silver dirhem of Egypt and Syria, is worth 32 fals.”—Shihabuddin, in Notices et Extraits, xiii. 212.

1554.—In Sunda. “The cash (caixas) here go 120 to the tanga of silver; the which caixas are a copper money larger than ceitils, and pierced in the middle, which they say have come from China for many years, and the whole place is full of them.”—A. Nunes, 42.

c. 1590.—“For the purpose of calculation the dam is divided into 25 parts, each of which is called a jétal. This imaginary division is only used by accountants.”—Ain, ed. Blochmann, i. 31.

1678.—“48 Juttals, 1 Pagod, an Imaginary Coin.”—Fryer (at Surat), 206.

c. 1750–60.—“At Carwar 6 pices make the juttal, and 48 juttals a Pagoda.”—Grose, i. 282.

JEHAUD, s. Ar. jihad, [‘an effort, a striving’]; then a sacred war of Musulmans against the infidel; which Sir Herbert Edwardes called, not very neatly, ‘a crescentade.’

[c. 630 A.D.—“Make war upon such of those to whom the Scriptures have been given who believe not in God, or in the last day, and who forbid not that which God and his Prophet have forbidden, and who profess not the profession of the truth, until they pay tribute (jizyah) out of hand, and they be humbled.”—Koran, Surah ix. 29.]

1880.—“When the Athenians invaded Ephesus, towards the end of the Peloponnesian War, Tissaphernes offered a mighty sacrifice at Artemis, and raised the people in a sort of Jehad, or holy war, for her defence.”—Sat. Review, July 17, 84b.

[1901.—“The matter has now assumed the aspect of a ‘Schad,’ or holy war against Christianity.”—Times, April 4.]

JELAUBEE, s. Hind. jalebi, [which is apparently a corruption of the Ar. zalabiya, P. zalibiya]. A rich sweetmeat made of sugar and ghee, with a little flour, melted and trickled into a pan so as to form a kind of interlaced work, when baked.

[1870.—“The poison is said to have been given once in sweetmeats, Jelabees.”—Chevers, Med. Jurisp. 178.]

JELLY, s. In South India this is applied to vitrified brick refuse used as metal for roads. [The Madras Gloss. gives it as a synonym for kunkur.] It would appear from a remark of C. P. Brown (MS. notes) to be Telugu zalli, Tam. shalli, which means properly ‘shivers, bits, pieces.’ [1868.—“… anicuts in some instances coated over the crown with jelly in chunam.”—Nelson, Man. of Madura, Pt. v. 53.]