Chapter RANEE to REGULATION of R by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

RANEE to REGULATION

RANEE, s. A Hindu queen; rni, fem. of raja, from Skt. rajni (= regina).

1673.—“Bedmure (Bednur)…is the Capital City, the Residence of the Ranna, the Relict of Sham Shunker Naig.”—Fryer, 162.

1809.—“The young Rannie may marry whomsoever she pleases.”—Lord Valentia, i. 364.

1879.—“There were once a Raja and a Ráné who had an only daughter.”—Miss Stokes, Indian Fairy Tales, 1.

RANGOON, n.p. Burm. Ran-gun, said to mean ‘War-end’; the chief town and port of Pegu. The great Pagoda in its immediate neighbourhood had long been famous under the name of Dagon (q.v.), but there was no town in modern times till Rangoon was founded by Alompra during his conquest of Pegu, in 1755. The name probably had some kind of intentional assonance to Da-gun, whilst it “proclaimed his forecast of the immediate destruction of his enemies.” Occupied by the British forces in May 1824, and again, taken by storm, in 1852, Rangoon has since the latter date been the capital, first of the British province of Pegu, and latterly of British Burma. It is now a flourishing port with a population of 134,176 (1881); [in 1891, 180,324].

RANJOW, s. A Malay term, ran-jau. Sharp-pointed stakes of bamboo of varying lengths stuck in the ground to penetrate the naked feet or body of an enemy. See Marsden, H. of Sumatra, 2nd ed., 276. [The same thing on the Assam frontier is called a poee (Lewin, Wild Races, 308), or panji (Sanderson, Thirteen Years, 233).]

RASEED, s. Hind. rasid. A native corruption of the English ‘receipt,’ shaped, probably, by the Pers. rasida, ‘arrived’; viz. an acknowledgment that a thing has ‘come to hand.’

1877.—“There is no Sindi, however wild, that cannot now understand ‘Rasíd’ (receipt), and ‘Apíl’ (appeal).”—Burton, Sind Revisited, i. 282.

RAT-BIRD, s. The striated bush-babbler (Chattarhoea caudata, Dumeril); see Tribes on My Frontier, 1883, p. 3.

RATTAN, s. The long stem of various species of Asiatic climbing palms, belonging to the genus Calamus and its allies, of which canes are made (not ‘bamboo-canes,’ improperly so called), and which, when split, are used to form the seats of cane-bottomed chairs and the like. From Malay rotan, [which Crawfurd derives from rawat, ‘to pare or trim’], applied to various species of Calamus and Daemonorops (see Filet, No. 696 et seq.). So me of these attain a length of several hundred feet, and are used in the Himalaya and the Kasia Hills for making suspension bridges, &c., rivalling rope in strength.

1511.—“The Governor set out from Malaca in the beginning of December, of this year, and sailed along the coast of Pedir…. He met with such a contrary gale that he was obliged to anchor, which he did with a great anchor, and a cable of rótas, which are slender but tough canes, which they twist and make into strong cables.”—Correa, Lendas, ii. 269.

1563.—“They took thick ropes of rotas (which are made of certain twigs which are very flexible) and cast them round the feet, and others round the tusks.”—Garcia, f. 90.

1598.—“There is another sorte of the same reedes which they call Rota: these are thinne like twigges of Willow for baskets…”—Linschoten, 28; [Hak. Soc. i. 97].

c. 1610.—“Il y a vne autre sorte de canne qui ne vient iamais plus grosse que le petit doigt…et il ploye comme osier. Ils l’appellent Rotan. Ils en font des cables de nauire, et quantité de sortes de paniers gentiment entre lassez.”—Pyrard de Laval, i. 237; [Hak. Soc. i. 331, and see i. 207].

1673.—“…The Materials Wood and Plaister, beautified without with folding windows, made of Wood and latticed with Rattans….”—Fryer, 27.

1844.—“In the deep vallies of the south the vegetation is most abundant and various. Amongst the most conspicuous species are…the rattan winding from trunk to trunk and shooting his pointed head above all his neighbours.”—Notes on the Kasia Hills and People, in J.A.S.B. vol. xiii. pt. ii. 615.

RAVINE-DEER. The sportsman’s name, at least in Upper India, for the Indian gazelle (Gazella Bennettii, Jerdon, [Blanford, Mammalia, 526 seqq.]).