[1900.—"Kamkwabs, or kimkhwabs (Kincob), are also known as zar-baft (gold-woven), and mushajjar (having patterns)."—Yusuf Ali, Mon. on Silk Fabrics, 86.]
ZILLAH, s. This word is properly Ar. (in Indian pron.) ẓila, 'a rib,' thence 'a side,' a district. It is the technical name for the administrative districts into which British India is divided, each of which has in the older provinces a Collector, or Collector and Magistrate combined, a Sessions Judge, &c., and in the newer provinces, such as the Punjab and B. Burma, a Deputy Commissioner.
[1772.—"With respect to the Talookdarrys and inconsiderable Zemindarrys, which formed a part of the Huzzoor (Huzoor) Zilahs or Districts which paid their rents immediately to the General Cutcherry at Moorshedabad...."—W. Hastings, in Hunter, Annals of Bengal, 4th ed., 388.]
1817.—"In each district, that is in the language of the country, each Zillah ... a Zillah Court was established."—Mill's Hist. v. 422.
ZINGARI, n.p. This is of course not Anglo-Indian, but the name applied in various countries of Europe, and in various modifications, zincari, zingani, zincali, chingari, zigeuner, &c., to the gypsies.
Various suggestions as to its derivation have been made on the supposition that it is of Indian origin. Borrow has explained the word as 'a person of mixt blood,' deriving it from the Skt. sankara, 'made up.' It is true that varṅa sankara is used for an admixture of castes and races (e.g. in Bhāgavad Gītā, i. 41, &c.), but it is not the name of any caste, nor would people to whom such an opprobrious epithet had been applied be likely to carry it with them to distant lands. A writer in the Saturday Review once suggested the Pers. zīngar, 'a saddler.' Not at all probable. In Sleeman's Ramaseeana or Vocabulary of the peculiar Language used by the Thugs (Calcutta, 1836), p. 85, we find:
"Chingaree, a class of Multani Thugs, sometimes called Naiks, of the Mussulman faith. They proceed on their expeditions in the character of Brinjaras, with cows and bullocks laden with merchandize, which they expose for sale at their encampments, and thereby attract their victims. They use the rope of their bullocks instead of the roomal in strangling. They are an ancient tribe of Thugs, and take their wives and children on their expeditions."
[These are the Chāngars of whom Mr. Ibbetson (Panjab Ethnog. 308) gives an account. A full description of them has been given by Dr. G. W. Leitner (A Sketch of the Changars and of their Dialect, Lahore, 1880), in which he shows reason to doubt any connection between them and the Zingari.] De Goeje (Contributions to the Hist. of the Gypsies) regards that people as the Indian Zoṭṭ (i.e. Jatt of Sind). He suggests as possible origins of the name first shikārī (see SHIKAREE), and then Pers. changī, 'harper,' from which a plural changān actually occurs in Lane's Arabian Nights, iii. 730, note 22. [These are the Al-Jink, male dancers (see Burton, Ar. Nights, viii. 18).]
If the name is to be derived from India, the term in Sleeman's Vocabulary seems a more probable origin than the others mentioned here. But is it not more likely that zingari, like Gipsy and Bohemian, would be a name given ab extra on their appearing in the West, and not carried with them from Asia?
ZIRBAD, n.p. Pers. zīr-bād, 'below the wind,' i.e. leeward. This is a phrase derived from nautical use, and applied to the countries eastward of India. It appears to be adopted with reference to the S.W. Monsoon. Thus by the extracts from the Mohit or 'Ocean' of Sidi 'Ali Kapudān (1554), translated by Joseph V. Hammer in the Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, we find that one chapter (unfortunately not given) treats "Of the Indian Islands above and below the wind." The islands "above the wind" were probably Ceylon, the Maldives, Socotra, &c., but we find no extract with precise indication of them. We find however indicated as the "tracts situated below the wind" Malacca, Sumatra, Tenasserim, Bengal, Martaban, Pegu. The phrase is one which naturally acquires a specific meaning among sea-faring folk, of which we have an instance in the Windward and Leeward Islands of the W. Indies. But probably it was adopted from the Malays, who make use of the same nomenclature, as the quotations show.
1442.—"The inhabitants of the sea coasts arrive here (at Ormuz) from the countries of Tchin, Java, Bengal, the cities of Zirbad."—Abdurrazzāk, in India in the XVth Cent. 6.
1553.—"... Before the foundation of Malaca, in this Cingapura ... met all the navigators of the seas to the West of India and of those to the East of it, which last embrace the regions of Siam, China, Choampa, Camboja, and the many thousand islands that lie in that Orient. And these two quarters the natives of the land distinguish as Dybananguim (di-bāwa-angīn) and Ataz Anguim (ātas-angīn) which are as much as to say 'below the winds' and 'above the winds,' below being West and above East."—Barros, Dec. II. Liv. vi. cap. i. In this passage De Barros goes unusually astray, for the use of the Malay expressions which he quotes, bawa-angin (or di-bawah) 'below the wind,' and ātas (or di-ātas) angīn, 'above the wind,' is just the reverse of his explanation, the former meaning the east, and the latter the west (see below).
c. 1590.—"Kalanbak (see CALAMBAK) is the wood of a tree brought from Zírbád (?)"—Āīn, i. 81. A mistaken explanation is given in the foot-note from a native authority, but this is corrected by Prof. Blochmann at p. 616.
1726.—"The Malayers are also commonly called Orang di Bawah Angin, or 'people beneath the wind,' otherwise Easterlings, as those of the West, and particularly the Arabs, are called Orang Atas Angin, or 'people above the wind,' and known as Westerlings."—Valentijn, v. 310.
" "The land of the Peninsula, &c., was called by the geographers Zierbaad, meaning in Persian 'beneath the wind.'"—Ibid. 317.
1856.—"There is a peculiar idiom of the Malay language, connected with the monsoons.... The Malays call all countries west of their own 'countries above the wind,' and their own and all countries east of it 'countries below the wind.'... The origin of the phrase admits of no explanation, unless it have reference to the most important of the two monsoons, the western, that which brought to the Malayan countries the traders of India."—Crawfurd's Desc. Dict. 288.
ZOBO, ZHOBO, DSOMO, &c., s. Names used in the semi-Tibetan tracts of the Himālaya for hybrids between the yak bull and the ordinary hill cow, much used in transport and agriculture. See quotation under ZEBU. The following are the connected Tibetan terms, according to Jaeschke's Dict. (p. 463): "mdzo, a mongrel bred of Yak bull and common cow; bri-mdzo, a mongrel bred of common bull and yak cow; mdzopo, a male; mdzo-mo, a female animal of the kind, both valued as domestic cattle." [Writing of the Lower Himālaya, Mr. Atkinson says: "When the sire is a yak and the dam a hill cow, the hybrid is called jubu; when the parentage is reversed, the produce is called garjo. The jubu is found more valuable than the other hybrid or than either of the pure stocks" (Himalayan Gazetteer, ii. 38). Also see Āīn, ed. Jarrett, ii. 350.]
1298.—"There are wild cattle in that country almost as big as elephants, splendid creatures, covered everywhere but in the back with shaggy hair a good four palms long. They are partly black, partly white, and really wonderfully fine creatures, and the hair or wool is extremely fine and white, finer and whiter than silk. Messer Marco brought some to Venice as a great curiosity, and so it was reckoned by those who saw it. There are also plenty of them tame, which have been caught young. They also cross these with the common cow, and the cattle from this cross are wonderful beasts, and better for work than other animals. These the people use commonly for burden and general work, and in the plough as well; and at the latter they will do twice as much work as any other cattle, being such very strong beasts."—Marco Polo, Bk. i. ch. 57.
1854.—"The Zobo, or cross between the yak and the hill-cow (much resembling the English cow) is but rarely seen in these mountains (Sikkim), though common in the N.W. Himalaya."—Hooker's Him. Journals, 2d ed. i. 203.
[1871.—"The plough in Lahoul ... is worked by a pair of dzos (hybrids between the cow and yak)."—Harcourt, Him. Dists. of Kooloo, Lahoul, and Spiti, 180.
[1875.—"Ploughing is done chiefly with the hybrid of the yak bull and the common cow; this they call zo if male and zomo if female."—Drew, Jummoo and Kashmir, 246.]
ZOUAVE, s. This modern French term is applied to certain regiments of light infantry in a quasi-Oriental costume, recruited originally in Algeria, and from various races, but now only consisting of Frenchmen. The name Zuawa, Zouaoua was, according to Littré, that of a Kabyle tribe of the Jurjura which furnished the first soldiers so called.
[ZUBT, ZUBTEE, adj. and s. of which the corrupted forms are JUBTEE, JUPTEE. Ar. ẓabt̤, lit. 'keeping, guarding,' but more generally in India, in the sense of 'seizure, confiscation.' In the Āīn it is used in the sense which is still in use in the N.W.P., 'cash rents on the more valuable crops, such as sugar-cane, tobacco, etc., in those districts where rents in kind are generally paid.'
[c. 1590.—"Of these Parganahs, 138 pay revenue in cash from crops charged at special rates (in orig. ẓabt̤ī)."—Āīn, ed. Jarret, ii. 153.
[1813.—"Zebt ... restraint, confiscation, sequestration. Zebty. Relating to restraint or confiscation; what has been confiscated.... Lands resumed by Jaffier Khan which had been appropriated in Jaghire (see JAGHEER)."—Glossary to Fifth Report.
[1851.—"You put down one hundred rupees. If the water of your land does not come ... then my money shall be confiscated to the Sahib. If it does then your money shall be zupt (confiscated)."—Edwardes, A Year on the Punjab Frontier, i. 278.]
ZUMBOORUCK, s. Ar. Turk. Pers. zambūrak (spelt zanbūrak), a small gun or swivel usually carried on a camel, and mounted on a saddle;—a falconet. [See a drawing in R. Kipling's Beast and Man in India, 255.] It was, however, before the use of gunpowder came in, the name applied sometimes to a cross-bow, and sometimes to the quarrel or bolt shot from such a weapon. The word is in form a Turkish diminutive from Ar. zambūr, 'a hornet'; much as 'musket' comes from mosquetta. Quatremère thinks the name was given from the twang of the cross-bow at the moment of discharge (see H. des Mongols, 285-6; see also Dozy, Suppt. s.v.). This older meaning is the subject of our first quotation:
1848.—"Les écrivains arabes qui ont traité des guerres des croisades, donnent à l'arbalête, telle que l'employait les chrétiens, le nom de zenbourek. La première fois qu'ils en font mention, c'est en parlant du siège de Tyr par Saladin en 1187.... Suivant l'historien des patriarches d'Alexandrie, le zenbourek était une flêche de l'épaisseur du pouce, de la longueur d'une coudée, qui avait quatre faces ... il traversait quelque fois au même coup deux hommes placés l'un derrière l'autre.... Les musulmans paraissent n'avoir fait usage qu'assez tard du zenbourek. Djèmal-Eddin est, à ma connaissance, le premier écrivain arabe qui, sous la date 643 (1245 de J.C.), cite cette arme comme servant aux guerriers de l'Islamisme; c'est à propos du siège d'Ascalon par le sultan d'Egypte.... Mais bientôt l'usage du zenbourek devint commun en Orient, et dans la suite des Turks ottomans entretinrent dans leurs armées un corps de soldats appelés zenbourekdjis. Maintenant ... ce mot a tout à fait changé d'acception, et l'on donne en Perse le nom de zenbourek à une petite pièce d'artillerie légère."—Reinaud, De l'Art Militaire chez les Arabes au moyen age. Journ. As., Ser. IV., tom. xii. 211-213.
1707.—"Prince Bedár Bakht ... was killed by a cannon-ball, and many of his followers also fell.... His younger brother Wálájáh was killed by a ball from a zambúrak."—Khāfī Khān, in Elliot, vii. 398.
c. 1764.—"Mirza Nedjef Qhan, who was preceded by some Zemberecs, ordered that kind of artillery to stand in the middle of the water and to fire on the eminence."—Seir Mutaqherin, iii. 250.
1825.—"The reign of Futeh Allee Shah has been far from remarkable for its military splendour.... He has rarely been exposed to danger in action, but, early in his reign ... he appeared in the field, ... till at last one or two shots from zumboorucks dropping among them, he fell from his horse in a swoon of terror...."—J. B. Fraser, Journey into Khorasān in 1821-22, pp. 197-8.
[1829.—"He had no cannon; but was furnished with a description of ordnance, or swivels, called zumbooruk, which were mounted on camels; and which, though useful in action, could make no impression on the slightest walls...."—Malcolm, H. of Persia, i. 419.]
1846.—"So hot was the fire of cannon, musquetry, and zambooraks, kept up by the Khalsa troops, that it seemed for some moments impossible that the entrenchments could be won under it."—Sir Hugh Gough's desp. on the Battle of Sobraon, dd. Feb 13.
" "The flank in question (at Subrāon) was mainly guarded by a line of two hundred 'zumbooruks,' or falconets; but it derived some support from a salient battery, and from the heavy guns retained on the opposite bank of the river."—Cunningham's H. of the Sikhs, 322.