+ chaprasi / chuprassy: See dufter / daftar.

+charpoy: As noted earlier (see bandar), Neel was of the opinion that words, unlike human beings, are less likely to survive the rigors of migration if they travel as couples: in any pair of synonyms one is sure to perish. How, then, was he to account for the journey of those eminently successful synonyms, charpoy and cot (both of which, un -beknownst to him, were to receive the Oracle's imprimatur)? Neel was clearly annoyed by this anomaly – ('Has Blatty no words for the comforts of the bed, that it must steal so wilfully from us?') – but he did not fail to recognize the threat that was posed to his pet theory by these paired words. 'English, no less than the languages of Hind., has many reasons to be grateful to the lascars, and the gift of the word cot (from Hind. khât) is not the least of them. There can be little doubt that this word entered the English language through a nautical route: it is my conviction that khat was the first Laskari word for "hammock" and that jhula/jhoola only came into use when the original was confiscated by their malums (vide the Admiral's definition of cot: "a wooden bed-frame, suspended from the beams of a ship for the officers, between decks"). These cots were clearly more comfortable than ordinary hammocks, for they were soon passed down to ships' infirmaries, for the benefit of the sick and the wounded. This, by extension, is the sense in which the word was swept into the main current of the English language, being adopted first as a name for the swinging cribs of the nursery. We see thus that contrary to appearances, cot and charpoy are no more synonyms than are "cradle" and "bedstead". Nor indeed are they synonyms even in Hind., for I am convinced that charpai was originally applied to all four-legged pieces of furniture (in the precise sense of the Hind. char-pai, "four-legged") in order to distinguish them from such objects as had only three legs (tin-pai or tipai – from which, as Sir Henry rightly observes, descended those small tables known as teapoys in English). The confusing term sea-poy, however, is merely a variant spelling of sepoy and has nothing whatsoever to do with legs or seasickness. The ghost of this peculiar misconception is yet to be laid, however, as is evident from a story I was recently told about a young lieutenant who came to be separated from his troops while boarding a ship. It is said that after crying out in alarm – "I've lost my sea-poys!" – he was taken further aback at being handed a balty and some smelling salts.'

charter: 'Although the Oracle makes no mention of it, I am convinced that this verb was often used in the same sense as the Hind. verb chatna, from which English received the resplendent chutney, "good to lick" (not to be confused with chatty/chatta, which lascars were accustomed to apply to earthen vessels). The cant term charterhouse is frequently applied to houses of ill-repute.'

chatty/chatta (*the Admiral, *Roe-buck): See charter.

+chawbuck/chábuk: 'This word, so much more expressive than "whip", was almost as much a weapon as the object it designated. That it should be among the few Hind. words that found a verbal use in English is scarcely a matter of surprise, considering how often it fell from the sahibs' lips. When so used, the proper form for the past participle is chawbuck't. The derived form chawbuckswar, "whip-rider", was considered a great compliment among hard-driving horsemen.'

chawbuckswar (*The Glossary): See above.

+cheese: Neel was no visionary in predicting the eventual incorporation of this derivative of Hind. chiz, 'thing', into the Oracle, for the use of it in such sentences as 'this cheroot is the real cheese' was common enough in his day. However, its role in such locutions as 'the Burra Cheese' would undoubtedly have come as a surprise.

chicken/chikan (*The Barney-Book): 'The closely-worked embroidery of Oudh; from which the cant expression "chicken-worked", frequently used to describe those who had perforce to live with a bawhawder ma'am-sahib.'

+chin-chin (*The Barney-Book): 'Greetings (from which chin-chin-joss: "worship").'

chin-chin-joss (*The Glossary): See chin-chin.

chingers (*The Barney-Book): 'Cu -rious that Barrère & Leland imagine this word to have entered the English language through the gypsy dialect. It was quite commonly used in bobachee-connahs, for choolas had always to be lit with chingers (from Hind. chingare). I have even heard it used in the sentence "The chingers flew".'

Chin-kalan (*The Glossary): 'Strange as it seems today, this was indeed the name by which lascars were accustomed to speak of the port of Canton.'

chints/chinti (*The Glossary, *The Barney-Book): 'This word for ants and insects was doomed by its resemblance to the more common chintz (painted kozhikodoes)'.

+chit/chitty: 'A most curious word, for despite the fact that it comes from the Hind. chitthi, 'letter,' it was never applied to any missive entrusted to the dawk. It had always to be delivered by hand, never by post, and preferably by a chuprassy, never by a dawk-wallah or hurkaru.'

chitchky (*The Glossary): Neel was convinced that this descendant of the Bengali word chhechki had a brilliant future as a migrant, predicting that it would even be ennobled as a verb, since English had no equivalent term for this technique of cooking. Searching vainly for a palatable meal in the East End, he once wrote: 'Why do none of these lascars ever think of setting up inns and hostelries where they can serve chitckied cabbage with slivered whiting to Londoners? Would they not profit from the great goll-maul that would thus be created?' He would have been greatly saddened to see this elegant word replaced by the clumsy locution 'stir-fried'.

+chittack: A measure of weight, equivalent to one ounce, seventeen penny-weights, twelve grains troy.

+chobdar: 'To have one was a great sign of prestige, since a mace-bearer was a rare luxury. I still remember how the poor Raja of Mukhpora, even when facing ruin, could not bear to let his chobdar go.'

+choga (see banyan): Neel was pessimistic about the future of this word, which he believed would be over-whelmed by its Turkish rival, caftan.

+ chokey / choker / choakee / choky / chowki: 'If an exchange of words be-tokens a joining of experience, then it would appear that prisons are the principal hinge between the people of Hind. and Blatty. For if the English gave us their "jail" in its now ubiquitous forms, jel, jel-khana, jel-bot and the like, we for our part have been by no means miserly in our own gifts. Thus as early as the sixteenth century the Hind. chowki was already on its way across the sea, eventually to effect its entry into English as those very old words chokey, choker, choky, and even sometimes chowki. The parent of these words is of course the Hind. chowk, which refers to a square or open place in the centre of a village or town: this was where cells and other places of confinement were customarily located, being presided over by a kotwal and policed by a paltan of darogas and chowkidars. But chokey appears to have gained in grimness as it traveled, for its Hind. avatar is not the equal of its English equivalent in the conjuring of dread: a function that devolves rather to qaid and qaidi – two words which started their travels at almost the same time as chokey, and went on to gain admittance under such guises as quod, quoddie, and quodded, the last having the sense of "jailed".'