1832.—"We received a message from the Acali who had set fire to the village.... These fanatics of the Seik creed acknowledge no superior, and the ruler of the country can only moderate their frenzy by intrigues and bribery. They go about everywhere with naked swords, and lavish their abuse on the nobles as well as the peaceable subjects.... They have on several occasions attempted the life of Runjeet Singh."—Burnes, Travels, ii. 10-11.
1840.—"The Akalis being summoned to surrender, requested a conference with one of the attacking party. The young Khan bravely went forward, and was straightway shot through the head."—Mrs Mackenzie, Storms and Sunshine, i. 115.
AKYÁB, n.p. The European name of the seat of administration of the British province of Arakan, which is also a port exporting rice largely to Europe. The name is never used by the natives of Arakan (of the Burmese race), who call the town Tsit-htwé, 'Crowd (in consequence of) War.' This indicates how the settlement came to be formed in 1825, by the fact of the British force encamping on the plain there, which was found to be healthier than the site of the ancient capital of the kingdom of Arakan, up the valley of the Arakan or Kaladyne R. The name Akyáb had been applied, probably by the Portuguese, to a neighbouring village, where there stands, about 1½ miles from the present town, a pagoda covering an alleged relique of Gautama (a piece of the lower jaw, or an induration of the throat), the name of which pagoda, taken from the description of relique, is Au-kyait-dau, and of this Akyáb was probably a corruption. The present town and cantonment occupy dry land of very recent formation, and the high ground on which the pagoda stands must have stood on the shore at no distant date, as appears from the finding of a small anchor there about 1835. The village adjoining the pagoda must then have stood at the mouth of the Arakan R., which was much frequented by the Portuguese and the Chittagong people in the 16th and 17th centuries, and thus probably became known to them by a name taken from the Pagoda.—(From a note by Sir Arthur Phayre.) [Col. Temple writes—"The only derivation which strikes me as plausible, is from the Agyattaw Phaya, near which, on the island of Sittwé, a Cantonment was formed after the first Burmese war, on the abandonment of Mrohaung or Arakan town in 1825, on account of sickness among the troops stationed there. The word Agyattaw is spelt Akhyap-taw, whence probably the modern name.">[
[1826.—"It (the despatch) at length arrived this day (3rd Dec. 1826), having taken two months in all to reach us, of which forty-five days were spent in the route from Akyab in Aracan."—Crawfurd, Ava, 289.]
ALA-BLAZE PAN, s. This name is given in the Bombay Presidency to a tinned-copper stew-pan, having a cover, and staples for straps, which is carried on the march by European soldiers, for the purpose of cooking in, and eating out of. Out on picnics a larger kind is frequently used, and kept continually going, as a kind of pot-au-feu. [It has been suggested that the word may be a corr. of some French or Port. term—Fr. braiser; Port. brazeiro, 'a fire-pan,' braza, 'hot coals.']
ALBACORE, s. A kind of rather large sea-fish, of the Tunny genus (Thynnus albacora, Lowe, perhaps the same as Thynnus macropterus, Day); from the Port. albacor or albecora. The quotations from Ovington and Grose below refer it to albo, but the word is, from its form, almost certainly Arabic, though Dozy says he has not found the word in this sense in Arabic dictionaries, which are very defective in the names of fishes (p. 61). The word albacora in Sp. is applied to a large early kind of fig, from Ar. al-bākūr, 'praecox' (Dozy), Heb. bikkūra, in Micah vii. 1.—See Cobarruvias, s.v. Albacora. [The N.E.D. derives it from Ar. al-bukr, 'a young camel, a heifer,' whence Port. bacoro, 'a young pig.' Also see Gray's note on Pyrard, i. 9.]
1579.—"These (flying fish) have two enemies, the one in the sea, the other in the aire. In the sea the fish which is called Albocore, as big as a salmon."—Letter from Goa, by T. Stevens, in Hakl. ii. 583.
1592.—"In our passage over from S. Laurence to the maine, we had exceeding great store of Bonitos and Albocores."—Barker, in Hakl. ii. 592.
1696.—"We met likewise with shoals of Albicores (so call'd from a piece of white Flesh that sticks to their Heart) and with multitudes of Bonettoes, which are named from their Goodness and Excellence for eating; so that sometimes for more than twenty Days the whole Ship's Company have feasted on these curious fish."—Ovington, p. 48.
c. 1760.—"The Albacore is another fish of much the same kind as the Bonito ... from 60 to 90 pounds weight and upward. The name of this fish too is taken from the Portuguese, importing its white colour."—Grose, i. 5.