1539.—See quot. from Pinto under [COBRA DE CAPELLO], where negroes is used for natives of Sumatra.
1548.—"Moreover three blacks (negros) in this territory occupy lands worth 3000 or 4000 pardaos of rent; they are related to one another, and are placed as guards in the outlying parts."—S. Botelho, Cartas, 111.
1582.—"A nigroe of John Cambrayes, Pilot to Paulo de la Gama, was that day run away to the Moores."—Castañeda, by N. L., f. 19.
[1608.—"The King and people niggers."—Danvers, Letters, i. 10.]
1622.—Ed. Grant, purser of the Diamond, reports capture of vessels, including a junk "with some stoor of negers, which was devided bytwick the Duch and the English."—Sainsbury, iii. p. 78.
c. 1755.—"You cannot affront them (the natives) more than to call them by the name of negroe, as they conceive it implies an idea of slavery."—Ives, Voyage, p. 23.
c. 1757.—"Gli Gesuiti sono missionarii e parocchi de' negri detti Malabar."—Della Tomba, 3.
1760.—"The Dress of this Country is entirely linnen, save Hats and Shoes; the latter are made of tanned Hides as in England ... only that they are no thicker than coarse paper. These shoes are neatly made by Negroes, and sold for about 10d. a Pr. each of which will last two months with care."—MS. Letter of James Rennell, Sept. 30.
1866.—"Now the political creed of the frequenters of dawk bungalows is too uniform ... it consists in the following tenets ... that Sir Mordaunt Wells is the greatest judge that ever sat on the English bench; and that when you hit a nigger he dies on purpose to spite you."—The Dawk Bungalow, p. 225.
NILGHERRY, NEILGHERRY, &c., n.p. The name of the Mountain Peninsula at the end of the Mysore table land (originally known as Malaināḍu, 'Hill country'), which is the chief site of hill sanataria in the Madras Presidency. Skt. Nīlagiri, 'Blue Mountain.' The name Nīla or Nīlādri (synonymous with Nīlagiri) belongs to one of the mythical or semi-mythical ranges of the Puranic Cosmography (see Vishnu Purāna, in Wilson's Works, by Hall, ii. 102, 111, &c.), and has been applied to several ranges of more assured locality, e.g. in Orissa as well as in S. India. The name seems to have been fancifully applied to the Ootacamund range about 1820, by some European. [The name was undoubtedly applied by natives to the range before the appearance of Europeans, as in the Kongu-deśa Rajákal, quoted by Grigg (Nilagiri Man. 363), and the name appears in a letter of Col. Mackenzie of about 1816 (Ibid. 278). Mr. T. M. Horsfall writes: "The name is in common use among all classes of natives in S. India, but when it may have become specific I cannot say. Possibly the solution may be that the Nilgiris being the first large mountain range to become familiar to the English, that name was by them caught hold of, but not coined, and stuck to them by mere priority. It is on the face of it improbable that the Englishmen who early in the last century discovered these Hills, that is, explored and shot over them, would call them by a long Skt. name.">[