1809.—"I passed through a country little cultivated ... to Kingeri, which has a small mud-fort in good repair, and a pettah apparently well filled with inhabitants."—Ld. Valentia, i. 412.
1839.—"The English ladies told me this Pettah was 'a horrid place—quite native!' and advised me never to go into it; so I went next day, of course, and found it most curious—really quite native."—Letters from Madras, 289.
PHANSEEGAR, s. See under [THUG].
[PHOOLKAREE, s. Hind. phūl-kārī, 'flowered embroidery.' The term applied in N. India to the cotton sheets embroidered in silk by village women, particularly Jats. Each girl is supposed to embroider one of these for her marriage. In recent years a considerable demand has arisen for specimens of this kind of needlework among English ladies, who use them for screens and other decorative purposes. Hence a considerable manufacture has sprung up of which an account will be found in a note by Mrs. F. A. Steel, appended to Mr. H. C. Cookson's Monograph on the Silk Industry of the Punjab (1886-7), and in the Journal of Indian Art, ii. 71 seqq.
[1887.—"They (native school girls) were collected in a small inner court, which was hung with the pretty phulcarries they make here (Rawal Pindi), and which ... looked very Oriental and gay."—Lady Dufferin, Viceregal Life, 336.]
[PHOORZA, s. A custom-house; Gujarātī phurjā, from Ar. furẓat 'a notch,' then 'a bight,' 'river-mouth,' 'harbour'; hence 'a tax' or 'custom-duty.'
[1791.—The East India Calendar (p. 131) has "John Church, Phoorza-Master, Surat."
[1727.—"And the Mogul's Furza or custom-house is at this place (Hughly)."—A. Hamilton, ed. 1744, ii. 19.
[1772.—"But as they still insisted on their people sitting at the gates on the Phoorzer Coosky ..."—Forrest, Bombay Letters, i. 386, and see 392, "Phoorze Master." Coosky = P.—Mahr. Khushkī, "inland transit-duties."
[1813.—"... idols ... were annually imported to a considerable number at the Baroche Phoorza, when I was custom-master at that settlement."—Forbes, Or. Mem. 2nd ed. ii. 334.]