1793.—"The Province, of which Lahore is the capital, is oftener named Panjab than Lahore."—Rennell's Memoir, 3rd ed. 82.
1804.—"I rather think ... that he (Holkar) will go off to the Punjaub. And what gives me stronger reason to think so is, that on the seal of his letter to me he calls himself 'the Slave of Shah Mahmoud, the King of Kings.' Shah Mahmoud is the brother of Zemaun Shah. He seized the musnud and government of Caubul, after having defeated Zemaun Shah two or three years ago, and put out his eyes."—Wellington, Desp. under March 17.
1815.—"He (Subagtageen) ... overran the fine province of the Punjaub, in his first expedition."—Malcolm, Hist. of Persia, i. 316.
PUNKAH, s. Hind. pankhā.
a. In its original sense a portable fan, generally made from the leaf of the [palmyra] (Borassus flabelliformis, or 'fan-shaped'), the natural type and origin of the fan. Such pankhās in India are not however formed, as Chinese fans are, like those of our ladies; they are generally, whether large or small, of a bean-shape, with a part of the dried leaf-stalk adhering, which forms the handle.
b. But the specific application in Anglo-Indian colloquial is to the large fixed and swinging fan, formed of cloth stretched on a rectangular frame, and suspended from the ceiling, which is used to agitate the air in hot weather. The date of the introduction of this machine into India is not known to us. The quotation from Linschoten shows that some such apparatus was known in the 16th century, though this comes out clearly in the French version alone; the original Dutch, and the old English translation are here unintelligible, and indicate that Linschoten (who apparently never was at Ormuz) was describing, from hearsay, something that he did not understand. More remarkable passages are those which we take from Dozy, and from El-Fakhrī, which show that the true Anglo-Indian punka was known to the Arabs as early as the 8th century.
a.—
1710.—"Aloft in a Gallery the King sits in his chaire of State, accompanied with his Children and chiefe Vizier ... no other without calling daring to goe vp to him, saue onely two Punkaws to gather wind."—W. Finch, in Purchas, i. 439. The word seems here to be used improperly for the men who plied the fans. We find also in the same writer a verb to punkaw:
"... behind one punkawing, another holding his sword."—Ibid. 433.
Terry does not use the word: