1785.—"The Board were pleased to direct that in order to supply the place of the Sebundy corps, four regiments of Sepoys be employed in securing the collection of the revenues."—In Seton-Karr, i. 92.
" "One considerable charge upon the Nabob's country was for extraordinary sibbendies, sepoys and horsemen, who appear to us to be a very unnecessary incumbrance upon the revenue."—Append. to Speech on Nab. of Arcot's Debts, in Burke's Works, iv. 18, ed. 1852.
1796.—"The Collector at Midnapoor having reported the Sebundy Corps attached to that Collectorship, Sufficiently Trained in their Exercise; the Regular Sepoys who have been Employed on that Duty are to be withdrawn."—G. O. Feb. 23, in Suppt. to Code of Military Regs., 1799, p. 145.
1803.—"The employment of these people therefore ... as sebundy is advantageous ... it lessens the number of idle and discontented at the time of general invasion and confusion."—Wellington, Desp. (ed. 1837), ii. 170.
1812.—"Sebundy, or provincial corps of native troops."—Fifth Report, 38.
1861.—"Sliding down Mount Tendong, the summit of which, with snow lying there, we crossed, the Sebundy Sappers were employed cutting a passage for the mules; this delayed our march exceedingly."—Report of Capt. Impey, R.E., in Gawler's Sikhim, p. 95.
SEEDY, s. Hind. sīdī; Arab. saiyid, 'lord' (whence the Cid of Spanish romantic history), saiyidī, 'my lord'; and Mahr. siddhī. Properly an honorific name given in Western India to African Mahommedans, of whom many held high positions in the service of the kings of the Deccan. Of these at least one family has survived in princely position to our own day, viz. the Nawāb of Jangīra (see [JUNGEERA]), near Bombay. The young heir to this principality, Siddhī Ahmad, after a minority of some years, was installed in the Government in Oct., 1883. But the proper application of the word in the ports and on the shipping of Western India is to negroes in general. [It "is a title still applied to holy men in Marocco and the Maghrib; on the East African coast it is assumed by negro and negroid Moslems, e.g. Sidi Mubarak Bombay; and 'Seedy boy' is the Anglo-Indian term for a Zanzibar-man" (Burton, Ar. Nights, iv. 231).]
c. 1563.—"And among these was an Abyssinian (Abexim) called Cide Meriam, a man reckoned a great cavalier, and who entertained 500 horse at his own charges, and who greatly coveted the city of Daman to quarter himself in, or at the least the whole of its pergunnas (parganas—see [PERGUNNAH]) to devour."—Couto, VII. x. 8.
[c. 1610.—"The greatest insult that can be passed upon a man is to call him Cisdy—that is to say 'cook.'"—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 173.]
1673.—"An Hobsy or African Coffery (they being preferred here to chief employments, which they enter on by the name of Siddies)."—Fryer, 147.