1861.—
"Fie, Fie! Captain Spry!
You are surely in joke
With your wires and your trams,
Going past all the Shams
With branches to Bam-you (see [BAMO]), and end in A-smoke."
Ode on the proposed Yunnan Railway.
Bhamo and Esmok were names constantly recurring in the late Capt. Spry's railway projects.
SHANBAFF, SINABAFF, &c., s. Pers. shānbāft. A stuff often mentioned in the early narratives as an export from Bengal and other parts of India. Perhaps indeed these names indicate two different stuffs, as we do not know what they were, except that (as mentioned below) the sinabaff was a fine white stuff. Sīnabāff is not in Vuller's Lexicon. Shānabāf is, and is explained as genus panni grossioris, sic descripta (E. T.): "A very coarse and cheap stuff which they make for the sleeves of ḳabās (see [CABAYA]) for sale."—Bahār-i-'Ajam. But this cannot have been the character of the stuffs sent by Sultan Mahommed Tughlak (as in the first quotation) to the Emperor of China. [Badger (quoted by Birdwood, Report on Old Records, 153) identifies the word with sīna-bāfta, 'China-woven' cloths.]
1343.—"When the aforesaid present came to the Sultan of India (from the Emp. of China) ... in return for this present he sent another of greater value ... 100 pieces of shīrīnbāf, and 500 pieces of shānbāf."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 3.