Baftahs, score, Rs. 30.
[1900.—"Akin to the pot thāns is a fabric known as Bafta (literally woven), produced in Benares; body pure silk, with butis in kalabatun or cloth; ... used for angarkhas, kots, and women's paijamas (Musulmans)."—Yusuf Ali, Mon. on Silk Fabrics, 97.]
It is curious to find this word now current on Lake Nyanza. The burial of King Mtesa's mother is spoken of:
1883.—"The chiefs half filled the nicely-padded coffin with bufta (bleached calico) ... after that the corpse and then the coffin was filled up with more bufta...."—In Ch. Missy. Intelligencer, N.S., viii. p. 543.
BAHAR, s. Ar. bahār, Malayāl. bhāram, from Skt. bhāra, 'a load.' A weight used in large trading transactions; it varied much in different localities; and though the name is of Indian origin it was naturalised by the Arabs, and carried by them to the far East, being found in use, when the Portuguese arrived in those seas, at least as far as the Moluccas. In the Indian islands the bahār is generally reckoned as equal to 3 [peculs] (q.v.), or 400 avoirdupois. But there was a different bahār in use for different articles of merchandise; or, rather, each article had a special surplus allowance in weighing, which practically made a different bahār (see [PICOTA]). [Mr. Skeat says that it is now uniformly equal to 400 lbs. av. in the British dominions in the Malay Peninsula; but Klinkert gives it as the equivalent of 12 pikuls of [Agar-agar]; 6 of cinnamon; 3 of [Tripang].]
1498.—"... and begged him to send to the King his Lord a bagar of cinnamon, and another of clove ... for sample" (a mostra).—Roteiro de V. da Gama, 78.
1506.—"In Cananor el suo Re si è zentil, e qui nasce zz. (i.e. zenzeri or 'ginger'); ma li zz. pochi e non cusi boni come quelli de Colcut, e suo peso si chiama baar, che sono K. (Cantari) 4 da Lisbona."—Relazione di Leonardo Ca' Masser, 26.
1510.—"If the merchandise about which they treat be spices, they deal by the bahar, which bahar weighs three of our cantari."—Varthema, p. 170.
1516.—"It (Malacca) has got such a quantity of gold, that the great merchants do not estimate their property, nor reckon otherwise than by bahars of gold, which are 4 quintals to each bahar."—Barbosa, 193.
1552.—"300 bahares of pepper."—Castanheda, ii. 301. Correa writes bares, as does also Couto.