1810.—"... If he carries the water himself in the skin of a goat, prepared for that purpose, he then receives the designation of Bheesty."—Williamson, V.M. i. 229.
1829.—"Dressing in a hurry, find the drunken bheesty ... has mistaken your boot for the goglet in which you carry your water on the line of march."—Camp Miseries, in John Shipp, ii. 149. N.B.—We never knew a drunken bheesty.
1878.—"Here comes a seal carrying a porpoise on its back. No! it is only our friend the bheesty."—In my Indian Garden, 79.
[1898.
"Of all them black-faced crew,
The finest man I knew
Was our regimental bhisti, Ganga Din."
R. Kipling, Barrack-room Ballads, p. 23.]
BHIKTY, s. The usual Calcutta name for the fish Lates calcarifer. See [COCKUP].
[BHOOSA, s. H. Mahr. bhus, bhusa; the husks and straw of various kinds of corn, beaten up into chaff by the feet of the oxen on the threshing-floor; used as the common food of cattle all over India.