BUDGEROW, s. A lumbering keelless barge, formerly much used by Europeans travelling on the Gangetic rivers. Two-thirds of the length aft was occupied by cabins with Venetian windows. Wilson gives the word as H. and B. bajrā; Shakespear gives H. bajrā and bajra, with an improbable suggestion of derivation from bajar, 'hard or heavy.' Among Blochmann's extracts from Mahommedan accounts of the conquest of Assam we find, in a detail of Mīr Jumla's fleet in his expedition of 1662, mention of 4 bajras (J. As. Soc. Ben. xli. pt. i. 73). The same extracts contain mention of war-sloops called bach'haris (pp. 57, 75, 81), but these last must be different. Bajra may possibly have been applied in the sense of 'thunder-bolt.' This may seem unsuited to the modern budgerow, but is not more so than the title of 'lightning-darter' is to the modern [Burkundauze] (q.v.)! We remember how Joinville says of the approach of the great galley of the Count of Jaffa:—"Sembloit que foudre cheist des ciex." It is however perhaps more probable that bajrā may have been a variation of baglā. And this is especially suggested by the existence of the Portuguese form pajeres, and of the Ar. form bagara (see under [BUGGALOW]). Mr. Edye, Master Shipwright of the Naval Yard in Trincomalee, in a paper on the Native Craft of India and Ceylon, speaks of the Baggala or Budgerow, as if he had been accustomed to hear the words used indiscriminately. (See J. R. A. S., vol. i. p. 12). [There is a drawing of a modern Budgerow in Grant, Rural Life, p. 5.]
c. 1570.—"Their barkes be light and armed with oares, like to Foistes ... and they call these barkes Bazaras and Patuas" (in Bengal).—Cæsar Frederick, E. T. in Hakl. ii. 358.
1662.—(Blochmann's Ext. as above).
1705.—"... des Bazaras qui sont de grands bateaux."—Luillier, 52.
1723.—"Le lendemain nous passâmes sur les Bazaras de la compagnie de France."—Lett. Edif. xiii. 269.
1727.—"... in the evening to recreate themselves in Chaises or Palankins; ... or by water in their Budgeroes, which is a convenient Boat."—A. Hamilton, ii. 12.
1737.—"Charges, Budgrows ... Rs. 281. 6. 3."—MS. Account from Ft. William, in India Office.
1780.—"A gentleman's Bugerow was drove ashore near Chaun-paul Gaut...."—Hicky's Bengal Gazette, May 13th.
1781.—"The boats used by the natives for travelling, and also by the Europeans, are the budgerows, which both sail and row."—Hodges, 39.
1783.—"... his boat, which, though in Kashmire (it) was thought magnificent, would not have been disgraced in the station of a Kitchen-tender to a Bengal budgero."—G. Forster, Journey, ii. 10.