"Chillinga hire . . . . . . . 0 22 0"
Account charges at Fort St. David,
Decr. 31, MS. in India Office.
1761.—"It appears there is no more than one frigate that has escaped; therefore don't lose an instant to send us chelingoes upon chelingoes loaded with rice...."—Lally to Raymond at Pulicat. In Comp. H. of the War in India (Tract), 1761, p. 85.
" "No more than one frigate has escaped; lose not an instant in sending chelingoes upon chelingoes loaded with rice."—Carraccioli's Life of Clive, i. 58.
CHEROOT, s. A cigar; but the term has been appropriated specially to cigars truncated at both ends, as the Indian and Manilla cigars always were in former days. The word is Tam. shuruṭṭu, [Mal. churuṭṭu,] 'a roll (of tobacco).' In the South cheroots are chiefly made at Trichinopoly and in the Godavery Delta, the produce being known respectively as [Trichies] and [Lunkas]. The earliest occurrence of the word that we know is in Father Beschi's Tamil story of Parmartta Guru (c. 1725). On p. 1 one of the characters is described as carrying a firebrand to light his pugaiyailai shshuruṭṭu, 'roll (cheroot) of tobacco.' [The N.E.D. quotes cheroota in 1669.] Grose (1750-60), speaking of Bombay, whilst describing the cheroot does not use that word, but another which is, as far as we know, entirely obsolete in British India, viz. [Buncus] (q.v.).
1759.—In the expenses of the Nabob's entertainment at Calcutta in this year we find:
"60 lbs. of Masulipatam cheroots, Rs. 500."—In Long, 194.
1781.—"... am tormented every day by a parcel of gentlemen coming to the end of my berth to talk politics and smoke cheroots—advise them rather to think of mending the holes in their old shirts, like me."—Hon. J. Lindsay (in Lives of the Lindsays), iii. 297.
" "Our evening amusements instead of your stupid Harmonics, was playing Cards and Backgammon, chewing Beetle and smoking Cherutes."—Old Country Captain, in India Gazette, Feby. 24.