[1605-6.—"... for all which we shall buie Ryse, Indico, Lapes Bezar which theare in aboundance are to be hadd."—Birdwood, First Letter Book, 77.
[1609.—"... to buy such Comodities as they shall finde there as Indico, of Laher (Lahore), here worth viijs the pounde Serchis and the best Belondri...."—Ibid. 287. Serchis is Sarkhej, the Sercaze of Forbes (Or. Mem., 2nd ed. ii. 204) near Ahmadābād: Sir G. Birdwood with some hesitation identifies Belondri with Valabhi, 20 m. N.W. of Bhāvnagar.
[1610.—"Anil or Indigue, which is a violet-blue dye."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. ii. 246.]
1610.—"In the country thereabouts is made some Indigo."—Sir H. Middleton, in Purchas, i. 259.
[1616.—"Indigo is made thus. In the prime June they sow it, which the rains bring up about the prime September: this they cut and it is called the Newty (H. naudhā, 'a young plant'), formerly mentioned, and is a good sort. Next year it sprouts again in the prime August, which they cut and is the best Indigo, called Jerry (H. jaṛī, 'growing from the root (jaṛ).'"—Foster, Letters, iv. 241.]
c. 1670.—Tavernier gives a detailed account of the manufacture as it was in his time. "They that sift this Indigo must be careful to keep a Linnen-cloath before their faces, and that their nostrils be well stopt.... Yet ... they that have sifted Indigo for 9 or 10 days shall spit nothing but blew for a good while together. Once I laid an egg in the morning among the sifters, and when I came to break it in the evening it was all blew within."—E.T. ii. 128-9; [ed. Ball, ii. 11].
We have no conception what is meant by the following singular (apparently sarcastic) entry in the Indian Vocabulary:—
1788.—"Indergo—a drug of no estimation that grows wild in the woods." [This is H. indarjau, Skt. indra-yava, "barley of Indra," the Wrightia tinctoria, from the leaves of which a sort of indigo is made. See Watt, Econ. Dict. VI. pt. iv. 316. "Inderjò of the species of warm bitters."—Halhed, Code, ed. 1781, p. 9.]
1881.—"Découvertes et Inventions.—Décidément le cabinet Gladstone est poursuivi par la malechance. Voici un savant chimiste de Munich qui vient de trouver le moyen se preparer artificiellement et à très bon marché le bleu Indigo. Cette découverte peut amener la ruine du gouvernement des Indes anglaises, qui est déjà menacé de la banqueroute. L'indigo, en effet, est le principal article de commerce des Indes (!); dans l'Allemagne, seulement, on en importe par an pour plus de cent cinquante millions de francs."—Havre Commercial Paper, quoted in Pioneer Mail, Feb. 3.
INGLEES, s. Hind. Inglīs and Inglis. Wilson gives as the explanation of this: "Invalid soldiers and sipahis, to whom allotments of land were assigned as pensions; the lands so granted." But the word is now used as the equivalent of (sepoy's) pension simply. Mr. Carnegie, [who is followed by Platts], says the word is "probably a corruption of English, as pensions were unknown among native Governments, whose rewards invariably took the shape of land assignments." This, however, is quite unsatisfactory; and Sir H. Elliot's suggestion (mentioned by Wilson) that the word was a corruption of invalid (which the sepoys may have confounded in some way with English) is most probable.