[APPENDICES TO THE HINDUSTAN SECTION.]
M. ON THE TERM BAHRI QUTAS.
TrtAT the term bahri quids is interpreted by Meninski, Erskine, and de Courteille in senses so widely differing as equus maritimus, mountain-cow, and bceuf vert de mer is due, no doubt, to their writing when the qiitas, the yak, was less well known than it now is.
The word qiitas represents both the yak itself and its necktassel and tail. Hence Meninski explains it by nodus fimbriatus ex cauda seu crinibus equi maritimi. His " sea-horse " appears to render bahri qiitas, and is explicable by the circumstance that the same purposes are served by horse-tails and by yak-tails and tassels, namely, with both, standards are fashioned, horse-equipage is ornamented or perhaps furnished with flyflappers, and the ordinary hand-fly-fiappers are made, i.e. the ckowries of Anglo-India.
Erskine's "mountain-cow" (Memoirs p.3i7)may well be due to his munshVs giving the yak an alternative name, viz. Koshgau (Vigne) or Khash-gau (Ney Elias), which appears to mean mountain-cow (cattle, oxen.'1
De Courteille's Dictionary p.422, explains qiitas {qiitas) as bceuf marin {bahri qiitas) and his Mdmoires ii, 191, renders Babur's bahri qiitas by bceuf vert de mer (f. 276, p. 490 and n.8).
The term bahri qutds could be interpreted with more confidence if one knew where the seemingly Arabic-TurkI compound originated.2 Babur uses it in Hindustan where the neck-tassel
1 Vigne's Travels in Kashmir ii, 277-8; Tarikh-i-rashidi trs., p. 302 and n. and p. 466 and note.
2 It is not likely to be one heard current in Hindustan, any more than is Babur's Ar. bu-qalamfmas a name of abird (Index s.n.); both seem to be "book-words" and may be traced or known as he uses them in some ancient dictionary or book of travels originating outside Hindustan
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