Sea of Poppies

[1] Whether this abbreviation refers to a specific language (Hindi?/Urdu?/Hindusthani?) or merely to all things Indian has long been a subject of controversy within the family. Suffice it to say that the matter can never be satisfactorily resolved since Neel only ever used this contracted form. Chrestomathy, is a reference always to Lt. Thomas Roebuck's pioneering work of lexicography: An English and Hindostanee Naval Dictionary of Technical Terms and Sea Phrases and also the Various Words of Command Given in Working a Ship, &C. with Many Sentences of Great Use at Sea; to which Is Prefixed a Short Grammar of the Hindostanee Language. First printed in Calcutta, this lexicon was reprinted in London in 1813 by the booksellers to the Hon. East India Company: Black, Parry & Co. of Leadenhall Street. Neel once described it as the most important glossary of the nineteenth century – because as he put it, 'in its lack, the age of sail would have been becalmed in a kalmariya, with sahibs and lascars mouthing incomprehensible nothings at each other.' It is certainly true that this modest word-list was to have an influence that probably far exceeded Lt. Roebuck's expectations. Seven decades after its publication it was revised by the Rev. George Small, and reissued by W. H. Allen & Co. under the title: A Laskari Dictionary or Anglo-Indian Vocabulary of Nautical Terms and Phrases in English and Hindustani (in 1882): this latter edition was available well into the twentieth century. The Laskari Dictionary was Neel's favourite lexicon and his use of it was so frequent that he appears to have developed a sense of personal familiarity with the author.

[2] It needs here to be explained that the word Glossary, whenever it occurs in the Chrestomathy, is a reference to an authority that was, for Neel's purposes, one of the few to be empowered with the right to award certificates of migration into English: to wit, Sir Henry Yule and A. C. Burnell's Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive. Neel appears to have acquired a copy of this famous dictionary when it first began to circulate among a privileged few, in the 1880s, before it came to be known by the name Hobson-Jobson. Although his personal copy has never been found, there can be no doubt that the frequent references to 'Sir Henry' in the Chrestomathy are directed always towards Sir Henry Yule – just as 'the Glossary,' in his usage, stands always for the dictionary for which that great lexicographer was chiefly responsible.

[3] The name Roebuck, when it occurs in the

[4] The phrase Barney-Book, when it occurs in the Chrestomathy, is always in reference to Albert Barrère and Charles Leland's Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant, which was yet another of Neel's girmit-granting authorities. He possessed a well-worn copy of the edition published by the Ballantyne Press in 1889. His choice of shorthand for this work appears to be a reference to Barrère and Leland's tracing of barney to the gypsy word for 'mob' or 'crowd'. This in turn, they adduced to be, in one of those wild leaps of speculation for which they were justly famous, a derivation from the Hind. bharna – 'to fill' or 'increase'.

[5] The reference here is to Admiral W. H. Smyth's Sailor's Word-Book. Neel possessed several copies of the edition that was printed in London in 1876 by Blackie. He held this work in a respect that verged on reverence and when the words 'the Admiral' appear in the Chrestomathy, reference is always to Admiral Smyth and his famous lexicon.

[6] 'The Linkister', when it appears in the Chrestomathy, is always in reference to Charles Leland and his Pidgin English Sing-Song: Or Songs and Stories in the China-English Dialect; with a Vocabulary. Charles Leland was, of course, one of the most prodigious lexicographers of the nineteenth century and he was another of Neel's girmit-granting authorities. But being himself a master of the South China Pidgin, Neel appears to have disapproved, or disagreed, with it in some respects: hence the somewhat disparaging name.