Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/309

 io* s. ii. SEPT. si. loo*.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

253

I paid the place a visit recently, and was pleased to see the improvement caused by its removal. CIIAS. G. SMITHERS.

47, Darnley Road, Hackney, N.E.

A photograph, taken just before the demo- lition of this inn, is exhibited at the Public Library. Bancroft Road, Mile End.

MEDICULUS.

ISABELLINE AS A COLOUR (10 th S. i. 487 ;

ii. 75). Is not a possible solution of isabelline to be found in the fact that the dirty yellow- white known by this name is the colour, or nearly so, of the summer coat of the sable in Portuguese, Italian, and, I think, in Spanish, zibellino ? I in this case would resemble the suffix by which scarmno in Italian (buskin) becomes escarpin in French. A very similar misunderstanding and con- sequent transformation is to be found in Cinderella's slipper of glass, verre, which, of course, was originally a slipper of vair that is, grey squirrel skin, or vair in heraldry. I think I am right in saying that Isabella colour was much in fashion just about the time of the siege of Ostend, 1601-3, as is shown by the rapid adoption of the yellow starch invented by Mrs. Turner, the accom- plice of Carr, Lord Somerset, in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. As most fine stuffs then came from Milan, the transformation of zibellino into isabelline seems not impossible, and in time the legend as to the origin of the colour connecting it with the Archduchess Isabella would become accredited, especially if she chanced to be fond of wearing it. It is curious that the same legend is told of the wife of Charles III. of Spain, who gave her name to the " Queen of Spain's Chair," near Gibraltar, in connexion with the siege of 1779-82. H. 2.

KHAKI (10 th S. ii. 207). Some of the state- ments contained in the extracts from the Mangalore Magazine are a little puzzling, especially that which says that khaki is a Canarese word. The Persian word for dust is khdk, and the adjective derived from that word is khaki, signifying dusty or dust- coloured, and these terras nave been received by adoption into the Hindustani or Urdu language ; but they are certainly not Cana- rese. Nor was the khaki uniform first intro- duced into the Indian army when Lord Roberts was Commander-in-Chief. Lord Roberts was appointed Commander-in-Chief in November, 1885, and khaki had been worn by Indian troops many years before. The late Sir Henry Yule, in his ' Hobson-Jobson,' stated that khaki was the colour of the uni- forms worn by some of the Punjab regiments

at the siege of Delhi, and that it became ver popular in the army generally during th campaigns of 1857-8, being adopted as a cor venient material by many other corps, believe that its use was regulated by Lor Roberts, but it was very generally wor during the seventies. When I first joine my regiment at Poona, in January, 1860, tli parade uniform for officers was a tight, wel padded shell-jacket, buttoned close to th neck with a stock, and blue cloth trousei with red piping down the seams. The heac gear for all ranks was the forage-cap, with white quilted covering. The men wore tt usual scarlet tunic. In those days Sir Hug Rose was the general officer commanding tr Poona Division, and he was fond of marcl ing us out for miles into the country cla in this unsuitable raiment. I have seen th men fall out by dozens by the roadside, wor out by the heat and sun ; but in those daj soldiers were soldiers, and we had non-con missioned officers of thirty years' standin who kept the men up to the mark. Still o one could deny that helmets and khaki wei desirable innovations. W. F. PRIDEAUX.

M. of Mangalore has been unduly carrie away by enthusiasm for his fatherlam Khaki means simply "earth-coloured," froi the Persian kha&, which means earth, dus soil, mould, and so on. It is not a Canares name for a colour, unless khti& is earth al; in Canarese, which I do not know. As a Urdu word it would, of course, be used t Lord Roberts's army.

EDWARD HERON-ALLEN.

DESECRATED FONTS (10 th S. i. 488- ii. 11 170). The list of these, if it is to be exhaustiv must be a long one, I fear. Twenty years ag when engaged in the pious work not restoring the Priory Church of Whithoi (Candida Casa), but of collecting and storir sculptured fragments, many of which we built into houses in the town or adorned tl rockeries of villa gardens, we found a nob font, sorely desecrated and defaced, appears to be of late Norman work, wroug] on a scale admitting of the immersion of child, and had been used for many years I masons in preparing cement. It is now safe stored within the ruined nave.

HERBERT MAXWELL.

The font which your correspondent refers as formerly standing amongst thegraveston in St. Hilda's Churchyard, South Shields, w removed several years ago into the church 1 the late vicar, the Rev. H. E. Savage, nc vicar of Halifax.

The ancient font of Great Stainton Churc