APPENDIX " A " 43 



concladed he breaks into smiles. Apparently everybody has been 

 acting a part and thoroughly enjoying it. 



The code described above is known to horse-dealers throughout the 

 Punjab, and probably throughout India. 



Amongst jewellers, cloth merchants, and perhaps other trades, there 

 are variations in the code. Amongst them also, a single finger signifies 

 a unit of one, ten, a hundred, or a thousand rupees. If the unit be one 

 rupee, the words " Yih rilpiya hai " are said, as the finger or fingers 

 are grasped : if the unit be ten, " clahd,i " ; if a hundred, " sau " ; if 

 a thousand, " hazdr.'" Half a unit is expressed by extending a fore- 

 finger along the palm of the other person's hand : thus to indicate Ks. 15 

 the dealer would first express Es. 10 by grasping one forefinger and 

 exclaiming " dahd,t," and then would either extend his forefinger along 

 the other's palm to indicate half or I?s. 5, or else grasp all five fingers of 

 the other's hand to express the same number. The lowest fraction is 

 four annas, which is called mdsha. To express fis. 1.8, the dealer 

 would grasp a forefinger saying, " Yth rilpiya hai," and then grasping 

 the forefinger and second finger say, " Yih-mdsha." Fractions of four 

 annas each are also expressed by pressing, between the forefinger and 

 thumb, the joints of the other bargainer's forefinger. Thus the first 

 joint, when so pressed, indicates four annas, the second joint eight annas, 

 and the base of the finger twelve annas. 



How far has this or a similar code spread ? Is it known in Central 

 Asia, or indeed anywhere beyond Indian limits ? It may be known in 

 some parts of the Persian Gulf, but it is not known in the interior, 

 neither to Arabs nor to Persians, Even the Arab horse-dealers who 

 visit Bombay do not employ it. 



2. — Note on the Jargon of Indian Horse-dealers 



Besides the mercantile sign language detailed in Journal No. 7, 

 Vol. II, 19U6, some trades have a jargon of their own that amounts to a 

 secret language. A horse-dealer, for instance, instructing an underling 

 to go and examine a horse in a fair, with a view to purchase, might still 

 say jd,o theko, the verb theknd being probably a corruption of dekkhnd ; 

 but this, as well as most of the horse-dealers' jargon, belongs to a past 

 generation. Old Punjab-dealers, still living, remember the time when 

 the following phrases were current amongst them : — 



Horse, gorpd ; mare, gorpi ; fore-legs, hdth or dastaure ; " it has 

 good fore-legs," dastaure mdle ; "it has bad lovQ-\eg&,'' dastaure kason ; 

 bad, basha,l ; eye, kilkiydn ; tooth, chJmbdhl ; bog-spavin, Idsa ; to 

 examine, hdzand. In discussing prices, too, a secret code used to be 

 observed. The following list of numbers was collected with difficulty, 

 by the writer, at horse-fairs in the Punjab, various horse-dealers 

 contributing odd numbers that had stuck in their memory. The 



