The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c11.s2.13

c11.s2.13

*Cailletoque.* This strange word is used by Anquetil Duperron, *Zend-Avesta*, I, xliv, when speaking of Sirāj-ud-Daulah’s escort at Murshidābād (1757), and this word he defines in his index “fusil à mèche, très long, que l’on tire ordinairement en le posant sur un pié fait en espèce de fourche”. The etymology of the word baffled me for a long time, it being impossible, from his spelling, to reconstitute its original form. It is not French, as the variations in spelling sufficiently show. For instance, De la Flotte, i, 258, referring to the Coromandel coast, (where Anquetil also may have picked up the word), speaks of a very long and heavy matchlock, which he calls a *kaitoke* (evidently another phonetic rendering of “cailletoque”). Gentil also, 59, in describing the entry of Ṣalābat Jang’s troops into Aurangābād on the 11th June 1753, mentions “fusils à mèche, qu’on appelle *kaitok*, couverts de drap rouge”. René Madec (c. 1774) spells it *kayetoc* (E. Barbé, “Le Nabab René Madec”, 54). For a time I thought it might be due to the use of *qandūq*, gun-stock, as a name for the whole weapon, though I have never found in native writers any such use of that word. Or it might be a vulgar error for *bandūq*, the ordinary word for a gun. Mr. H. Beveridge suggested to me *milteq*, a gun, as a probable derivation of the word (R. B. Shaw “Sketch of the Turki Language” J. A. S. B., 1878, p. 184). P. de Courteille, Dict. 506, fancies that this word *milteq* is itself a corruption of *bandūq*. In the absence of anything more satisfactory, an explanation of *cailletoque* might be found in *qūltūq*, the armpit, (Shaw, 157, P. de Courteille 435), on the ground that a musket is often carried under the arm!