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The Giridih Coalfields In the Depths |
Introduction  On the Surface  The Perils of the Pit |
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Notes edited by David Page. In preparing these notes, the present Editor has drawn where appropriate on those of the ORG. |
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[July 6 2008]
Publication
6th September 1888 in the Pioneer, 9th September 1888 in the Pioneer Mail and 1st September 1888 in the Week’s News.
[Page 312, line 2] Joseph a punning reference to the fact that in the Old Testament Joseph was cast into a pit by his brothers (see Genesis 37), and that Kipling’s full name was Joseph Rudyard Kipling. He was named after his paternal grandfather, although he never used this first name. [ORG]
[Page 313, line 25] Tommy’s ... bluejacket’s soldier's ... sailor's.
[Page 314, lines 20-21] ‘gross darkness of the inner sepulchre’ a quotation from stanza XVII of “A Dream of Fair Women” by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892):
There was no motion in the dumb dead air,[Page 315, line 26] Eblis the Devil in the Moslem religion, the chief of the apostate angels who refused to worship Adam. [ORG] Kipling frequently refers to this Djinn in his stories.
Not any song of bird or sound of rill;
Gross darkness of the inner sepulchre
[Page 316, line 5] Shabash! 'Well done!' or 'Bravo'.
[Page 316, line 31] stooks Kipling gives the meaning of this word. It is possibly derived from the same English word for a group of wheat sheaves set up in a field to dry off after being cut.
[Page 317, lines 10-11] en échelon in a line but with each pillar behind and to one side of the preceding one.
[Page 317, line 18] goaf Kipling gives the meaning of this word, which is still current. Chambers Dictionary defines at as: 'the space left by the extraction of a coal seam, into which waste is packed.’
[Page 318, lines 8-9] Doms and Bauris, Kols and Beldars are tribes and castes in West Bengal and the Central Provinces.
Doms are a menial caste, scavenger or cleaner. Some do basketwork.
Bauris are cultivators.
[See Nomads of South Asia: Anthology of 400 Nomadic Groups and Gypsies of India by Renato Rosso and Kalyan Kumar Chakravarty. See also the Asia Nomads web-site.]
Kols are people of a forest tribe, labourers.
Beldars are diggers, navvies.
[See The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India by R.V. Russell, 1916. ]
[Page 318, line 11] fire-damp flammable gas found in coal mines. Methane is usually one of its constituents.
[Page 318, line 12] Davy lamp the miner’s safety lamp invented in 1815 by Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829).
[D.P.]
©David Page 2008 All rights reserved
