The Kiplings and India: A Collection of Writings from British India, 1870-1900

massalchi (mussaulchee)

(Hindustani) Hobson-Jobson defines a "mssaulchee" as technically a torch-bearer, but more commonly used in British India as a "humble domestic, whose duty was formerly of a like kind, as may be seen in the quotation from Ld. Valentia, but who now looks after lamps and washes dishes &c., in old English phrase a 'scullion'" (Hobson-Jobson 602)

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