CONGEE, s. In use all over India for the water in which rice has been boiled. The article being used as one of invalid diet, the word is sometimes applied to such slops generally. Congee also forms the usual starch of Indian washermen. [A conjee-cap was a sort of starched night-cap, and Mr. Draper, the husband of Sterne's Eliza, had it put on by Mrs. Draper's rival when he took his afternoon nap. (Douglas, Glimpses of Old Bombay, pp. 86, 201.)] It is from the Tamil kanjī, 'boilings.' Congee is known to Horace, though reckoned, it would seem, so costly a remedy that the miser patient would as lief die as be plundered to the extent implied in its use:

". . . Hunc medicus multum celer atque fidelis
Excitat hoc pacto . . .
. . . 'Agedum; sume hoc ptisanarium Oryzae.'
'Quanti emptae?' 'Parvo.' 'Quanti ergo.' 'Octussibus.' 'Eheu!
Quid refert, morbo, an furtis pereamve rapinis?'"
Sat. II. iii. 147 seqq.

c. A.D. 70. — (Indi) "maxime quidem oryza gaudent, ex qua tisanam conficiunt quam reliqui mortales ex hordeo." — Pliny, xviii. § 13.

1563. — "They give him to drink the water squeezed out of rice with pepper and cummin (which they call canje)." — Garcia, f. 76b.

1578. — ". . . Canju, which is the water from the boiling of rice, keeping it first for some hours till it becomes acid. . . ."— Acosta, Tractado, 56.

1631. — "Potus quotidianus itaque sit decoctum oryzae quod Candgie Indi vocant." — Jac. Bontii, Lib. II. cap. iii.

1672. — ". . . la cangia, ordinaria colatione degl' Indiani . . . quale colano del riso mal cotto." — P. Vinc. Maria, 3rd ed., 379.

1673. — "They have . . . a great smooth Stone on which they beat their Cloaths till clean; and if for Family use, starch them with Congee." — Fryer, 200.

1680. — "Le dejeûné des noirs est ordinairement du Cangé, qui est une eau de ris epaisse." — Dellon, Inquisition at Goa, 136.

1796. — "Cagni, boiled rice water, which the Europeans call Cangi, is given free of all expenses, in order that the traveller may quench his thirst with a cooling and wholesome beverage." — P. Paulinus, Voyage, p. 70.

"Can't drink as it is hot, and can't throw away as it is Kanji." — Ceylon Proverb, Ind. Ant. i. 59.