Ross' post aboave about the possible Oriental derivation of the word strikes a chord with me.

I can remember reading in some book somewhere at some time in my mis-spent youth, that the finest cigars were reputed to be those that had been "rolled on the thighs of Turkish doxies". Presumably in pre-Cuban days.

I had never come across the word before, and it has always stuck in my memory. It woouldn't be the first Arabic word to slide into the English language through the back door.

Murray