Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a camel, thus oont-wallah, a camel driver.

1879		London Dly News 12 Nov. 6/7: But occasionally, though, the oont passed away [...] to the happy land where drivers trouble not and weary camels are at rest.
1889		Notts. Guardian 6 July 6/7: The camel driver or ‘oont-wallah’ as he was called, seized hold of that [rope] attached to number one.
1892		Kipling ‘Oonts’ in Barrack-Room Ballads (1893) 170: O the oont, O the oont, O the floatin’, boatin’ oont! / The late lamented camel in the water-cut ’e lies.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.].
1908		Aberdeen Jrnl 16 Apr. 6/7: Throughout the Punjab (it says) the passing of the ‘oont’ seems to be a mere question of time.
1910		Civil & Milit. Gaz. (Lahore) 15 Dec. 9/2: The word ‘oont’ is emp!oyed in the plain of India to mean a camel, but in the Himalayas means a yak.
1912		P.C. Wren Dew & Mildew 237: ‘[W]e’ll send word to Soomar, who'll have his oonts down by the market [...] and a couple of the camels can go to the hotel. Jerks can drive one [...] and Luxman can bo druv by the oont-wallah’.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 12 Dec. 48/1: [T]here wasn’t a man living who knew that road and the horrors of it in the days before the railway who hadn’t a good word and a warm spot in his heart for the luckless ‘oont.’.
1931		‘William Hatfield’ Sheepmates 95: A camel train winding slowly up [...] Turbaned Afghan drivers in flowing white shirts [...] added just the last touch when the coach overtook the caravan. There was mail for the owner of the sixty-head string of ‘oonts’.
1945		Baker Aus. Lang. 214: A camel is an oont or a humpy.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 237/1: oont – a camel.
1963		C. Wood ‘John Thomas’ in Cockade (1965) Act I: Who ever depicted a camel booted? The scabby oont in size eight boots – on his back is where they’d be.

2. a person, a fellow.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 834: since ca. 1920.