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His _Life_ (1861) has been written by his son, Sir Edward Baines (1800-1890), who was editor and afterwards proprietor of the _Leeds Mercury_, M.P. for Leeds (1859-1874), and was knighted in 1880; his _History of the Cotton Manufacture_ (1835) was long a standard authority.
An elder son, Matthew Talbot Baines (1790-1860), went to the bar, and became recorder of Hull (1837). He became M.P. for Hull in 1847, and in 1849 president of the Poor Law Board. In 1852 he was returned for Leeds, and again became president of the Poor Law Board (till 1855). In 1856 he entered the cabinet as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster.
BAINI, GIUSEPPE (1775-1844), Italian priest, musical critic and composer of church music, was born at Rome on the 21st of October 1775. He was instructed in composition by his uncle, Lorenzo Baini, and afterwards by G.
Jannaconi. In 1814 he was appointed musical director to the choir of the pontifical chapel, to which he had as early as 1802 gained admission in virtue of his fine ba.s.s voice. His compositions, of which very few have been published, were very favourable specimens of the severe ecclesiastical style; one in particular, a ten-part _Miserere_, composed for Holy Week in 1821 by order of Pope Pius VII., has taken a permanent place in the services of the Sistine chapel during Pa.s.sion Week. Baini held a higher place, however, as a musical critic and historian than as a composer, and his _Life of Palestrina_ (_Memorie storico-critiche della vita e delle opere di Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina_, 1828) ranks as one of the best works of its cla.s.s. The phrase _Il Principe della Musica_, which has become finally a.s.sociated with the name of Palestrina, originates with this biography. Giuseppe Baini died on the 21st of May 1844 in Rome.
BAIRAM, a Perso-Turkish word meaning "festival," applied in Turkish to the two princ.i.p.al festivals of Islam. The first of these, according to the calendar, is the "Lesser Festival," called by the Turks _Kutshuk Bair[=a]m_ ("Lesser Bairam"), or _Sheker Bair[=a]m_ ("Sugar Bairam"), and by Arabic-speaking Moslems _'[=I]d al-Fitr_ ("Festival of Fast-breaking"), or _Al-'[=i]d a[s.]-[s.]agh[=i]r_ ("Lesser Festival"). It follows immediately the ninth or the fasting-month, Rama[d.][=a]n, occupying the first three days of the tenth month, Shaww[=a]l. It is, therefore, also called by Turks _Ramaz[=a]n Bair[=a]m_, and exhibits more outward signs of rejoicing than the technically "Greater Festival." Official receptions are held on it, and private visits paid; friends congratulate one another, and presents are given; new clothes [v.03 p.0224] are put on, and the graves of relatives are visited. The second, or "Greater Festival," is called by the Turks _Qurb[=a]n Bair[=a]m_, "Sacrifice Bairam," and by Arabic speakers _Al-'[=i]d al-kab[=i]r_, "Greater Festival," or _'[=I][d.]
al-a[d.][h.][=a]_, "Festival of Sacrifice." It falls on the tenth, and two or three following days, of the last month, _Dh[=u]-l-[h.]ijja_, when the pilgrims each slay a ram, a he-goat, a cow or a camel in the valley of Mina in commemoration of the ransom of Ishmael with a ram. Similarly throughout the Moslem world, all who can afford it sacrifice at this time a legal animal, and either consume the flesh themselves or give it to the poor.
Otherwise it is celebrated like the "Lesser Festival," but with less ardour. Both festivals, of course, belong to a lunar calendar, and move through the solar year every thirty-two years.
See Lane's _Modern Egyptians_, chap. xxv.; Mich.e.l.l, _Egyptian Calendar_; Hughes, _Dictionary of Islam_, pp. 192 ff.; Sir R. Burton, _Pilgrimage_, chaps. vii., x.x.x.
(D. B. MA.)
BAIRD, SIR DAVID (1757-1829), British general, was born at Newbyth in Aberdeens.h.i.+re in December 1757. He entered the British army in 1773, and was sent to India in 1779 with the 73rd (afterwards 71st) Highlanders, in which he was a captain. Immediately on his arrival, Baird was attached to the force commanded by Sir Hector Munro, which was sent forward to a.s.sist the detachment of Colonel Baillie, threatened by Hyder Ali. In the action which followed the whole force was destroyed, and Baird, severely wounded, fell into the hands of the Mysore chief. The prisoners, who were most barbarously treated, remained captive for over four years. Baird's mother, on hearing that her son and other prisoners were in fetters, is said to have remarked, "G.o.d help the chiel chained to poor Davie." The bullet was not extracted from Baird's wound until his release. He became major in 1787, visited England in 1789, and purchased a lieutenant-colonelcy in 1790, returning to India in the following year. He held a brigade command in the war against Tippoo, and served under Cornwallis in the Seringapatam operations of 1792, being promoted colonel in 1795. Baird served also at the Cape of Good Hope as a brigadier-general, and he returned to India as a major-general in 1798. In the last war against Tippoo in 1799 Baird was appointed to the senior brigade command in the army. At the successful a.s.sault of Seringapatam Baird led the storming party, and was soon a master of the stronghold in which he had long been a prisoner. He had been disappointed that the command of the large contingent of the nizam was given to Colonel Arthur Wellesley; and when after the capture of the fortress the same officer obtained the governors.h.i.+p, Baird judged himself to have been treated with injustice and disrespect. He afterwards received the thanks of parliament and of the East India Company for his gallant bearing on that important day, and a pension was offered to him by the Company, which he declined, apparently from the hope of receiving the order of the Bath from the government. General Baird commanded the Indian army which was sent in 1801 to co-operate with Abercromby in the expulsion of the French from Egypt. Wellesley was appointed second in command, but owing to ill-health did not accompany the expedition. Baird landed at Kosseir, conducted his army across the desert to Kena on the Nile, and thence to Cairo. He arrived before Alexandria in time for the final operations. On his return to India in 1802, he was employed against Sindhia, but being irritated at another appointment given to Wellesley he relinquished his command and returned to Europe. In 1804 he was knighted, and in 1805-1806, being by now a lieutenant-general, he commanded the expedition against the Cape of Good Hope with complete success, capturing Cape Town and forcing the Dutch general Janssens to surrender. But here again his usual ill luck attended him. Commodore Sir Home Popham persuaded Sir David to lend him troops for an expedition against Buenos Aires; the successive failures of operations against this place involved the recall of Baird, though on his return home he was quickly re-employed as a divisional general in the Copenhagen expedition of 1807. During the bombardment of Copenhagen Baird was wounded. Shortly after his return, he was sent out to the Peninsular War in command of a considerable force which was sent to Spain to co-operate with Sir John Moore, to whom he was appointed second in command.
It was Baird's misfortune that he was junior by a few days both to Moore and to Lord Cavan, under whom he had served at Alexandria, and thus never had an opportunity of a chief command in the field. At the battle of Corunna he succeeded to the supreme command after Moore's fall, but shortly afterwards his left arm was shattered, and the command pa.s.sed to Sir John Hope. He again obtained the thanks of parliament for his gallant services, and was made a K.B. and a baronet. Sir David married Miss Campbell-Preston, a Perths.h.i.+re heiress, in 1810. He was not employed again in the field, and personal and political enmities caused him to be neglected and repeatedly pa.s.sed over. He was not given the full rank of general until 1814, and his governors.h.i.+p of Kinsale was given five years later. In 1820 he was appointed commander-in-chief in Ireland, but the command was soon reduced, and he resigned in 1822. He died on the 18th of August 1829.
See Theodore Hook's _Life of Sir David Baird_.
BAIRD, HENRY MARTYN (1832-1906), American historian and educationalist, a son of Robert Baird (1798-1863), a Presbyterian preacher and author who worked earnestly both in the United States and in Europe for the cause of temperance, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 17th of January 1832. He spent eight years of his early youth with his father in Paris and Geneva, and in 1850 graduated at New York University. He then lived for two years in Italy and Greece, was a student in the Union Theological Seminary in New York city from 1853 to 1855, and in 1856 graduated at the Princeton Theological Seminary. He was a tutor for four years in the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), and from 1859 until his death was professor of Greek language and literature in New York University. He is best known, however, as a historian of the Huguenots. His work, which appeared in three parts, ent.i.tled respectively _History of the Rise of the Huguenots of France_ (2 vols., 1879), _The Huguenots and Henry of Navarre_ (2 vols., 1886), and _The Huguenots and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes_ (2 vols., 1895), is characterized by painstaking thoroughness, by a judicial temper, and by scholars.h.i.+p of a high order. He also published _Modern Greece, A Narrative of a Residence and Travels in that Country_ (1856); a biography of his father, _The Life of the Rev. Robert Baird, D.D._ (1866); and _Theodore Beza, the Counsellor of the French Reformation_ (1899). He died in New York city on the 11th of November 1906.
His brother, CHARLES WAs.h.i.+NGTON BAIRD (1828-1887), a graduate of New York University (1848) and of the Union Theological Seminary (1852), and the minister in turn of a Dutch Reformed church at Brooklyn, New York, and of a Presbyterian church at Rye, New York, also was deeply interested in the history of the Huguenots, and published a scholarly work ent.i.tled _The History of the Huguenot Emigration to America_ (2 vols., 1885), left unfinished at his death.
BAIRD, JAMES (1802-1876) Scottish iron-master, was born at Kirkwood, Lanarks.h.i.+re, on the 5th of December 1802, the son of a coal-master. In 1826 his father, two brothers and himself leased coalfields at Gartsherrie and in the vicinity, and in 1828 iron mines near by, and in 1830 built blast furnaces. In this year the father retired, the firm of William Baird & Co.
was organized, and James Baird a.s.sumed active control. His improvements in machinery largely increased the output of his furnaces, which by 1864 had grown in number to nearly fifty, producing 300,000 tons annually and employing 10,000 hands. The brothers became great landowners, and James was M.P. for the Falkirk burghs in 1851-1852 and 1852-1857. He died at his estate near Ayr on the 20th of June 1876, leaving property valued at three million pounds. He had been during his life a great public benefactor, founding schools and the Baird Lectures (1871) for the defence of orthodox theology, and in 1873 the Baird Trust of 500,000 to enable the Established Church of Scotland to cope with the spiritual needs of the ma.s.ses. He was twice married but left no children.
BAIRD, SPENCER FULLERTON (1823-1887), American naturalist, was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, on the 3rd of [v.03 p.0225] February 1823. He graduated at d.i.c.kinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1840, and next year made an ornithological excursion through the mountains of Pennsylvania, walking, says one of his biographers, "400 m. in twenty-one days, and the last day 60 m." In 1838 he met J. J. Audubon, and thenceforward his studies were largely ornithological, Audubon giving him a part of his own collection of birds. After studying medicine for a time, Baird became professor of natural history in d.i.c.kinson College in 1845, a.s.suming also the duties of the chair of chemistry, and giving instruction in physiology and mathematics. This variety of duties in a small college tended to give him that breadth of scientific interest which characterized him through life, and made him perhaps the most representative general man of science in America. For the long period between 1850 and 1878 he was a.s.sistant-secretary of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution, Was.h.i.+ngton, and on the death of Joseph Henry he became secretary. From 1871 till his death he was U.S. Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries. While an officer of the Smithsonian, Baird's duties included the superintendence of the labour of workers in widely different lines. Thus, apart from his a.s.sistance to others, his own studies and published writings cover a broad range: iconography, geology, mineralogy, botany, anthropology, general zoology, and, in particular, ornithology; while for a series of years he edited an annual volume summarizing progress in all scientific lines of investigation. He gave general superintendence, between 1850 and 1860, to several government expeditions for scientific exploration of the western territories of the United States, preparing for them a manual of _Instructions to Collectors_. Of his own publications, the bibliography by G. Brown Goode, from 1843 to the close of 1882, includes 1063 entries, of which 775 were short articles in his _Annual Record_. His most important volumes, on the whole, were _Birds_, in the series of reports of explorations and surveys for a railway route from the Mississippi river to the Pacific ocean (1858), of which Dr Elliott Coues says (as quoted in the _Popular Science Monthly_, x.x.xiii. 553) that it "exerted an influence perhaps stronger and more widely felt than that of any of its predecessors, Audubon's and Wilson's not excepted, and marked an epoch in the history of American ornithology"; _Mammals of North America: Descriptions based on Collections in the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution_ (Philadelphia, 1859); and the monumental work (with Thomas Mayo Brewer and Robert Ridgway) _History of North American Birds_ (Boston, 1875-1884; "Land Birds," 3 vols., "Water Birds," 2 vols). He died on the 19th of August 1887 at the great marine biological laboratory at Woods Hole, Ma.s.sachusetts, an inst.i.tution which was largely the result of his own efforts, and which has exercised a wide effect upon both scientific and economic ichthyology.
BAIRNSDALE, a town of Tanjil county, Victoria, Australia, on the Mitch.e.l.l river, 171 m. by rail E. of Melbourne. Pop. (1901) 3074. It lies near the head of a lagoon called Lake King, which is open to the sea, and affords regular communication by water with Melbourne. In the district, which is chiefly pastoral, there are several goldfields, with both alluvial and reef mining. The town has tanneries, and cheese and b.u.t.ter factories. There is an active s.h.i.+pping trade with Melbourne in maize and other grain, hops, fruit and dairy produce.
BAITER, JOHANN GEORG (1801-1877), Swiss philologist and textual critic, was born at Zurich on the 31st of May 1801. Having received his early education in his native place, he went (1818) to the university of Tubingen, but from want of funds was obliged to return to Zurich, where for several years he was a private tutor. From 1824 to 1829 he studied at Munich under Friedrich Thiersch; at Gottingen, under Georg Dissen; at Konigsberg, under Christian Lobeck. From 1833 to 1876 he was _Oberlehrer_ at the gymnasium in Zurich, where he died on the 10th of October 1877. Baiter's strong point was textual criticism, applied chiefly to Cicero and the Attic orators; he was very successful in hunting up the best MS. authorities, and his collations were made with the greatest accuracy. Most of his works were produced in collaboration with other scholars, such as Orelli, who regarded him as his right-hand man. He edited Isocrates, _Panegyricus_ (1831); with Sauppe, Lycurgus, _Leocratea_ (1834) and _Oratores Attici_ (1838-1850); with Orelli and Winckelmann, a critical edition of Plato (1839-1842), which marked a distinct advance in the text, two new MSS. being laid under contribution; with Orelli, Babrius, _Fabellae Iambicae nuper repertae_ (1845); Isocrates, in the Didot collection of cla.s.sics (1846). He had for some time been a.s.sociated with Orelli in his great work on Cicero, and a.s.sisted in _Ciceronis Scholiastae_ (1833) and _Onomasticon Tullianum_ (1836-1838). For the _Fasti Consulares_ and _Triumphales_ he was alone responsible. With Orelli and (after his death) Halm, he a.s.sisted in the second edition of the Cicero, and, with Kayser, edited the same author for the Tauchnitz series (1860-1869). New editions of Orelli's Tacitus and Horace were also due to him. It is worth noting that, with Sauppe, he translated Leake's _Topography of Athens_.
BAIUS, or DE BAY, MICHAEL (1513-1589), Belgian theologian, was born at Melun in Hainault in 1513. Educated at Louvain University, he studied philosophy and theology with distinguished success, and was rewarded by a series of academic appointments. In 1552 Charles V. appointed him professor of scriptural interpretation in the university. In 1563 he was nominated one of the Belgian representatives at the council of Trent, but arrived too late to take an important part in its deliberations. At Louvain, however, he obtained a great name as a leader in the anti-scholastic reaction of the 16th century. The champions of this reaction fought under the banner of St Augustine; and Baius' Augustinian predilections brought him into conflict with Rome on questions of grace, free-will and the like. In 1567 Pius V.
condemned seventy-nine propositions from his writings in the Bull _Ex omnibus afflictionibus_. To this Baius submitted; though certain indiscreet utterances on the part of himself and his supporters led to a renewal of the condemnation in 1579 by Gregory XIII. Baius, however, was not disturbed in the tenure of his professors.h.i.+p, and even became chancellor of Louvain in 1575. He died, still in the enjoyment of these two dignities, in 1589.
Baius is chiefly interesting as a forerunner of the more celebrated Cornelius Jansen (see JANSEN). His writings are described by Harnack as a curious mixture of Catholic orthodoxy and unconscious tendencies to Protestantism; their most noticeable point is the great importance they attach to the fact of sin, both original and actual.
His princ.i.p.al works were published in a collected form at Cologne, 1696, 1 vol. 4to, in two parts; some large treatises have not been published. There is an excellent study of both books and author by Linsenmann, _Michael Baius, und die Grundlegung des Jansenismus_, published at Tubingen in 1867.
BAIZE (16th century Fr. _baies_, cf. English "bay"), a material probably named from its original colour, though a derivation is also suggested from the Fr. _baie_, as the cloth is said to have been originally dyed with Avignon berries. It is generally a coa.r.s.e, woollen cloth with a long nap and is commonly dyed green or red. It is now also made of cotton. The manufacture is said to have been introduced into England in the 16th century by refugees from France and the Netherlands. It is used chiefly for curtains, linings, &c., and sometimes, in the lighter makes, for clothing.
_Table baize_ is a kind of oilcloth used as a cheap and easily-cleaned covering for tables.
BAJOCIAN, in geology, the name proposed in 1849 by d'Orbigny for the rocks of Middle Jura.s.sic age which are well developed in the neighbourhood of Bayeux, Calvados. The Bajocian stage is practically equivalent to the Inferior Oolite of British geologists. It corresponds fairly closely with the Lower and Middle Brown Jura of Quenstedt, and with the Dogger of Oppel.
By means of the fossil ammonites the Bajocia strata have been subdivided into the following zones, in descending order:--
Zone of _Parkinsonia Parkinsoni_ and _Cosmoceras garantianum_ " _Coeloceras subcoronatum_ (_Humphriesianum_) " _Sonninia Romani_ " _Stephaeoceras Sowerbyi_ " _Harpoceras concavum_ " " _Murchisonae_ Substage Aalenien " " _opalinum_ / of Mayer-Eymar.
It should be remarked that some European geologists prefer [v.03 p.0226] to include the _Parkinsonia_ zone in the base of the overlying Bathonian (_q.v._).
The Bajocian rocks of Europe are mostly limestones of various kinds, very frequently oolitic. At Bayeux, the type district, they are ferruginous oolites; in the Jura and Lorraine a coral limestone overlies a crinoidal variety; calcareous sandy and marly beds occur in Maine and Anjou; in Poitou the limestone is dolomitic and bears nodules of chert. Rocks of the same age, as recognized by their fossil contents, have a wide range; they are found in north Africa, Goa, Somaliland, German East Africa, and north-west Madagascar; through southern Europe they may be followed into Turkestan, and the Kota-Maleri beds of the Upper Gondwana series of India may possibly belong to this stage. In South America they appear in Bolivia, Chile and Argentina; in North America, in British Columbia, Dakota, Mexico, Oregon and California. The Bajocian sea also included parts of New South Wales, New Zealand (Flag Hills beds?), Borneo and j.a.pan, and it extended into the polar region of eastern Greenland and Franz Josef Land.
In addition to the ammonites already mentioned, the large belemnites (_Megateuthis giganteus_) and terebratulas (_T. perovalis_) are worthy of notice; crinoids and corals were abundant, and so also were certain forms of _Trigonia_ (_T. costata_), _Pleurotomaria_ and _Cidaris_.
See JURa.s.sIC; also A. de Lapparent, _Traite de geologie_, vol. ii. (5th ed., 1906); and H. B. Woodward, "The Jura.s.sic Rocks of Britain," vol. iv., 1894 (_Mem. Geol. Survey_); both works contain references to original papers.
(J. A. H.)
BAJOUR, or BAJAUR, a small district peopled by Pathan races of Afghan origin, in the North-West Frontier Province of India. It is about 45 m.
long by 20. broad, and lies at a high level to the east of the Kunar valley, from which it is separated by a continuous line of rugged frontier hills, forming a barrier easily pa.s.sable at one or two points. Across this barrier the old road from Kabul to India ran before the Khyber Pa.s.s was adopted as the main route. Bajour is inhabited almost exclusively by Tarkani (Tarkalanri) Pathans, sub-divided into Mamunds, Isazai, and Ismailzai, numbering together with a few Mohmands, Utmauzais, &c., about 100,000. To the south of Bajour is the wild mountain district of the Mohmands, a Pathan race. To the east, beyond the Panjkora river, are the hills of Swat, dominated by another Pathan race. To the north is an intervening watershed between Bajour and the small state of Dir; and it is over this watershed and through the valley of Dir that the new road from Malakand and the Punjab runs to Chitral. The drainage of Bajour flows eastwards, starting from the eastern slopes of the dividing ridge which overlooks the Kunar and terminating in the Panjkora river, so that the district lies on a slope tilting gradually downwards from the Kunar ridge to the Panjkora. Nawagai is the chief town of Bajour, and the khan of Nawagai is under British protection for the safeguarding of the Chitral road. Jandol, one of the northern valleys of Bajour, has ceased to be of political importance since the failure of its chief, Umra Khan, to appropriate to himself Bajour, Dir, and a great part of the Kunar valley.
It was the active hostility between the amir of Kabul (who claimed sovereignty of the same districts) and Umra Khan that led, firstly to the demarcation agreement of 1893 which fixed the boundary of Afghanistan in Kunar; and, secondly, to the invasion of Chitral by Umra Khan (who was no party to the boundary settlement) and the siege of the Chitral fort in 1895.
An interesting feature in Bajour topography is a mountain spur from the Kunar range, which curving eastwards culminates in the well-known peak of Koh-i-Mor, which is visible from the Peshawar valley. It was here, at the foot of the mountain, that Alexander found the ancient city of Nysa and the Nysaean colony, traditionally said to have been founded by Dionysus. The Koh-i-Mor has been identified as the Meros of Arrian's history--the three-peaked mountain from which the G.o.d issued. It is also interesting to find that a section of the Kafir community of Kamdesh still claim the same Greek origin as did the Nysaeans; still chant hymns to the G.o.d who sprang from Gir Nysa (the mountain of Nysa); whilst they maintain that they originally migrated from the Swat country to their present habitat in the lower Bashgol. Long after Buddhism had spread to Chitral, Gilgit, Dir and Swat; whilst Ningrahar was still full of monasteries and temples, and the Peshawar valley was recognized as the seat of Buddhist learning, the Kafirs or Nysaeans held their own in Bajour and in the lower Kunar valley, where Buddhism apparently never prevailed. It is probable that the invader Baber (who has much to say about Bajour) fought them there in the early years of the 16th century, when on his way to found the Mogul dynasty of India centuries after Buddhism has been crushed in northern India by the destroyer Mahmud.
The Gazetteers and Reports of the Indian government contain nearly all the modern information available about Bajour. The autobiography of Baber (by Leyden and Erskine) gives interesting details about the country in the 16th century. For the connexion between the Kafirs and the ancient Nysaeans of Swat, see _R. G. S. Journal_, vol. vii., 1896.
(T. H. H.*)
BAJZA, JOSEPH (1804-1858), Hungarian poet and critic, was born at Szucsi in 1804. His earliest contributions were made to Kisfaludy's _Aurora_, a literary paper of which he was editor from 1830 to 1837. He also wrote largely in the _Kritische Blatter_, the _Athenaeum_, and the _Figyelmezo_ or _Observer_. His criticisms on dramatic art were considered the best of these miscellaneous writings. In 1830 he published translations of some foreign dramas, _Auslandische Buhna_, and in 1835 a collection of his own poems. In 1837 he was made director of the newly established national theatre at Pest. He then, for some years, devoted himself to historical writing, and published in succession the _Historical Library_ (_Tortereti Konyvtar_), 6 vols., 1843-1845; the _Modern Plutarch_ (_Uj Plutarch_), 1845-1847; and the _Universal History_ (_Vilagtoretet_), 1847. These works are to some extent translations from German authors. In 1847 Bajza edited the journal of the opposition, _Ellenor_, at Leipzig, and in March 1848 Kossuth made him editor of his paper, _Kossuth Hirlapja_. In 1850 he was attacked with brain disease and died in 1858.
BAKALAI (BAKALe, BANGOUENS), a Bantu negroid tribe inhabiting a wide tract of French Congo between the river Ogowe and 2 S. They appear to be immigrants from the south-east, and have been supposed to be connected racially with the Galoa, one of the Mpongwe tribes and the chief river-people of the Ogowe. The Bakalai have suffered much from the incursions of their neighbours the Fang, also arrivals from the south-east, and it may be that they migrated to their present abode under pressure from this people at an earlier date. They are keen hunters and were traders in slaves and rubber; the slave traffic has been prohibited by the French authorities. Their women display considerable ingenuity in dressing their hair, often taking a whole day to arrange a coiffure; the hair is built up on a substructure of clay and a good deal of false hair incorporated; a coat of red, green or yellow pigment often completes the effect. The same colours are used to decorate the hut doors. The villages, some of which are fortified with palisades, are usually very dirty; chiefs and rich men own plantations which are situated at some distance from the village and to which their womenfolk are sent in times of war. The Bakalai of Lake Isanga cremate their dead; those of the Upper Ogowe throw the bodies into the river, with the exception of those killed in war. The body of a chief is placed secretly in a hut erected in the depths of the forest, and the village is deserted for that night, in some cases altogether; the slaves of the deceased are (or were) sacrificed, and his wives scourged and secluded in huts for a week. "Natural" deaths are attributed to the machinations of a sorcerer, and the poison-ordeal is often practised. Of their social organization little is known, but it appears that nearly all individuals refrain from eating the flesh of some particular animal.
BAKE, JAN (1787-1864), Dutch philologist and critic, was born at Leiden on the 1st of September 1787, and from 1817 to 1854 he was professor of Greek and Roman literature at the university. He died on the 26th of March 1864.
His princ.i.p.al works are:--_Posidonii Rhodii Reliquiae Doctrinae_ (1810); _Cleomedis Circularis Doctrina de Sublimitate_ (1820); _Bibliotheca [v.03 p.0227] Critica Nova_ (1825-1831) and _Scholica Hypomnemata_ (1837-1862), a collection of essays dealing mainly with Cicero and the Attic orators; Cicero, _De Legibus_ (1842) and _De Oratore_ (1863); the _Rhetorica_ of Apsines and Longinus (1849).
His biography was written (in Dutch) by his pupil Bakhuizen van der Brink (1865); for an appreciation of his services to cla.s.sical literature see L.
Muller, _Geschichte der kla.s.sischen Philologie in den Niederlanden_ (1869).
BAKER, SIR BENJAMIN (1840-1907), English engineer, was born near Bath in 1840, and, after receiving his early training in a South Wales ironworks, became a.s.sociated with Sir John Fowler in London. He took part in the construction of the Metropolitan railway (London), and in designing the cylindrical vessel in which Cleopatra's Needle, now standing on the Thames Embankment, London, was brought over from Egypt to England in 1877-1878. By this time he had already made himself an authority on bridge-construction, and shortly afterwards he was engaged on the work which made his reputation with the general public--the design and erection of the Forth Bridge. On the completion of this undertaking in 1890 he was made K.C.M.G., and in the same year the Royal Society recognized his scientific attainments by electing him one of its fellows. Twelve years later at the formal opening of the a.s.suan dam, for which he was consulting-engineer, he was created K.C.B. Sir Benjamin Baker, who also had a large share in the introduction of the system widely adopted in London of constructing intra-urban railways in deep tubular tunnels built up of cast iron segments, obtained an extremely large professional practice, ranging over almost every branch of civil engineering, and was more or less directly concerned with most of the great engineering achievements of his day. He was also the author of many papers on engineering subjects. He died at Pangbourne, Berks, on the 19th of May 1907.
BAKER, HENRY (1698-1774), English naturalist, was born in London on the 8th of May 1698. After serving an apprentices.h.i.+p with a bookseller, he devised a system of instructing the deaf and dumb, by the practice of which he made a considerable fortune. It brought him to the notice of Daniel Defoe, whose youngest daughter Sophia he married in 1729. A year before, under the name of Henry Stonecastle, he was a.s.sociated with Defoe in starting the _Universal Spectator and Weekly Journal_. In 1740 he was elected fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal Society. He contributed many memoirs to the _Transactions_ of the latter society, and in 1744 received the Copley gold medal for microscopical observations on the crystallization of saline particles. He was one of the founders of the Society of Arts in 1754, and for some time acted as its secretary. He died in London on the 25th of November 1774. Among his publications were _The Microscope made Easy_ (1743), _Employment for the Microscope_ (1753), and several volumes of verse, original and translated, including _The Universe, a Poem intended to restrain the Pride of Man_ (1727). His name is perpetuated by the Bakerian lecture of the Royal Society, for the foundation of which he left by will the sum of 100.
BAKER, SIR RICHARD (1568-1644/5), author of the _Chronicle of the Kings of England_ and other works, was probably born at Sissinghurst in Kent, and entered Hart Hall, Oxford, as a commoner in 1584. He left the university without taking a degree, studied law in London and afterwards travelled in Europe. In 1593 he was chosen member of parliament for Arundel, in 1594 his university conferred upon him the degree of M.A., and in 1597 he was elected to parliament as the representative of East Grinstead. In 1603 he was knighted by King James I., in 1620 he acted as high sheriff at Oxfords.h.i.+re where he owned some property, and soon afterwards he married Margaret, daughter of Sir George Mainwaring, of Ightfield, Shrops.h.i.+re. By making himself responsible for some debts of his wife's family, he was reduced to great poverty, which led to the seizure of his Oxfords.h.i.+re property in 1625. Quite penniless, he took refuge in the Fleet prison in 1635, and was still in confinement when he died on the 18th of February 1644 (1645). He was buried in the church of St Bride, Fleet Street, London.
During his imprisonment Baker spent his time mainly in writing. His chief work is the _Chronicle of the Kings of England from the Time of the Romans'
Government unto the Death of King James_ (1643, and many subsequent editions). It was translated into Dutch in 1649, and was continued down to 1658 by Edward Phillips, a nephew of John Milton. For many years the _Chronicle_ was extremely popular, but owing to numerous inaccuracies its historical value is very slight. Baker also wrote _Cato Variegatus_ or _Catoes Morall Distichs, Translated and Paraphrased by Sir Richard Baker, Knight_ (London, 1636); _Meditations on the Lord's Prayer_ (1637); _Translation of New Epistles by Moonsieur D'Balzac_ (1638); _Apologie for Laymen's Writing in Divinity, with a Short Meditation upon the Fall of Lucifer_ (1641); _Motives for Prayer upon the seaven dayes of ye weeke_ (1642); a translation of Malvezzi's _Discourses upon Cornelius Tacitus_ (1642), and _Theatrum Redivivum, or The Theatre Vindicated_, a reply to the _Histrio-Mastix_ of William Prynne (1642). He also wrote _Meditations_ upon several of the psalms of David, which have been collected and edited by A. B. Grosart (London, 1882).
See J. Granger, _Biographical History of England to the Revolution_ (London, 1804); _Biographia Britannica_, corrected by A. Kippis (London, 1778-1793).
BAKER, SIR SAMUEL WHITE (1821-1893), English explorer, was born in London on the 8th of June 1821. He was educated partly in England and partly in Germany. His father, a West India merchant, destined him for a commercial career, but a short experience of office work proved him to be entirely unsuited to such a life. On the 3rd of August 1843 he married Henrietta Biddulph Martin, daughter of the rector of Maisemore, Gloucesters.h.i.+re, and after two years in Mauritius the desire for travel took him in 1846 to Ceylon, where in the following year he founded an agricultural settlement at Nuwara Eliya, a mountain health-resort. Aided by his brother, he brought emigrants thither from England, together with choice breeds of cattle, and before long the new settlement was a success. During his residence in Ceylon he published, as a result of many adventurous hunting expeditions, _The Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon_ (1853), and two years later _Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon_ (1855). After a journey to Constantinople and the Crimea in 1856, he found an outlet for his restless energy by undertaking the supervision of the construction of a railway across the Dobrudja, connecting the Danube with the Black Sea. After its completion he spent some months in a tour in south-eastern Europe and Asia Minor. It was during this time that he met in Hungary the lady who (in 1860) became his second wife, Florence, daughter of Finnian von Sa.s.s, his first wife having died in 1855. In March 1861 he started upon his first tour of exploration in central Africa. This, in his own words, was undertaken "to discover the sources of the Nile, with the hope of meeting the East African expedition under Captains Speke and Grant somewhere about the Victoria Lake." After a year spent on the Sudan-Abyssinian border, during which time he learnt Arabic, explored the Atbara and other Nile tributaries, and proved that the Nile sediment came from Abyssinia, he arrived at Khartum, leaving that city in December 1862 to follow up the course of the White Nile. Two months later at Gondokoro he met Speke and Grant, who, after discovering the source of the Nile, were following the river to Egypt. Their success made him fear that there was nothing left for his own expedition to accomplish; but the two explorers generously gave him information which enabled him, after separating from them, to achieve the discovery of Albert Nyanza, of whose existence credible a.s.surance had already been given to Speke and Grant. Baker first sighted the lake on the 14th of March 1864. After some time spent in the exploration of the neighbourhood, during which Baker demonstrated that the Nile flowed through the Albert Nyanza--of whose size he formed an exaggerated idea--he started upon his return journey, and reached Khartum after many checks in May 1865. In the following October he returned to England with his wife, who had accompanied him throughout the whole of the perilous and arduous journey. In recognition of the achievements by which Baker had indissolubly linked his name [v.03 p.0228]
with the solution of the problem of the Nile sources, the Royal Geographical Society awarded him its gold medal, and a similar distinction was bestowed on him by the Paris Geographical Society. In August 1866 he was knighted. In the same year he published _The Albert N'yanza, Great Basin of the Nile, and Explorations of the Nile Sources_, and in 1867 _The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia_, both books quickly going through several editions. In 1868 he published a popular story called _Cast up by the Sea_.
In 1869 he attended the prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII., in a tour through Egypt. In the same year, at the request of the khedive Ismail, Baker undertook the command of a military expedition to the equatorial regions of the Nile, with the object of suppressing the slave-trade there and opening the way to commerce and civilization. Before starting from Cairo with a force of 1700 Egyptian troops--many of them discharged convicts--he was given the rank of pasha and major-general in the Ottoman army. Lady Baker, as before, accompanied him. The khedive appointed him governor-general of the new territory for four years at a salary of 10,000 a year; and it was not until the expiration of that time that Baker returned to Cairo, leaving his work to be carried on by the new governor, Colonel Charles George Gordon. He had to contend with innumerable difficulties--the blocking of the river by sudd, the bitter hostility of officials interested in the slave-trade, the armed opposition of the natives--but he succeeded in planting in the new territory the foundations upon which others could build up an administration. He returned to England with his wife in 1874, and in the following year purchased the estate of Sandford Orleigh in South Devon, where he made his home for the rest of his life. He published his narrative of the central African expedition under the t.i.tle of _Ismailia_ (1874). _Cyprus as I saw it in 1879_ was the result of a visit to that island. He spent several winters in Egypt, and travelled in India, the Rocky Mountains and j.a.pan in search of big game, publis.h.i.+ng in 1890 _Wild Beasts and their Ways_. He kept up an exhaustive and vigorous correspondence with men of all shades of opinion upon Egyptian affairs, strongly opposing the abandonment of the Sudan and subsequently urging its reconquest. Next to these, questions of maritime defence and strategy chiefly attracted him in his later years. He died at Sandford Orleigh on the 30th of December 1893.
See, besides his own writings, _Sir Samuel Baker, a Memoir_, by T. Douglas Murray and A. Silva White (London, 1895).
BAKER, THOMAS (1656-1740), English antiquary, was born on the 14th of September 1656 at Lanchester, Durham. He was the grandson of Colonel Baker of Crook, Durham, who won fame in the civil war by his defence of Newcastle against the Scots. He was educated at the free school at Durham, and proceeded thence in 1672 to St John's College, Cambridge, where he afterwards obtained a fellows.h.i.+p. Lord Crew, bishop of Durham, collated him to the rectory of Long-Newton in his diocese in 1687, and intended to give him that of Sedgefield with a prebend had not Baker incurred his displeasure by refusing to read James II.'s Declaration of Indulgence. The bishop who disgraced him for this refusal, and who was afterwards specially excepted from William's Act of Indemnity, took the oaths to that king and kept his bishopric till his death. Baker, on the other hand, though he had opposed James, refused to take the oaths to William; he resigned Long-Newton on the 1st of August 1690, and retired to St John's, in which he was protected till the 20th of January 1716-1717, when he and one-and-twenty others were deprived of their fellows.h.i.+ps. After the pa.s.sing of the Registering Act in 1723, he could not be prevailed on to comply with its requirements by registering his annuity of 40, although that annuity, left him by his father, with 20 per annum from his elder brother's collieries, was now his whole subsistence. He retained a lively sense of the injuries he had suffered; and inscribed himself in all his own books, as well as in those which he gave to the college library, _socius ejectus_, and in some _rector ejectus_. He continued to reside in the college as commoner-master till his sudden death from apoplexy on the 2nd of July 1740. The whole of his valuable books and ma.n.u.scripts he bequeathed to the university. The only works he published were, _Reflections on Learning, showing the Insufficiency thereof in its several particulars, in order to evince the usefulness and necessity of Revelation_ (Lond., 1709-1710) and the preface to Bishop Fisher's _Funeral Sermon for Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby_ (1708)--both without his name. His valuable ma.n.u.script collections relative to the history and antiquities of the university of Cambridge, amounting to thirty-nine volumes in folio and three in quarto, are divided between the British Museum and the public library at Cambridge,--the former possessing twenty-three volumes, the latter sixteen in folio and three in quarto.
The life of Baker was written by Robert Masters (Camb., 1784), and by Horace Walpole in the quarto edition of his works.
BAKER, VALENTINE [BAKER PASHA] (1827-1887), British soldier, was a younger brother of Sir Samuel Baker (_q.v._). He was educated at Gloucester and in Ceylon, and in 1848 entered the Ceylon Rifles as an ensign. Soon transferred to the 12th Lancers, he saw active service with that regiment in the Kaffir war of 1852-53. In the Crimean War Baker was present at the action of Traktir (or Tchernaya) and at the fall of Sevastopol, and in 1859 he became major in the 10th Hussars, succeeding only a year later to the command. This position he held for thirteen years, during which period the highest efficiency of his men was reached, and outside the regiment he did good service to his arm by his writings. He went through the wars of 1866 and 1870 as a spectator with the German armies, and in 1873 he started upon a famous journey through Khora.s.san. Though he was unable to reach Khiva the results of the journey afforded a great deal of political, geographical and military information, especially as to the advance of Russia in central Asia. In 1874 he was back in England and took up a staff appointment at Aldershot. Less than a year later Colonel Baker's career in the British army came to an untimely end. He was arrested on a charge of indecent a.s.sault upon a young woman in a railway carriage, and was sentenced to a year's imprisonment and a fine. His dismissal from the service was an inevitable consequence; it must be stated, however, that the view taken of the circ.u.mstances by good authorities was that Baker's conduct, when judged by conventional standards, admitted of considerable extenuation. He himself never opened his mouth in self-defence. Two years later, having meanwhile left England, he entered the service of Turkey in the war with Russia. At first in a high position in the gendarmerie, he was soon transferred to Mehemet's staff, and thence took over the command of a division of infantry. With this division Baker sustained the brilliant rearguard action of Tashkessan against the troops of Gourko. Promoted _Ferik_ (lieutenant-general) for this feat, he continued to command Suleiman's rearguard with distinction. After the peace he was employed in an administrative post in Armenia, where he remained until 1882. In this year he was offered the command of the newly formed Egyptian army, which he accepted. On his arrival at Cairo, however, the offer was withdrawn and he only obtained the command of the Egyptian police. In this post he devoted by far the greater amount of his energy to the training of the gendarmerie, which he realized would be the reserve of the purely military forces.