-- 



BAR^SUR-AUBK. 



BAUBADOES. 



stood the old fortress of the dukn of Lorraine, to the foundation nf 

 which in the loth century liar in said to owe it* origin. The castle 

 wu demolished by Louis XIV. The church of St-Piurro contains a 

 monument of Rend de Chalons, prince of Orange, on which is a 

 remarkable piece of sculpture, representing a body in a state of decom- 

 position. The lower town stretches along the Ornain, which in crossed 

 by three stone bridges. The chief business of Bar is carried on in 

 this part, which contains many factories, dye-houses, and workshops. 

 The streets are wide and well hud out ; some of them are adorned 

 with double rows of lime-trees. Before the revolution Bar contained 

 a great number of churches and religious houses. Of the churches 

 that remain the principal are those of St.-Ktiennc and Notre-Dame ; 

 the other public buildings are of a very ordinary character. Bar pos- 

 OSMI tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a college, a primary 

 normal school, a society of agriculture and the arts, and n public 

 library. Its manufactures consist of cotton and woollen goods, cotton 

 yarn, hosiery, handkerchiefs, and leather. The town is celebrated for 

 its sweetmeats, and contains several breweries. The Orn:iin is 

 navigable below Bar, which has thus a ready means of transit for its 

 industrial products, and for the other items of its trade, namely, wine, 

 iron, fir and oak planks, and firewood for the supply of Paris. There 

 are extensive iron-works and stone-quarries in the neighbourhood. 

 The Paris-Strasbourg railroad passes through Bor-le-Duc. (Diction- 

 naire de la France.) 



BAR-SUR-AUBK. [AuBE.] 



BAR-SUR-ORNAIN. [B.vn-LE-Dcc.1 



BAR-SUR-SEINE. [AuBE.1 



BA'RABA, or BARABINSKAJA STEPPE. Eastward of the 

 Ekaterinenburg line of the Ural Mountains, and between the banks 

 of the Irtish and the Oby, which rivers bound it on the north, west, 

 and east, whilst the Altai range skirts it on the south, liea the immense 

 level extending nearly 300 miles from west to east and 400 miles from 

 north to south, which is known by the name of the Baraba, or Bara- 

 binsky Steppe. It forms nearly the whole southern portion of the 

 Russian province of Tobolsk and part of the south-western districts 

 of the adjoining province of Tomsk, and is conjectured by some 

 writers to nave been in remoter ages the bed of an ocean. This great 

 expanse of flats is in many parts fertile, but full of swamps and salt 

 lakes ; the lakes become low in dry seasons, when their waters are so 

 poisonous that horses and cattle die by drinking of them. The Uba 

 ainl Itkul are the largest of these lakes. The Barabinskaja Steppe is 

 also watered by the Tara, Om, Tartaa, Tshaus, and Tur ; it is covered 

 in parti with forests of firs and birches, owing to which it exhibits 

 some fine scenery. In the central districts of the steppe there is a 

 good deaj of cultivation and the soil is fertile. The Empress 

 Catharine settled a colony here in the year 1764 ; and they and their 

 successors have cultivated the steppe to so much advantage that 

 farms and villages have sprung up where "there was scarcely the trace 

 of a human footstep." The Steppe is principally inhabited however by 

 the Barabinzes, a semi-nomadic race of Tartar descent, many of whom 

 hare the flat face, small and elongated eye, large ears, and black li:iir 

 of the Kalmuck tribe. In winter they live in wooden huts, but in 

 summer they wander from place to place with their flocks and herds 

 (for the steppe abounds in good pastures), pitching their tents of felt 

 or erecting a covering of rushes for temporary shelter. They live upon 

 the produce of their cattle, or by fishing on the lakes, and partially 

 by cultivating the soil. In the central part of the steppe, Cochrane 

 observes, " hones, goats, sheep, and cows appeared very abundant ; 

 bean and wolves abound in the neighbourhood, and approach the 

 villages so close as often to alarm the people ; hogs, fowls, and ducks 

 are seen running about the villages, in all of which there are farm- 

 yards." He is here speaking of the parts which have been colonised ; 

 and to this report we may add from Dobell that " the horses on this 

 stppe are small in appearance, resembling those of the Yakuts, but 

 full of spirit and rigour, and there is no part of Siberia where one is 

 conveyed with so much swiftness as over Baraba." Pike are token in 

 Urge quantities in the lakes, and after being dried in the sun are exported 

 to, the adjoining provinces. The steppe contains seven volastes, or 

 places with markets, and twenty-four villages. (Cochrane's Pedtttrian 

 Journey through Ruaia and Siberian Tnrtnry ; Dobell's Travel*) 



BARABKA, or I'.KKAKKUA. [NUBU.] 



BARACOA. [CUBA.] 

 I'.AltAHAT. [OfBWHAUl 



BARAS KHOTUX, or BARS KHOTAN (on Danville's ' Map of 

 the Chinese Empire ' called Par Hotun ; on Grimm's ' Allan of 

 Asia* Para Kotun), the ' City of the Tigers,' is a large ruined city on 

 the banks of the Kberlon or Kheroolun, one of the head-streams 

 of the Amur, in the country of the Mongol*. The ruins lie, according 

 to Father Gerbillon the only European who ever visited them, in 

 48* N. Ut, 113' 42' K. long. When this traveller pawed the river 

 near these ruins, they consisted of extensive remains of mud walls 

 ami two pyramids in a state of decay. The walls inclose a square 

 pace and are 6 mile* in circuit Du Halde thought that the town 

 had been built by the great emperor Kublal Others suppose that the 

 town was built about the middle of the 14th century, when the 

 descendant* of Genghis Khan were expelled from China and retreated 

 to their ancient territories, the Great Desert of Gobi. At that time 

 UM Khagan, or Mongol Emperor Toghon Timur, gathered the Mongols 



who had escaped from the fury of the Chinese, and after u 

 them with those who had remained in the desert, creeled thin town 

 as the future seat of their empire, and himself died there in 1 1170. 

 N< .tiling certain is known respecting it* destruction. Timur's son 

 transferred the seat of the empire to the ancient town of Karakorum, 

 farther to the west ; and this circumstance, combined with the internal 

 wan which in the 15th century divided the Mongols, probably 

 brought about its abandonment and final destruction. It is said that 

 the site was chosen in consequence of the roar of a tiger having been 

 heard from it, which was considered a favourable prognostic by the 

 Mongols. (Du Halde ; Hitters' s Atia.) 



BARBADOES, or BARBADOS, is the most eastern of the Caribbee 

 Island*, and the most ancient of the British settlements in these seas. 

 Bridgetown, the capital, is in 13 6' N. lat, SO* 41' W. long. The 

 Portuguese landed in Barbadoes about the year 1000, and left there 

 a few plants and some swine. The island was taken possession of by 

 the English in 1605 ; the first settlement was made by Sir William 

 Courteen in 1624, and named by him James Town. After a di|mi-' 

 between two claimants for court favour, the Earls of Carlisle and 

 Marlborough, the former was put in possession of the island l>y 

 patent, and was empowered to publish such laws as he or his heirs, 

 with the consent of the free inhabitants, should think fit In the 

 meantime the settlers were diligently, though slowly, establishing 

 themselves. The woods, with which the island was thickly 

 grown, afforded lignum-vita) and fustic, which were valuable as article] 

 of exchange with England. 



After another struggle to retain his new possession, Lord Carlisle 

 contracted with a company of nine merchants of London to grant 

 them 10,000 acres of land, on condition of receiving from each settler 

 40 Ibs. of cotton annually, and with the privilege to the company 

 of appointing their own governor, who received full powers from 

 Lord Carlisle. A native of Bermuda, Charles Wolferstone, was 

 appointed, who with sixty-four persons landed in July 1628. Ivn-h 

 of the settlers was entitled on his arrival to 100 acres of laud. Tin -ir 

 first care wa* to build houses for their stores, Ac., which obtained the 

 name of Bridgetown. A dispute on the question of authority arose 

 with the colonists sent out by Courteen, whose settlement was by 

 this time in a flourishing condition. The king decided the dis- 

 pute in favour of Carlisle, who thereupon appointed Sir William 

 Tufton cumniander-in-cuief of the island. The civil war and religious 

 dissensions which were raging in England contributed greatly to the 

 rapid population of the island, and many royalist fumilirs f. mini an 

 asylum in it The leeward part seems to have been first and best 

 settled. Many of the planters had become rich ; and Lord Carlisle 

 having little leisure to attend to the affairs of the colony, his rliim <. 

 amid the confusion which reigned at home, were silently relinqn 

 A kind of island parliament was constituted, and Barbadoes so far 

 flourished as to have a population of 50,000 by the year 1647. The 

 Barbadians being for the most part Loyalists, the island was token by 

 the Parliamentary party in 1652. After the Restoration much com- 

 plexity arose out of the allegiance which the Barbadians owed to 

 the king and to the Earl of Carlisle and his heirs; and in 1663 an 

 arrangement was made whereby all claims of the earl and his li. ii ; 

 were commuted for an annual per centago on the revenues of the 

 island. 



In 1664 Barbadoes was attacked unsuccessfully by the Dutch 

 Admiral De Ruyter. In 1668 a destructive fire laid nearly all 

 Bridgetown in ashes. In 1669 Barbadoes was made the head-quarters 

 of the Windward Islands. In 1675 the island was visited by an 

 awful hurricane : neither tree nor house was left standing, except 

 a few sheltered by some hill or cliff, and the whole face of the country 

 exhibited one scene of desolation, while the coast was strewed with 

 wrecks, and many lives were lost at sea and on shore. During the 

 remainder of Charles II.'s reign an illiberal course of policy was 

 pursued towards Barbadoes, greatly to the dissatisfaction of the 

 colonists. On the accession of King William the Barbadians, in con- 

 jiim-tioti with Colonel Codrington, governor of the Leeward Islands, 

 voluntarily undertook an expedition against the French in these seas, 

 in wlii.-li tlii'y K-n-atly distinguished themselves in several remarkable 

 exploits. The calamities of war were in 1692 aggnvated by the ravages 

 of pestilence and an insurrection of the negroes ; nevertheless the 

 Barbadians sent a thousand men to assist in the attack upon Martinique 

 in that year. 



A long period of comparative quiet and prosperity ensued ; but in 

 1756 the war which was kindled in Europe afforded the Barbadians 

 an opportunity of showing their zeal and fidelity by furnishing 600 

 win'.- volunteers, with negroes for laborious service, besides supplies 

 to the fleet under Commodore Moore destined to attack Martinique, 

 and to the forces besieging Guadeloupe. Mr. Hay, who assumed tin- 

 government in 1778, was very anxious to improve the commerce of 

 the island, and recommended that application should be made to 

 obtain for it the privileges of a free port, but the opportunity was 

 lost 



Barbadoes has been singularly afflicted by fires nnd hurricanes. 

 Bridgetown in the hut century was burnt down four times in ten 

 years. A tremendous hurricane commenced on the 10th >> < ><-tl><r, 

 1780, and continued to rage with unparalleled violence for f<>ri , 

 hours, threatening universal ruin : the whole island was devastated 



