B E R 



259 



B E R 



children, who are received into the families of the purchasers 

 and are usually treated with kindness. 



The education of children appears to be but little attende( 

 to in the dominions of the rajah of Berar. In a report madi 

 in ] 826 by Mr. Jenkins, the East India Company's residen 

 at Nagpore, to the Bengal government, it is stated tha 

 ' education is chiefly confined to the children of Brahmins 

 and those of the mercantile classes, and the education they 

 receive does not seem much calculated to promote their 

 moral or intellectual improvement. All the other classes 

 are extremely illiterate : it is a rare circumstance to find one 

 amongst them who can write his own name. The only ordei 

 who ever look at books are Brahmins, taid their reading is 

 confined to subjects of Hindu divinity.' Whatever schools 

 there are have been established in the larger towns ; and 

 taking the whole of them into the calculation, it would 

 seem that not more than one child in eighty in the pro- 

 vince receives the benefit of instruction. 



It does not appear that any support is given by the govern- 

 ment for the encouragement of education, either by the esta- 

 blishment of free schools, or the grant of lands or pensions 

 to any of the teachers, who depend entirely on payments 

 made by the parents of pupils. The average rate of these 

 payments may be taken at three annas (!</.) per month for 

 each scholar ; and as the average number of pupils in each 

 school is only twenty, the annual income of the teacher will 

 not exceed on the average forty-five rupees (41. 1 Os.) per 

 annum. 



The trade of the province is limited to internal traffic, and 

 this only to a small extent, owing to the want of facilities 

 for transporting goods. It is doubtless owing to the absence 

 of external commerce that so little is known of the features 

 of the country and the condition of the greater part of its 

 inhabitants. 



(Ayin-i-Akbari ; Rennell's Memoir of a Map of Hin- 

 dustan ; Mills's History of British India; Evidence given 

 by Mr. Jenkins, late political resident at Nagpore, before 

 the Committees of the Houses of Lords and Commons ap- 

 pointed to inquire into the affairs of the East India Com- 

 pany in 1830 and 1832.) 



BERA'T,-an important town in the northern part of Al- 

 oania, in European Turkey. It is on the right or north 

 bank of a river called by the various names of Crevasta, 

 Kavroni, or Beratina (the antient Apsus), which is here 

 about as broad as the Thames at Richmond. The sur- 

 rounding district is inhabited by the tribe of Albanians, 

 called Toske (Toa/ctfte), and the town itself is, next to 

 Skodre or Scutari, the most important place in Albania. 

 It is in 40 48' N. lat., and 19 52' E. long. 



The valley in which it is situated is magnificent ; it is 

 better cultivated than the country to the southward, and 

 the inhabitants are more civilized. There is a fine bridge of 

 eight arches over the river, and a citadel or acropolis, upon 

 a hill. This acropolis was much enlarged by Ali Pasha 

 in the present century ; its circuit contains a small town, 

 and many Greek churches of the Lower Empire. The 

 lower part of its walls exhibits some massive building of 

 the antiunt Greeks. It is likely that this acropolis once 

 formed the whole town, and that the lower town, which is 

 ouUidu its walls, is an addition made by the Turks. It 

 mounted forty cannons before it was taken by Ali Pasha 

 from Ibrahim, Pasha of Avlona, whose stronghold it was ; 

 and it is likely that, in consequence of All's additions, the 

 number has been increased. 



The lower town, which lies chiefly on the S.E. side of the 

 acropolis, is large, and contains thirteen Turkish mosques. 

 The bazaar, which is handsome and spacious, lies close to 

 the river. It abounds in articles brought from Constanti- 

 nople and Macedonia, as well as in foreign goods imported 

 through the port of Avlona. 



The inhabitants of Berut are estimated at 9000,* and are 

 almost entirely Mohammedans, though the town is the see 

 of a Greek archbishop. The women wear a cap or bonnet 

 in shape like a bishop's mitre, nearly two feet high ; it is 

 generally made of blue cloth, is well stuffed, and fastened 

 under the chin by ribbons. Blue is the predominant colour 

 in female apparel at Herat. 



In 1809, Berat, then in possession of Ibrahim, Pasha of 

 Avloua, was besieged by Omer Bey Vrioni, general to Ali 

 Pasha of Joannina, and bombarded from the neighbouring 

 heights. Ali'g troops were supplied with Congreve rockets, 



'1 hi the number gi<en Wjr M B.lbi ; in Dr. Holland's Tratcls fa Alba. 

 M the popalalu.u ii fiwu t 14,004. 



under the direction of an English officer; and so much 

 were the garrison and townspeople terrified by these new 

 instruments of destruction, that Ibrahim was obliged to ca- 

 pitulate, upon condition of retiring with his suite and trea- 

 sures to Avlona. 



(Hughes's and Hobhouse's Travelt in Albania; Balbi, 

 Abrege de Geographic.) 



BERAUN, one of the central counties of the kinw 

 dom of Bohemia, the most northerly point of which skills 

 Prague, the capital, contains an area of 1110 square 

 miles, and lies between 49" 32' and 50 4' N. lat., and 

 13 38' and 14 49' E. Ion?. There is no part of Bohemia 

 more diversified with hills and mountains ; none in which 

 there arc finer plains, and few more densely peopled. The 

 northern districts are watered by the Berauu or BeraunUa, 

 which flows across them into the Moldau ; the north-eastern 

 by the Sazava, another tributary of the Moldau ; the western 

 by the Litawka, which runs into the Beraun; and the Mol- 

 dau itself winds through the county from the south in a 

 somewhat north-easterly direction, receiving the Sazava 

 and Beraun before it reaches Prague. The inhabitants 

 who were 137,517 in 1817, and 109,455 in 1830, amount at 

 present to about 175,000, and speak almost exclusively the 

 Bohemian tongue. They live in ten towns, twenty-two 

 market-towns, and 771 villages; the number of regular 

 houses is 24,164, and that of tenements of all descriptions, 

 including the houses, is 37,485. The produce of the soil is 

 timber, grain, and vegetables in large quantities, with a 

 small quantity of wine and hops ; the breeding of horses (in 

 1830, 6578) and sheep (in 1830, 94,071) >s considerable and 

 thriving; and the country has various manufactories, prin- 

 cipally of cottons, linens, hose, potashes, and paper. It 

 raises alum in a pure state, and much iron, particularly 

 near Horzovitz, in the western part of Berauu, the principal 

 spot on the domains of the earldom of Webna, which has 

 ibout 1900 inhabitants; in this neighbourhood are four 

 ligh-blast furnaces, besides smelting-houses, smithies, and 

 ron-ware manufactures. It also produces silver, red-lead, 

 and quicksilver, ns well as coals. Iron is likewise raised at 

 Dbecnitz and Althu'tten, on Count Collerodo's estates in the 

 central part of Beraun, east of the great ' Brdy Forest,' 

 tfhich Intersects it in a south-westerly direction from the 

 janks of the Moldau to its most southern border. Near 

 Przibram, a town on the Litawka with nearly 4000 in- 

 labitantj, in the south-west of the country, there are con- 

 siderable silver and lead mines, and pig and sheet lead 

 works. 



The celebrated castle of Karlstein, about five milss N.E. 



f Beraun, built by Charles IV. in 1348, is the most remark- 



ible of the seven or eight hundred burgs in Bohemia, and 



s a favourite place of resort, on account of the numerous and 



aluable specimens which it contains of the earliest state of 



jjainting in Germany and Bohemia. The raising of marble, 



and the manufacture of porcelain and earthenware, also give 



mployment to the inhabitants. Beraun, the capital of the 



irovince, called Slawoszow in Bohemian, and Verona and 



Jerue in old chronicles, lies in the north-west at the con- 



luence of the Beraun and Litawka; it is surrounded by 



an antient wall and ditch, contains 285 houses, and about 



2200 inhabitants, is the seat of a gymnasium and monastery 



f Piarists, and manufactures considerable quantities of 



arthenwaro for the Prague market. 49 58' N. lat., and 



4" 5' E. long. 



BERBERI'DEjE, a natural order of plants belonging to 

 he great class of Endogens, or Dicotyledon*. It is readily 

 tnown by three characters: 1. Its anther* open by re- 

 lexed valves ; that is to say, the face of each cell of the 

 anther peels off except at the point, where it adheres as if it 

 vere hinged there. 2. Its stamens are opposite the petals. 

 . Its flowers are usually formed upon a ternary plan, there 

 >eing three or six sepals, a like number of petals, and of 

 tamens. This last character is more liable to exception 

 ban the two others. The remarkable structure of the anther 

 s found in no European plants except Berberidese and the 

 aurel tribe [see LAURINE^] ; and as the latter has neither 

 >etals nor a ternary arrangement of the parts of the flower, 

 t can never be mistaken for these. The present order con- 

 sists of bushes or herbs, extremely dissimilar to each other 

 n appearance, inhabiting the cooler parts of the world, 

 >eing unknown in the tropics, except on the summits of 

 ofty mountains. They are not met with in Africa or the 

 South Sea Islands. Their juice usually stains yello\y, and 

 their bark, or stems, if not woody, are bitter, and slightly 



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