BOER 



790 



BOHEMIA 



the chief city of Boeotia, was in 

 :mrirnt tun.- tin- hrad of an important con- 

 federacy of cities known a." the Boeotian 

 League. The League assisted the Persians dur- 

 ing their invasions, and in the Peloponnesian 

 War fought on the side of Sparta against 

 Athens. The confederacy was at the height of 

 its power under the Theban generals, Epam- 

 inondaa and Pelopidas, to whose military genius 

 Thebes owed its brief period of supremacy 

 in Greece. 



Modern Boeotia is a political division of 

 Greece, with a population of about 65,800. See 

 THBCS; GREECE, subhead History. 



BOER, boor, a Dutch word meaning farmer, 

 and generally applied to settlers of Dutch 

 descent in South Africa. In 1652 a party of 

 Dutch left Holland to found a colony in South 

 Africa, where they might obtain religious and 

 political freedom. They were influenced to a 

 considerable degree by the migration of the 

 English Pilgrims, who had sailed to America 

 about thirty years previously, after a brief 

 residence in Holland to escape persecution at 

 home. 



In 1796 the territory where they had made 

 their new African homes was seized by the 

 British. The Boers bitterly resented the British 

 rule and in 1836 numbers of them boldly set 

 forth into the unknown and hostile lands to the 

 north, which afterwards became the Orange 

 Free State and the Transvaal. History has no 

 parallel to the record of danger and hardship 

 faced by the Boers on what is known as the 

 "Great Trek" in search of freedom. See 

 TRANSVAAL; SOUTH AFRICAN WAR. 



BOGOTA, bogotah', the capital of the 

 republic of Colombia, South America, and of 

 the state of Cundinamarca. It is pleasantly 

 situated on a plateau 8,700 feet above sea level, 

 in the eastern section of the Andes Mountains. 

 Although the city lies only 4 37' north of the 

 equator, its elevation gives it the climate of 

 perpetual spring, the air being moist and fresh 

 and not too warm for comfort. The San Fran- 

 cisco and San Augustine rivers flow from the 

 mountains through the city in cool streams and 

 divide it into four parts, each with broad 

 streets, well shaded with trees. The principal 

 buildings, grouped round a fine central square, 

 include a grand cathedral in Corinthian style 

 and the government buildings. 



The city, which is a center of culture and 

 education, has numerous churches, schools and 

 public libraries, a national university, three 

 endowed colleges, a botanic garden and a 



museum. Those buildings which are not mas- 

 sive are usually one story in height in order 

 to withstand earthquakes, which are of frequent 

 occurrence. Bogota has manufactures of car- 

 pets, matches, glass, cordage, porcelain, soap, 

 cloth and leather, but its location is unfavor- 

 able to great expansion in trade and manu- 

 facture. The city was founded in 1538 and soon 

 became the capital of the province of New 

 Granada. When the republic of Colombia 

 was established in 1819, Bogota became the 

 capital of the new state. Population in 1915, 

 122,369. See COLOMBIA. 



BOHEMIA, bo he' mi a, a former kingdom 

 and crownland of Austria-Hungary, once an 

 independent kingdom, and now the northwest- 

 ern corner of Czech o-Slovakia. It formed the 

 northwestern part of the old monarchy, has an 



G E RM A NY 



POLAND 



THE ABSORPTION OF BOHEMIA 

 The ancient kingdom is merged into the re- 

 public of the Czecho-Slovaks. 



area of 20,064 square miles, or about half that 

 of Kentucky, and a population in 1910 of 

 6,769,548, or nearly three times that of the 

 American state. Primarily an agricultural 

 province, it produces large stores of rye, wheat, 

 oats, barley, potatoes and sugar beets; but it 

 was also first among the Austrian provinces in 

 the possession of mineral wealth. Its resources, 

 its industrial life and its geographic features are 

 treated in the article AUSTRIA-HUNGARY, for 

 reasons there stated, and need not be repeated 

 here. 



Government. Under the old Austro-Hunga- 

 rian rule, Bohemia had a diet of about 250 

 members, but it was not thoroughly represent- 

 ative of the people, for most of the membership 

 was chosen by the aristocracy or large land 

 owners. Before the end of the War of the 

 Nations the province began to plan for ultimate 

 independence, and when the Czecho-Slovak re- 



