common among them. They are particularly skilled in the smelting and working of iron. Iron forms the currency of the country, and is extensively employed for all kinds of useful and ornamental purposes. Bongo spears, knives, rings, and other articles are frequently fashioned with great artistic elaboration. They have a variety of musical instruments—drums, stringed instruments, and horns—in the practice of which they take great delight; and they indulge in a vocal recitative which seems intended to imitate a succession of natural sounds. Schweinfurth says that Bongo music is like the raging of the elements. Marriage is by purchase; and a man is allowed to acquire three wives, but not more. Tattooing is partially practised. As regards burial, the corpse is bound in a crouching position with the knees drawn up to the chin; men are placed in the grave with the face to the north, and women with the face to the south. The form of the grave is peculiar, consisting of a niche in a vertical shaft, recalling the mastaba graves of the ancient Egyptians. The tombs are frequently ornamented with rough wooden figures intended to represent the deceased. Of the immortality of the soul they have no defined notion; and their only approach to a knowledge of a beneficent deity consists in a vague idea of luck. They have, however, a most intense belief in a great variety of petty goblins and witches, which are essentially malignant. Arrows, spears and clubs form their weapons, the first two distinguished by a multiplicity of barbs. Euphorbia juice is used as a poison for the arrows. Shields are rare. Their language is musical, and abounds in the vowels o and a; its vocabulary of concrete terms is very rich, but the same word has often a great variety of meanings. The grammatical structure is simple. As a race the Bongo are gentle and industrious, and exhibit strong family affection.
See G. A. Schweinfurth, The Heart of Africa (London, 1873); W. Junker, Travels in Africa (Eng. edit., London, 1890–1892).
BONGO (Boöcercus eurycerus), a West African bushbuck, the
largest of the group. The male is deep chestnut, marked on the
body with narrow white stripes, on the chest with a white
crescent, and on the face by two white spots below the eye.
In the East African bongo (B. e. Isaaei) the body hue is stronger
and richer. There is, as yet, no evidence as to whether the
females of the true bongo bear horns, though it is probable they
do; but as the horns are present in both sexes of the East
African form, Mr Oldfield Thomas has made that the type of the
genus.[1]
BONHAM, a town and the county-seat of Fannin county,
Texas, U.S.A., about 14 m. S. of the Red river, in the north-east
part of the state, and 70 m. N. of Dallas. Pop. (1890) 3361;
(1900) 5042 (1223 being negroes); (1910), 4844. It is served by the
Missouri, Kansas & Texas, and the Texas & Pacific railways.
Bonham is the seat of Carlton College (Christian), a woman’s
college founded in 1867; and its high school is one of the best
in the state. It is a trading and shipping centre of an extensive
farming territory devoted to the raising of live-stock and to the
growing of cotton, Indian corn, fruit, &c. It has large cotton
gins and compresses, a large cotton mill, flour mills, canning
and ice factories, railway repair shops, planing mills and carriage
works. The town was named in honour of J. B. Bonham, a native
of South Carolina, who was killed in the Alamo. The first settlement
here was made in 1836. The town was incorporated in
1850, and was re-incorporated in 1886.
BONHEUR [Marie Rosalie], ROSA (1822–1899), French
painter, was born at Bordeaux on the 22nd of March 1822.
She was of Jewish origin. Jacques Wiener, the Belgian medallist,
a native of Venloo, says that he and Raymond Bonheur, Rosa’s
father, used to attend synagogue in that town; while another
authority asserts that Rosa used to be known in common parlance
by the name of Rosa Mazeltov (a Hebrew term for “good luck,”
Gallicé Bonheur). She was the eldest of four children, all of
whom were artists—Auguste (1824–1884) painted animals and
landscape; Juliette (1830–1891) was “honourably mentioned”
at the exhibition of 1855; Isidore, born in 1827, was a sculptor
of animals. Rosa at an early age was taught to draw by her
father (who died in 1849), and he, perceiving her very remarkable
talent, permitted her to abandon the business of dressmaking,
to which, much against her will, she had been put, in order to
devote herself wholly to art. From 1840 to 1845 she exhibited
at the salon, and five times received a prize; in 1848 a medal
was awarded to her. Her fame dates more especially from the
exhibition of 1855; from that time Rosa Bonheur’s works were
much sought after in England, where collectors and public
galleries competed eagerly for them. What is chiefly remarkable
and admirable in her work is that, like her contemporary,
Jacques Raymond Brascassat (1804–1867), she represents
animals as they really are, as she saw them in the country.
Her gift of accurate observation was, however, allied to a certain
dryness of style in painting; she often failed to give a perfect
sense of atmosphere. On the other hand, the anatomy of her
animals is always faultlessly true. There is nothing feminine
in her handling; her treatment is always manly and firm.
Of her many works we may note the following:—“Ploughing
in the Nivernais” (1848), in the Luxembourg gallery; “The
Horse Fair” (1853), one of the two replicas of which is in the
National Gallery, London, the original being in the United
States; and “Hay Harvest in Auvergne” (1835). She was
decorated with the Legion of Honour by the empress Eugénie,
and was subsequently promoted to the rank of “officer” of the
order. After 1867 Rosa Bonheur exhibited but once in the salon,
in 1899, a few weeks before her death. She lived quietly at her
country house at By, near Fontainebleau, where for some years
she had held gratuitous classes for drawing. She left at her
death a considerable number of pictures, studies, drawings and
etchings, which were sold by auction in Paris in the spring of
1900. (H. Fr.)
BONHEUR DU JOUR, the name for a lady’s writing-desk,
so called because, when it was introduced in France about 1760,
it speedily became intensely fashionable. The bonheur du jour
is always very light and graceful; its special characteristic
is a raised back, which may form a little cabinet or a nest of
drawers, or may simply be fitted with a mirror. The top, often
surrounded with a chased and gilded bronze gallery, serves for
placing small ornaments. Beneath the writing surface there is
usually a single drawer. The details vary greatly, but the
general characteristics are always traceable. The bonheur
du jour has never been so delicate, so charming, so coquettish
as in the quarter of a century which followed its introduction.
The choicer examples of the time are inlaid with marqueterie,
edged with exotic woods, set in gilded bronze, or enriched with
panels of Oriental lacquer.
BONI (Boné), a vassal state of the government of Celebes,
Dutch East Indies, in the south-west peninsula of Celebes, on
the Gulf of Boni. Area, 2600 sq. m. It produces rice, tobacco,
coffee, cotton and sugar-cane, none of them important as exports.
The breeds of buffaloes and horses in this state are highly
esteemed. The chief town, Boni, lies 80 m. N.E. of Macassar,
and 212 m. from the east coast of the peninsula. The native race
of Bugis (q.v.), whose number within this area is about 70,000,
is one of the most interesting in the whole archipelago.
Boni was once the most powerful state of Celebes, all the other princes being regarded as vassals of its ruler, but its history is not known in detail. In 1666 the rajah Palakkah, whose father and grandfather had been murdered by the family of Hassan, the tyrant of Sumatra, made common cause with the Dutch against that despot. From that date till the beginning of the 19th century Dutch influence in the state remained undisputed. In 1814, however, Boni fell into the hands of the British, who retained it for two years; but by the European treaties concluded on the downfall of Napoleon it reverted to its original colonizers. Their influence, however, was resisted more than once by the natives. An expedition in 1825, under General van Geen, was not fully successful in enforcing it; and in 1858 and the following year two expeditions were necessary to oppose an attempt by the princess regent towards independence. In 1860 a new prince, owning allegiance to the Dutch, was set up. As in other native states in Celebes,
- ↑ Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. x. (seventh series), p. 309.
