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BORNHOLM — BORROW
Borrow, George Henry (1803-1881), English Menumbok to Kudat, with connexion at Jesselton and other intermediate stations. traveller, linguist, and author, was born at East DereSee also Brunei and Sarawak. ham, Norfolk, 5th July 1803, of a middle-class Cornish Authorities.—Posewitz. Borneo: Its Geology avd Mineral Resources.—Martin in Tijdschr. Aardr. Gen. vii. Jaarboekvan family. His father was a recruiting officer. His mother bet Mijnwezen, 1875-1900.—Molengraaff. “ Die Niederlandische was a Norfolk lady of French extraction. From 1816 Expedition nach Central Borneo” Petermann's Mitteil., 1895 ; to 1818 Borrow attended, with no very great profit, the and Borneo Expedition (Geological explorations in Central Borneo), grammar school at Norwich. After leaving school he with Atlas. Leyden, 1900.—Tromp. “ Mededeelingen nit was articled to a firm of Norwich solicitors, where he Borneo” in Tijdschr. Aardr. Gen. vii. (N. S.) 1890. Bock. Reis in O. en Z. Borneo van Kcetci naar Banjermasin, 1881-87.— neglected the law, but gave a great deal of desultory and Nieuwenhuis. “ Die Durchquerung Borneos ” in Pet. Mitt., 1898; unscholarly attention to languages. On the death of his and In Centraal Borneo. Leyden, 1900.—YAN HER Stok. Atlas father in 1824 he went to London to seek his fortune as of Wind and Weather (Batavia), 1897.—Kan. “Borneo,” and a literary adventurer. Engaged by Sir Bichard Phillips, Pleyte, “Dajaks,” in the Encyclopcedie van Ned. Indie.—Frank Hutton. North Borneo.—Joseph Hutton. The New Ceylon.— the publisher, as a hack-writer at starvation wages, his experiences in London were bitter indeed. His struggles Mrs V. B. Pryor. A Decade in Borneo. (c. M. K.; H. Cl.) Bornholm, an island of Denmark, in the Baltic, at last became so dire that if he would escape Chatterton’s 90 miles E. of Copenhagen and 23 S.E. of the coast doom, he must leave London and either return to Norwich of Sweden. Population, about 38,000. Excavations were carried on in the castle of Hammershuus in 1893. At Nekso a bust commemorates J. 1ST. Madvig, who was born there in 1804 (died 1886). Coal-mining is now discontinued. A railway from Bonne (the capital; population, 9000) to Nekso, 22 miles, was opened in 1899. Bornu, formerly a negro kingdom of some importance in the Central Sudan. Since 1880 it has steadily declined, owing to the political disturbances of which it has been the scene. The greater part of the area, which extends W. of Lake Chad in the valley of the Yobe, and S. between that river and the Shari, has been placed by international agreements within the British and German spheres of Nigeria and Cameroon, but no practical steps had been taken up to 1901 to establish the authority of these Powers in the country. After the visits of Bohlfs (1866) and Nachtigal (1871-73) the country was visited by no European traveller until 1892, when Colonel Monteil resided for a time at Kuka during his great journey from the Senegal to Tripoli. The French traveller noticed many signs of decadence, the energy of the people being sapped by luxury, while a virtual anarchy prevailed owing to rivalries and intrigues among members of the royal family. The king of Zinder had ceased to pay tribute, and the sultan was not strong enough to exact it by force. At the same time a danger was threatening from the south, where the negro adventurer Babe or Babah, once a slave of Zobeir Pasha, was menacing the kingdom of Baghirmi. After making himself master of the fortified town of Manifa, Babe proceeded against Bornu,. soon defeating the army of the sultan Ahsem in two pitched George Borrow. battles. In December 1893 Ahsem fled from Kuka, (From the painting by Phillips in the possession of Mr John Murray.) which was entered by Babe and soon afterwards destroyed, the capital being transferred to Dikoa in the south of the and share his mother’s narrow income, or turn to account kingdom. These events ruined the trade between Tripoli in some way the magnificent physical strength with which and Kuka by the long-established route via Bilma, which Nature had endowed him. Determining on the latter of has not since recovered its importance. Babe had by these courses, he left London on tramp. As he stood conthis time raised a large, well-drilled army, and proved a siderably more than 6 feet in height, was a fairly trained formidable opponent to the French in their advance _ on athlete, and had a countenance of extraordinary impressiveLake Chad from the south. The expedition under Lieu- ness, if not of commanding beauty—Greek in type with a tenant Bretonnet was cut to pieces by his troops in 1899, dash of the Hebrew—we may assume that there had never but later in the same year he met with a severe defeat at before appeared on the English high-roads so majesticthe hands of Captain Bobillot, and early in 1900 was looking a tramp as he who, on an afternoon in May, left his again defeated, and killed, at Kussuri, near the lower squalid lodging with bundle and stick to begin life on the Shari, by the combined forces of three French expeditions roads. Shaping his course to the south-west, he soon found which had been converging from the Congo, the Sahara, himself on Salisbury Plain. And then his extraordinary and the Niger. By the Anglo-French agreement of 1898 adventures began. After a while he became a travelling the tributary state of Zinder in the north fell to the hedge-smith, and it was while pursuing this avocation that French sphere, and French influence has been established he made the acquaintance of the splendid road-girl, born there by the expeditions under Foureau, Joalland, and at Long Melford Workhouse, whom he has immortalized under the name of Isopel Berners. He was now brought Peroz. much into contact with the gypsies, and this fact gave See Monteil. De St. Louis & Tripoli par le Lac Tchad.. Paris, 1895. Foureau, inZa Geographic, December 1900.—Joalland, him the most important subject-matter for his writings. For picturesque as is Sorrow’s style, it is this subjectibid., May 1901. (E- He )
