[1] Printed in Berger de Xivrey, _Traditions Teratologiques_ (1836),
from a MS. in private hands. Another MS., now at Wolfenbuttel, reads
"Hunglacus" for Huiglaucus, and (ungrammatically) "gentes" for
_Getis_.
BEQUEST (from O. Eng. _becwethan_, to declare or express in words; cf.
"quoth"), the disposition of property by will. Strictly, "bequest" is
used of personal, and "devise" of real property. (See LEGACY; WILL OR
TESTAMENT.)
BERAIN, JEAN (1638-1711), known as "the Elder," Belgian draughtsman and
designer, painter and engraver of ornament, was born in 1638 or 1639 at
Saint Mihiel (Meuse) and died in Paris on the 24th of January 1711. In
1674 he was appointed _dessinateur de la chambre et du cabinet de Roi_,
in succession to Gissey, whose pupil he is believed to have been. From
1677 onward he had apartments, near to those of Andre Charles Boulle
(q.v.), for whom he made many designs, in the Louvre, where he died.
After the death of Le Brun he was commissioned to compose and supervise
the whole of the exterior decoration of the king's ships. Without
possessing great originality he was inventive and industrious, and knew
so well how to assimilate the work of those who had preceded him
(especially Raffaelle's arabesques) and to adapt it to the taste of the
time that his designs became the rage. He furnished designs for the
decorations and costumes used in the opera performances, for court
festivals, and for public solemnities such as funeral processions, and
inspired the ornamentations of rooms and of furniture to such an extent
that a French writer says that nothing was done during his later years
which he had not designed, or at least which was not in his manner. He
was, in fact, the oracle of taste and the supreme pontiff whose fiat was
law in all matters of decoration. His numerous designs were for the most
part engraved under his own superintendence, and a collection of them
was published in Paris in 1711 by his son-in-law, Thuret, clockmaker to
the king. There are three books, _Oeuvre de J. Berain, Ornements
inventes par J. Berain_ and _Oeuvres de J. Berain contenant des
ornements d'architecture_. His earliest known works show him as
engraver--twelve plates in the collection of _Diverses pieces de
serrurerie inventees par Hughes Brisville el gravees par Jean Berain_
(Paris, 1663), and in 1667 ten plates of designs for the use of
gunsmiths. M. Guilmard in _Les Maitres ornemanistes_, gives a complete
list of his published works.
His son JEAN BERAIN, "the Younger" (1678-1726), was born in Paris, where
he also died. He was his father's pupil, and exercised the same official
functions after his death. Thus he planned the funeral ceremonies at St
Denis on the death of the dauphin, and afterwards made the designs for
the obsequies of Louis XIV. He is perhaps best known as an engraver. He
engraved eleven plates of the collection _Ornements de peinture et de
sculpture qui sont dans la galerie d'Apollon au chasteau du Louvre, et
dans le grand appartement du roy au palais des Tuileries_ (Paris, 1710),
which have been wrongly attributed to his father, the _Mausolei du duc
de Bourgogne_, and that of _Marie-Louise Gabrielle de Savoie, reine
d'Espagne_ (1714), &c. His work is exceedingly difficult to distinguish
from his father's, the similarity of style being remarkable.
CLAUDE BERAIN, brother of the elder Jean, was still living in 1726. He
was engraver to the king, and executed a good number of plates of
ornament and arabesque of various kinds, some of which are included in
his more distinguished brother's works. (J. P. B.)
BERANGER, PIERRE JEAN DE (1780-1857), French song-writer, was born in
Paris on the 19th of August 1780. The aristocratic _de_ was a piece of
groundless vanity on the part of his father, who had assumed the name of
Beranger de Mersix. He was descended in truth from a country innkeeper
on the one side, and, on the other, from a tailor in the rue
Montorgueil. Of education, in the narrower sense, he had but little.
From the roof of his first school he beheld the capture of the Bastille,
and this stirring memory was all that he acquired. Later on he passed
some time in a school at Peronne, founded by one Bellenglise on the
principles of Rousseau, where the boys were formed into clubs and
regiments, and taught to play solemnly at politics and war. Beranger was
president of the club, made speeches before such members of Convention
as passed through Peronne, and drew up addresses to Tallien or
Robespierre at Paris. In the meanwhile he learned neither Greek nor
Latin--not even French, it would appear; for it was after he left
school, from the printer Laisney, that he acquired the elements of
grammar. His true education was of another sort. In his childhood, shy,
sickly and skilful with his hands, as he sat at home alone to carve
cherry stones, he was already forming for himself those habits of
retirement and patient elaboration which influenced the whole tenor of
his life and the character of all that he wrote. At Peronne he learned
of his good aunt to be a stout republican; and from the doorstep of her
inn, on quiet evenings, he would listen to the thunder of the guns
before Valenciennes, and fortify himself in his passionate love of
France and distaste for all things foreign. Although he could never read
Horace save in a translation, he had been educated on _Telemaque_,
Racine and the dramas of Voltaire, and taught, from a child, in the
tradition of all that is highest and most correct in French.
After serving his aunt for some time in the capacity of waiter, and
passing some time also in the printing-office of one Laisney, he was
taken to Paris by his father. Here he saw much low speculation, and many
low royalist intrigues. In 1802, in consequence of a distressing
quarrel, he left his father and began life for himself in the garret of
his ever memorable song. For two years he did literary hackwork, when he
could get it, and wrote pastorals, epics and all manner of ambitious
failures. At the end of that period (1804) he wrote to Lucien Bonaparte,
enclosing some of these attempts. He was then in bad health, and in the
last state of misery. His watch was pledged. His wardrobe consisted of
one pair of boots, one greatcoat, one pair of trousers with a hole in
the knee, and "three bad shirts which a friendly hand wearied itself in
endeavouring to mend." The friendly hand was that of Judith Frere, with
whom he had been already more or less acquainted since 1796, and who
continued to be his faithful companion until her death, three months
before his own, in 1857. She must not be confounded with the Lisette of
the songs; the pieces addressed to her (_La Bonne Vieille, Maudit
printemps_, &c.) are in a very different vein. Lucien Bonaparte
interested himself in the young poet, transferred to him his own pension
of 1000 francs from the Institute, and set him to work on a _Death of
Nero_. Five years later, through the same patronage, although
indirectly, Beranger became a clerk in the university at a salary of
another thousand.
Meanwhile he had written many songs for convivial occasions, and "to
console himself under all misfortunes"; some, according to M. Boiteau,
had been already published by his father, but he set no great store on
them himself; and it was only in 1812, while watching by the sick-bed of
a friend, that it occurred to him to write down the best he could
remember. Next year he was elected to the _Caveau Moderne_, and his
reputation as a song-writer began to spread. Manuscript copies of _Les
Gueux, Le Senateur_, above all, of _Le Roi d'Yvetot_, a satire against
Napoleon, whom he was to magnify so much in the sequel, passed from hand
to hand with acclamation. It was thus that all his best works went
abroad; one man sang them to another over all the land of France. He was
the only poet of modern times who could altogether have dispensed with
printing.
His first collection escaped censure. "We must pardon many things to the
author of _Le Roi d'Yvetot_," said Louis XVIII. The second (1821) was
more daring. The apathy of the Liberal camp, he says, had convinced him
of the need for some bugle call of awakening. This publication lost him
his situation in the university, and subjected him to a trial, a fine of
500 francs and an imprisonment of three months. Imprisonment was a small
affair for Beranger. At Sainte Pelagie he occupied a room (it had just
been quitted by Paul Louis Courier), warm, well furnished, and
preferable in every way to his own poor lodging, where the water froze
on winter nights. He adds, on the occasion of his second imprisonment,
that he found a certain charm in this quiet, claustral existence, with
its regular hours and long evenings alone over the fire. This second
imprisonment of nine months, together with a fine and expenses amounting
to 1100 francs, followed on the appearance of his fourth collection. The
government proposed through Laffitte that, if he would submit to
judgment without appearing or making defences, he should only be
condemned in the smallest penalty. But his public spirit made him refuse
the proposal; and he would not even ask permission to pass his term of
imprisonment in a _Maison de sante_, although his health was more than
usually feeble at the time. "When you have taken your stand in a contest
with government, it seems to me," he wrote, "ridiculous to complain of
the blows it inflicts on you, and impolitic to furnish it with any
occasion of generosity." His first thought in La Force was to alleviate
the condition of the other prisoners.
In the revolution of July he took no inconsiderable part. Copies of his
song, _Le Vieux Drapeau_, were served out to the insurgent crowd. He had
been for long the intimate friend and adviser of the leading men; and
during the decisive week his counsels went a good way towards shaping
the ultimate result. "As for the republic, that dream of my whole life,"
he wrote in 1831, "I did not wish it should be given to us a second time
unripe." Louis Philippe, hearing how much the song-writer had done
towards his elevation, expressed a wish to see and speak with him; but
Beranger refused to present himself at court, and used his favour only
to ask a place for a friend, and a pension for Rouget de l'Isle, author
of the famous _Marseillaise_, who was now old and poor, and whom he had
been already succouring for five years.
In 1848, in spite of every possible expression of his reluctance, he was
elected to the Constituent Assembly, and that by so large a number of
votes (204,471) that he felt himself obliged to accept the seat. Not
long afterwards, and with great difficulty, he obtained leave to resign.
This was the last public event of Beranger's life. He continued to
polish his songs in retirement, visited by nearly all the famous men of
France. He numbered among his friends Chateaubriand, Thiers, Jacques
Laffitte, Michelet, Lamennais, Mignet. Nothing could exceed the
amiability of his private character; so poor a man has rarely been so
rich in good actions; he was always ready to receive help from his
friends when he was in need, and always forward to help others. His
correspondence is full of wisdom and kindness, with a smack of
Montaigne, and now and then a vein of pleasantry that will remind the
English reader of Charles Lamb. He occupied some of his leisure in
preparing his own memoirs, and a certain treatise on _Social and
Political Morality_, intended for the people, a work he had much at
heart, but judged at last to be beyond his strength. He died on the 16th
July 1857. It was feared that his funeral would be the signal for some
political disturbance; but the government took immediate measures, and
all went quietly. The streets of Paris were lined with soldiers and full
of townsfolk, silent and uncovered. From time to time cries
arose:--"_Honneur, honneur a Beranger!_"
The songs of Beranger would scarcely be called songs in England. They
are elaborate, written in a clear and sparkling style, full of wit and
incision. It is not so much for any lyrical flow as for the happy turn
of the phrase that they claim superiority. Whether the subject be gay or
serious, light or passionate, the medium remains untroubled. The special
merits of the songs are merits to be looked for rather in English prose
than in English verse. He worked deliberately, never wrote more than
fifteen songs a year and often less, and was so fastidious that he has
not preserved a quarter of what he finished. "I am a good little bit of
a poet," he says himself, "clever in the craft, and a conscientious
worker to whom old airs and a modest choice of subjects (_le coin ou je
me suis confine_) have brought some success." Nevertheless, he makes a
figure of importance in literary history. When he first began to
cultivate the _chanson_, this minor form lay under some contempt, and
was restricted to slight subjects and a humorous guise of treatment.
Gradually he filled these little chiselled toys of verbal perfection
with ever more and more of sentiment. From a date comparatively early he
had determined to sing for the people. It was for this reason that he
fled, as far as possible, the houses of his influential friends and came
back gladly to the garret and the street corner. Thus it was, also, that
he came to acknowledge obligations to Emile Debraux, who had often stood
between him and the masses as interpreter, and given him the key-note of
the popular humour. Now, he had observed in the songs of sailors, and
all who labour, a prevailing tone of sadness; and so, as he grew more
masterful in this sort of expression, he sought more and more after what
is deep, serious and constant in the thoughts of common men. The
evolution was slow; and we can see in his own works examples of every
stage, from that of witty indifference in fifty pieces of the first
collection, to that of grave and even tragic feeling in _Les Souvenirs
du peuple_ or _Le Vieux Vagabond_. And this innovation involved another,
which was as a sort of prelude to the great romantic movement. For the
_chanson_, as he says himself, opened up to him a path in which his
genius could develop itself at ease; he escaped, by this literary
postern, from strict academical requirements, and had at his disposal
the whole dictionary, four-fifths of which, according to La Harpe, were
forbidden to the use of more regular and pretentious poetry. If he still
kept some of the old vocabulary, some of the old imagery, he was yet
accustoming people to hear moving subjects treated in a manner more free
and simple than heretofore; so that his was a sort of conservative
reform, preceding the violent revolution of Victor Hugo and his army of
uncompromising romantics. He seems himself to have had glimmerings of
some such idea; but he withheld his full approval from the new movement
on two grounds:--first, because the romantic school misused somewhat
brutally the delicate organism of the French language; and second, as he
wrote to Sainte-Beuve in 1832, because they adopted the motto of "Art
for art," and set no object of public usefulness before them as they
wrote. For himself (and this is the third point of importance) he had a
strong sense of political responsibility. Public interest took a far
higher place in his estimation than any private passion or favour. He
had little toleration for those erotic poets who sing their own loves
and not the common sorrows of mankind, "who forget," to quote his own
words, "forget beside their mistress those who labour before the Lord."
Hence it is that so many of his pieces are political, and so many, in
the later times at least, inspired with a socialistic spirit of
indignation and revolt. It is by this socialism that he becomes truly
modern and touches hands with Burns.
AUTHORITIES.--_Ma biographie_ (his own memoirs) (1858); _Vie de
Beranger_, by Paul Boiteau (1861); _Correspondance de Beranger_,
edited by Paul Boiteau (4 vols., 1860); _Beranger et Lamennais_, by
Napoleon Peyrat (1857); _Quarante-cinq lettres de Beranger publiees
par Madame Louise Colet_ (almost worthless) (1857); _Beranger, ses
amis, ses ennemis et ses critiques_, by A. Arnould (2 vols., 1864); J.
Janin, _Beranger et son temps_ (2 vols., 1866); also Sainte-Beuve's
_Portraits contemporains_, vol. i.; J. Carson, _Beranger et la legende
napoleonienne_ (1897) A bibliography of Beranger's works was published
by Jules Brivois in 1876. (R. L. S.)
BERAR, known also as the HYDERABAD ASSIGNED DISTRICTS, formerly a
province administered on behalf of the nizam of Hyderabad by the British
government, but since the 1st of October 1903 under the administration
of the commissioner-general for the Central Provinces (q.v.). The origin
of the name Berar is not known, but may perhaps be a corruption of
Vidarbha, the name of a kingdom in the Deccan of which, in the period of
the Mahabharata, Berar probably formed part. The history of Berar
belongs generally to that of the Deccan, the country falling in turn
under the sway of the various dynasties which successively ruled in
southern India, the first authentic records showing it to have been part
of the Andhra or Satavahana empire. On the final fall of the Chalukyas
in the 12th century, Berar came under the sway of the Yadavas of
Deogiri, and remained in their possession till the Mussulman invasions
at the end of the 13th century. On the establishment of the Bahmani
dynasty in the Deccan (1348) Berar was constituted one of the four
provinces into which their kingdom was divided, being governed by great
nobles, with a separate army. The perils of this system becoming
apparent, the province was divided (1478 or 1479) into two separate
governments, named after their capitals Gawil and Mahur. The Bahmani
dynasty was, however, already tottering to its fall; and in 1490
Imad-ul-Mulk, governor of Gawil, who had formerly held all Berar,
proclaimed his independence and proceeded to annex Mahur to his new
kingdom. Imad-ul-Mulk was by birth a Kanarese Hindu, but had been
captured as a boy in one of the expeditions against Vijayanagar and
reared as a Mussulman. He died in 1504 and his direct descendants held
the sultanate of Berar until 1561, when Burhan Imad Shah was deposed by
his minister Tufal Khan, who assumed the kingship. This gave a pretext
for the intervention of Murtaza Nizam Shah of Ahmednagar, who in 1572
invaded Berar, imprisoned and put to death Tufal Khan, his son
Shams-ul-Mulk, and the ex-king Burhan, and annexed Berar to his own
dominions. In 1595 Sultan Murad, son of the emperor Akbar, besieged
Ahmednagar, and was bought off by the formal cession of Berar.
Murad, founding the city of Shahpur, fixed his seat at Berar, and after
his death in 1598, and the conquest of the Deccan by Akbar, the province
was united with Ahmednagar and Khandesh under the emperor's fifth son,
Daniyal (d. 1605), as governor. After Akbar's death (1605) Berar once
more became independent under the Abyssinian Malik Ambar (d. 1626), but
in the first year of Shah Jahan's reign it was again brought under the
sway of the Mogul empire. Towards the close of the 17th century the
province began to be overrun by the Mahrattas, and in 1718 the Delhi
government formally recognized their right to levy blackmail (_chauth_)
on the unhappy population. In 1724 the Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah
established the independent line of the nizams of Hyderabad, and
thenceforth the latter claimed to be _de jure_ sovereigns of Berar, with
exception of certain districts (Mehkar, Umarkhed, &c.) ceded to the
peshwa in 1760 and 1795. The claim was contested by the Bhonsla rajas,
and for more than half a century the miserable country was ground
between the upper and the nether millstone.
This condition of things was ended by Wellesley's victories at Assaye
and Argaon (1803), which forced the Bhonsla raja to cede his territories
west of the Wardha, Gawilgarh and Narnala. By the partition treaty of
Hyderabad (1804) these ceded territories in Berar were transferred to
the nizam, together with some tracts about Sindkhed and Jalna which had
been held by Sindhia. By a treaty of 1822, which extinguished the
Mahratta right to levy _chauth_, the Wardha river was fixed as the
eastern boundary of Berar, the Melghat and adjoining districts in the
plains being assigned to the nizam in exchange for the districts east of
the Wardha held by the peshwa.
Though Berar was no longer oppressed by its Mahratta taskmasters nor
harried by Pindari and Bhil raiders, it remained long a prey to the
turbulent elements let loose by the sudden cessation of the wars. From
time to time bands of soldiery, whom the government was powerless to
control, scoured the country, and rebellion succeeded rebellion till
1859, when the last fight against open rebels took place at Chichamba
near Risod. Meanwhile the misery of the country was increased by the
reckless raising of loans by the nizam's government and the pledging of
the revenues to a succession of great farmers-general. At last the
British government had to intervene effectively, and in 1853 a new
treaty was signed with the nizam, under which the Hyderabad contingent
was to be maintained by the British government, while for the pay of
this force and in satisfaction of other claims, certain districts were
"assigned" to the East India Company. It was these "Hyderabad Assigned
Districts" which were popularly supposed to form the province of Berar,
though they coincided in extent neither with the Berar of the nizams nor
with the old Mogul province. In 1860, by a new treaty which modified in
the nizam's favour that of 1853, it was agreed that Berar should be held
in trust by the British government for the purposes specified in the
treaty of 1853.
Under British control Berar rapidly recovered its prosperity. Thousands
of cultivators who had emigrated across the Wardha to the peshwa's
dominions, in order to escape the ruinous fiscal system of the nizam's
government, now returned; the American Civil War gave an immense
stimulus to the cotton trade; the laying of a line of railway across the
province provided yet further employment, and the people rapidly became
prosperous and contented.
See _Imperial Gazetteer of India_ (Oxford, 1908), and authorities
there quoted.
BERARD, JOSEPH FREDERIC (1789-1828), French physician and philosopher,
was born at Montpellier. Educated at the medical school of that town, he
afterwards went to Paris, where he was employed in connexion with the
_Dictionnaire des sciences medicales_. He returned in 1816, and
published a work, _Doctrine medicale de l'ecole de Montpellier_ (1819),
which is indispensable to a proper understanding of the principles of
the Vitalistic school. In 1823 he was called to a chair of medicine at
Paris, which he held for three years; he was then nominated professor of
hygiene at Montpellier. His health gave way under his labours, and he
died in 1828. His most important book is his _Doctrines des rapports du
physique et du moral_ (Paris, 1823). He held that consciousness or
internal perception reveals to us the existence of an immaterial,
thinking, feeling and willing subject, the self or soul. Alongside of
this there is the vital force, the nutritive power, which uses the
physical frame as its organ. The soul and the principle of life are in
constant reciprocal action, and the first owes to the second, not the
formation of its faculties, but the conditions under which they are
evolved. He showed himself unable to understand the points of view of
those whom he criticized, and yet his own theories, midway between
vitalism and animism, are entirely destitute of originality.
To the _Esprit des doctrines medicales de Montpellier_, published
posthumously (Paris, 1830), the editor, H. Petiot, prefixed an account
of his life and works; see also Damiron, _Phil. en France au XIX^e
siecle_ (Paris, 1834); C.J. Tissot, _Anthropologie generale_ (1843).
BERAT (Slav. _Byelgorod_; Turk. _Arnaut-Beligradi_), the capital of a
sanjak in the vilayet of Iannina, southern Albania, Turkey; on the river
Ergene, Ergeni or Osum, a left-hand tributary of the Semeni. Pop. (1900)
about 15,000. Berat is a fortified town, situated in a fertile valley,
which produces wine, olive-oil, fruit and grain. It is the see of an
Orthodox metropolitan, and the inhabitants, of whom two-thirds are
Albanian and the remainder principally Greek, are equally divided in
religion between Christianity and Islam.
BERAUN (Czech _Beroun_), a town of Bohemia, Austria, 27 m. S.W. of
Prague by rail. Pop. (1900) 9693, mostly Czech. It is situated at the
confluence of the Beraun with the Litawa river, and is the seat of
important textile industry, sugar-refining, corn-milling and brewing.
Lime-kilns and the manufacture of cement, and smelting and iron works
are carried on in the environs. Beraun is a place of immemorial
antiquity. It was originally called _na Brode_ (by the ford), and
received the name of Bern, Berun or Verona in the 13th century, when it
obtained the privileges of a city from the emperor Charles IV., who was
specially attached to the place, calling it "Verona mea." Under his
patronage the town rapidly prospered. In 1421 Zizka stormed the town,
which later on was retaken and devastated by the troops of Duke Leopold,
bishop of Passau. During the Thirty Years' War it was sacked by the
Imperialists, the Saxons and the Swedes in turn; and in the first
Silesian war the same fate befell it at the hands of the French and
Bavarians.
BERBER, a town and mudiria (province) of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The
town is on the right bank of the Nile, 1140 ft. above sea-level, in 18
deg. 1' N., 33 deg. 59' E., and 214 m. by rail N.W. of Khartum. Pop.
about 6000. Berber derived its importance from being the starting-point
of the caravan route, 242 m. long, across the Nubian desert to the Red
Sea at Suakin, a distance covered in seven to twelve days. It was also
one of the principal stopping-places between Cairo and Khartum. The
caravan route to the Red Sea was superseded in 1906 by a railway, which
leaves the Wadi Halfa-Khartum line at the mouth of the Atbara. Berber
thus lost the Red Sea trade. It remains the centre and market-place for
the produce of the Nile valley for a considerable distance. East of the
town is an immense plain, which, if irrigated, would yield abundant
crops.
Berber, or El Mekerif, is a town of considerable antiquity. Before its
conquest by the Egyptians in 1820 its ruler owed allegiance to the kings
of Sennar. It was captured by the Mahdists on the 26th of May 1884, and
was re-occupied by the Anglo-Egyptian army on the 6th of September 1897.
It was the capital of the mudiria until 1905, in which year the
headquarters of the province were transferred to Ed Damer, a town near
the confluence of the Nile and Atbara. At the northern end of the
mudiria is Abu Hamed (q.v.), important as a railway junction for Dongola
mudiria. The best-known of the tribes inhabiting the province are the
Hassania, Jaalin, Bisharin and Kimilab. During the Mahdia most of these
tribes suffered severely at the hands of the dervishes. In 1904 the
total population of the province was estimated at 83,000. It has since
considerably increased. The riverain population is largely engaged in
agriculture, the chief crops cultivated being durra, barley, wheat and
cotton.
BERBERA, chief town and principal port of the British Somaliland
protectorate, North-East Africa, 155 m. S. of Aden, in 10 deg. 26' N.,
45 deg. 4' E. Berbera stands at the head of a deep inlet which forms the
only completely sheltered haven on the south side of the Gulf of Aden.
It is the residence of the commissioner of the protectorate and the
headquarters of the Somaliland battalion of the King's African Rifles.
The harbour is eleven to thirteen fathoms deep at the entrance
(indicated by a lighthouse), decreasing to five fathoms near the shore.
Ocean-going steamers find ample accommodation. There are two piers and
numerous warehouses. The town is built in two divisions--the native town
to the east, the new town, laid out by the Egyptians (1875-1877), to the
west. The majority of the better-class houses are of rubble,
one-storeyed and flat-roofed. The public buildings include the fort,
hospital and barracks. There are a Roman Catholic mission-house and
convent and a government school. The affairs of the town are
administered by a municipality. The water-supply is brought to the town
by an aqueduct from the hills some 8 m. distant. The bulk of the
inhabitants are Somali, who have abandoned a nomadic life and adopted
largely the ways of the Arab and Indian traders. The permanent
population is under 10,000; but from October to April the population
rises to 30,000 or more by the arrival of caravans from Ogaden and
Dolbahanta. The traders bring with them tents on the backs of camels and
these are pitched near the native town. Their merchandise consists of
sheep and goats, gum and resin, skins and ostrich feathers. The trade is
almost entirely with Aden, of which Berbera may be considered a
commercial dependency. The value of the goods brought in yearly by
caravan exceeds on the average L100,000. The total trade of the port for
the five years 1901-1902 to 1905-1906 averaged over L200,000 a year. The
chief articles of import are cotton goods (European white longcloth and
American grey shirting), rice and jowari, flour, dates, sugar and
tobacco (the last from Rotterdam). Berbera is said to have been founded
by the Ptolemies among the _Barbari_ of the adjacent coast lands. It
fell subsequently into the possession of Arabs and was included in the
Mahommedan state of Adel. At the time of the visit to the town of R.F.
Burton and J.H. Speke (1854) it was governed by its own sheiks. In 1870
it was claimed by the khedive Ismail, but was not permanently occupied
by Egypt until 1875. In 1884 it passed into the possession of Great
Britain (see SOMALILAND, S 2, _History_).
BERBERINE, C20H17NO4, an alkaloid occurring together with the alkaloids
oxyacanthine C18H19NO3, berbamine C18H19NO3, hydrastine C21H21NO6, and
canadine C20H21NO4, in _Berberis vulgaris_; it also occurs in other
plants, _Berberis aristata, B. aquifolium, Hydrastis canadensis_, &c. It
is a yellow, crystalline solid, insoluble in ether and chloroform,
soluble in 4-1/2 parts of water at 21 deg., and moderately soluble in
alcohol. It is a monacid base; the hydrochloride, C20H17NO4.HCl, is
insoluble in cold alcohol, ether and chloroform, and soluble in 500
parts of water; the acid sulphate, C20H17NO4.H2SO4 dissolves in about
100 parts of water. Canadine is a tetrahydroberberine.
Its constitution was worked out by W.H. Perkin (_J.C.S._, 1889, 55, p.
63; 1890, 57, p. 991). This followed from a study of the decomposition
products, there being obtained hemipinic acid (CH3O)2C6H2(COOH)2, and a
substance which proved to be [omega]-amino-ethyl-piperonyl carboxylic
acid, CH2O2:C6H2.COOH.CH2.CH2NH2. His formula was modified by Gadamer
(_Abs. J.C.S._, 1902, 1, p. 555), who made the free base an aldehyde,
but the salts of an _iso_-quinolinium type. This formula, which
necessitates the presence of two asymmetric carbon atoms in an alkyl
tetrahydroberberine, has been accepted by M. Freund and F. Mayer (_Abs.
J.C.S._, 1907, 1, p. 632), who showed that two racemic propyl
tetrahydroberberines are produced when propyl dihydroberberine is
reduced.