The Gazetteers and Reports of the Indian government contain nearly all the modern information available about Bajour. The autobiography of Baber (by Leyden and Erskine) gives interesting details about the country in the 16th century. For the connexion between the Kafirs and the ancient Nysaeans of Swat, see R. G. S. Journal, vol. vii., 1896.
(T. H. H.*)
BAJZA, JOSEPH (1804-1858), Hungarian poet and critic, was born at Szücsi in 1804. His earliest contributions were made to Kisfaludy's Aurora, a literary paper of which he was editor from 1830 to 1837. He also wrote largely in the Kritische Blätter, the Athenaeum, and the Figyelmezö or Observer. His criticisms on dramatic art were considered the best of these miscellaneous writings. In 1830 he published translations of some foreign dramas, Ausländische Bühna, and in 1835 a collection of his own poems. In 1837 he was made director of the newly established national theatre at Pest. He then, for some years, devoted himself to historical writing, and published in succession the Historical Library (Törtereti Könyvtár), 6 vols., 1843-1845; the Modern Plutarch (Uj Plutarch), 1845-1847; and the Universal History (Világtörétet), 1847. These works are to some extent translations from German authors. In 1847 Bajza edited the journal of the opposition, Ellenör, at Leipzig, and in March 1848 Kossuth made him editor of his paper, Kossuth Hirlapja. In 1850 he was attacked with brain disease and died in 1858.
BAKALAI (Bakalé, Bangouens), a Bantu negroid tribe inhabiting a wide tract of French Congo between the river Ogowé and 2° S. They appear to be immigrants from the south-east, and have been supposed to be connected racially with the Galoa, one of the Mpongwe tribes and the chief river-people of the Ogowé. The Bakalai have suffered much from the incursions of their neighbours the Fang, also arrivals from the south-east, and it may be that they migrated to their present abode under pressure from this people at an earlier date. They are keen hunters and were traders in slaves and rubber; the slave traffic has been prohibited by the French authorities. Their women display considerable ingenuity in dressing their hair, often taking a whole day to arrange a coiffure; the hair is built up on a substructure of clay and a good deal of false hair incorporated; a coat of red, green or yellow pigment often completes the effect. The same colours are used to decorate the hut doors. The villages, some of which are fortified with palisades, are usually very dirty; chiefs and rich men own plantations which are situated at some distance from the village and to which their womenfolk are sent in times of war. The Bakalai of Lake Isanga cremate their dead; those of the Upper Ogowé throw the bodies into the river, with the exception of those killed in war. The body of a chief is placed secretly in a hut erected in the depths of the forest, and the village is deserted for that night, in some cases altogether; the slaves of the deceased are (or were) sacrificed, and his wives scourged and secluded in huts for a week. "Natural" deaths are attributed to the machinations of a sorcerer, and the poison-ordeal is often practised. Of their social organization little is known, but it appears that nearly all individuals refrain from eating the flesh of some particular animal.
BAKE, JAN (1787-1864), Dutch philologist and critic, was born at Leiden on the 1st of September 1787, and from 1817 to 1854 he was professor of Greek and Roman literature at the university. He died on the 26th of March 1864. His principal works are:—Posidonii Rhodii Reliquiae Doctrinae (1810); Cleomedis Circularis Doctrina de Sublimitate (1820); Bibliotheca
Critica Nova (1825-1831) and Scholica Hypomnemata (1837-1862), a collection of essays dealing mainly with Cicero and the Attic orators; Cicero, De Legibus (1842) and De Oratore (1863); the Rhetorica of Apsines and Longinus (1849).
His biography was written (in Dutch) by his pupil Bakhuizen van der Brink (1865); for an appreciation of his services to classical literature see L. Müller, Geschichte der klassischen Philologie in den Niederlanden (1869).
BAKER, SIR BENJAMIN (1840-1907), English engineer, was born near Bath in 1840, and, after receiving his early training in a South Wales ironworks, became associated with Sir John Fowler in London. He took part in the construction of the Metropolitan railway (London), and in designing the cylindrical vessel in which Cleopatra's Needle, now standing on the Thames Embankment, London, was brought over from Egypt to England in 1877-1878. By this time he had already made himself an authority on bridge-construction, and shortly afterwards he was engaged on the work which made his reputation with the general public—the design and erection of the Forth Bridge. On the completion of this undertaking in 1890 he was made K.C.M.G., and in the same year the Royal Society recognized his scientific attainments by electing him one of its fellows. Twelve years later at the formal opening of the Assuan dam, for which he was consulting-engineer, he was created K.C.B. Sir Benjamin Baker, who also had a large share in the introduction of the system widely adopted in London of constructing intra-urban railways in deep tubular tunnels built up of cast iron segments, obtained an extremely large professional practice, ranging over almost every branch of civil engineering, and was more or less directly concerned with most of the great engineering achievements of his day. He was also the author of many papers on engineering subjects. He died at Pangbourne, Berks, on the 19th of May 1907.
BAKER, HENRY (1698-1774), English naturalist, was born in London on the 8th of May 1698. After serving an apprenticeship with a bookseller, he devised a system of instructing the deaf and dumb, by the practice of which he made a considerable fortune. It brought him to the notice of Daniel Defoe, whose youngest daughter Sophia he married in 1729. A year before, under the name of Henry Stonecastle, he was associated with Defoe in starting the Universal Spectator and Weekly Journal. In 1740 he was elected fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal Society. He contributed many memoirs to the Transactions of the latter society, and in 1744 received the Copley gold medal for microscopical observations on the crystallization of saline particles. He was one of the founders of the Society of Arts in 1754, and for some time acted as its secretary. He died in London on the 25th of November 1774. Among his publications were The Microscope made Easy (1743), Employment for the Microscope (1753), and several volumes of verse, original and translated, including The Universe, a Poem intended to restrain the Pride of Man (1727). His name is perpetuated by the Bakerian lecture of the Royal Society, for the foundation of which he left by will the sum of £100.
BAKER, SIR RICHARD (1568-1644/5), author of the Chronicle of the Kings of England and other works, was probably born at Sissinghurst in Kent, and entered Hart Hall, Oxford, as a commoner in 1584. He left the university without taking a degree, studied law in London and afterwards travelled in Europe. In 1593 he was chosen member of parliament for Arundel, in 1594 his university conferred upon him the degree of M.A., and in 1597 he was elected to parliament as the representative of East Grinstead. In 1603 he was knighted by King James I., in 1620 he acted as high sheriff at Oxfordshire where he owned some property, and soon afterwards he married Margaret, daughter of Sir George Mainwaring, of Ightfield, Shropshire. By making himself responsible for some debts of his wife's family, he was reduced to great poverty, which led to the seizure of his Oxfordshire property in 1625. Quite penniless, he took refuge in the Fleet prison in 1635, and was still in confinement when he died on the 18th of February 1644 (1645). He was buried in the church of St Bride, Fleet Street, London.