charity and brotherly love. Political and religious discussions were from the first excluded from the debates of the order. In 1851 the first grand lodge was established at New York; in 1856, the number of district lodges having increased, the supreme authority was vested in a central body consisting of one member from each lodge; and by the present constitution, adopted in 1868, this authority is vested in a president elected for five years, an executive committee and court of appeals (elected as before). The first lodge in Germany was instituted at Berlin in 1883. A large number of charitable and other public institutions have been established in the United States and elsewhere by the order, of which may be mentioned the large orphan asylum in Cleveland, the home for the aged and infirm at Yonkers, N.Y., the National Jewish hospital for consumptives at Denver, and the Maimonides library in New York City. The B’nai B’rith society has also co-operated largely with other Jewish philanthropic organizations in succouring distressed Israelites throughout the world.
See the Jewish Encyclopaedia (1902), s.v.
BOA, a name formerly applied to all large serpents which,
devoid of poison fangs, kill their prey by constriction; but now
confined to that subfamily of the Boidae which are devoid of
teeth in the praemaxilla and are without supraorbital bones.
The others are known as pythons (q.v.). The true boas comprise some forty species; most of them are American, but the genus Eryx inhabits North Africa, Greece and south-western Asia;
the genus Enygrus ranges from New Guinea to the Fiji; Casarea
dussumieri is restricted to Round Island, near Mauritius; and
two species of Boa and one of Corallus represent this subfamily
in Madagascar, while all the other boas live in America, chiefly
in tropical parts. All Boidae possess vestiges of pelvis and hind
limbs, appearing externally as claw-like spurs on each side of the
vent, but they are so small that they are practically without
function in climbing. The usually short tail is prehensile.
One of the commonest species of the genus Boa is the Boa constrictor, which has a wide range from tropical Mexico to Brazil. The head is covered with small scales, only one of the preoculars being enlarged. The general colour is a delicate pale brown, with about a dozen and a half darker cross-bars, which are often connected by a still darker dorso-lateral streak, enclosing large oval spots. On each side is a series of large dark brown spots with light centres. On the tail the markings become bolder, brick red with black and yellow. The under parts are yellowish with black dots. This species rarely reaches a length of more than 10 ft. It climbs well, prefers open forest in the neighbourhood of water, is often found in plantations where it retires into a hole in the ground, and lives chiefly on birds and small mammals. Like most true boas, it is of a very gentle disposition and easily domesticates itself in the palm or reed thatched huts of the natives, where it hunts the rats during the night.
The term “boa” is applied by analogy to a long article of women’s dress wound round the neck.
BOABDIL (a corruption of the name Abu Abdullah), the last
Moorish king of Granada, called el chico, the little, and also el
zogoybi, the unfortunate. A son of Muley Abu’l Hassan, king of
Granada, he was proclaimed king in 1482 in place of his father,
who was driven from the land. Boabdil soon after sought to
gain prestige by invading Castile. He was taken prisoner at
Lucena in 1483, and only obtained his freedom by consenting to
hold Granada as a tributary kingdom under Ferdinand and
Isabella, king and queen of Castile and Aragon. The next few
years were consumed in struggles with his father and his
uncle Abdullah ez Zagal. In 1491 Boabdil was summoned by
Ferdinand and Isabella to surrender the city of Granada, and
on his refusal it was besieged by the Castilians. Eventually, in
January 1492, Granada was surrendered, and the king spent
some time on the lands which he was allowed to hold in Andalusia.
Subsequently he crossed to Africa, and is said to have been
killed in battle fighting for his kinsman, the ruler of Fez. The
spot from which Boabdil looked for the last time on Granada is
still shown, and is known as “the last sigh of the Moor” (el
ultimo suspiro del Moro).
See J. A. Conde, Dominácion de los Arabes en España (Paris, 1840), translated into English by Mrs J. Foster (London, 1854–1855); Washington Irving, The Alhambra (New York, ed. 1880).
BOADICEA, strictly Boudicca, a British queen in the time
of the emperor Nero. Her husband Prasutagus ruled the Icĕnī
(in what is now Norfolk) as an autonomous prince under Roman
suzerainty. On his death (A.D. 61) without male heir, his
dominions were annexed, and the annexation was carried out
brutally. He had by his will divided his private wealth between
his two daughters and Nero, trusting thereby to win imperial
favour for his family. Instead, his wife was scourged (doubtless
for resisting the annexation), his daughters outraged, his chief
tribesmen plundered. The proud, fierce queen and her people
rose, and not alone. With them rose half Britain, enraged, for
other causes, at Roman rule. Roman taxation and conscription
lay heavy on the province; in addition, the Roman government
had just revoked financial concessions made a few years earlier,
and L. Annaeus Seneca, who combined the parts of a moralist
and a money-lender, had abruptly recalled large loans made
from his private wealth to British chiefs. A favourable chance
for revolt was provided by the absence of the governor-general,
Suetonius Paulinus, and most of his troops in North Wales and
Anglesey. All south-east Britain joined the movement. Paulinus
rushed back without waiting for his troops, but he could do nothing
alone. The Britons burnt the Roman municipalities of Verulam
and Colchester, the mart of London, and several military posts,
massacred “over 70,000” Romans and Britons friendly to Rome,
and almost annihilated the Ninth Legion marching from Lincoln
to the rescue. At last Paulinus, who seems to have rejoined his
army, met the Britons in the field. The site of the battle is
unknown. One writer has put it at Chester; others at London,
where King’s Cross had once a narrow escape of being christened
Boadicea’s Cross, and actually for many years bore the name of
Battle Bridge, in supposed reference to this battle. Probably,
however, it was on Watling Street, between London and Chester.
In a desperate soldiers’ battle Rome regained the province.
Boadicea took poison; thousands of Britons fell in the fight or
were hunted down in the ensuing guerrilla. Finally, Rome
adopted a kindlier policy, and Britain became quiet. But the
scantiness of Romano-British remains in Norfolk may be due to
the severity with which the Icĕni were crushed.
See Tacitus, Annals, xiv.; Agric. xv.; Dio lxii. The name Boudicca seems to mean in Celtic much the same as Victoria. (F. J. H.)
BOAR (O. Eng. bār; the word is found only in W. Ger.
languages, cf. Dutch beer, Ger. Eber), the name given to the
uncastrated male of the domestic pig (q.v.), and to some wild species
of the family Suidae (see Swine). The European wild boar (Sus scrofa) is distributed over Europe, northern Africa, and central
and northern Asia. It has long been extinct in the British
Isles, where it once abounded, but traces have been found of its
survival in Chartley Forest, Staffordshire, in an entry of 1683
in an account-book of the steward of the manor, and it possibly
remained till much later in the more remote parts of Scotland
and Ireland (J. E. Harting, Extinct British Animals, 1880).
The wild boar is still found in Europe, in marshy woodland
districts where there is plenty of cover, and it is fairly plentiful
in Spain, Austria, Russia and Germany, particularly in the
Black Forest.
From the earliest times, owing to its great strength, speed, and ferocity when at bay, the boar has been one of the favourite beasts of the chase. Under the old forest laws of England it was one of the “beasts of the forest,” and, as such, under the Norman kings the unprivileged killing of it was punishable by death or the loss of a member. It was hunted in England and in Europe on foot and on horseback with dogs, while the weapon of attack was always the spear. In Europe the wild boar is still hunted with dogs, but the spear, except when used in emergencies and for giving the coup de grâce, has been given up for the gun. It is also shot in great forest drives in Austria, Germany and Russia. The Indian wild boar (Sus cristatus) is slightly taller than Sus scrofa, standing some 30 to 40 in. at the shoulder. It
