is the principal. It has on one side the citadel, erected on an artificially made eminence 45 ft. high, surrounded by a wall 1 m. long, and containing the palace of the emir, the houses of the chief functionaries, the prison and the water-cisterns. The houses are mostly one-storeyed, built of unburned bricks, and have flat roofs.
Bokhara has for ages been a centre of learning and religious life. The mysticism which took hold on Persia in the middle ages spread also to Bokhara, and later, when the Mongol invasions of the 13th century laid waste Samarkand and other Moslem cities, Bokhara, remaining independent, continued to be a chief seat of Islamitic learning. The madrasa libraries, some of which were very rich, have been scattered and lost, or confiscated by the emirs, or have perished in conflagrations. But there are still treasures of literature concealed in private libraries, and Afghan, Persian, Armenian and Turkish bibliophiles still repair to Bokhara to buy rare books. Bokhara is, in fact, the principal book-market of central Asia. The population is supposed by Russian travellers not to exceed 50,000 or 60,000, but is otherwise estimated at 75,000 to 100,000. Amongst them is a large and ancient colony of Jews. Bokhara is the most important trading town in central Asia. In the city bazaars are made or sold silk stuffs, metal (especially copper) wares, Kara-kul (i.e. astrakhan) lamb-skins and carpets.
New Bokhara, or Kagan, a Russian town near the railway station, 8 m. from Bokhara itself, is rapidly growing, on a territory ceded by the emir. Pop. 2000. (P. A. K.)
BOKSBURG, a town of the Transvaal, 14 m. E. of Johannesburg by rail. Pop. of the municipality (1904) 14,757, of whom 4175 were whites. It is the headquarters of the Witwatersrand coal mining industry. The collieries extend from Boksburg eastward to Springs, 11 m. distant. Brakpan, the largest colliery in South Africa, lies midway between the places named.
BOLAN PASS, an important pass on the Baluch frontier, connecting Jacobabad and Sibi with Quetta, which has always occupied an important place in the history of British campaigns in Afghanistan. Since the treaty of Gandamak, which was
signed at the close of the first phase of the Afghan War in 1879, the Bolan route has been brought directly under British control, and it was selected for the first alignment of the Sind-Pishin railway from the plains to the plateau. From Sibi the line runs south-west, skirting the hills to Rindli, and originally followed the course of the Bolan stream to its head on the plateau. The destructive action of floods, however, led to the abandonment of this alignment, and the railway now follows the Mashkaf valley (which debouches into the plains close to Sibi), and is carried from near the head of the Mashkaf to a junction with the Bolan at Mach. An alternative route from Sibi to Quetta was found in the Harnai valley to the N.E. of Sibi, the line starting in exactly the opposite direction to that of the Bolan and entering the hills at Nari. The Harnai route, although longer, is the one adopted for all ordinary traffic, the Bolan loop being reserved for emergencies. At the Khundilani gorge of the Bolan route conglomerate cliffs enclose the valley rising to a height of 800 ft., and at Sir-i-Bolan the passage between the limestone rocks hardly admits of three persons riding abreast. The temperature of the pass in summer is very high, whereas in winter,
near its head, the cold is extreme, and the ice-cold wind rushing down the narrow outlet becomes destructive to life. Since 1877, when the Quetta agency was founded, the freedom of the pass from plundering bands of Baluch marauders (chiefly Marris) has been secured, and it is now as safe as any pass in Scotland. (T. H. H.*)
BOLAS (plural of Span. bola, ball), a South American Indian weapon of war and the chase, consisting of balls of stone attached to the ends of a rope of twisted or braided hide or hemp. Charles Darwin thus describes them in his Voyage of the Beagle: “The bolas, or balls, are of two kinds: the simplest, which is used
chiefly for catching ostriches, consists of two round stones, covered with leather, and united by a thin, plaited thong, about 8 ft. long. The other kind differs only in having three balls united by thongs to a common centre. The Gaucho (native of Spanish descent) holds the smallest of the three in his hand, and whirls the other two around his head; then, taking aim, sends them like chain shot revolving through the air. The balls no sooner strike any object, than, winding round it, they cross each other and become firmly hitched.” Bolas have been used for centuries in the South American pampas and even the forest regions of the Rio Grande. F. Ratzel (History of Mankind) supposes them to be a form of lasso. The Eskimos use a somewhat similar weapon to kill birds. Bolas perdidas (i.e. lost) are stones attached to a very short thong, or, in some cases, having none at all.
BOLBEC, a town of northern France, in the department of Seine-Inférieure, on the Bolbec, 19 m. E.N.E. of Havre by rail. Pop. (1906) 10,959. Bolbec is important for its cotton spinning and weaving, and carries on the dyeing and printing of the fabric, and the manufacture of sugar. There are a chamber of commerce and a board of trade-arbitration. The town was enthusiastic in the cause of the Reformed Religion in the 16th century, and still contains many Protestants. It was burned almost to the ground in 1765.
BOLE (Gr. βῶλος, “a clod of earth”), a clay-like substance of red, brown or yellow colour, consisting essentially of hydrous aluminium silicate, with more or less iron. Most bole differs from ordinary clay in not being plastic, but in dropping to pieces when placed in water, thus behaving rather like fuller’s-earth. Bole was formerly in great repute medicinally, the most famous kind being the Lemnian Earth (γῆ Λήμνια), from the Isle of Lemnos in the Greek Archipelago. The earth was dug with much ceremony only once a year, and having been mixed with goats’ blood was made into little cakes or balls, which were stamped by the priests, whence they became known as Terra sigillata (“sealed earth”). Large quantities of bole occur as red partings between the successive lava flows of the Tertiary volcanic series in the north of Ireland and the west of Scotland. Here it seems to have resulted from the decomposition of the basalt and kindred rocks by meteoric agencies, during periods of volcanic repose. In Antrim the bole is associated with lithomarge, bauxite and pisolitic iron-ore. Bole occurs in like manner between the great sheets of the Deccan traps in India; and a similar substance is also found interbedded with some of the doleritic lavas of Etna.
In the sense of stem or trunk of a tree, “bole” is from the O. Norwegian bolr, cf. Ger. Bohle, plank. It is probably connected with the large number of words, such as “boll,” “ball,” “bowl,” &c., which stand for a round object.
BOLESLAUS I., called “The Great,” king of Poland (d. 1025), was the son of Mieszko, first Christian prince of Poland, and the Bohemian princess Dobrawa, or Bona, whose chaplain, Jordan, converted the court from paganism to Catholicism. He succeeded his father in 992. A born warrior, he speedily raised the little struggling Polish principality on the Vistula to the rank of a great power. In 996 he gained a seaboard by seizing Pomerania, and subsequently took advantage of the troubles in Bohemia to occupy Cracow, previously a Czech city. Like his contemporaries, Stephen of Hungary and Canute of Denmark, Boleslaus recognized from the first the essential superiority of Christianity over every other form of religion, and he deserves with them the name of “Great” because he deliberately associated himself with the new faith. Thus despite an inordinate love of adventure, which makes him appear rather a wandering chieftain than an established ruler, he was essentially a man of insight and progress. He showed great sagacity in receiving the fugitive Adalbert, bishop of Prague, and when the saint suffered martyrdom at the hands of the pagan Slavs (April 23, 997), Boleslaus purchased his relics and solemnly laid them in the church of Gnesen, founded by his father, which now became the metropolitan see of Poland. It was at Gnesen that Boleslaus in the year 1000 entertained Otto III. so magnificently that the emperor, declaring such a man too worthy to be merely princeps, conferred upon him the royal crown, though twenty-five years later, in the last year of his life, Boleslaus thought it necessary to crown himself king a second time. On the death of Otto, Boleslaus invaded Germany, penetrated to the Elbe, occupying Stralsund and
