attainments is shown by his translation of the Church of England Homilies into Manchu, of the Gospel of St Luke into the Git dialect of the Gitanos, of The Sleeping Bard from the Cambrian-British, and of Bluebeard into Turkish. But it is not Borrow’s linguistic accomplishments that have kept his name fresh, and will continue to keep it fresh for many a generation to come. It is his character, his unique character as expressed, or partially expressed, in his books. Among all the “remarkable individuals” (to use his favourite expression) who during the middle of the 19th century figured in the world of letters, Borrow was surely the most eccentric, the most whimsical, and in many ways the most extraordinary. There was scarcely a point in which he resembled any other writer of his time. With regard to Lavengro and The Romany Rye, there has been very much discussion as to how much Dichtung is mingled with the Wahrheit in those fascinating books. Had it not been for the amazingly clumsy pieces of fiction which he threw into the narrative, few readers would have doubted the autobiographical nature of the two books. Such incidents as are here alluded to shed an air of unreality over the whole. It has been said by Dr Knapp that Borrow never created a character, and that to one who thoroughly knows the times and Borrow’s writings the originals are easily recognizable. This is true, no doubt, as regards people whom he knew at Norwich, and indeed generally as regards those he knew before the period of his gipsy wanderings. It must not be supposed, however, that such a character as the man who “touched” to avert the evil chance is in any sense a portrait of an individual with whom he had been brought into contact. The character has so many of Borrow’s own eccentricities that it might rather be called a portrait of himself. There was nothing that Borrow strove against with more energy than the curious impulse, which he seems to have shared with Dr Johnson, to touch the objects along his path in order to save himself from the evil chance. He never conquered the superstition. In walking through Richmond Park with the present writer he would step out of his way constantly to touch a tree, and he was offended if the friend he was with seemed to observe it. Many of the peculiarities of the man who taught himself Chinese in order to distract his mind from painful thoughts were also Borrow’s own. (T. W.-D.)
BORSIPPA (Barsip in the Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions;
Borsif in the Talmud; mod. Birs or Birs-Nimrud), the
Greek name of an ancient city about 15 m. S.W. of Babylon and
10 m. from Hillah, on the Nahr Hindieh, or Hindieh canal,
formerly known as “the Euphrates of Borsippa,” and even
during the Arabic period called “the river of Birs.” Borsippa was
the sister city of Babylon, and is often called in the inscriptions
Babylon II., also the “city without equal.” Its patron god
was Nebo or Nabu. Like Babylon Borsippa is not mentioned in
the oldest inscriptions, but comes into importance first after
Khammurabi had made Babylon the capital of the whole land,
somewhere before 2000 B.C. He built or rebuilt the temple E-Zida
at this place, dedicating it, however, to Marduk (Bel-Merodach).
But although Khammurabi himself does not seem to have
honoured Nebo (q.v.), subsequent kings recognized him as the
deity of E-Zida and made him the son of Marduk (q.v.). Each
new year his image was taken to visit his father, in Babylon, who
in his turn gave him escort homeward, and his temple was second
in wealth and importance only to E-Saggila, the temple of Marduk
in Babylon. As with Babylon, so with Borsippa, the time of
Nebuchadrezzar was the period of its greatest prosperity. In
general Borsippa shared the fate of Babylon, falling into decay
after the time of Alexander, and finally in the middle ages into
ruins. The site of the ancient city is represented by two large
ruin mounds. Of these the north-westerly, the lower of the two,
but the larger in superficial area, is called Ibrahim Khalil,
from a ziara, or shrine, of Abraham, the friend of God, which
stands on its highest point. According to Arabic lore, based on
Jewish legends, at this spot Nimrod sought to throw Abraham
into a fiery furnace, from which he was saved by the grace of God.
Excavations were first conducted here by the French Expédition
Scientifique en Mésopotamie in 1852, with small result. In 1879
and 1880 Hormuzd Rassam conducted more extensive, although
unsystematic, excavations in this mound, finding a considerable
quantity of inscribed tablets and the like, now in the British
Museum; but by far the greater part of this ruin still remains
unexplored. The south-westerly mound, the Birs proper, is
probably the most conspicuous and striking ruin in all Irak. On
the top of a hill over 100 ft. high rises a pointed mass of vitrified
brick split down the centre, over 40 ft. high, about which lie huge
masses of vitrified brick, some as much as 15 ft. in diameter, and
also single enamelled bricks, generally bearing an inscription of
Nebuchadrezzar, twisted, curled and broken, apparently by
great heat. Jewish and Arabic tradition makes this the Tower
of Babel, which was supposed to have been destroyed by
lightning. Excavations conducted here by Sir Henry Rawlinson in
1854 showed it to be the stage tower or ziggurat, called the
“house of the seven divisions of heaven and earth,” of E-Zida,
the temple of Nebo. On a large platform rose seven solid
terraces, each smaller than the one below it, the lowest being
272 ft. square and 26 ft. high. Each of these terraces was faced
with bricks of a different colour. The approach to this ziggurat
was toward the north-east, and on this side lay also the principal
rooms of the temple of which this was the tower. These rooms
were partly excavated by Hormuzd Rassam in 1879–1880. In its
final form this temple and tower were the work of Nebuchadrezzar,
but from the clay cylinders found by Sir Henry Rawlinson in
two of the corners of the tower it appears that he restored an
incomplete ziggurat of a former king, “which was long since
fallen into decay.” Some of the best authorities believe that it
was this ambitious but incomplete and ruinous ziggurat,
existing before the time of Nebuchadrezzar, which gave occasion to or
afforded local attachment for the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel.
Authorities.—H. C. Rawlinson, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1860); J. Oppert, Expédition scientifique en Mésopotamie (Paris, 1863); F. Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies? (Leipzig, 1881); J. P. Peters, Nippur (New York and London, 1896); H. Rassam, Asshur and the Land of Nimrod (London and New York, 1897); M. Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria (Boston, 1898); see also Babylon, Babel. (J. P. Pe.)
BORT, or Boart, an inferior kind of diamond, unfit for
cutting but useful as an abrasive agent. The typical bort
occurs in small spherical masses, of greyish colour, rough or
drusy on the surface, and showing on fracture a radiate crystalline
structure. These masses, known in Brazil as bolas, are often
called “shot bort” or “round bort.” Much of the bort consists
of irregular aggregates of imperfect crystals. In trade, the
term bort is extended to all small and impure diamonds, and
crystalline fragments of diamond, useless as gem-stones. A
large proportion of the output of some of the South African mines
consists of such material. This bort is crushed in steel mortars to
form diamond powder, which is largely used in lapidaries’ work.
BORY DE SAINT-VINCENT, JEAN BAPTISTE GEORGE MARIE (1780–1846), French naturalist, was born at Agen in 1780. He was sent as naturalist with Captain Nicholas Baudin’s expedition to Australia in 1798, but left the vessel at Mauritius,
and spent two years in exploring Réunion and other islands.
Joining the army on his return, he was present at the battles of
Ulm and Austerlitz, and in 1808 went to Spain with Marshal
Soult. His attachment to the Napoleonic dynasty and dislike
to the Bourbons were shown in various ways during 1815, and
his name was consequently placed on the list of the proscribed;
but after wandering in disguise from place to place he was
allowed quietly to return to Paris in 1820. In 1829 he was
placed at the head of a scientific expedition to the Morea, and in
1839 he had charge of the exploration of Algeria. He died on
the 23rd of December 1846. He was editor of the Dictionnaire classique d’histoire naturelle, and among his separate productions
were:—Essais sur les Îles Fortunées (1802);
Voyage dans les Îles d’Afrique (1803);
Voyage souterrain, ou description du plateau de Saint-Pierre de Maestricht et de ses vastes cryptes (1821);
L’Homme, essai zoologique sur le genre humain (1827);
Résumé de la géographie de la Péninsule (1838).
BORZHOM, a watering-place of Russian Transcaucasia, in the government of Tiflis, and 93 m. by rail W. of the city of
