travels, is ample evidence how well his time had been employed Few persons could, within the space of a few months, overcome all the practical difficulties of auch a language as the Chinese ; but Barrow soon began to con verse in it, and acquired a complete knowledge of its theory. His papers on this subject in the Quarterly Review (to which periodical he was for many years a very frequent contributor) contain a very admirable account of that
singular language.Although Barrow ceased to be personally connected with Chinese affairs after the return of the embassy in 1794, he always continued to take a lively interest in them, and on critical occasions was frequently consulted by the British Government. His services were secured by Lord Macartney in his important and delicate mission to settle the govern ment of the newly-acquired colony of the Cape of Good Hope. Barrow was entrusted with opening communica tions with the Kaffres, in which he displayed a spirit, judgment, and humanity, which unfortunately were less conspicuous in subsequent transactions with those tribes. The two volumes of his history of the colony made the public fully acquainted with the extent, capacities, and resources of that important, but till then little understood, acquisition of the British Crown. There is little doubt that it was the perusal of this valuable work which mainly decided Lord Melville to appoint Barrow, though then a perfect stranger to him, as his second secretary of the Admiralty. Barrow s subsequent career for forty years at the Admiralty (embracing the whole period of the war with France), will be for ever historically associated with the civil administration of the British navy for the same period. He enjoyed the esteem and confidence of all the eleven chief lords who successively presided at the Admiralty Board during that period, and more especially of King William IV., while lord high admiral, who honoured him with tokens of his personal regard. Barrow was a fel low of the Royal Society, and had the degree of LL.D. The honour of a baronetcy was conferred on him by Sir Robert Peel in 1835 ; the letter in which the honour was announced acknowledged, in highly gratifying terms, his literary and scientific eminence, and his "long, most able, and most faithful public service."
Besides the works already mentioned, Barrow published the lives of Lord Macartney, Lord Anson, Lord Howe, and Peter the Great ; and he was also the author of several valuable contributions to the seventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
He retired from public life in 1845, in consideration of his advanced years, although still in vigorous possession of all the mental and bodily powers required for the due discharge of the functions of his office. In the course of the three following years his vital energies gradually declined, but he nevertheless continued so fully in the enjoyment of his faculties, writing a history of the modern Arctic voyages of discovery, of which he was a great promoter, as well as his autobiography, published in 1847, that his friends and relatives entertained no apprehension that his end was so near. He expired suddenly on the 23d November 1848, in the 85th year of his age, much honoured and respected by his friends and the public at large.
BARROWS. The custom of constructing barrows, or mounds of stones or earth, over the remains of the dead was the most characteristic feature of the sepulchral systems of primitive times. Originating in the common sentiment of humanity, which desires by some visible memorial to honour and perpetuate the memory of the dead, it was practised alike by nations of high and of low development, and continued through all the stages of culture that preceded the introduction of Christianity. The primary idea of sepulture appears to have been the
In England the long barrow usually contains a single chamber, entering by a passage underneath the higher and wider end of the mound. In Denmark the chambers are at irregular intervals along the body of the mound, and have no passages leading into them. The long barrows of Great Britain are often from 200 to 400 feet in length by GO to 80 feet wide. Their chambers are rudely but strongly built, with dome-shaped roofs, formed by overlapping the successive courses of the upper part of the side walls. In Scandinavia, on the other hand, such dome-roofed chambers are unknown, and the construction of the chambers as a rule is megalithic, five or six monoliths supporting a capstone of enormous size. Such chambers denuded of the covering mound, or over which no covering mound has been raised, are popularly known in England as " cromlechs " and ir France as " dolmens." The prevailing mode of sepulture in all the different varieties of these structures is by the deposit of the body in a contracted position, accompanied by weapons and implements of stone, occasionally by ornaments of gold, jet, or amber. Vessels of clay, more or less ornate in character, which occur with these early interments of unburnt bodies, are regarded as food vessels and drinking cups, differing in character and purpose from the cinerary urns of the Cremation Period in which the ashes of the dead were deposited.
The custom of burning the body commenced in the Stone Age before the long barrow or the cromlech, with their contracted burials, had passed out of use. While cremation is rare in the long barrows of the south of England, it is the rule in those of Yorkshire and the north of Scotland. In Ireland, where the long barrow form is all but unknown, the round barrow, or chambered cairn, prevailed from the earliest Pagan period till the introduction of Christianity. The Irish barrows occur in groups in certain localities, which seem to have been the royal cemeteries of the tribal confederacies, whereof eight are enumerated in an ancient Celtic manuscript on Pagan cemeteries. The best known of these was the burial-place of the kings of Tara. It is situated on the banks of the Boyne above Drogheda, and consists of a group of the largest cairns in Ireland. One of these, at New Grange, is a huge mound of stones and earth, over 300 feet in diameter at the base, and 70 feet in height. Around its base are the remains of a circle of large standing stones. The chamber, which is 20 feet high in the centre, is reached by a passage 70 feet in length. (See illustration, vol. ii. p. 384.)
