Encyclopaedia Britannica Volume 4, Slice 1 Part 34

Carvel-built. Elm. 36 10' 2" 3' 5"

6. Launch. Between thwarts 3 ft. 1 in.

To carry 140 men. Double skin diagonal. Teak. 42 11' 6" 4' 6"

7. Berthon collapsible boats weighing 7 cwt. for destroyers.

With the exception of the larger cla.s.ses, viz. cutters, pinnaces and launches, the V-shape of bottom is still preserved, which does not tend to stability, and it is difficult to see why the smaller cla.s.ses have not followed the improvement made in their larger sisters.

Pleasure boats and racing.

Though the number and variety of sea-going boats is of much greater importance, no account of boats in general would be complete without reference to the development of pleasure craft upon rivers and inland waters, especially in England, during the past century. There is a legend, dating from Saxon times, which tells of King Edgar the Peaceable being rowed on the Dee from his palace in Chester to the church of St John, by eight kings, himself the ninth, steering this ancient 8-oar; but not much is heard of rowing in England until 1453, when John Norman, lord mayor of London, set the example of going by water to Westminster, which, we are told, made him popular with the watermen of his day, as in consequence the use of pleasure boats by the citizens became common.

Thus it was that the old Thames pleasure wherry, with its high bows and low sharp stern and V-shaped section, and the old skiff came into vogue, both of which have now given way to boats, mostly of clinker-build, but with rounder bottoms and greater depth, safer and more comfortable to row in.

In 1715 Thomas Doggett (q.v.) founded a race which is still rowed in peculiar sculling boats, straked, and with sides flaring up to the sill of the rowlock. Strutt tells us of a regatta in 1775 in which watermen contended in pair-oared boats or skiffs.

At the beginning of the 19th century numerous rowing clubs flourished on the upper tidal waters of the Thames, and we hear of four-oared races from Westminster to Putney, and from Putney to Kew, in what we should now consider large and heavy boats, clinker-built, with bluff entry.

Longer boats, 8-oars, and 10-oars, seem to have been existent at the end of the 18th century. Eton certainly had one 10-oar, and three 8-oars, and two 6-oars, before 1811. The record of 8-oar races at Oxford begins in 1815, at Cambridge in 1827. Pair-oar and sculling races in lighter boats seem to have come in soon after 1820, and the first Oxford and Cambridge eight-oared race was rowed in 1829, in which year also Eton and Westminster contended at Putney.

Henley regatta was founded in 1839, and since that date the building of racing boats, eights, fours, pairs, and sculling boats, has made great progress. The products of the present time are such, in lightness of build and swiftness of propulsion, as would have been thought impossible between 1810 and 1830.

In the middle of the 19th century the long boats in use were mostly clinker-built with a keel. At Oxford the torpids were rowed, as now, in clinker-built craft, but the summer races were rowed in carvel-built boats, which also had a keel.

In 1855 the first keelless 8-oar made its appearance at Henley, built by Mat Taylor for the Royal Chester Rowing Club. The new type was constructed on moulds, bottom upwards, a cedar skin bent and fitted on to the moulds, and the ribs built in after the boat had been turned over.

In 1857 Oxford rowed in a similar boat at Putney, 55 ft. long, 25 in.

beam. From that time the keelless racing boat has held its own, fours and pairs and sculling boats all following suit. But with the introduction of sliding seats racing eights have developed in length to 63 ft. or more, with considerable camber, and a beam of 23-24 in. There are, however, still advocates of the shorter type with broader beam, and it is noticeable that the Belgian boat that won the Grand Challenge at Henley in 1906 did not exceed 60 ft. The boat in which Oxford won the University race in 1901 was 56 ft. long with 27 in. of beam.

In sculling boats the acceptance of the Australian type of build has led to the construction of a much shorter boat with broader beam than that which was in vogue twenty years ago. The same tendency has not shown itself so p.r.o.nouncedly in pair oars, but will no doubt be manifest in time as the build improves. In fact we may expect the controversy between long and short racing boats, and the proper method of propelling them respectively, to be carried a step farther. The tendency, with the long slide, and long type of boat, is to try to avoid "pinch" by adopting the scullers' method of easy beginning, and strong drive with the legs, and sharp finish to follow, but it remains to be seen whether superior pace is not to be obtained in a shorter boat by sharp beginning at a reasonable angle to the boat's side, and a continuous drive right out to the finish of the stroke.

Appended is a list of pleasure boats in use (1909) on the Thames, with their measurements (in feet and inches).

Cla.s.s of Boat. Length. Beam. Depth.

Racing eight 56' to 63' 23" to 27" 9" to 10"

Clinker eight 56' to 60' 24" to 27" 9" to 10"

Clinker four 38' to 42' 23" to 24" 8" to 9"

Tub fours 30' to 32' 3'8"-3'10" 13" from keel to top of stem Outrigger pair 30' to 34' 14" to 16" 7" to 8"

Outrigger sculls 25' to 30' 10" to 13" 5" to 6"

Coaching gigs 26' to 28' 3' to 3'4" 10" to 14"

Skiffs (Thames) 24' to 26' 3'9" to 4' 12"

Skiffs (Eton) 27' 2'3" 9"

Gigs (pleasure) 24' to 36' 4' 15" to 16"

Randans 27' to 30' 4' to 4'6" 13" from keel to top of stem Whiffs 20' to 23' 1'4" to 1'6" 6" from keel to top of stem Whiff Gigs 19' to 20' 2'8" to 2'10" 12" over all Punts racers 30' to 34' 1'3" to 1'6" 6" to 7"

" semi racers 28' to 30' 2' 9" to 10"

" pleasure 26' to 28' 2'9" to 3' 12" to 13"

AUTHORITIES.--For ancient boats: _Dict. Ant._, "Navis"; C. Torr, _Ancient Ships_; Smith, _Voyage and Shipwreck of St Paul_; Graser, _De re navali_; Breusing, _Die Nautik der Alten_; Contre-amiral Serre, _La Marine des anciens_; Jules Var, _L'Art nautique dans l'antiquite_.

Medieval: Jal, _Archeologie navale_, and _Glossaire nautique_; Marquis de Folin, _Bateaux et navires, progres de la construction navale_; W.S. Lindsay, _History of Merchant Shipping and Ancient Commerce_.

Modern: H. Warington Smyth, _Mast and Sail in Europe and Asia_; Dixon Kempe, _Manual of Yacht and Boat Sailing_; H.C. Folkhard, _The Sailing Boat_; F.G. Aflato, _The Sea Fishing Industry of England and Wales_; R.C. Leslie, _Old Sea Wings_, &c. (E. Wa.)

BOATSWAIN (p.r.o.nounced "bo'sun"; derived from "boat" and "swain," a servant), the warrant officer of the navy who in sailing-ships had particular charge of the boats, sails, rigging, colours, anchors and cordage. He superintended the rigging of the ship in dock, and it was his duty to summon the crew to work by a whistle. The office still remains, though with functions modified by the introduction of steam. In a merchant ship the boatswain is the foreman of the crew and is sometimes also third or fourth mate.

BOBBILI, a town of British India, in the Vizagapatam district of Madras, 70 m. north of Vizagapatam town. Pop. (1901) 17,387. It is the residence of a raja of old family, whose estate covers an area of 227 sq. m.; estimated income, 40,000; permanent land revenue, 9000.

The attack on the fort at Bobbili made by General Bussy in 1756 is one of the most memorable episodes in Indian history. There was a constant feud between the chief of Bobbili and the raja of Vizianagram; and when Bussy marched to restore order the raja persuaded him that the fault lay with the chief of Bobbili and joined the French with 11,000 men against his rival. In spite of the fact that the French field-pieces at once made practicable breaches in the mud walls of the fort, the defenders held out with desperate valour. Two a.s.saults were repulsed after hours of hand-to-hand fighting; and when, after a fresh bombardment, the garrison saw that their case was hopeless, they killed their women and children, and only succ.u.mbed at last to a third a.s.sault because every man of them was either killed or mortally wounded. An old man, however, crept out of a hut with a child, whom he presented to Bussy as the son of the dead chief. Three nights later four followers of the chief of Bobbili crept into the tent of the raja of Vizianagram and stabbed him to death. The child, Chinna Ranga Rao, was invested by Bussy with his father's estate, but during his minority it was seized by his uncle.

After a temporary arrangement of terms with the raja of Vizianagram the old feud broke out again, and the Bobbili chief was forced to take refuge in the nizam's country. In 1794, however, on the break-up of the Vizianagram estate, Chinna Ranga Rao was restored by the British, and in 1801 a permanent settlement was made with his son. The t.i.tle of raja was recognized as hereditary in the family; that of maharaja was conferred as a personal distinction on Sir Venkataswetachalapati Ranga Rao, K.C.I.E., the adopted great-great-grandson of Chinna Ranga Rao.

For the siege see _Imp. Gazetteer of India_ (Oxford, 1908), s.v.

"Bobbili Estate."

BOBBIO, a town and episcopal see of Lombardy, Italy, in the province of Pavia, 32 m. S.W. of Piacenza by road. Pop. (1901) 4848. Its most important building is the church dedicated to St Columban, who became first abbot of Bobbio in 595 or 612, and died there in 615. It was erected in Lombard style in the 11th or 12th century (to which period the campanile belongs) and restored in the 13th. The cathedral is also interesting. Bobbio was especially famous for the ma.n.u.scripts which belonged to the monastery of St Columban, and are now dispersed, the greater part being in the Vatican library at Rome, and others at Milan and Turin. The cathedral archives contain doc.u.ments of the 10th and 11th centuries.

See M. Stokes, _Six Months in the Apennines_ (London, 1892), 154 seq.; C. Cipolla, in _L'Arte_ (1904), 241.

BOBER, a river of Germany, the most considerable of the left bank tributaries of the Oder; it rises at an alt.i.tude of 2440 ft., on the northern (Silesian) side of the Riesengebirge. In its upper course it traverses a higher plateau, whence, after pa.s.sing the town of Landeshut, it descends through a narrow and fertile valley to Kupferberg. Here its romantic middle course begins, and after dashing through a deep ravine between the towns of Hirschberg and Lowenberg, it gains the plain. In its lower course it meanders through pleasant pastures, bogland and pine forests in succession, receives the waters of various mountain streams, pa.s.ses close by Bunzlau and through Sagan, and finally, after a course of 160 m., joins the Oder at Crossen. Swollen by the melting of the winter snows and by heavy rains in the mountains, it is frequently a torrent, and is thus, except in the last few miles, unnavigable for either boats or rafts.

BOBRUISK, a town and formerly a first-cla.s.s fortress of Russia, in the government of Minsk, and 100 m. by rail S.E. of the town of Minsk, in 53 15' N. lat. and 28 52' E. long., on the right bank of the Berezina river, and on the railway from Libau and Vilna to Ekaterinoslav. Pop.

(1860) 23,761; (1897) 35,177, of whom one-half were Jews. In the reign of Alexander I. there was erected here, at the confluence of the Bobruiska with the Berezina, nearly a mile from the town, a fort, which successfully withstood a bombardment by Napoleon in 1812, and was made equal to the best in Europe by the emperor Nicholas I. It was demolished in 1897, the defences being antiquated. The town has a military hospital and a departmental college. There are ironworks and flour-mills; and corn and timber are shipped to Libau. The town was half burnt down in 1902.

BOCAGE, MANUEL MARIA BARBOSA DE (1765-1805), Portuguese poet, was a native of Setubal. His father had held important judicial and administrative appointments, and his mother, from whom he took his last surname, was the daughter of a Portuguese vice-admiral of French birth who had fought at the battle of Matapan. Bocage began to make verses in infancy, and being somewhat of a prodigy grew up to be flattered, self-conscious and unstable. At the age of fourteen, he suddenly left school and joined the 7th infantry regiment; but tiring of garrison life at Setubal after two years, he decided to enter the navy. He proceeded to the royal marine academy in Lisbon, but instead of studying he pursued love adventures, and for the next five years burnt incense on many altars, while his retentive memory and extraordinary talent for improvisation gained him a host of admirers and turned his head. The Brazilian _modinhas_, little rhymed poems sung to a guitar at family parties, were then in great vogue, and Bocage added to his fame by writing a number of these, by his skill in extemporizing verses on a given theme, and by allegorical idyllic pieces, the subjects of which are similar to those of Watteau's and Boucher's pictures. In 1786 he was appointed _guardamarinha_ in the Indian navy, and he reached Goa by way of Brazil in October. There he came into an ignorant society full of petty intrigue, where his particular talents found no scope to display themselves; the glamour of the East left him unmoved and the climate brought on a serious illness. In these circ.u.mstances he compared the heroic traditions of Portugal in Asia, which had induced him to leave home, with the reality, and wrote his satirical sonnets on "The Decadence of the Portuguese Empire in Asia," and those addressed to Affonso de Albuquerque and D. Joo de Castro. The irritation caused by these satires, together with rivalries in love affairs, made it advisable for him to leave Goa, and early in 1789 he obtained the post of lieutenant of the infantry company at Damaun; but he promptly deserted and made his way to Macao, where he arrived in July-August.

According to a modern tradition much of the _Lusiads_ had been written there, and Bocage probably travelled to China under the influence of Camoens, to whose life and misfortunes he loved to compare his own.

Though he escaped the penalty of his desertion, he had no resources and lived on friends, whose help enabled him to return to Lisbon in the middle of the following year.

Once back in Portugal he found his old popularity, and resumed his vagabond existence. The age was one of reaction against the Pombaline reforms, and the famous intendant of police, Manique, in his determination to keep out French revolutionary and atheistic propaganda, forbade the importation of foreign cla.s.sics and the discussion of all liberal ideas. Hence the only vehicle of expression left was satire, which Bocage employed with an unsparing hand. His poverty compelled him to eat and sleep with friends like the turbulent friar Jose Agostinho de Macedo (q.v.), and he soon fell under suspicion with Manique. He became a member of the New Arcadia, a literary society founded in 1790, under the name of Elmano Sadino, but left it three years later. Though including in its ranks most of the poets of the time, the New Arcadia produced little of real merit, and before long its adherents became enemies and descended to an angry warfare of words. But Bocage's reputation among the general public and with foreign travellers grew year by year. Beckford, the author of _Vathek_, for instance, describes him as "a pale, limber, odd-looking young man, the queerest but perhaps the most original of G.o.d's poetical creatures. This strange and versatile character may be said to possess the true wand of enchantment which at the will of its master either animates or petrifies." In 1797 enemies of Bocage belonging to the New Arcadia delated him to Manique, who on the pretext afforded by some anti-religious verses, the _Epistola a Marilia_, and by his loose life, arrested him when he was about to flee the country and lodged him in the Limoeiro, where he spent his thirty-second birthday. His sufferings induced him to a speedy recantation, and after much importuning of friends, he obtained his transfer in November from the state prison to that of the Inquisition, then a mild tribunal, and shortly afterwards recovered his liberty. He returned to his bohemian life and subsisted by writing empty _Elogios Dramaticos_ for the theatres, printing volumes of verses and translating the didactic poems of Delille, Castel and others, some second-rate French plays and Ovid's _Metamorphoses_. These resources and the help of brother Freemasons just enabled him to exist, and a purifying influence came into his life in the shape of a real affection for the two beautiful daughters of D. Antonio Bersane Leite, which drew from him verses of true feeling mixed with regrets for the past. He would have married the younger lady, D. Anna Perpetua (a.n.a.lia), but excesses had ruined his health. In 1801 his poetical rivalry with Macedo became more acute and personal, and ended by drawing from Bocage a stinging extempore poem, _Pena de Talio_, which remains a monument to his powers of invective. In 1804 the malady from which he suffered increased, and the approach of death inspired some beautiful sonnets, including one directed to D. Maria (_Marcia_), elder sister of a.n.a.lia, who visited and consoled him. He became reconciled to his enemies, and breathed his last on the 21st of December 1805. His end recalled that of Camoens, for he expired in poverty on the eve of the French invasion, while the singer of the _Lusiads_ just failed to see the occupation of Portugal by the duke of Alva's army. The gulf that divides the life and achievements of these two poets is accounted for, less by difference of talent and temperament than by their environment, and it gives an accurate measure of the decline of Portugal in the two centuries that separate 1580 from 1805.

To Beckford, Bocage was "a powerful genius," and Link was struck by his nervous expression, harmonious versification and the fire of his poetry.

He employed every variety of lyric and made his mark in all. His roundels are good, his epigrams witty, his satires rigorous and searching, his odes often full of n.o.bility, but his fame must rest on his sonnets, which almost rival those of Camoens in power, elevation of thought and tender melancholy, though they lack the latter's scholarly refinement of phrasing. So dazzled were contemporary critics by his brilliant and inspired extemporizations that they ignored Bocage's licentiousness, and overlooked the slightness of his creative output and the artificial character of most of his poetry. In 1871 a monument was erected to the poet in the chief square of Setubal, and the centenary of his death was kept there with much circ.u.mstance in 1905.

The best editions of his collected works are those of I.F. da Silva, with a biographical and literary study by Rebello da Silva, in 6 vols.

(Lisbon, 1853), and of Dr Theophilo Braga, in 8 vols. (Oporto, 1875-1876). See also I.F. da Silva _Diccionario Bibliographico Portuguez_, vol. vi. pp. 45-53, and vol. xvi. pp. 260-264; Dr T.

Braga, _Bocage, sua vida e epoca litteraria_ (Oporto, 1902). A striking portrait of Bocage by H.J. da Silva was engraved by Bartolozzi, who spent his last years in Lisbon. (E. Pr.)