s it
has no outlet. The largest of the rivers which enter it, the Tigrish and
the Nyuki, run north through a flat marshy country which extends south of
the lake. This district, inhabited by the negro tribe of Njamusi, was by
the first explorers called Njemps. It is a fertile grain-growing region
containing two considerable villages. The Njamusi are peaceful
agriculturists who show marked friendliness to Europeans. N. of the lake
rise the Karosi hills; to the E. the land rises in terraces to the edge of
the Laikipia escarpment. A characteristic of the country in the
neighbourhood of the lake are the "hills" of the termites (white ants).
They are hollow columns 10 to 12 ft. high and from 1 ft. to 18 in. broad.
The greater kudu, almost unknown elsewhere in East Africa, inhabits the
flanks of the Laikipia escarpment to the east of the lake and comes to the
foot-hills around Baringo to feed.

The existence of Lake Baringo was first reported in Europe by Ludwig Krapf
and J. Rebmann, German missionaries stationed at Mombasa, about 1850; in
J. H. Speke's map of the Nile sources (1863) Baringo is confused with
Kavirondo Gulf of Victoria Nyanza; it figures in Sir H. M. Stanley's map
(1877) as a large sheet of water N.E. of Victoria Nyanza. Joseph Thomson,
in his journey through the Masai country in 1883, was the first white man
to see the lake and to correct the exaggerated notions as to its size.
Native tradition, however, asserts that the lake formerly covered a much
larger area.

BARISAL, a town of British India, headquarters of Backergunje district in
Eastern Bengal and Assam, situated on a river of the same name. Pop. (1901)
18,978. It is an important centre of river trade, on the steamer route
through the Sundarbans [v.03 p.0402] from Calcutta to the Brahmaputra. It
contains a first grade college and several schools. There are a public
library, established by subscription in 1858; and a students' union, for
helping the sick and poor and promoting the intellectual and physical
improvement of boys. Barisal has given its name to a curious physical
phenomenon, known as the "Barisal guns," the cause of which has not been
satisfactorily explained. These are noises, like the report of cannon,
frequently heard in the channels of the delta of the Brahmaputra, at the
rising of the tide.

BARIUM (symbol Ba, atomic weight 137.37 [O=16]), one of the metallic
chemical elements included in the group of the alkaline earths. It takes
its