Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/722

650 of decently-dressed natives of both sexes regularly attend divine service &quot; at the mission stations. These number n&amp;gt;e or six, and are supported by the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which began its labours here in 1846. The predominant language, not only among the people of Calabar proper, but also of the various tribes on both sides of the Cross River, is Efik, which bids fair to be the common commercial speech of the whole district. It is really a modified Ibibio, and presents traces of what is known as alliterative concord, though this is by no means a universal characteristic. It has been reduced to writing by the missionaries, who have employed the ordinary English alphabet. Considerable progress has been made in the formation of an initiatory literature ; no fewer than 65 volumes having proceeded from the mission press. Most important of these are the Efik translation of the New Testament by H. Goldie (1862), the translation of the Old Testament by Dr A. Robb (1868), and a Dictionary of the Efik by H. Goldie, published in 1862. Captain James Broom Walker of Duke Town, who has explored various parts of the country, presented several charts to the Royal Geographical Society, which are reproduced in the United Presbyterian Missionary Record for 1872 and 1875.

1em  CALABAR BEAN, the seed of a leguminous plant, Physostigma venenosum, a native of tropical Africa. The plant has a climbing habit like the scarlet runner, and attains a height of about 50 feet, with a stem an inch or two in thickness. The seed pods, which contain two or three seeds or beans, are 6 or 7 inches in length ; and the beans are about the size of an ordinary horse bean but much thicker, with a deep chocolate brown colour. They constitute the E-ser-e or ordeal beans of the negroes of Old Calabar, being administered to persons accused of witchcraft or other crimes. In cases where the poisonous material did its deadly work it was held at once to indicate and rightly to punish guilt ; but when it was rejected by the stomach of the accused, innocence was held to be satisfactorily estab lished. A form of duelling with the seeds is also known among the natives, in which the two opponents divide a bean, each eating one-half ; that quantity has been known to kill both adversaries. Although thus highly poisonous, the bean has nothing in external aspect, taste, or smell to dis tinguish it from any harmless leguminous seed, and very disastrous effects have resulted from its being incautiously left in the way of children. The beans were first intro duced into England in the year 184.-0; but the plant was not accurately described till 1861, and its physiological effects were investigated in 1863 by Dr Thomas R. Eraser. In that year an alkaloid was isolated from the seeds to which the name physostigmine was applied ; and under the name eserine another alkaloid was prepared from them ; but it is not yet quite certain that the two substances are essentially different. Dr Eraser s investigations, which were conducted with an alcoholic extract of the seeds, showed that the active principles exerted a remarkable influence in contracting the pupil of the eye, and in counteracting the influence of atropine. The antagonism of physostigmine and atropine and its relations to many other alkaloids have ^subsequently been the subject of very numerous investiga tions. A committee of the British Medical Association under Professor Hughes Bennett found that the antagonism between sulphate of atropine and extract of Calabar bean exists only within narrow limits, so that for practical purposes atropine is useless as an antidote to Calabar bean. The investigation of the same committee into the relations of hydrate of chloral and Calabar bean, however, proves that they are mutually antagonistic, but as the toxic influence of the Calabar bean is very rapid, it is necessary to administer the chloral as soon as possible after the Calabar bean is taken. Calabar bean in the form of powder and extract is used in medical practice. It has been chiefly employed by ophthalmists to produce contrac tion of the pupil, but it is also used in tetanus, neuralgia, and rheumatic diseases.  CALABOZO, or, a town of Venezuela, formerly capital of the province of Caracas, but now of that of Guarico, is situated 120 miles S.S.W. of the city of Caracas on the left bank of the River Guarico. It lies so low that during the rainy season it is frequently surrounded by the floods ; and in the summer it is exposed to extreme heat, the average temperature being 88 Fahr. It is well built, with streets running at right angles, and it has several fine churches, a college, and public schools. Its situation on the main road from Aragua to Apure makes it the seat of a considerable trade; and the surrounding- country affords extensive pasture for cattle. There are thermal springs in the neighbourhood. Originally a small Indian village, Calabozo owes its existence as a town to the Compania Guipuzcoana, who made it the seat of one of their mercantile stations in the beginning of the 18th century. In 1820 it was the scene of a battle in which Bolivar and Paez beat the Spanish general Morales. Population in 1873, 5618.  CALABRIA, the name given by the Romans to the peninsula at the south-eastern extremity of Italy, and now given to the peninsula at the south-western extremity. The former district was called by the Greeks lapygia and Messapia, though these terms were variously used, and sometimes also included all the south-east of Italy, from Lucania to the Garganian promontory. In the time of Augustus, Calabria was the district south and east of a line drawn from the neighbourhood of Tarentum to that of Brundisium, corresponding to the modern Terra d Otranto. The principal cities were Tarentum (Taranto), Brundisium (Brindisi), and Hydruntum (Otranto), all of which are ports, The inhabitants were Sallentines and Calabrians or Messapians, both probably of Pre-Hellenic or Pelasgic race ; Niebuhr, however, considered the Calabrians to be Oscan intruders distinct from the other tribes. Ancient Calabria was a country of low hills with very gentle ascents, having a soil of Tertiary limestone formation, no rivers, and scarcely any small streams, and, during summer, a climate of intolerable heat, but exceedingly fertile, producing the olive and vine. Owing to its position Calabria was long defended by the Greeks against the Goths, Lombards, and Saracens, and was the last portion of Italy lost by the Byzantine emperors. In the time of the Norman monarchy, in the llth century, there took place a curious change in the application of the name, the cause and exact date of which are not known with any certainty. An explanation possessing some probability is, however, given. The Byzantines, it is likely, extended the name Calabria to all their possessions in Southern Italy; and when their possessions in the south eastern peninsula became greatly inferior in importance to that in the south-western (Bruttiuin) they applied the name to the latter instead of the former. It was not, however, till after the Norman Conquest that the name was universally employed in this the modern sense. In modern times Calabria, until the consolidation of the Italian kingdom, was the name of one of the four provinces into which the continental part of the kingdom of Naples, or of the Two Sicilies, was formerly divided ; and it is now the name given to three out of the sixty-nine provinces of the present division of Italy. It is the most southern part 