men of letters, of whom Rodolphe represents Murger himself, while the others have been more or less positively identified. Murger, in fact, belonged to a clique of so-called Bohemians, the most remarkable of whom, besides himself, were Privat d’Anglemont and Champfleury. La Vie de Bohême, arranged for the stage in collaboration with Théodore Barrière, was produced at the Variétés on the 22nd of November 1849, and was a triumphant success; it afterwards formed the basis of Puccini’s opera, La Bohême (1898). From this time it was easy for Murger to live by journalism and general literature. He was introduced in 1851 to the Revue des deux mondes. But he was a slow, fastidious and capricious worker, and his years of hardship and dissipation had impaired his health. He published among other works Claude et Marianne in 1851; a comedy, Le Bonhomme Jadis in 1852; Le Pays Latin in 1852; Adeline Protat (one of the most graceful and innocent if not the most original of his tales) in 1853; and Les Buveurs d’eau in 1855. This last, the most powerful of his books next to the Vie de Bohême, traces the fate of certain artists and students who, exaggerating their own powers and disdaining merely profitable work, come to an evil end not less rapidly than by dissipation. Some years before his death, which took place in a maison de santé near Paris on the 28th of January 1861, Murger went to live at Marlotte, near Fontainebleau, and there he wrote an unequal book entitled Le Sabot rouge (1860), in which the character of the French peasant is uncomplimentary treated.
See an article by A. de Pontmartin in the Revue des deux mondes (October 1861).
MURGHAB, a river of Afghanistan, which flows into Russian territory. It rises in the Firozkhoi highlands, the northern scarp of which is defined by the Band-i-Turkestan, and after traversing that plateau from east to west it turns north through deep defiles to Bala Murghab. Beyond this, in the neighbourhood of Maruchak, it forms for a space the boundary-line between Afghan and Russian Turkestan; then joining the Kushk river at Pul-i-Khishti (Tash Kupri) it runs north to Merv, losing itself in the sands of the Merv desert after a course of about 450 m., its exact source being unknown. In the neighbourhood of Bala Murghab it is 50 yds. broad and some 3 ft. deep, with a rapid current. In the lower part of its course it is flanked by a remarkable network of canals. The ancient city of Merv, which was on its banks, was the great centre of medieval Arab trade, and Buddhist caves are found in the scarped cliffs of its right bank near Panjdeh.
MURI, a province of the British protectorate of Northern Nigeria. It lies approximately between 9° and 11° 40′ E. and 7° 10′ and 9° 40′ N. The river Benue divides it through its length, and the portion on the southern bank of the river is watered by streams flowing from the Cameroon region to the Benue. The province is bordered S. by Southern Nigeria, S.E. by German territory (Cameroon), E. by the province of Yola, N. by Bauchi, W. by Nassarawa and Bassa. The district of Katsena-Allah extends south of the Benue considerably west of 9° E., the approximate limit of the remainder of the province. Muri has an area of 25,800 sq. m. and an estimated population of about 828,000. The province is rich in forest products and the Niger Company maintains trading stations on the river. Cotton is grown, and spinning thread, weaving and dyeing afford occupation to many thousands. The valley of the Benue has a climate generally unhealthy to Europeans, but there are places in the northern part of the province, such as the Fula settlement of Wase on a southern spur of the Murchison hills, where the higher altitude gives an excellent climate. Muri includes the ancient Jukon empire together with
various small Fula states and a number of pagan tribes, among whom the Munshi, who extend into the provinces of Nassarawa and Bassa, are among the most turbulent. The Munshi occupy about 4000 sq. m. in the Katsena-Allah district. The pagan tribes in the north of the province are lawless cannibals who by constant outrages and murders of traders long rendered the main trade route to Bauchi unsafe, and cut off the markets of the
Benue valley and the Cameroon from the Hausa states. Only
two routes, one via Wase and the other via Gatari, pass through
this belt. In the south of the province a similar belt of hostile
pagans closed the access to the Cameroon except by two routes,
Takum and Beli. For Hausa traders to cross the Muri province
was a work of such danger and expense that before the advent
of British administration the attempt was seldom made.
Muri came nominally under British control in 1900. The principal effort of the administration has been to control and open the trade routes. In 1904 an expedition against the northern cannibals resulted in the capture of their principal fortresses and the settlement and opening to trade of a large district, the various routes to the Benue being rendered safe. In 1905 an expedition against the Munshi, rendered necessary by an unprovoked attack on the Niger Company’s station at Abinsi, had a good effect in reducing the riverain portion of this tribe to submission. The absence of any central native authority delayed the process of bringing the province under administrative control. Its government has been organized on the same system as the rest of Northern Nigeria, and is under a British resident. It has been divided into three administrative divisions—east, central and west—with their respective headquarters at Lau, Amar and Ibi. Provincial and native courts of justice have been established. The telegraph has been carried to the town of Muri. Muri is one of the provinces in which the slave trade was most active, and its position between German territory and the Hausa states rendered it in the early days of the British administration a favourite route for the smuggling of slaves.
MURILLO, BARTOLOMÉ ESTEBAN (1617–1682), Spanish painter, son of Gaspar Esteban Murillo and Maria Perez, was born at Seville in 1617, probably at the end of the year, as he was baptized on the first of January 1618. Esteban-Murillo appears to have been the compound surname of the father, but some inquirers consider that, in accordance with a frequent Andalusian custom, the painter assumed the surname of his maternal grandmother, Elvira Murillo, in addition to that of his father. His parents (the father an artisan of a humble class), having been struck with the sketches which the boy was accustomed to make, placed him under the care of their distant relative, Juan del Castillo, the painter. Juan, a correct draughtsman and dry colourist, taught him all the mechanical parts of his profession with extreme care, and Murillo proved himself an apt pupil. The artistic appliances of his master’s studio were not abundant, and were often of the simplest kind. A few casts, some stray fragments of sculpture and a lay figure formed the principal aids available for the Sevillian student of art. A living model was a luxury generally beyond the means of the school, but on great occasions the youths would strip in turn and proffer an arm or a leg to be studied by their fellows. Objects of still life, however, were much studied by Murillo, and he early learnt to hit off the ragged urchins of Seville. Murillo in a few years painted as well as his master, and as stiffly. His two pictures of the Virgin, executed during this period, show how thoroughly he had mastered the style, with all its defects. Castillo was a kind man, but his removal to Cadiz in 1639–1640 threw his favourite pupil upon his own resources. The fine school of Zurbaran was too expensive for the poor lad; his parents were either dead or too poor to help him, and he was compelled to earn his bread by painting rough pictures for the “feria” or public fair of Seville. The religious daubs exposed at that mart were generally of as low an order as the prices paid for them. A “pintura de la feria” (a picture for the fair) was a proverbial expression for an execrably bad one; yet the street painters who thronged the market-place with their “clumsy, saints and unripe Madonnas” not unfrequently rose to be able and even famous artists. This rough-and-ready practice, partly for the market-place, partly for converts in Mexico and Peru, for whom Madonnas and popular saints were produced and shipped off by the dozen, doubtless increased Murillo’s manual dexterity; but, if we may judge from the picture of the “Virgin and Child” shown in the Murillo-room at Seville as belonging to this period, he made little improvement
