[Robert Bontine]. British author and traveller, born in 1852, the son of William Cunninghame-Graham Bontine of Ardoch and Gartmore, and was educated at Harrow. He sat in the House of Commons for North Lanarkshire from 1886 to 1892, and during this period became known as an extreme Socialist, taking part with H. M. Hyndman and others in Socialist meetings and processions in London to demand work for the unemployed. He travelled much in North Africa, Mexico and South America, and wrote a number of short stories and vivid studies of life in those regions. Among his books may be mentioned Mogreb-el-Acksa: a Journey in Morocco (1898); The Ipane (1899); A Vanished Arcadia (1901); Faith (1909); Hope (1910); Charity (1912); A Life of Bernal Diaz del Castillo (1915); A Brazilian Mystic (1920); Cartagena and the Books of the Sinu (1920). Early in the World War he went to South America to buy horses for the British army, and carried out his mission with success.
