BEGUINES-BEHAIM. celebrated dervise, Hadji Begtash, to whom also the | though environed by a wall, is open to the visits of order appears to owe its institution. The members use secret signs and pass-words as means of recognition, in the same way as is done by the masonic orders, some of them indeed appearing to be identical with those of freemasonry. Although numbering many thousands of influential persons in its ranks, the society does not appear to exercise any material influence in the religion or politics of Turkey. BE'GUINES, BEGUI'NÆ, or BEGUTTE, the name of the earliest of all lay societies of women united for pious purposes. The reason of their origin is not quite certair, but it is usually attributed-in part, at least to the disproportion in the numbers of men and women which was occasioned by the Crusades. These wars had robbed Christendom of thousands of its most vigorous sons, and left multitudes of widows and maidens, to whom life had henceforth something of a solemn and sorrowful aspect, and who therefore betook themselves, in earnest and affectionate piety, to the charities and duties of religion. The origin of the word is doubtful. The popular tradition of Brabant since the 17th c., that a St. Begga, daughter of Pepin, and sister of St. Gertrude, founded, in 696, the first sisterhood of B. at Namur, has no historical basis. Hallmann has also shewn that the supposed oldest document of the B. (1065), giving an account of their establishment at Vilvorde, near Brussels, is unauthentic. The most probable account is, that a priest named Lambert le Bègue, or Le Bèghe, i. e., the Stammerer, about the year 1180, founded, in Liege, a society of pious women, who were called by his name. The B. were not restricted by vows, nor did they follow the rules of any order, but were united under a supérieure for the exercise of piety and benevolence, and lived generally in separate small cottages, which, collectively, formed the Beginagium, or vineyard,' as it was scripturally termed. Their establishments were often enriched by liberal donations. A church, a hospital, and a house of reception or common entertainment, generally belonged to every community of Beguines. The sisters were distinguished from the rest of the laity only by their diligence and devotedness, piety, modesty, and zeal for the purity of youthful education. Societies of B. flourished greatly during the 12th and 13th centuries, when they spread themselves over France and Germany. Among the most important were those in Hamburg, Lübeck, Regensburg, Magdeburg, Leipsic, Goslar, Rochlitz, and Görlitz. As the pietists of the middle ages, the B. were often subjected to persecution by the mendicant orders of friars; but, on account of their practical usefulness, were sheltered by the pope and councils as well as by secular authorities. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the B. became united with the persecuted spiritualists among the Franciscans (Fratricelles), and with the sect of the Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit.' Hence arose certain heresies, which, of course, occasioned interference on the part of the Inquisition; and on account of certain immoralities, a synod held at Fritzlar required that all candidates must be forty years old before they could enter a society of Beguines. These sisterhoods maintained their position in Germany and the Netherlands longer than in other countries. In Holland, they existed at the close of the 18th c.; and in the present day we find here and there so-called Beguinen-häuser (Beguin-houses) in Germany; but they are now nothing more than almshouses for poor spinsters. At Ghent, there still a celebrated institution of B., numbering as many as 600 sisters, besides 200 locataires, or occasional inmates. Their houses form a kind of distinct little town, called the Béguinage, which, strangers. Living here a life of retirement and piety, the B., in their simple dark dresses, go out as nurses to the hospital, and perform other acts of kindness among the poor. As above stated, they are under no monastic vow, but having attached themselves to the sisterhood, it is their boast that none is known to have quitted it. There are houses of B. also at Antwerp, Mechlin, and Bruges; and in 1854, one was established in France, at Castelnaudry, in the department of Aude. BEGHARDS (Ger. begehren, to seek with importunity). Societies of laymen styling themselves B., first appeared in Germany, the Netherlands, and the south of France in the beginning of the 13th c., and were known in Italy as Bizachi and Bocasoti; but they never obtained the reputation enjoyed by the Beguine sisterhood. Towards the end of the 13th c., they were commonly stigmatised as bons garçons, boni pueri, 'ministers' men,' bedesmen,' 'pietists,' vagabonds'-contemptuous titles, which expressed the low estimation in which they were held. On account of heretics of all sorts retreating into these half-spiritual communities, they were subjected to severe persecutions after 1367, and were gradually dispersed, or joined the orders of Dominicans and Franciscans. In the Netherlands, where they had preserved a better character than elsewhere, they maintained their ground longer, and were protected by Pope Innocent IV. (1245), in Brussels by Cardinal Hugo (1254), and in Liege by Pope Urban IV. (1261); but their communities disappeared in the 14th c.-See Mosheim, De Beghardis et Beguinabus (Leip. 1790), and Hallmann's Geschichte des Ursprungs der Belg. Beghinen (History of the Origin of Beguines in Belgium), Berlin, 1843. BEHAIM, MARTIN, a famous cosmographer, descended from a Bohemian family which settled in Nuremberg after the middle of the 13th c., and still flourishes there. B. was born in Nuremberg in 1430 (or, more probably, in 1436). He early entered into mercantile life, and went to Venice (1457), and to Mechlin, Antwerp, and Vienna (1477-1479), in pursuit of trade. In 1480, he was induced to go to Portugal, where he soon acquired a reputation as a skilful maker of maps. From 1484 to 1485, he accompanied the Portuguese navigator, Diego Cam, in a voyage of discovery along the west coast of Africa, and sailed as far as the mouth of the Zaire or Congo river, in lat. 22° S., which was 194° further than had ever been previously reached. In 1486, B. sailed to Faval, one of the Azore islands, where a Flemish colony had settled. Here he married the daughter of Jobst von Küster, governor of the colony. In 1490 he left Fayal, and returned to his native city, Nuremberg, where he resided from 1491 to 1493. During this stay, he constructed a large globe, principally from the writings of Ptolemy, Pliny, Strabo, Marco Polo, and Sir John Mandeville. It is still preserved by the family of B. in Nuremberg, and is a valuable record of the progress of discovery, though it indicates that B.'s geographical knowledge did not at that period extend beyond Japan on the east, and the Cape Verd Islands on the west. After travelling through Flanders and France, B. again resided in Fayal from 1494 to 1506, and then removed to Lisbon, where he died, July 29, 1509. The services rendered by B. to geographical discovery and the science of navigation were considerable, though, according to the latest investigations, there is no support for the theory that B. was the discoverer of America, or even that Columbus and Magelhaen were indebted to B. for guidance with regard to their discoveries. B. left BEHAR BEHISTUN. no works behind him except his maps and charts.Murr's Diplomatische Geschichte des Ritters von B. (1778-1801); A. von Humboldt's Examen Critique de l'Histoire de la Géog. du Nouveau Continent. BEHAR. See BAHAR. BEHEA'DING. See CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. BEHISTU'N, or BISUTU'N (Lat. Bagistanus; Persian, Baghistan, Place of Gardens), a ruined town of the Persian province of Irak-Ajemi, 21 miles east of Kirmanshah, lat. 34° 18' N., long. 47° 30' E. B. is chiefly celebrated for a remarkable mountain, which on one side rises almost perpendicularly to the height of 1700 feet, and which was in ancient times sacred to Jupiter or to Ormuzd. According to Diodorus, Semiramis, on her march from Babylon to Ecbatana, in Media Magna, encamped near this rock, and having cut away and polished the lower part of it, had her own likeness and those of a hundred of her guards engraved on it. She further, according to the same historian, caused the following inscription in Assyrian letters to be cut in the rock: 'Semiramis having piled up one upon the other the trapping of the beasts of burden which accompanied her, ascended by these means from the plain to the top of the rock. No trace of these inscriptions is now to be found, and Sir Henry Rawlinson accounts for their absence by the supposition that they were destroyed by Khusraú Parvíz when he was preparing to form of this long scarped surface the back wall of his palace.' Diodorus also mentions that Alexander the Great, on his way to Ecbatana from Susa, visited Behistun. But the rock is especially interesting for its cuneiform inscriptions (q. v.), which within recent years have been successfully deciphered by Sir H. Rawlinson. The principal inscription of B., executed by the command of Darius, is on the north extremity of the rock, at an elevation of 300 feet from the ground, where it could not have been engraved without the aid of scaffolding, and can now only be reached by the adventurous antiquary at considerable risk to his life. The labour of polishing the face of the rock, so as to fit it to receive the inscriptions, must have been very great. In places where the stone was defective, pieces were fitted in and fastened with molten lead with such extreme nicety, that only a careful scrutiny can detect the artifice. But the real wonder of the work,' says Sir H. Rawlinson, 'consists in the inscriptions. For extent, for beauty of execution, for uniformity and correctness, they are perhaps unequalled in the world. After the engraving of the rock had been accomplished, a coating of silicious varnish had been laid on, to give a clearness of outline to each individual letter, and to protect the surface against the action of the elements. This varnish is of infinitely greater hardness than the limestone rock beneath it.' Washed down in some places by the rain of twenty-three centuries, it lies in consistent flakes like thin layers of lava on the foot-ledge; in others, where time has honey-combed the rock beneath, it adheres to the broken surface, still shewing with sufficient distinctness the forms of the characters. The inscriptions-which are in the three forms of cuneiform writing, Persian, Babylonian, and Median-set forth the hereditary right of Darius to the throne of Persia, tracing his genealogy, through eight generations, up to Achæmenes; they then enumerate the provinces of his empire, and recount his triumphs over the various rebels who rose against him during the first four years of his reign. The monarch himself is represented on the tablet with a bow in hand, and his foot upon the prostrate figure of a man, while nine rebels, chained together by the neck, stand humbly before him; behind him are two of his own warriors, and above him, another figure [see cut]. The Persian inscriptions which Sir H. Rawlinson has translated are contained in the five main columns numbered in cut 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. The first column contains 19 paragraphs, and 96 lines. Each paragraph after the first, which commences, 'I am Darius the Great King,' begins with, 'Says Darius the King.' The second column has the same number of lines in 16 paragraphs; the third, 92 lines and 14 paragraphs; the fourth has also 92 lines and 18 paragraphs; and the fifth, which appears to be a supplementary column, 35 lines. With the exception BEHME-BEIRAM. of the first paragraph on the first column, all America. The distance between the two Capes, in begin with, Says Darius the King.' The second, a direction from north-west to south-east, is nearly fourth, and fifth columns are much injured. Sir H. 50 miles; about midway are three uninhabited Rawlinson fixes the epoch of the sculpture at 516-islands. The greatest depth, some 30 fathoms, is 515 B. C. See Journal of Asiatic Society, vol. x. BEHME, JACOB. See BÖHME. BEHN, APHARA, or APHRA, a licentious poetess and novelist of the reign of Charles II., the date of whose birth is unknown, was the daughter of Mr. Johnson, a gentleman who, through his aristocratic connections, obtained the appointment of governor of Surinam. He died on his passage out, but the daughter pursued her journey, and resided at Surinam for some considerable time. Here she made the acquaintance of the celebrated slave Oronoko, who afterwards became the subject of one of her novels, and of a tragedy by Southern. Returning to England, she married Mr. Behn, a merchant of Dutch extraction, was presented at court, where her personal appearance and vivacious freedom of manners pleased the 'Merry Monarch,' who deputed her to watch events in Flanders. She accordingly went to Antwerp, where she succeeded in discovering the intention of the Dutch to sail up the Thames and Medway, and communicated the secret to the English court; which, however, took no notice of the information, a slight which caused the fair agent to throw up state politics in disgust. On her return to England, she became intimate with all the profligate wits as well as the more staid scholars and poets of the time, and devoted herself to literature. Her numerous plays, poems, tales, letters, &c., are disfigured alike by general impurity of tone and indecency of language; and, in point of intellectual ability, none of her works appear deserving of the high praise lavished on them by Dryden, Cotton, Southern, and others. She died in 1689. towards the middle, and the water is shallower very old Japanese map in the British Museum shews There are several islands in no this sea, and fogs prevail constantly; but owing to the shallowness of the strait, there are icebergs of magnitude to be met with.-BEHRING'S ISLAND, the most westerly of the Aleutian Islands in lat. 55° 22′ N., long 166 E. It has an area of 30 square miles, and is noteworthy as the place where Behring, the discoverer, was wrecked and died in 1741. BEILA'N, a pass and town in the northern extremity of Syria, on the east shore of the Gulf of Iscanderoon. The pass of B. runs from south-west to north-east, between the mountain-ranges of Rhosus and Amanus, and is the common route from Cilicia into Syria. It is one of the two Amanian passes, supposed to be the lower one, mentioned by Cicero as capable of easy ascent, on account of their narrowness. There seems to be no doubt that, in the war between Darius and Alexander, the B. Pass was an important consideration to both commanders, but historians and geographers appear to be at variance as to the precise advantage taken of it in the struggle. The town of B. is situated near the summit-level of the pass, at an elevation of 1584 feet above the Mediterranean Sea. It has a population of about 5000, many of whom are wealthy, and is much esteemed for its salubrity and fine water, which is supplied by numerous aqueducts. Between the north-western foot of the pass and the sea, are caves and springs, supposed to be the site of battle between the Egyptians and Turks in 1832, the ancient Myriandrus. B. was the scene of a when the latter were defeated. BEHRING, VITUS, the discoverer of the strait called after his name, was a native of Denmark, and entered as captain the newly formed navy of Peter the Great. From the ability and daring he had displayed in the wars with Sweden, he was appointed to conduct an expedition of discovery in the Sea of Kamtchatka. Sailing, in 1728, from a port on the east of Kamtchatka, he followed the BE'IRA, a Portuguese province, bounded N. by coast northward until he believed, from the west- the provinces of Minho and Tras-os-Montes; S. by ward trending of the land, that he had reached the Estremadura and Alemtejo; E. by Spain; and W. north-east point of Asia. It is now, however, by the Atlantic Ocean. It has an area of about believed that the cape which B. rounded was to the 9300 square miles, and a pop. (1875) of 1,319,598. south of the real East Cape (in lat. 66°), and that he The surface is mountainous, and the soil on the never actually reached the strait to which he has plains sandy, and generally far from fertile. The given his name. After some years spent in explora-mountain-slopes afford good pasturage for sheep tions on the coasts of Kamtchatka, Okhotsk, and the north of Siberia, he sailed in 1741 from Okhotsk towards the American continent, and sighting land about 584 N. lat., he followed the coast northward for some distance; but sickness and storms obliged him to return, and being wrecked on the desert island of Awatska, since called Behring's Island, he died there, 8th December 1741. The previous year, he had founded the present settlement of Petropaulovski, in the Bay of Awatska. and cattle. The products are corn, wine, oil, flax, and various kinds of fruit, and considerable attention is paid to the rearing of bees. Sea-salt is obtained at the coast. The river Douro waters the whole of its northern, and the Tagus a portion of its southern, boundary. The Mondego and Vouga flow through its centre. Iron, coal, and marble are wrought in small quantity. There is little done in manufactures. The inhabitants are an industrious race of people. In 1835, the province was divided into Upper and Lower Beira, the former having Viseu and the latter Castel Branco for its capital. BE HRING'S STRAIT separates Asia from America, and connects the Pacific with the Arctic Ocean. The proof that the two continents were BEIRAM, or BAIRAM, a Mohammedan festival, Lot connected was given by the voyage of a Cossack somewhat analogous to Easter. It commences immenamed Deschnew, who, in 1648, sailed from a diately after the fast of Ramadan, or Ramazan, harbour in Siberia, in the Polar Ocean, into the which corresponds to Lent. Being one of the only Sea of Kamtchatka. But the whole voyage was two feasts the Moslems have in the year, it is looked long regarded by Europeans as a fable, until forward to with great interest, the zest being Behring's (q. v.) expedition in 1728. The strait enhanced by the previous abstinence. Its advent has since been explored by Cook and Beechy. is announced at Constantinople by the discharge of The narrowest part is near 66° lat., between artillery, the beating of drums, and blowing of Last Cape in Asia, and Cape Prince of Wales in trumpets. Properly, it should terminate in one day. BEIT-BEKE. but the Moslems in the capital think it no offence to their abstemious prophet to carry the festivities over two days; while in other parts of Turkey and Persia, they are often protracted a week or more. Dances, music, processions, &c., in which the women are permitted greater indulgence than usual, form prominent features of the feast; and at this time the different orders of the empire pay homage to the sultan. Seventy days after, the Moslems celebrate their only other feast (the festival of the sacrifices'), called the lesser B., which is the day appointed by the Mecca pilgrims for slaying the victims, and was instituted in commemoration of the offering up of Isaac by Abraham. The lesser B. usually lasts three days, but it is not celebrated with anything like the pomp of the other. During the continuance of each of the festivals, only one religious service takes place. The Mohammedan year being the lunar one of 354 days, in the course of thirty-three years the festivals run through all the seasons. BEIT is an Arabic word, signifying house, abode, or place, the equivalent of which in Hebrew is, Beth. Thus, in the former language, we have Beit-al-Haram, 'the house of the sanctuary,' or 'the sacred house; and in the latter, Beth-el, house of God;' Beth-any, 'place of dates;' Beth-abara, place of fords,' &c. BEIT-EL-FA'KIH (House of the Saint), a town of Tehama, on the Red Sea. Being the frontier town of the Egyptian government, it has a considerable trade in coffee, wax, gum, &c., which articles are exchanged for Indian piece goods and British shawls. It has a population of about 8000, and a citadel of some strength. The houses are built partly of mud and partly of brick, and roofed with branches of the date-tree. It is described by travellers as the hottest town in Tehama. BEITU'LLAH (Arab., House of God), the spacious building or temple at Mecca, which contains the Kaaba. See MECCA and KAABA. BE'JA (the Pax Julia of the ancients), a town in the province of Alemtejo, Portugal, 36 miles southsouth-west of Evora, with a population of 6500. It is fortified, its walls being flanked by 40 towers, has a castle and a cathedral, and manufactories of leather and earthenwares. the Peishwa in 1818, it was assigned by the British BEJAR, a fortified town of Spain, in the province BEKAA, the Cole-Syria of the ancients, the Plain of Lebanon' of the Old Testament, and El Bekaa (the Valley) of the natives of Syria, is enclosed between the parallel ranges of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, which mountains it divides, and extends about 90 miles from north to south, its greatest width being about 12 miles. It is the most rich and beautiful plain in Syria; but although the soil is good, and water abundant from the numerous mountain-springs, a very small portion of it is cultivated. It is very much frequented by the Arabs, who bring down their young horses in the springtime to graze on the plain. BEKE, CHARLES TILSTONE, PH. D., &c., a modern English traveller, was born in London, October 10, 1800; received a commercial education; afterwards studied law in Lincoln's Inn, and devoted a great part of his attention to ancient history, philology, and ethnography. The results of these studies first appeared in his work, Origines Biblica BE'JAN, or BA'JAN, the name of the first or or researches in primeval history, vol. i., Lond. 'freshman' class in some at least of the Scotch, and 1834. His historical and geographical studies of the of old in many continental universities. The word East, led B. to consider the great importance of is believed to be derived from the French bec-jaune, Abyssinia for intercourse with Central Africa; but or yellow neb, a term used to designate a nestling his proposals to undertake an exploring journey were or unfledged bird. The levying of bejaunia, or declined by the government and by several learned payments for 'first-footing' by students on entering societies. Supported only by private individuals, college, was forbidden by the statutes of the uni- he determined to proceed to Abyssinia; and joining versity of Orleans in 1365, and of the university of there the party led by Major Harris, he distinToulouse in 1401. The election of an Abbas Bejan-guished himself by the exploration of Godshem and orum, or Abbot of the Greenhorns,' was prohibited by the statutes of the university of Paris in 1493. In the university of Vienna, the bejan was called beanus, a word of the same meaning, and no doubt of the same origin. the countries lying to the south, which were previously almost entirely unknown in Europe. The results of these researches appeared partly in several journals, and in Abyssinia, a Statement of Facts, &c. (2d ed., Lond., 1846). He published An Essay on BEJAPUR, a decayed city in the presidency the Nile and its Tributaries (1847); On the Sources of Bombay, lat. 16° 50' N., and long. 75° 48′ E. It of the Nile (1849); and Memoire Justificatif en is situated to the south-east of Bombay, Poonah, and Rehabilitation des Pères Paez et Lobo (Paris, 1848). Satara, at the respective distances of 245, 170, and In 1861, Dr. and Mrs. B. made a journey to 130 miles, being on an affluent of the Kistna or Harran; and undertook in 1865 a fruitless misKrishna, which flows into the Bay of Bengal, and sion to Abyssinia, to obtain the release of the nearly touching the west border of the Nizam's captives. At the commencement of 1874 Dr. B. territories. B. was for centuries the flourishing started for the region at the head of the Red capital of a powerful kingdom, falling therewith Sea, where he claimed (though his views are under various dynasties in succession, Hindu and disputed) to have discovered Mount Sinai, east Mussulman, till, in 1686, it was captured by of the Gulf of Akabah, and not west, as genAurungzebe. Thus stripped of its independence, B. erally supposed. He died in July of the same speedily sank into the shadow of a nighty name, year, being engaged at the time on an account of his passing, during the early part of the 18th c., into journey to Sinai. He had enjoyed a civil list pension the hands of the Mahrattas. On the overthrow of since 1870. BEKES-BELEMNITES. BEKES, or BEKESVAR, a town of Hungary, | Mongolian invasion. He died in 1270, his last years capital of the county of the same name, and situated having been embittered by an attempt at rebellion at the confluence of the Black and White Körös. on the part of his son Stephen. Pop. 22 550, who do a trade in cattle, corn, and honey. carum. BEKKER, IMMANUEL, a German philologist, distinguished by his recensions of the texts of Greek and Roman classics, was born in Berlin, 1785; studied in Halle, 1803-1807, and was the most eminent pupil of F. A. Wolf. Afterwards, he was engaged at Paris on the Corpus Inscriptionum GræThe results of his researches in the libraries of Italy (1817-1819) appear in his Anecdota Græca (3 vols., Berlin, 1814-1821), and his numerous recensions of texts derived solely from MSS., and independently of printed editions. The writers included in these recensions are Plato, the Attic orators, Aristotle, Sextus Empiricus, Thucydides, Theognis, Aristophanes, Photius, the Scholia on the Iliad, &c. He died in 1871. BEL AND THE DRAGON, an apocryphal book of the Old Testament. It does not seem to have been accepted as inspired by the Jewish Church, nor is there any proof that a Hebrew or Chaldee version of the story ever existed. Jerome considered it a 'fable,' an opinion in which most modern readers will coincide. It is, nevertheless, read for edification both in the Roman Catholic and AngloCatholic churches: in the former, on Ash Wednesday; in the latter, on the 23d of November. According to Jahn, the aim of the writer was 'to warn against the sin of idolatry some of his brethren who had embraced the Egyptian superstitions.' BELA, the name of four Hungarian kings of the family of Arpad.—B. I. (1061—1063) energetically suppressed the last attempt to restore heathenism, and by the introduction of a fixed standard of measures, weights, and coinage, virtually founded the commerce of Hungary. He was also the first to introduce the representative system into the diet, by appointing, in lieu of the collective nobility, two nobles only from each of the different counties.-B. II., surnamed the Blind,' 1131-1141, was entirely under the guidance of his bloodthirsty spouse, Helena, and after her decease, drank himself to death.-B. III., 1174-1196. Educated in Constantinople, he introduced Byzantine customs and culture into his own country, which was certainly favourable to its social development, though, on the other hand, his evident devotion to the Greek emperor Emanuel threatened its political independence.-B. IV., 1235–1270, son of that Andreas from whom the nobles extorted the Golden Bull,' Hungary's Magna Charta. His chief aim was to humble the nobility, and restore the royal power to its former proportions; and he thus roused a spirit of universal discontent, which led to a party among the nobles calling in the Austrian Duke, Frederick II., to their aid; but, in the year 1236, he was conquered by B., and forced to pay tribute. Before long, however, the king had to seek a refuge with his discomfited foe; for the Mongols, who invaded Hungary in 1241, defeated him on the Sajo, and put him to flight. It was only after robbing him of all the treasure he had managed to save, and extorting from him three of his counties, that Frederick II. granted the royal fugitive a shelter in Austria, where he remained till the Mongols, having heard of the death of their khan, left the country they had devastated. B. now made it his especial care, by rebuilding the destroyed villages, and inviting new settlers thither, to do away with the tokens of that terrible invasion; and he so far succeeded as to be able in 1246, to repay Frederick's inhospitality by defeating him at Vienna, and to repulse a second attempt at 822 BELAYING, one of the many modes of fastening ropes on shipboard. It is effected by winding a rope, generally a part of the running rigging, round a piece of wood called a kleat or a kevel, or else round a belaying-pin, which is an ashen staff from twelve to sixteen inches in length. 5000 inhabitants, situated on the east arm of the naval officer, born in 1799, entered the navy in BELCHI’TÉ, a town of Spain, in the province of of the Tagus, 2 miles south-west of Lisbon, of BELE'M, a town of Portugal, on the right bank which it may be said to form a fashionable suburb. It has an iron foundry, a custom-house, and quarantine establishment, a tower defending the entrance of the river. It is historically interesting as the place from whence Vasco de Gama set sail on his November 1807 by the French, the royal family of voyage of oriental discovery. It was taken in Portugal embarking from its quay for Brazil as they entered. In 1833 it was occupied by Don Pedro's troops. Pop. 5000. BELE'M, or PARA', a city of Brazil, on the right bank of the Para, the most southerly arm of the estuary of the Amazon. See PARA. BE'LEMNITES (Gr. belemnon, a dart or arrow), an interesting genus of fossil cephalopodous Mollusca, the type of a family called Belemnitida, to the whole of which the name B. is very generally extended, closely allied to the Sepiada, or Cuttle (q. v.) family. No recent species of B. is known: fossil species arv very numerous, and are found in all the oolitic and cretaceous strata, from the lowest lias to the upper chalk, some of which are filled with myriads of their |