a town and parish of Scotland, in the county of Ayr, and partly also in Renfrewshire. The town is in Ayrshire, on the Renfrew and Ayr Railway, and nine miles S.W. of Paisley. It carries on to a considerable extent the manufacture of bleached and coloured thread, and has several cotton manufactories. Pop. of the town in 1851, 2016.

BEJA, a city of the province of Alentejo, in Portugal, 36 miles south of Evora. It is surrounded with walls, is the see of a bishop, and contains about 5500 inhabitants, who are for the most part occupied in cultivation, and especially in breeding cattle.

BEJAPOUR, in Southern India, the ancient capital of an independent sovereignty of the same name, and once an extensive, splendid, and opulent city, but now retaining only the vestiges of its former grandeur. It is situate in a fertile plain, and is a place of great extent, consisting of three distinct localities—the citadel, the fort, and the remains of the city. The citadel, a mile in circuit, is a place of great strength, well built, of the most massive materials, and encompassed by a ditch 100 yards wide, formerly well supplied with water, but now nearly filled up with rubbish, so that its original depth cannot be discovered. It was built in 1489, by Yusuf Adil Shah, the founder of the dynasty of Bejapour. The fort consists of a rampart flanked by numerous towers, a ditch, and covered way. Its defences, which are not less than six miles in circumference, were completed by Ali Adil Shah in 1566. The interior formerly contained the king's palace, the houses of the nobility, large magazines, and extensive gardens. At present, though considerable portions of the area are covered with buildings or ruins, there is room for corn-fields and extensive inclosures. Outside the fort are the remains of a vast city, now for the most part in ruins, but the innumerable tombs, mosques, caravanserais, and other edifices which have resisted the havoc of time, afford abundant evidence of the ancient splendour of the place. It is asserted by the natives that Bejapour contained, according to authentic records, 1600 mosques and nearly 1,000,000 houses. The number of houses is certainly overrated; that of the mosques, in the opinion of recent travellers, is no exaggeration. The outer wall of the city on the western side runs nearly south. Bejapour, and north; and is of great extent. It is built of stone, is of prodigious thickness, and about twenty feet in height, with a ditch and rampart; and at intervals of 100 yards are capacious towers, built of large hewn stones. The whole is now in a ruinous condition; the wall and the towers having in many places fallen into the ditch, and in other parts being covered with rubbish. Several mosques and mausoleums, adorned with all the embellishments of Eastern architecture, are still to be seen in Bejapour. The fort in the interior is adorned with many of these edifices, in rather better preservation than the works. Amongst these is the great mosque, which is 97 yards long by 53 broad. The wings, which are 15 yards broad, project 73 yards from the north and south ends, inclosing on three sides, with the body of the mosque, a large reservoir of water and a fountain.

The mausoleum of Sultan Mahmood Shah is a plain building, 153 feet square, over which is reared a dome 117 feet in diameter at its greatest concavity, and called by the natives the grand cupola. The mosque and mausoleum of Ibrahim Adil Shah, king of Bejapour—which was probably completed about the year 1620—is said to have cost L700,000, and to have occupied thirty-six years in its completion. It is built on a basement 130 yards in length by 52 in breadth, and raised 15 feet. On it is a plain building, 115 feet by 76, covered by an immense dome raised on arches. The mausoleum is a room 57 feet square, inclosed by two verandahs 13 feet in breadth and 22 feet in height. There are, besides, many other public buildings more or less injured by time and the violence of the Mahrattas. Almost all the buildings, the palaces in the fort excepted, are of massive stone, and in the most durable style; and at the same time the workmanship is minutely elegant. Among the curiosities of the capital is the celebrated monster gun, stated to be the largest piece of cast brass ordnance in the world. It was captured from the king of Ahmednagur by the king of Bejapour about the middle of the seventeenth century. An inscription on the gun recording the fact was erased by Aurungzebe, who substituted the present inscription, stating that he conquered Bejapour in 1685. The city is well watered, having, besides numerous wells, several rivulets running through it.

After the dissolution of the great Bahmani dynasty of the Deccan in 1489, a race of independent sovereigns arose, who ruled over the new kingdom of Bejapour, extending from the confluence of the Beema and the Krishna on the east to the sea-coast, on the west from Goa to Bombay. Their rule endured through several generations, until at length, in 1650, Shah Jehan compelled them to become tributary to the empire; and shortly after, their monarchy was totally subverted by his successor Aurungzebe. The city and territory of Bejapour remained annexed to Delhi till 1724, when the Nizam established his independence in the Deccan, and included Bejapour within his dominions. His sway over this portion of his acquisitions was, however, of brief duration, for, being defeated by the Peishwa in 1760, he was constrained to purchase peace by its cession to the Mahrattas. Upon the fall of the Peishwa in 1818, Bejapour passed into the hands of the British, and was by them included in the territory assigned to the raja of Sattara.

The place, as already intimated, is rich in monuments of the bygone period when Bejapour was the capital of a powerful and flourishing Mahometan kingdom. Such traces of the past it is always desirable to preserve to the greatest possible extent, as they furnish the best commentary upon the history of the times in which they were raised, and indeed constitute their history, so far as manners are concerned. It is fortunate that their value was duly appreciated by the late raja of Sattara, who took great pains to preserve them; and that the British government, participating in the same feeling, has, since the country passed into its possession, manifested great zeal in rescuing from the ravages of time the magnificent relics which have come into their possession.

Bejapour is distant from Sattara S.E. 130 miles; from Bombay S.E. 245. Lat 16. 50. Long 75. 48. (d. n.-s.) (e. t.)