last king of Babylon, generally supposed to be the son of Evilmerodach, and grandson to Nebuchadnezzar. See Daniel, chap. vii. It may be noticed that Xenophon's account (Cyroped. viii. 5, 30) agrees with the Book of Daniel as to the fate of Belshazzar.

Belt, Great and Little, the name of two straits which connect the Baltic with the Cattegat. The former lies between the islands of Zealand and Funen. Its greatest width is about twenty miles, and its depth varies from five to twenty fathoms. The navigation of the Great Belt is dangerous, from the number of sand-banks and small islands which it contains. The shores in general are neither bold nor lofty, but they afford convenient harbours and anchorage. Vessels passing this strait pay toll at Nyborg, where a guardship is stationed to enforce compliance. The Little Belt separates the island of Funen from Jutland. Its greatest breadth is not more than the half of that of the Great Belt, and at the fortress of Fredericia, where the tolls are levied, it does not exceed a mile. The depth is from four to twenty fathoms. It contains several sand-banks, and the current from the Baltic to the Cattegat is of great strength. The passage of both Belts is attended with risk for large vessels, and on that account the Sound is more generally frequented.

**Belt**, *Balteus*, properly denotes a kind of military girdle or cincture, usually of leather, by which the sword or any other weapon is sustained. The belt was an essential piece of the ancient armour; insomuch that we sometimes find it used to denote the whole armour. In later ages the belt was given to a person when he was raised to knighthood; and hence it has also been used as a badge or mark of the knightly order.

**Belts**, in Astronomy. See Astronomy.

**Bel-Tean**, or Bel-tane, a superstitious custom formerly observed in the Highlands of Scotland, being a kind of rural sacrifice, performed by the herdsmen on the 1st of May. It seems to have been a remnant of some Oriental superstition relative to the worship of Baal or the Sun, and derived from Druidical times. Some account of this festival may be found in Pennant's *Tour*, General Stewart's *Sketches*, and in almost every work which treats of the Highlands. The Beltane of the Irish is celebrated on the 21st of June.

**Bel-Turbet**, a town of Ireland, in the county of Cavan, on the river Erne, 77 miles N.W. of Dublin. A corn-market is held here weekly. Pop. (1851) 2054.

**Belunum**, in *Ancient Geography*, a considerable town of Rhaetia, about twenty miles N.E. of Feltria, in the territory of the Veneti; now Belluno.

**Belus**, now *Nahr Neuman*, a small river of Phoenicia, which enters the sea close to Acre, the ancient Ptolemias. Here the discovery of the manufacture of glass is said to have been accidentally made by some shipwrecked mariners who kindled a fire on its banks. See Pliny, xxxvi. 26. Reland conjectures that the name *Ba'ēos* may be the origin of the Greek ιάδος or ιάλος, glass.

**Belvedere**, in *Italian Architecture*, denotes a pavilion on the top of a building, or an artificial eminence in a garden. The word signifies a fine prospect.

**Belvedere**, a town of Naples, in the province of Calabria Citera, on the Mediterranean, 32 miles N.W. of Cosenza. Pop. 4000.

**Belzoni**, Giovanni Battista, the well-known traveller, was born of humble parentage at Padua, about 1778. Much of his early youth was passed at Rome, with an intention of adopting the monastic life; but from this plan he was diverted by the French invasion. He came to England in 1803; and for some time obtained a livelihood as an athlete at Astley's amphitheatre and elsewhere, for which his colossal stature and extraordinary muscular power eminently qualified him. While residing at Rome he had paid considerable attention to the study of hydraulics, and with the view of constructing improved machines for the purposes of irrigation, he went in 1815 to Egypt, where he was employed by the pasha to construct an hydraulic machine for his garden at Zubra, near Cairo, which, however, proved an unsuccessful attempt. He was then employed by Mr Salt to remove the colossal bust erroneously styled the "Young Memnon." This he effected with much ingenuity, and shipped it for England. Pursuing his travels through Egypt, he was the first to open the temple of Ipsambul, an undertaking involving extraordinary personal exertion. During a second journey in Upper Egypt he made excavations at Caracac, which will repay his labours. It is unnecessary here to recount his various and most interesting discoveries, as they are detailed at some length in the articles *Egypt*, *Nubia*, &c. In 1820 he published a narrative of his operations; and in the following year he exhibited at London a beautiful model of the two principal chambers of the magnificent tomb he had opened at Beban-el-Makonk, near Thebes. In 1823 he again visited Egypt; but while making preparations for passing from Benin to Timbuctoo, he was attacked by dysentery at a place called Gato, and there he died on the 3rd of December.

**Bem**, Joseph, a distinguished general in the Hungarian war of 1848, was born in Poland, of German parents, in 1795. He died in exile at Aleppo in December 1850. See Hungary.

**Bembea**. See Bamba.

**Bembo**, Pietro, Cardinal, a noble Venetian, secretary to Leo X., and one of the best writers of that illustrious age. He was a good poet, both in Italian and Latin; but he is justly censured for the licentiousness and immodesty of some of his poems. Besides these, he published *A History of Venice*; *Letters*; and a book in praise of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino. He died in 1547, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. His collected works and life were published at Venice in 1729, in 4 vols. folio.

**Ben** or **Beinn**, a Gaelic word signifying a mountain. Hence the names Ben-Nevis, Ben-Macdui, &c.

**Benacus Lacus**, the ancient name of the Lago di Garda.

**Benares**, a British district of Hindustan, situate on both sides of the river Ganges, in the territory denominated the North-West Provinces of Bengal. It lies between Lat. 25° 7', and 25° 32'. Long. 82° 45' and 83° 38', and has an area of 994 square miles. The principal commercial products of the district are sugar, opium, and indigo. According to the census of 1848 the population amounts to 741,426, of whom 676,050 are Hindus, and 65,376 Mussulmans. The total number of towns has been returned at 1888; of these 1818 contain each less than 1000 inhabitants; 67 have each more than 1000 and less than 5000 inhabitants; 2 are stated each to have more than 5000 and less than 10,000; and one alone contains more than 50,000 inhabitants. The territory was ceded to the East India Company in 1775 by the vizier of Oude.

**Benares**, an extensive and opulent city of Hindustan, in the province of Allahabad, is the capital of the Benares district. It has long been celebrated among the Hindus as a seat of piety and learning, as well as a noted emporium of trade. The Ganges here forms a fine sweep of about four miles in length, and the city is situated on the northern bank of the river, and on the outward side of the curve, which is the most elevated. It is about three miles in length by one in breadth, rising from the river in the form of an amphitheatre, and is thickly studded with domes and minarets. The bank of the river is entirely lined with stone, in which are many very fine ghats or landing-places, built by pious devotees, of large stones, to the height of thirty feet before they reach the level of the street, and highly ornamented. These are generally crowded with bathers and worshippers. Shrines and temples, even within the limits of the river's rise, almost line its banks. The streets of this great city are so winding and narrow that there is not room for a wheel-carriage to pass; and it is difficult to penetrate them even on horseback. The streets are considerably lower than the ground-floors of the houses, which have mostly arched rows in front, with little shops behind them; and above these they are richly embellished with verandahs, galleries, projecting oriel windows, and very broad overhanging caves supported by carved brackets. The houses are built of a very good stone from Chunar, and are mostly lofty, none being less than two stories in height, most of them three, and several of five or six stories, close to each other, with terraces on the summit, and extremely small windows, for the sake alike of coolness and of privacy. The Hindus are fond of painting the outside of their houses of a deep red colour, and of covering the most conspicuous parts with paintings in gaudy colours of flower-pots, men, women, bulls, elephants, gods, and goddesses, in all the forms of Hindu mythology. The number of temples is very great; they are mostly small, and stuck in the angles of the streets, and under the shadow of the lofty houses. Their forms are not ungraceful, and many of them are covered over with beautiful and elaborate carvings of flowers, animals, and palm branches, rivalling in richness and minuteness the finest specimens of Gothic or of Grecian architecture.

The mosque, which was built by Aurungzebe on the site of a Hindu temple, and in order to mortify the Hindus, is a handsome building, placed on the highest and most conspicuous point of land, and close to the river. Its minarets are very lofty, and command an extensive view of the town and adjacent country, and of the numerous Hindu temples scattered over the city and the surrounding plains. The Sanscrit College, instituted in 1792, is a large building divided into two courts with galleries above and below. An English department has been attached to this college. In 1850 the number of pupils amounted to 240; of whom six were native Christians, sixteen Mahometans, and 218 Hindus. The course of instruction embraces Sanscrit, Persian, Hindu law, and general literature. In this city a new government college has been recently established, in which the whole range of European literature and science is thrown open to the native student.

Benares, having from time immemorial been a holy city, contains a vast number of Brahmans who either subsist by charitable contributions or are supported by endowments in the numerous religious institutions of the city. These establishments are adorned with idols, and send out an unceasing sound from all sorts of discordant instruments; while religious mendicants from the numerous Hindu sects, with every conceivable deformity "which chalk, cow-dung, disease, matted locks, distorted limbs, and disgusting and hideous attitudes of penance, can show, literally line the principal streets on both sides." Some are seen with their legs or arms distorted by long continuance in one position; others with their hands clenched until the finger-nails have pierced entirely through the hand. A stranger, as he passes through the streets, is saluted with the most pitiful exclamations from these swarms of beggars. But besides this immense resort to Benares of poor pilgrims from every part of India, as well as from Thibet and the Burman empire, numerous rich individuals in the decline of life, and almost all the great men who are disgraced or banished from home by the political revolutions which have been of late years so frequent among the Hindu states, repair to this holy city to wash away their sins in the sacred waters of the Ganges, or to fill up their time with the gaudy ceremonies of their religion. All these devotees give away large sums in indiscriminate charity, some of them to the annual amount of £8000 or £9000; and it is the hope of sharing in these pious distributions that brings together from all quarters such a concourse of religious mendicants. Bulls are reckoned sacred by the Hindu, and being tame and familiar, they walk lazily up and down the streets, or are seen lying across them, interrupting the passage, and are hardly to be roused, as, in compliance with the prejudices of the fanatic population, they must be treated in the gentlest manner. Monkeys, also held sacred, are seen clinging to all the roofs and projections of the temple.

But, amid all this wretchedness and fanaticism, Benares is a splendid, wealthy, and commercial city; the bazaars are filled with the richest goods, and there is a constant bustle of business in all the principal streets. It is a great commercial emporium for the shawls of the north, the diamonds of the south, and the muslins of Dacca and the eastern provinces; and it has very considerable manufactures of silk, cotton, and fine wool, as well as of gold and silver lace; while English hardware, swords, shields, and spears from Lucknow and Monghyr, and the finer manufactures of Europe, are exported to Bundelcund, Gorrickpoor, Nepaul, and other tracts removed from the main channel of communication by the Ganges. The population of the city and suburbs, exclusive of the military cantonment, is returned at 183,491, of which number 147,082 are Hindus, and 36,409 Mahometans; and during religious festivals, the concourse of people from all parts is immense. Yet the city, notwithstanding its crowded population and narrow streets (the new marketplace, constructed by the present government, being the only square or open part in it), is not unhealthy; which is probably owing to its dry situation on a high rocky bank, sloping towards the river, and to the frequent ablutions and temperate habits of the people. There are but few Europeans in Benares; a judge, collector, and register, with a few other civil servants, constitute the whole of the Company's establishment; to which may be added a few private merchants and planters. The residence of the English judge and civil establishment is at Secrole, a pleasant village about two miles from the city, where there is a military cantonment for a battalion of sepoys. Distant N.W. from Calcutta 420 miles; from Allahabad E. 74; from Delhi S.E. 466; Lat. 25. 17. Long. 83. 4.