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BANIAN TREE....BANISERILE.

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gree of magnitude, which bear in succession, and at all times. Dampier calls this the king of trees, and affirms that multitudes of families live, between the tropics, on this pleasant, wholesome, and nourishing fruit, which lasts all the year round, and stands in no need of any of the arts of cookery.

BANIAN TREE, or Indian Fig, a native of the East Indies, and one of the most majestic plants. Some of these trees are of amazing size and vast extent, as they are continually increasing, and seem to be exempted from decay. Every branch from the main body throws out its own roots; at first in small tender fibres, several yards from the ground; these continually grow thicker until they reach the surface, and there striking in, they increase to large trunks, and become parent-trees, shooting out new roots from the top; these in time suspend their roots, which, swelling into trunks, produce other branches; thus continuing in a state of progression as long as the the earth continues her sustenance. One of these trees, near the English settlements has, in the aforementioned manner, multiplied itself into three hundred and fifty stems, each larger than English elms; and the whole forming a close shade sufficiently extensive for several thousand men to repose under. This delightful pavilion is generally filled, overhead, with green wood-pigeons, doves, peacocks and a variety of feathered songsters; and crowded with families. of monkies, performing their antic tricks. The Hindoos venerate the banian tree as an emblem of the Deity, from its long duration, its distended arms, and overshadowing beneficence.-Encyclopædia.

BANISERILE, a negro town, the capital of Dentila in Africa. A native of this place who had been three years absent, and arrived in company with Mungo Park, invited the latter to go with him to his house; at the gate of which the negro's friends met him, with many expressions of joy at his return, shaking him by the hand, embracing him, and singing and dancing before him. As soon as he (the negro) had seated him self upon a seat by the threshold of his door, a young

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BARBADOES....BARBARY....BAREIN.

woman, his intended bride, brought a little water in a calabash, and kneeling down before him, desired him. to wash his hands: when he had done this, the girl, with a tear of joy sparkling in her eyes, drank the water; this being considered as the greatest proof she could possibly give of her fidelity and attachment.Park.

BARBADOES, one of the British West India islands, twenty-one miles long, and fourteen in breadth. The fertility of, this little island is prodigious; insomuch that it is said to have contained, in 1670, fifty thousand whites, and a hundred thousand blacks, and to have employed sixty thousand tons of shipping Its population is greatly decreased; owing considerably to the dreadful hurricanes with which it has often been visited one of which, October 10, 1780, destroyed no less than four thousand three hundred and twenty-six of the inhabitants; the force of the wind being so great as to lift up and carry several paces, some pieces of cannon. Barbadoes being the first English settlement in the West Indies, was planted, 1625. The affecting story of Inkle and Yarico, in the Spectator, had its rise in this island; the earliest settlers having been notorious for kidnapping the natives, and selling them into slavery.

BARBARY, a division of North Africa; being a fertile region along the Mediterranean, lying opposite to Spain, France and Italy, and divided into five kingdoms, namely, Morocco, Fez, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. Could we suppose the western bason of the Mediterranean Sea to have been once dry land, bating a lake, or recipient, for the surrounding rivers, this region (Barbary) might be considered as a part of Europe; as it possesses much more of the European than the African character.-Rennel.

BAREIN, a swift footed animal, that abounds at Kamptskatka. Bears put in practice a remarkable stratagem to catch these animals, which run too swift for them to expect much in pursuing them. The bareins herd together in great numbers, at the bottom of

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precipices; at the top of which the bear conceals himself, and, with his paws, pushes down upon them large pieces of the rock. If he perceives that he has killed or maimed any of the flock, he descends and devours the prey. There appears to be a peculiar sagacity in the bear of this country. The Kamptskadales are indebted greatly to their bears not only for their food and clothing, but for their medicines. They say that their knowledge of the medicinal virtues of certain plants was obtained by their ancestors, from observing the use made of them by bears, when sick or maimed.Cooke's Voyage.

BARILLHA, a plant, whose salts are used in manufacturing glass. When this plant is grown to its pitch, it is cut down, and let dry; afterwards it is burnt and calcined in pits, like lime kilns, dug in the ground for that purpose; which are closely covered up with earth, so that no air may come at the fire. The matter, by these means, is not reduced into ashes only, but is made into a very hard stone, like rock salt, which must be broken with hammers to get it out.-Chambers.

BARLEY, a common grain, and highly useful both for beer and for food. "Barley, (says Count Rumford) will thicken and change to a jelly much more water than any other grain with which we are acquainted, rice even not excepted; and I have found reason to conclude from the result of common experiments, which in the course of several years have been made under my direction in the public kitchen in the house of industry at Munich, that for making soups, barley is far the best grain that can be used." Count further remarks: " Were I called upon to give my opinion in regard to the comparative nutritiousness of barley meal and wheat flour, when used in soups, I should not hesitate to say that I think the former at least three or four times as nutritious as the latter."

The

BARTHOLOMEW's, a day consecrated to Bartholomew, one of the saints in the popish calendar it has been stained by one of the most wanton and bloody massacres that ever shocked humanity. Charles IX. of

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France, in confederacy with his mother, Catharine of Medicis, the Duke of Guise and other leaders of the popish party, had privately planned the destruction of the French protestants throughout the kingdom, by a general massacre. This infernal plot was conducted with the utmost secrecy; and the protestants were lulled into a fatal security, by the insidious caresses of their murderers. On the eve of St. Bartholomew, being August 24th, 1572, in the midst of general festivity throughout the city of Paris, the royal guards were ordered to be under arms: the ringing of a bell was the signal; and the catholic citizens, who had been secretly prepared by their leaders for such a scene, zealously seconded the execution of the soldiery, imbruing their hands, without remorse, in the blood of their neighbors, of their companions, and even of their relations. sons of every condition, age and sex, who were suspected of adhering to the reformed opinions, were involved in one undistinguished ruin. Charles, accompanied by his mother, beheld from a window this horrid massacre; the king himself inciting the fury of the assassins, by firing upon the fugitives that passed him, and frequently crying, kill, kill! In Paris, and other parts of the kingdom, sixty thousand protestants (some of them men of the first rank) are supposed to have been massacred on that dreadful eve.... Russell.

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BASTINADO, a cruel punishment practised in the Turkish dominions, and often inflicted upon the innocent, with a view of squeezing money from them. The victim is thrown upon his belly, and his legs raised up, so that the soles of his feet are horizontal. A chain is then thrown round both feet above the ancles, which are twisted together; and two fellows hold up the feet, by means of a stick that is fastened to the chain. Thus prepared, the blows upon the soles of the feet commence, and give excruciating pain. There have been instances of the bastinado having been repeated for three days successively, to the number of three thousand strokes; after which the feet are generally left useless for life; and it often happens that before they have received six hundred strokes, the blood gushes from their mouth and nose, and they die either under or soon

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after the operation. When the punishment of the bastinado is inflicted on an alien, never so unjustly, and merely for the sake of extorting money from him, and the sufferer complains to a magistrate of the higher order, all he can get from him is this reply," Min Allah, Macktub, Muckkader! that is, it is from God, it is written in the book of fate, which cannot be altered.".... Antes.

BATAVIA, a sea port town in the island of Java; it is a wealthy mart, but extremely unhealthy; insomuch that but very few Europeans who reside here for any considerable time, ever return. This Dutch town lies upon the most frequented road from Indostan to China and Japan, and is nearly about midway upon that road. Almost all the ships too that sail between Europe and China, touch at Batavia. And it is, over and above all this, the centre and principal mart of what is called the country trade of the East Indies; not only that part of it which is carried on by Europeans, but of that which is carried on by the native Indians; and vessels navigated by the inhabitants of China and Japan, of Tonquin, Malacca, and Cochin-China, are frequently to be seen in its port. [Batavia has fallen into the possession of Great Britain....Adam Smith.

BATON, an instrument for flagellation in China; it is a piece of bamboo, a little flatted, broad at the bottom, and polished at the upper extremity. Every mandarin has authority to use it at pleasure, when any one forgets to salute him, or when he administers public justice. The offender who has undergone the flagellation of the baton on his naked body, must then throw himself upon his knees before the mandarin, incline his body three times to the earth, and thank him for the care he has taken of his education.... Winterbotham.

BAVARIAN SOLDIERS. Count Rumford relates, that the soldiers of the Duke of Bavaria in Germany, being provided with clothing by the government, victualled themselves, living on soups; that the sum total of a soldier's allowance for wages and victualling, w only two pence three farthings sterling a day; that

was

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