Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/476

460 though these occupations afford them but a precarious sub sistence. Some tribes also go about exhibiting wild beasts, or offering for sale mats fabricated by themselves. Before the establishment of the British Government in Bengal, the Bazigars were subject- to the arbitrary exactions of a tax- gatherer, whom they greatly dreaded, and the apprehension of the renewal of that officer s powers has proved a consider able impediment to investigating their manners and customs. The Bazigars are supposed to present many features analogous to the gipsies scattered over Europe and Asia, where they subsist as a race distinct from all the other inhabitants of the countries frequented by them. The Bazigars, as well as the gipsies, have a chief or king ; each race has a peculiar language, different from that of the people among whom they reside ; and the analogy of the languages is so decided, that it is difficult to deny that they have had a common origin. Another resemblance, which has probably been lost in the lapse of time, is supposed to consist in the three-stringed viol introduced into Europe by the jugglers of the 13th century, which is exactly similar to the instrument now used in Hindustan. Disjoined, these analogies may not carry conviction of the identity of the European gipsies with the Indian Bdzigars ; but, on combining the whole, it does not seem unlikely, that if Asia was their original country, or if they have found their way from Egypt to India, they may also have emigrated farther at a period of remote antiquity, and reached the boundaries of Europe.  BAZZI,. See.  BDELLIUM, a fragrant gum-resin of a dark-reddish colour, bitter and pungent to the taste. It is closely allied to myrrh, and like it is produced from one or more species of Balsamodendron, the Googul resin, or Indian bdellium, yielded by B. mukul, being considered by Dr Birdwood to be the bdellium of Scripture, and the/JSe AAtov of Dioscorides. Bdellium is little imported into Europe, but it is exten sively used in Indian pharmacy, both human and veterinary ; and it is, like myrrh, employed for incense in temples. A variety of the gum-resin known as African bdellium is produced on the East African coast, but nothing is cer tainly known regarding its botanical source.  BEACHY HEAD, a promontory on the coast of Sussex, between Hastings and Brighton, near which the French de feated the English and Dutch fleet in 1690. It consists of a perpendicular chalk cliff 530 feet high. A lighthouse, with a revolving light 285 feet above high-water mark, was erected in 1828 on the second cliff to the westward, in long. 1 K, lat. 50 44 N.  BEACONSFIELD, a market-town in the county of Buckingham, 23 miles from London, on the road to Oxford. It consists of four streets crossing each other at right angles, and before the opening of the railways was rather a busy place. At one time, indeed, it was the seat of a considerable manufacture of ribbons. The poet Waller and Edmund Burke lived in the neighbourhood, and both are buried in the town. Beaconsfield gave the title of viscountess to the late wife of the Right Hon. B. Disraeli. Population of parish in 1871, 1524.  {{ti|1em|{{larger|BEAD}}, a small globule or ball used in necklaces, and made of different materials, as pearl, steel, garnet, coral, diamond, amber, glass, rock-crystal, and seeds. The Roman Catholics make great use of beads in rehearsing their Ave-Marias and Pater-nosters } and a similar custom obtains among the religious orders of the East. A string of such beads is called a rosary. Glass beads were used by the Spaniards to barter with the natives of South America for gold when they first established themselves on that continent, and to this day they are a favourite article of traffic with all savage nations. Beads of glass are sent in enormous quantities to Zanzibar, and to all other ports from which a trade with the interior of Africa is carried on, as they form almost the only convenient medium of exchange with the native tribes. The qualities and varieties recognized in the Zanzibar market are said to number more than 400, and the trade there is almost entirely in the hands of the Banyans. Large quantities are also sent to India, the Eastern Archipelago, and the Polynesian Islands ; and in the more primitive parts of Europe beads are in considerable demand. Under the name of bugles a very great quantity of small, mostly cylin drical, beads are used in lace-making, and for the ornamen tation of ladies dresses, the demand in this form fluctuat ing greatly according to the demands of fashion. Venice is the principal centre of the manufacture of glass beads of all kinds. The exports therefrom during the ten years ending with 1871 amounted to 313,201 quintals, of the value of 61,240,296 Italian lire. In the manufacture of ordinary beads, as conducted at Venice, rods or canes of glass of the colour and quality desired first are drawn out, either pierced or unpierced. The rods may either be of transparent glass, or of opaque coloured enamel glass (smalti), or may have complex patterns produced by the twisting of threads of coloured glass through a transparent body, characteristic of Venetian glass. From these rods rounded beads are pinched off, and the more costly kinds, made in imitation of precious stones, &c.,are cut and faceted. Imitation pearls, the making of which forms an impor tant part of the bead industry, are blown by the blow pipe from a milky-white glass. The pearly lustre is com municated by the infiltration of a substance obtained from the scales of the bleak Leuciscus alburnus. The more costly imitation pearls receive several coats of the pearly substance, and have weight and solidity added by filling up the interior of the pearl with wax. Gold, silver, and various coloured lustres are frequently substituted for the pearly substance in the manufacture of blown beads.}}  BEAN, the seed of certain leguminous plants cultivated for food all over the world, and furnished chiefly by the genera Faba, Pitaseolits, Dolichos, Cajamis, and Soja. The common bean, in all its varieties, as cultivated in Britain and on the continents of Europe and America, is the produce of the Faba vulgaris. The French bean, kidney bean, or haricot, is the seed of the Phaseolus vulgaris; but in India several other species of this genus of plants are raised, and form no small portion of the diet of the in habitants. From the genus Dolichos, again, the natives of India and South America procure beans or pulse, of no small importance as articles of diet, such as the I). cnsiformis, or sword bean of India, the Lima beans, &c. Besides these there are numerous other pulses cultivated for the food both of man and domestic animals, to which the name beans is frequently given. The common bean is even more nutritious than wheat ; and it contains a very high proportion of nitrogenous matter under the form of legumin, which amounts on an average to 24 per cent. It is, however, a rather coarse food, and difficult of digestion, and is chiefly used to feed horses, for which it is admirably adapted. In England French beans are chiefly, almost exclusively, used in the green state ; the whole pod being eaten as a table vegetable, or prepared as a pickle. It is wholesome and nutritious ; and in Holland and Germany the pods are preserved in salt by almost* every family for winter and spring use. The green pods are cut across obliquely, most generally by a machine invented for the purpose, and salted in barrels. When wanted for use they are steeped in fresh water to remove the salt, and broiled or stewed ; they form an agreeable addition to the diet at a time when no other vegetable may be had. Under the name of carob beans or locusts, the legume of Ceratonia is cultivated on the shores of the Mediterranean

