Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/525

Rh an area of 792 rquare miles, with a total population of 570,888 souls, the average population per square mile being 721. is situated in 25 10 N. lat., and 85 35 E. long. It was formerly the capital of a subah or governorship under the Mahometans, but at present it 13 merely a subdivisional town. Population in 1872 : Hindus, 31,006; Mahometans, 13,282; others, 7; total, 44,295. Municipal income, 1100 ; expenditure, 1120; rate of taxation, 6d. per head of population.  BEHBEHAN, a town of Persia, in the province of Fars, pleasantly situated in the middle of a highly-cultivated plain, which is watered by the Pavers Zab and Jerahi. The walls are about three miles in circumference ; and there is a castle called Kalah Naranj, or Orange Castle, in the S.E. corner. The population is variously estimated at 10,000 and at 4000, the latter mere probably correct, as the place has suffered from plague and oppression.  BEHEM, or, a well-known navigator and cartographer, was born at Nuremberg about 1436. Having entered the service of Portugal, he was appointed, in 1484, to act as geographer in the expedition of Diego Cam to the western coast of Africa, and on his return to Lisbon received the honour of knighthood in reward for his services. He was afterwards employed by the king in various capacities, and visited the capital from time to time in connection with his engagements ; but, after his marriage in 1486, his principal residence seems to have been at Fayal, in the Azores, where his father-in-law, Job Huerter, held the rank of governor of the Flemish colony. On a visit to his native city in 1492, he constructed a terrestrial globe, in which he incorporated the discoveries of Marco Polo and other recent travellers. The globe is still preserved in the family, and has frequently been reproduced by engraving. (See Doppelmayr, Hist. Nachricht v. Niirriherg. Mathem. u. Kunstler, 1730; Pigafetta, Prem. voy. autour du Monde, 1802 ; and atlas to Vivien de Saint Martin s Hist, de la Geoff., 1874.) Behem s scientific attainments have been very variously estimated, some placing him in the very first rank among the geographers of his time, while others maintain that he hardly reached the level of the ordinary Portuguese chart-makers. Blunders of 16 degrees are found on his globe in the localization of places which he himself visited, while in the contemporaneous maps errors of more than one degree were comparatively rare. It is generally agreed that he had no share in Transatlantic discovery, and though Columbus and he were in Portugal at the same time, no connection between the two has been established. He died at Lisbon in 1506, or, according to his tombstone, 1507.

1em  BEHISTUN,, or, the ancient Baghistan (Mons Bagistanus), a precipitous mountain or rock in Persia, remarkable for the extensive inscriptions of a very early date still preserved on some parts of its escarpment. It lies 27 miles E. of Kirmanshah, in the province of Irak Ajemi. The principal inscription is cuneiform, and relates to the victories of Darius Hystaspes, who is represented in a sculptured centre-piece as receiving the homage of a number of captives, upon one of whom he has planted his foot. The labour expended on the work must have been very great. The surface of the rock has been carefully smoothed, and pieces have had every crevice or hollow filled up with lead; the accuracy and regularity of the characters is almost unexampled, and the whole of the tablets have been carefully coated with a siliceous varnish to preserve them from the weather Of the other inscriptions the first is in Greek and the second in Arabic, but neither is of any great importance. It was not till 1846 that the Darius tablets were translated by Sir Henry Raw linson, who has given a complete account of his labours in the Journ. Roy. As. Soc. The principal notice of Behistun in the Greek or Eoman writers is that of Diodorus Siculus, who tells how Semiramis visited the place on her march from Babylon to Ecbatana, and caused her own image to be sculp tured on the rock. He interprets the name of the mountain by Atos O/DOS, the Hill of Jove, which is not very different from that proposed by modern scholars &quot; the dwelling of the gods.&quot; (See Journ. R. Geog. Soc., 1839 ; Journ. Roy. As. Soc., vols. x. and xii.; Ker Porter s Travels ; Benfey s Keilinschriften, 1847.)  BEHMEN,. See.  BEHN,, an English authoress of some celebrity, was born of a good family in Canterbury in the reign of Charles I., probably in 1642. Her father, whose name was Johnson, having received the appointment of lieutenant- general of Surinam, proceeded to the West Indies, taking with him his whole family. Mr Johnson died on the voyage ; but his family reached Surinam, and resided there for some years. Here Aphra learned the history, and acquired a personal knowledge, of the American prince Oroonoco and his beloved Imoinda, whose adventures she has related in her novel Oroonoco. On her return to London she is said to have married Mr Behn, a merchant of Dutch extrac tion residing in that city, of whom nothing but the name has ever been known, if anything more even existed. The wit and abilities of Mrs Behn brought her into high estimation at court, and Charles II. employed her to trans act some affairs of importance abroad during the Dutch war. For this purpose she went to Antwerp, where she skilfully contrived to penetrate so far into the secrets of state as to accomplish the objects of her mission ; and in the latter end of 1666, by means of the influence she had gained over one Van der Albert, she wormed out of him the design formed by De Paiyter, in conjunction with the family of the De Witts, of sailing up the Thames and burn ing the English ships in their harbours. This she com municated to the English court, but although the event proved her intelligence to have been well founded, it was at the time disregarded, which circumstance, together with the disinclination shown to reward her for her services, determined her to drop all further thoughts of political affairs. She returned to England, and had a narrow escape on the voyage home, the vessel in which she sailed having foundered. From this period she appears to have supported herself by her writings. Her works are nume rous, and all of them are of a lively and amatory character. Her dramas are sometimes well constructed, but they are among the worst specimens of the later Stuart literature. Of her short tales, or novelettes, the only one possessing any merit is the story of Oroonoco, which was made the basis of Southerne s most popular tragedy. Mrs Behn died on the 16th of April 1689, and was interred in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. Her works have passed through many editions, the latest being that published by Pearson, 1872.  BEHRING'S ISLAND, the most westerly of the Aleutian group in the North Pacific, in 55 22 N. lat., 166 C E. long. It is rocky and desolate, and is only remarkable as being the place where the navigator Behring was wrecked and died in 1741. Population 2500.  BEHRING'S STRAIT, the narrow sea between the N.E. part of Asia and the N.W. part of North America, connecting the North Pacific with the Arctic Ocean. M the narrowest part, East Cape in Asia approaches within about 36 miles of Cape Prince of Wales on the American shore. The former is in 66 6 N. lat., 169 38 W. long. ; and the latter in 65 46 N. lat, 168 15 W. long. North <section end="BEHRING'S STRAIT"/>