Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/688

 668 BISSAGOS BISTRITZ species the bison is the most pacific. Even in his breeding season the bison will not attack man. In summer, from the shoulders backward, it is covered with a very short fine hair. The tail is short, and tufted at the end. The color of the hair is uniformly dun, but the long hair on the anterior parts of the body is to a certain extent tinged with yellowish or rust color. The shaggy masses of hair which cover the head, shoulders, and neck of the male, with his great beard, are of a darker shade of the same hue. The sexual season of the bison commences in July, toward the latter end of the month, and lasts till the beginning of September ; after which time the cows leave the company of the bulls and range in different herds. They calve in April, and the calves never leave the mother until they are a year old, while they often follow her until they are three years old. From July to the end of December the cows are very fat and in prime condition ; the bulls are always poor, and their flesh is lean and hard ; during the breeding season it is rank and disagreeable. At this time of the year the roaring of the bulls on the prairies is like hoarse thunder, and they fight furious battles among themselves. When migrating, they travel in vast solid columns of thousands and tens of thousands, which it is almost impossible to turn or arrest in their pro- gress, since the rearward masses drive the leaders on, whether they will or no. The flesh of the bison, the cow especially, is like coarse- grained beef, but is juicy, tender, and sapid in the highest degree. The favorite portion is the hump, which, when cooked in the Indian fashion, by sewing it up in the hide, singed and denuded of hair, and baking it in an earth oven, wherein a fire has been previously kin- dled, and over which a second fire is kept burning during the process, is considered the most exquisite of dainties ; the tongue and the marrow bones are also greatly prized. Nu- merous tribes of Indians are almost entirely dependent on the bison for their food, clothing, dwellings, and even fuel ; the dressed hides with the hair on form their robes denuded of it, the covers of their tents; and the dried ordure known on the prairies as bois de vache on the vast treeless plains of the west, fur- nishes the sole material for their fires. The dressed hides are a considerable article of com- merce, and for these as well as for other causes the slaughter of these animals is pro- digious. Their original range appears to have been the whole of the North American conti- nent, west of Lake Champlain and the Hudson river, with the exception of some intervals on the Atlantic seaboard, and south of the Ottawa and Columbia rivers, northward of which its place is supplied by the musk ox, as is that of the elk and moose by the reindeer. For many years they have ceased to exist to the eastward of the Mississippi. BISSAGOS, a group of islands situated near the mouth of the Rio Grande, in western Africa, between lat. 10 and 12 N. and Ion. 15 and 17 W. Only 16 of them are of any magnitude. Bissao, the most important, contains a Portu- guese settlement, and was the centre of the Portuguese slave trade ; pop. 8,000, BISSELL, William H., governor of Illinois, born near Oooperstown, N. Y., April 25, 1811, died in Springfield, 111., March 18, 1800. He took the degree of M. D. at the Jefferson medical college, Philadelphia, in 1835, practised medi- cine two years at Painted Post, N. Y., removed to Monroe county, 10., in 1837, was elected to the state legislature in 1840, and there earned distinction as a forcible and ready debater. He subsequently studied and practised law, and was elected prosecuting attorney of St. Clair county in 1844. He served in the Mexican war in 1846 as colonel of the 2d Illinois volunteers, and distinguished himself at Buena Vista. On his return home in 1849 he was elected with- out opposition a representative in congress, in which capacity he served till 1855, resisting the repeal of the Missouri compromise, though he had previously acted with the democratic party, and gaining much reputation in the North by his defiant bearing in a controversy with Jefferson Davis respecting the compara- tive bravery of northern and southern soldiers. Davis challenged him, and he accepted the challenge, selecting muskets as the weapons to be used, at so short a distance as to make the duel probably fatal to both parties. Finally the quarrel was compromised and the chal- lenge withdrawn. In 1856 he was elected governor of Illinois by the republicans, and died before the expiration of his term. lilssKT, Robert, an English writer, born in 1759, died May 14, 1805. He was a graduate of the university of Edinburgh, and is known as a eontinuator of the histories of Hume and Smollett, which he brought down to the end of the reign of George III. He published an es- say on democracy and a life of Edmund Burke (1786), a romance called "Douglas," and an edition of the " Spectator," with lives of the various contributors and valuable notes. BISTRE, a reddish brown water color, gen- erally obtained from the soot that collects in chimney flues. This is pulverized and washed to remove the saline ingredients. The finest sediment is then dissolved in vinegar, to which gum water is afterward added. It was formerly much used for making painters' crayons, and also for a paint in water-color designs. Sepia, however, is now preferred to it. BISTRITZ (Hun. Besztercze), a free royal town of N. E. Transylvania, on a river of the same name, capital of the Saxon circle of Bis- tritz or Nosnerland; pop. in 1870, 7,212. It has three gates of entrance, and two suburbs chiefly tenanted by Wallachs. Among the pub- lic buildings are a handsome city hall and a Gothic Protestant church, the steeple of which is 250 ft. high. Wine, potash, and cattle sell- ing are the chief sources of wealth. Near it are the remains of a castle once the residence of the Hunyadys.