Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/404

BABEL. is by the same writer (or school of writers) as the story of Paradise. It is probably based on an old myth, such as is found among various peoples, intended to account for the curious phenomenon of the multiplicity of speech, which is looked upon by pious Hebrew writers as a curse (in Deut. xxviii. 49; Jer. v. 15); but the story has been reshaped and made the medium of casting dis- credit upon Babylonian culture, which was dis- tasteful to Hebrew writers, whose ideals were bound up with agricultural life, and who, like the pious Mohammedans of to-day. looked upon great structures as evidence of power, and the various ambitious designs of a progressive civilization as flying in the face of Providence.

Since the narrative implies not only the dispersion, which it is intended to explain, but the existence of Babylon as a great centre, we are brought down to the period of the New Babylonian Monarchy, when Babylon assumed the position of mistress of the world (Dan. iii). But more than this, the story also assumes a check to ambitious designs. The tower is not completed; and this statement implies that Babylon's glory has reached its limit, so that we may pass still farther down to the period of the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus as the time when the story received its present shape. The tower is a reference to the high constructions which are a characteristic feature of religious architecture in Babylon. The city of Babylon had, as one of the edifices sacred to Marduk, a tower of seven stages, built of brick, and known as E-temen-anki, 'house of the foundation-stone of heaven and earth,' which was restored and finished by Nebuchadnezzar. It is here that there was also a seven-staged tower, sacred to Nebo in Borsippa, opposite Babylon, the ruins of which the later Jewish tradition identified with the Tower of Babel, but it is credible that the writer of the Genesis story had in mind the 'Tower of Zikkurat,' as the Babylonians called the towers which were in the city of Babylon itself. With the advent of Cyrus, Babylon lost much of its significance; and it could well be said, in a description of this period of decline, that people ceased building the city (Gen. xi. 8). For the significance of the Tower of Zikkurat, in Babylonia, the reader may be referred to Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, chapter xxvi. (Boston, 1898).

BAB-EL-MANDEB, bilb'el-man'deb (Ar., 'gate of tears,' or of 'sorrow'). The strait separating Arabia, at its southwest extremity, from the continent of Africa, and connect- ing the Red Sea with the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean (Map: Asia. D 7). It is bordered on the east by the Cape of Bab-el-mandeb, which rises to a height of 865 feet, and on the west by the precipitous coast of Africa, which reaches, in Ras-Sejan, an altitude of 400 feet. The strait is divided by the island of Perim (q.v.) into two channels — the western, 13 miles wide and 185 fathoms deep; the eastern, only about 2 miles in width and from 8 to 12 fathoms deep, but preferred on account of its safe anchorage. The volcanic islets called the 'Eight Brothers,' lie close to the African coast. The strait de- rives its name from the perils it offers to small sailing vessels.

BABELSBERG (biiliflsbcrK) PAL'ACE. A picturesque English Gothic château near Potsdam, built in 1835-49, in the midst of a beautiful park. The interior is simple but homelike, and contains the study and many personal relics of Emperor William I., with whom Babelsberg was a favorite resort during the summer months.

BABENBERG, bii'bcn-berK. A line of Frankish counts whose ancestral seat was at Castle Babenberg, near the present Bamberg, in Northern Bavaria. Poppo of Babenberg was Margrave of Thuringia till 892. His three nephews, Adelbert, Adalhard, and Henry, are celebrated for the desperate feud they carried on against the family of the Conradins, whose territorial acquisitions in Thuringia threatened the ascendency of the Babenbergs. The three brothers perished in the struggle. Luitpold of Babenberg — whose descent, however, from the Bavarian Babenbergs is not conclusively established — received from the Emperor Otho II. in 970 the sovereignty over the East Mark, later known as Austria. His descendants ruled in Austria till 1246. See.

BABER, biiljcr, BABAR, or BABUR, (c. 1482-1530). The first of the Great Moguls in India, a descendant of Timur and of Genghis Khan. He was barely 12 years of age when he succeeded his father, Omar Sheikh Mirza, in Ferghana, and he soon con- quered the entire country between the Jaxartes and the Oxus. Later he was driven from Bo- khara by the Uzbegs of Turkestan, and founded a new kingdom in Afghanistan. After making unsuccessful efforts to recover his realm in Tur- kestan, Baber turned his ambitious designs toward India. The weakness of Ibrahim Lodi, Emperor of Delhi, enabled him to carry out his schemes of conquest. After some preliminary incursions, he crossed the Indus at the close of 1525, and in April, 1526, on the plain of Panipat, not far from Delhi, he fought a decisive battle with his enemy, whose army was far superior in numbers. The 100,000 men and 1000 elephants of Ibrahim Lodi were dispersed; Ibrahim himself fled; and Baber made his entry into Delhi. In the follow- ing month, Agra, the second city of the Empire of Delhi, surrendered. In 1527 Baber secured himself in the possession of his new realm by a great victory over the Rajputs. Thus was founded the famous empire of the Great Mogul, which under Baber's successors rose to extraor- dinary splendor. Baber's enjoyment of empire in India was short: he died in 1530, having had to contend, during the four years of his reign, with numerous conspiracies and revolts. To the talents of a general and a statesman, which he manifested in his conquests, his improvements of public roads, measuring of lands, adjustment of taxation, postal arrangements, etc., Baber united a taste for science and art. He wrote, in the Tatar language, the history of his own life and conquests, which was translated into Persian by Abd-ul Rachim. and more recently from the Persian into English by Leyden and Erskine in 1826. Baber was succeeded on the throne of Delhi by the eldest of his four sons, Humayun. Consult: Caldecott, Life of Baber, Emperor of Hindustan (London, 1844); Stanley Lane-Poole, Babar (London, 1899).

BABES IN THE WOOD. A nursery tale, and a ballad of unknown origin, preserved in Percy's Reliques and in other collections. Two children are left to perish in the forest by an uncle, who expects to profit by their death.