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BASSES- ALPES 440 BASTABD the stream. It was captured by the Brit- ish in 1852. Pop. about 40,000. The district of Bassein has an area of 4,127 square miles, and a pop. of about 500,000. (2) Bassein, a decayed town of about 10,000 inhabitants, 28 miles N. of Bom- bay. Ceded to the Portuguese m 1534, it was a place of much importance as late as 1720; its remains still point to former splendor. In 1765 it was wrested from the Portuguese by the Mahrattas, and in 1780 surrendered to the British, after a 12 days' siege. BASSES- ALPES (bas-alp), (Lower Alps). See Alpes, Basses. BASSES-PYRENEES (bas-per-na'), (Lower Pyrenees). See Pyrenees, Basses. BASSET, a game at cards, played somewhat similar to the modem faro. It is of Venetian invention, and was for- merly much played in France. BASSE-TERRE (bas-tar), (French, lowland), the name of the capitals of St. Christopher island, British West Indies (pop. about 9,000), and of Guadeloupe, the French West Indian island (pop. about 8,000). BASSET-HORN, a musical instru- ment, the tenor of the clarionet family, having more than three octaves in its compass, extending upward from F be- low the bass stave. Unlike the clarionet it has a bell-mouth of metal. BASSETT, JOHN SPENCER, an American historian, born in Tarboro, N. C, Sept. 10, 1867; graduated at Trin- ity College, Durham, N. C, in 1888, and took a Ph. D. at Johns Hopkins m 1894. He became professor of history at Trinity College, and later at Smith College. His works include "Consti- tutional Beginnings in North Carolina, "Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina," "Anti-SlaVery Leaders of North Carolina," "Slavery In the State of North Carolina," "The War of the Regulation," "The Federalist System" (1906); "Life of Andrew Jackson" (1911) ; "Short History U. S. (1916); "Story of the Great War (1920); etc. BASSORA, or BASRA, a town of former Asiatic Turkey, the capital of the vilayet of the same name (area, 53,580 square miles; pop. about 785,000), on the W. bank of the Euphrates, here called the Shat-el-Arab, 56 miles from its mouth in the Persian Gulf. The river is divided into a number of chan- nels, and, by evaporation and frequent overflowing, makes the climate very un- healthful. Most of the houses are low huts, built of unburned bricks. The population, which had sunk to a few thousand, greatly increased when the British established the Tigris and Eu- phrates Steamship Company and is now about 60,000. A good business is done in the exchange of the productions of Turkey and Persia for Indian and European goods, particularly articles of British manufacture. The town has become the principal port of Meso- potamia. Bassora was founded in 636 by the Caliph Omar, and soon became one of the most famous and opulent cities of the East. The possession of it has been the subject of many contests between the Turks and the Persians. On Nov. 23, 1914, British forces defeated and routed the Turks near the city and occupied Basra. As a result of the treaty of peace with Turkey Basra became part of the independent State of Mesopotamia under a British man- date. BASS ROCK, a remarkable island rock of Haddingstonshire, Scotland, near the mouth of the Firth of Forth, 2 miles from Canty Bay, and 3^/4 miles E. N. E. of North Berwick. Composed of volcanic greenstone and trap tuff, it is about a mile in circumference, nearly round, and 313 feet high. It is inaccessible on all sides except the S., where it shelves down to the water. It is inhabited by count- less numbers of solan geese and other birds. A cavern tunnels the rock from W. to E., and is accessible at low tide. In 756 St. Balthere or Baldred died in a hermitage on the Bass Rock; in 1316 it came into the possession of the Lauder family. In 1671 Charles II. purchased it for £4,000, and within its dreary dun- geons many of the most eminent of the Covenanters were confined during his and James II. 's reign. The Bass was the last spot in the British Islands which held out for the Stuarts, being captured only in 1694. In 1701 the fortifications were demolished. In 1902 a lighthouse was established there. BASS STRAIT, a channel beset with islands, which separates Australia from Tasmania, 185 miles long and from 80 to 150 milep broad, discovered by George Bass, a surgeon in the Royal navy, in 1798. BASTARD, a child begotten and born out of wedlock; an illegitimate child. By the civil and canon laws, and by the law of Scotland (as well as some States of the United States), a bastard becomes legitimate by the intermarriage of the parent? at any future time. But, by the laws of England, a child, to be legiti-