BEGSHEIIER BEIIISTUN 479 Lindley. Their curiously one-sided leaves, and the brilliant colors these often exhibit, make the various species much sought by florists. B. rex has been varied until the leaves not only attain great size, but are beautifully banded. Other species are remarkable for the brilliant red of the under surface of the leaves, or the abundance and grace and color of their flowers. They are easily propagated under glass on the cutting bench by planting the end of the suc- culent petiole with a small disk of the leaf at- tached, the new stem springing from this un- usual place. BEGSHEHER, Begshehr, or Beysheher, a lake, river, and town in Karaman, Asia Minor. The lake, which is 20 m. long and from 5 to 10 m. broad, is supposed to be the ancient Carallis or Oaralitis in Isauria. It contains a number of islands. The river is the outlet of the lake, and flows 8. E.' about 25 m. into Lake Soghla. On the banks of this river, near the S. E. end of the lake, stands the town of the same name, 43 m. W. 8. W. of Konieh. It is built on both sides of the stream, the opposite quarters being connected by a stone bridge of seven arches. It was formerly the capital of a sanjak. BEGDARDS. 8ee BEGUINES. BEG! INKS, a sisterhood in the Roman Cath- olic church peculiar to Belgium and Holland. Their name is ascribed by some to Saint Beg- ghe, by others to their founder Lambert, sur- named le B&gue or the Stammerer, who died in 1177. These Beguines were associated at first in communities, with or without vows, but agreeing to live in chastity and penance. They now make simple vows before the parish priest to live in obedience and chastity as long as they remain in the beguinage. Their habit is black. The beguinages comprise several houses within the same enclosure, with a church, fre- quently in the centre, each house having its own prioress. (See BEOHARDS). BEHAIM, or Behem, Martin, a German naviga- tor and geographer, born in Nuremberg about 1459, died hi Lisbon, July 29, 1506. He went in 1477 to Flanders, where he engaged in manufacturing and selling cloth at Mechlin and at Antwerp. The active commerce between Flanders and Portugal, and the interest which he took in the great maritime undertakings of the Portuguese, induced him in 1480 to visit Lisbon, where he was well received at the court of John II., and became a pupil of the learned Johann Muller, celebrated under the name of Regiomontanus. Here he was asso- ciated with Columbus, whose views of a west- ern passage to India he is said by Herrera to have supported. In 1483 he was appointed a member of the commission for calculating an astrolabe and tables of declension ; and in re- ward for his services he was made a knight of the order of Christ. In the following year he was cosmographer in the expedition of Diogo Cam, who sailed along the W. coast of Africa as far S. as the mouth of the Congo. In 1486 he sailed to Fayal, one of the Azores, where he 83 VOL. ii. 31 established a Flemish colony, and married the daughter of its governor. Here he remained till 1490, when he returned to Nuremberg, where he constructed a terrestrial globe, still preserved there, on which historical notices were written, and which is a valuable memorial of the discoveries and geographical knowledge of his time. Behaim subsequently returned to Fayal, and was for a time employed in diplo- macy by the Portuguese government. It has been maintained by some writers that he visited America before Columbus ; and an island which he places upon his globe far to the west of the Azores has been thought to be evidence of this. But the existence of an island somewhere in the western waters was one of the current be- liefs of the time, and it is probable that Be- haim had no positive evidence in assigning it a locality. BEHAM, Hans Sebald, a German painter and engraver, born in Nuremberg about 1500, died in Frankfort in 1550. He was at first a pupil ' of his uncle Barthel Beham, and afterward of
- Albert Diirer. Bartsch enumerates 430 of his
prints, of which 171 are woodcuts. He ex celled principally as an engraver upon copper, and in small prints, which are much in the style of those of Aldegrever. He was notorious for profligacy, on account of which he was thrown into the Main and drowned. BKIIAR, the western portion of the territory under the rule of the lieutenant governor of Bengal, comprising the commissionerships of Patna and Bhaugulpore, bounded W. by the Northwest Provinces and N. by Nepaul; area, exclusive of waste and forest lands and areas of great rivers, 42,417 sq. m. ; pop. in 1872, 19,736,101, being 465 to the square mile. Be- har was a province under the Mohammedan government, but was ceded to the British East India company in 1765. It is the most popu- lous of the large divisions of Bengal, and is generally well watered, fertile, and thoroughly cultivated. The principal products are opium, indigo, and rice. There is a system of irriga- tion works S. of the Ganges, in the basin of the river Sone. Patna is the chief town. In the Patna commissionership is the smaller ad- ministrative district called Behar, including the town of that name, in lat. 29 19' N., Ion. 85 35', formerly a prominent city, but now comparatively unimportant. BEHISTUN, Blsntnn, or Baghlstan, a ruined town of Persia, in the province of Irak-Ajemi, in lat. 34 18' N., Ion. 47 30' E., 17 m. E. of Kermanshah. It is noted for a precipitous rock, anciently known as Mount Bagistanus, which on one side rises perpendicularly to the | height of 1,700ft. Diodorus relates that Semi- ramis encamped near this rock, and caused the 1 lower part to be smoothed away and an in- scription engraved upon it in her honor. No trace of any such inscription now exists ; but the rock contains cuneiform inscriptions en- graved upon it by the Persian king Darius | Hystaspis, about 516 B. 0. The principal in-
