Part 40

Physically the Bhutias are a fine race, although dirty in their habits and persons. Their food consists of meat, chiefly pork, turnips, rice, barley-meal and tea made from the brick-tea of China. Their favourite drink is _chong_, distilled from rice or barley and millet, and _Marwa_, beer made from fermented millet. A loose woollen coat reaching to the knees, and bound round the waist by a thick fold of cotton cloth, forms the dress of the men; the women's dress is a long cloak with loose sleeves. The houses of the Bhutias are of three and four storeys; all the floors are neatly boarded with deal; and on two sides of the house is a verandah ornamented with carved work generally painted. The Bhutias are neat joiners, and their doors, windows and panelling are perfect in their way. No iron-work is used; the doors open on ingenious wooden hinges. The appearance of the houses is precisely that of Swiss chalets, picturesque and comfortable--the only drawback being a want of chimneys, which the Bhutias do not know how to construct. The people nominally profess the Buddhist religion, but in reality their religious exercises are confined to the propitiation of evil spirits, and the mechanical recital of a few sacred sentences. Around the cottages in the mountains the land is cleared for cultivation, and produces thriving crops of barley, wheat, buckwheat, millet, mustard, chillies, &c. Turnips of excellent quality are extensively grown; they are free from fibre and remarkably sweet. The wheat and barley have a full round grain, and the climate is well adapted to the production of both European and Asiatic vegetables. Potatoes have been introduced. The Bhutias lay out their fields in a series of terraces cut out of the sides of the hills; each terrace is riveted and supported by stone embankments, sometimes 20 ft. high. Every field is carefully fenced with pine branches, or protected by a stone wall. A complete system of irrigation permeates the whole cultivated part of a village, the water being often brought from a long distance by stone aqueducts. Bhutias do not care to extend their cultivation, as an increased revenue is exacted in proportion to the land cultivated, but devote their whole energies to make the land yield twice what it is estimated to produce. The forests of Bhutan abound in many varieties of stately trees. Among them are the beech, ash, birch, maple, cypress and yew. Firs and pines cover the mountain heights; and below these, but still at an elevation of eight or nine thousand feet, is a zone of vegetation, consisting principally of oaks and rhododendrons. The cinnamon tree is also found. Some of the roots and branches were examined by Captain Samuel Turner during his journey to Tibet; but the plant being neither in blossom nor bearing fruit, it was impossible to decide whether it was the true cinnamon or an inferior kind of cassia. The leaf, however, corresponded with the description given of the true cinnamon by Linnaeus. The lower ranges of the hills abound in animal life. Elephants are so numerous as to be dangerous to travellers; but tigers are not common, except near the river Tista, and in the dense reed jungle and forests of the Dwars. Leopards abound in the Hah valley; deer everywhere, some of them of a very large species. The musk deer is found in the snows, and the barking deer on every hill side. Wild hogs are met with even at great elevations. Large squirrels are common. Bears and rhinoceros are also found. Pheasants, jungle fowls, pigeons and other small game abound. The Bhutias are no sportsmen. They have a superstitious objection to firing a gun, thinking that it offends the deities of the woods and valleys, and brings down rain. A species of horse, which seems indigenous to Bhutan, and is used as a domestic animal, is called _tangan_, from Tangastan, the general appellation of that assemblage of mountains which constitutes the territory of Bhutan. It is peculiar to this tract, not being found in any of the neighbouring countries of Assam, Nepal, Tibet or Bengal, and unites in an eminent degree the two qualities of strength and beauty. The _tangan_ horse usually stands about thirteen hands high, is short-bodied, clean-limbed, deep in the chest and extremely active, his colour usually inclining to piebald. In so barren and rude a country the manufacturing industry of its people is, as might be expected, in a low stage, the few articles produced being all destined for home consumption. These consist of coarse blankets and cotton cloths made by the villagers inhabiting the southern tract. Leather, from the hide of the buffalo, imperfectly tanned, furnishes the soles of snow boots. Circular bowls are neatly turned from various woods. A small quantity of paper is made from a plant described as the _Daphne papyrifera_. Swords, iron spears and arrow-heads, and a few copper caldrons, fabricated from the metal obtained in the country, complete the list of manufactures.

Trade connections are rather with Tibet than with India. In 1901-1902 the value of the import and export trade with British India amounted only to L57,000. The military resources of the country are on an insignificant scale. Beyond the guards for the defence of the various castles, there is nothing like a standing army. The total military force was estimated by the British envoy in 1864 at 6000. The climate of Bhutan varies according to the difference of elevation. At the time when the inhabitants of Punakha (the winter residence of the rajas) are afraid of exposing themselves to the blazing sun, those of Ghasa experience all the rigour of winter, and are chilled by perpetual snows. Yet these places are within sight of each other. The rains descend in floods upon the heights; but in the vicinity of Tasisudon, the capital, they are moderate; there are frequent showers, but nothing that can be compared to the tropical rains of Bengal. Owing to the great elevation and steepness of the mountains, dreadful storms arise among the hollows, often attended with fatal results.

_History._--Bhutan formerly belonged to a tribe called by the Bhutias Tephu, generally believed to have been the people of Kuch Behar. About A.D. 1670 some Tibetan soldiers subjugated the Tephus, took possession of the country and settled down in it. The relations of the British with Bhutan commenced in 1772, when the Bhutias invaded the principality of Kuch Behar, a dependency of Bengal. The Kuch Behar Raja applied for aid, and a force under Captain James was despatched to his assistance; the invaders were expelled and pursued into their own territories. Upon the intercession of Teshu Lama, then regent of Tibet, a treaty of peace was concluded in 1774 between the East India Company and the ruler of Bhutan. In 1783 Captain S. Turner was deputed to Bhutan, with a view of promoting commercial intercourse, but his mission proved unsuccessful. From this period little intercourse took place with Bhutan, until the occupation of Assam by the British in 1826. It was then discovered that the Bhutias had usurped several tracts of low land lying at the foot of the mountains, called the Dwars or passes, and for these they agreed to pay a small tribute. They failed to pay, however, and availed themselves of the command of the passes to commit depredations within the British territory. Captain R.B. Pemberton was accordingly deputed to Bhutan to adjust the points of difference. But his negotiations yielded no definite result; and every other means of obtaining redress and security proving unsuccessful, the Assam Dwars were wrested from the Bhutias, and the British government consented to pay to Bhutan a sum of L1000 per annum as compensation for the resumption of their tenure, during the good behaviour of the Bhutias. Continued outrages and aggressions were, however, committed by the Bhutias on British subjects in the Dwars. Nothwithstanding repeated remonstrances and threats, scarcely a year passed without the occurrence of several raids in British territory headed by Bhutia officials, in which they plundered the inhabitants, massacred them, or carried them away as slaves. In 1863 Sir Ashley Eden was sent as an envoy to Bhutan to demand reparation for these outrages. He did not succeed in his mission; he was subjected to the grossest insults; and under compulsion signed a treaty giving over the disputed territory to Bhutan, and making other concessions which the Bhutan government demanded. On Sir A. Eden's return the viceroy at once disavowed his treaty, sternly stopped the former allowance for the Assam Dwars, and demanded the immediate restoration of all British subjects kidnapped during the last five years. The Bhutias not complying with this demand, the governor-general issued a proclamation, dated the 12th of November 1864, by which the eleven Western or Bengal Dwars were forthwith incorporated with the queen's Indian dominions. No resistance was at first offered to the annexation; but, suddenly, in January 1865, the Bhutias surprised the English garrison at Dewangiri, and the post was abandoned with the loss of two mountain guns. This disaster was soon retrieved by General Sir Henry Tombs, and the Bhutias were compelled to sue for peace, which was concluded on the 11th of November 1865. The Bhutan government formally ceded all the eighteen Dwars of Bengal and Assam, with the rest of the territory taken from them, and agreed to liberate all kidnapped British subjects. As the revenues of Bhutan mainly depended on these Dwars, the British government, in return for these concessions, undertook to pay the Deb and Dharm rajas annually, subject to the condition of their continued good behaviour, an allowance beginning at L2500 and rising gradually to the present figure. Since that time the annexed territories have settled down into peaceful and prosperous British districts. The recent relations between the Indian government and Bhutan have been satisfactory; and during the troubles with Tibet in 1904 the attitude of the Bhutias was perfectly correct and friendly.

See _Report on Explorations in Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet_ (Deva Dun, 1889); Tanner, "Our present Knowledge of the Himalayas," _R.G.S. Proceedings_, vol. xiii. (T. H. H.*)

BIANCHINI, FRANCESCO (1662-1729), Italian astronomer and antiquary, was born of a noble family at Verona on the 13th of December 1662. In 1684 he went to Rome, and became librarian to Cardinal Ottoboni, who, as Pope Alexander VIII. (1689), raised him to the offices of papal chamberlain and canon of Santa Maria Maggiore. Clement XI. sent him on a mission to Paris in 1712, and employed him to form a museum of Christian antiquities. He died at Rome on the 2nd of March 1729. A paper by him on G.D. Cassini's new method of parallaxes was inserted in the _Acta Eruditorum_ of Leipzig in 1685. He published separately:--_Istoria Universale_ (Roma, 1697), only one volume of which appeared; _De Calendario et Cyclo Caesaris_ (1703); _Hesperi et Phosphori nova Phaenomena_ (1729), in which he asserted Venus to rotate in 24-1/3 days; and (posthumously) _Astronomicae et Geographicae Observaliones Selectae_ (1737) and _Opuscula Varia_ (1754).

See Fontenelle's "Eloge" (_Memoires de l'Acad. de l'Histoire_, p. 102, Paris, 1729); Mazzoleni, _Vita di Francesco Bianchini_ (Verona, 1735); Tipaldo, _Biografia degli Italiani Illustri_, vii. 288 (Venezia, 1840); Mazzuchelli, _Scrittori d' Italia_; Maffei, _Verona Illustrata_, p. 254, &c.

BIARRITZ, a watering-place of south-western France, in the department of Basses-Pyrenees, on the sea-coast about 5 m. W.S.W. of Bayonne. Pop. (1906) 13,629. From a mere fishing village, with a few hundred inhabitants in the beginning of the 19th century, Biarritz rose rapidly into a place of importance under the patronage of the emperor Napoleon III. and the empress Eugenie, with whom it was a favourite resort. The town is situated on a promontory jutting north-west into the Bay of Biscay and on the coast which extends on each side of it. The beach to the north-east is known as the Grande Plage, that to the south-west as the Cote des Basques. The Grande Plage is more than half a mile long and stretches to the Cap St Martin, on which stands a lighthouse. It is divided into two parts by a small headland once the site of the villa of the empress Eugenie, between which and the main promontory are the two casinos, the principal baths and many luxurious villas and fine hotels. Towards the north-east the promontory of Biarritz ends in a projection known as the Atalaye, crowned by the ruins of a castle and surrounded by rocky islets. Some of these are united to the mainland and to each other by jetties which curve round so as to form the Port de Refuge, a haven available only in fair weather. South-west of the Atalaye lies the Port-Vieux, a sheltered cove now used only as a bathing-place. The Port des Pecheurs, the principal of the three harbours, is on the south-east side of the Atalaye and is that most used by the fishermen of the town. Apart from unimportant manufactures of pottery, chocolate, &c., fishing is the only industry; Biarritz depends for its prosperity on the visitors who are attracted by its mild climate and the bathing. The season is almost continuous; in the winter the English, in the summer Russians, Spaniards and French fill the hotels of the town. Among its attractions is a golf club, established in 1888, with a course of 18 holes.

BIAS of Priene in Ionia, one of the so-called Seven Sages of Greece, son of Teutamus, flourished about 570 B.C. He was famous for his patriotism, the nobility of his character and his eloquence. A number of gnomes or aphorisms are attributed to him, which may be found collected in F.W.A. Mullach, _Fragmenta Philosophorum Graecorum_ (1860). He is said to have written a poem on the best means of making Ionia prosperous. His advice to its inhabitants, at the time of the Persian invasion, to migrate to Sardinia and there found a single pan-Ionic city (Herodotus i. 170), has generally been regarded as historical. One much-quoted saying of his may be mentioned. When his native town was besieged by the enemy, the inhabitants resolved to escape with their most valuable belongings. One of them seeing Bias without anything, advised him to follow the example of the rest. "I am doing so," said lie, "for I carry all my belongings with me" (_omnia mea mecum porto_). He was honoured with a splendid funeral, and a sanctuary called Teutamium was dedicated to him.

See Bohren, _De Septem Sapientibus_ (1860).

BIAS (from the Fr. _biais_, of unknown origin; the derivation from Lat. _bifax_, two-faced, is wrong), something oblique or slanting. The term is used especially of a piece of cloth cut obliquely across the texture, or of a seam of two such pieces brought together; and in the game of bowls (q.v.) it is applied alike to the one-sided construction of the bowl, flattened on one side and protruding on the other, and to the slanting line the bowl takes when thrown. The figurative sense of the word, prejudice or undue leaning to one side of a subject, is derived from this bowling term.

BIBACULUS, MARCUS FURIUS, Roman poet, flourished during the last century of the republic. According to Jerome, he was born at Cremona in 103 B.C., and probably lived to a great age. He wrote satirical poems after the manner of Catullus, whose bitterness he rivalled, according to Quintilian (_Instit._ x. i. 196), in his iambics. He even attacked Augustus (and perhaps Caesar), who treated the matter with indifference. He was also author of prose _Lucubrationes_ and perhaps of an epic poem on Caesar's Gallic wars (_Pragmatia Belli Gallici_). Otto Ribbeck attributes to him one of the shorter poems usually assigned to Virgil. It is doubtful whether he is the person ridiculed by Horace (_Satires_, ii 5. 40) and whether he is identical with the _turgidus Alpinus_ (_Satires_, i. 10. 36), the author of an Aethiopis dealing with the life and death of Memnon and of a poem on the Rhine. Some critics, on the ground that Horace would not have ventured to attack so dangerous an adversary, assume the existence of a poet whose real name was Furius (or Cornelius) Alpinus. Bibaculus was ridiculed for his high-flown and exaggerated style and manner of expression.

See Weichert, "De M. Furio Bibaculo," in his _Poetarum Latinorum Reliquiae_ (1830); fragments in L. Muller's edition of _Catullus_ in the Teubner Series (1870).

BIBER, HEINRICH JOHANN FRANZ VON (1644-1704), German violinist and composer, was for some time musical conductor at Salzburg, and was ennobled by the emperor Leopold in 1681. He is regarded as the earliest important German composer for the violin, his works including sonatas and church music.

BIBERACH, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Wurttemberg, on the Riss, a small affluent of the Danube, 22 m. S.S.W. from Ulm. Pop. (1900) 8390. It is still surrounded by medieval walls and towers, and is strikingly picturesque. Its principal church dates from the 12th century, and it possesses a hospital with rich endowments. Its main industries are cloth, bell-casting, toys and zinc wares, and its fruit markets are famous.

Biberach appears as a village in the 8th century, and in 1312 it became a free imperial city. During the Thirty Years' War it underwent various vicissitudes, and was for a while held by the Swedes. In 1707 it was captured and put to ransom by the French, who afterwards, in 1796 and 1800, defeated the Austrians in the neighbourhood. In 1803 the city was deprived of its imperial freedom and assigned to Baden, and in 1806 was transferred to Wurttemberg. Biberach is the birthplace of the sculptor Johann Lorenz Natter (1705-1763) and the painter Bernhard Neher (1806-1886); Christoph Martin Wieland, born in 1733 at the neighbouring village of Oberholzheim, spent several years in the town.

BIBIRINE, or BEBEERINE, C19H21NO3, an alkaloid obtained from the bark and fruit of the greenheart (q.v.) tree, _Nectandra rodiaei_, called _bibiru_ or _sipiri_ in Guiana, where the tree grows. The substance was discovered about the year 1835 by Hugh Rodie, a surgeon in Demerara, who used it as a febrifuge in substitution for quinine.