Benguela

“ Bengel, Johann Albrecht, a distinguished Biblical scholar and critic, born at Würtemberg; best known by his "Gnomon Novi Testamenti," being an invaluable body of short notes on the New Testament; devoted himself to the critical study of the text of the Greek Testament (1687-1752) .
Bengue`la, a fertile Portuguese territory in W. Africa, S. of Angola, with considerable mineral wealth; has sunk in importance since the suppression of the slave-trade.
Benicia, the former capital of California, 30 m. NE. of San Francisco; has a commodious harbour and a U.S. arsenal. ”

“ Cotton and silk weaving was the main industry of Bengal in the olden days, and merchants of all nations of the West competed to secure the trade of the Indian fabrics. The Portuguese, under the renowned Albuquerque, had established an Empire over the Eastern seas, and from the south of Africa to the eastern limits of China the vast coast-line of many thousand miles was studded with Portuguese seaports. Thousands of the Portuguese had settled in Bengal and taken Bengal women as their wives, and they have left descendants who form the greater portion of the present Eurasian community of India. ”

“ The name of the old Portuguese settlement in Bengal about a mile above Hoogly, where there still exists a monastery, said to be the oldest church in Bengal (see Imp. Gazeteer) . The name is a Port. corruption of bandar, 'the wharf'; and in this shape the word was applied among the Portuguese to a variety of places. Thus in Correa, under 1541–42, we find mention of a port in the Red Sea, near the mouth, called Bandel dos Malemos ('of the Pilots') . ”

“ There was to be a number of other people—in fact, a very brilliant assembly; but Benvolio knew that a certain touch of the hand, a certain glance of the eye, a certain caress of the voice, would be reserved for him alone. Happy Benvolio, you will say, to be going about the world with such charming secrets as this locked up in his young heart! Happy Benvolio indeed; but mark how he trifled with his happiness. He went to the Countess's gate, but he went no further ”

“ But I can never bring myself to believe that one Bengalee wouldn't be a match for another man, to whatever nationality he may belong. In such cases, wouldn't there be strong influences acting on the mind of a Bengalee also? When one of us stands up determined to save his self-respect from being sullied, to protest against oppression and tyranny, to protect his mother, his sister from insult offered by any one—I am sure these considerations would lend additional strength to his honest arms. ”

“ I will to-day be no happier than my renowned countryman, William Benkels, after he had discovered the salting of the herring. I aspire to the delight only of one moment, but that moment shall last—the great moment in which William Benkels stood before the first cask of successfully-salted herrings. It was in the year 1416. Imagine the man to yourselves, when he stood at last before the completed work, over which his mind had brooded for so many years, and which brought such a blessing upon his Fatherland. ”

“ What the Italian is to the Englishman, what the Hindoo is to the Italian, what the Bengalee is to other Hindoos, that was Nuncomar to other Bengalese. The physical organization of the Bengalee is feeble even to effeminacy. He lives in a constant vapor bath. His pursuits are sedentary, his limbs delicate, his movements languid. During many ages he has been trampled upon by men of bolder and more hardy breeds. Courage, independence, veracity, are qualities to which his constitution and his situation are equally unfavorable. ”

“ As there was no name on the parcel, Benvolio, on reaching the old gray house, over the wall of whose court an adventurous creeper stretched its long arm into the street, found himself wondering in what terms he should ask to have speech of the person for whom the books were intended. At any hazard he was determined not to retreat until he had caught a glimpse of the interior and its inhabitants; for this was the same man, you must remember, who had scaled the moonlit wall of the Countess's garden. ”

“ Benvolio raged inwardly at the cruel limitations of the human mind, and declared it was a great outrage that a man should not be personally able to do everything he could imagine doing. I hardly know how she contrived it, but the Countess was at this time a more engaging woman than she had ever been. Her beauty acquired an ampler and richer cast, and she had a manner of looking at you, as she slowly turned away, which had lighted a hopeless flame in many a youthful breast. Benvolio one day felt in the mood for finishing his comedy, and the Countess and her friends acted it. ”

“ Having passed the kingdom of Bengala, along the coast which turns to the south, there is another kingdom of Gentiles called Berma. [288] In this there are no Moors, nor are there sea ports which can be made use of for trade in merchandise. The people of this kingdom are black men and go naked, for they only cover their middles with cotton cloths. They have their idolatries and houses of prayer. They frequently are at war with the King of Peigu. ”

“ A Bengalee is nothing but an individual in such cases. An Englishman on the other hand, is an individual, a member of the ruling race—and not infrequently, one vested with some amount of authority. So it follows that it would take three Bengalees to match an Englishman—or perhaps more than three."
"Do you know Ajay,"—said the Doctor, a little piqued—"that you insult your own nation by advancing this argument? An Englishman, like a Bengalee, is nothing but an individual. ”

“ The mere fact that an assignment has been taken in the name of a person not really interested, will not be sufficient. Such ... known in Bengal as benamee transactions ... have nothing necessarily fraudulent."—J. D. Mayne's Comm. on the Penal Code, Madras, 1862, p. 257.
BENARES, n.p. The famous and holy city on the Ganges. H. Banāras from Skt. Vārānasī. The popular Pundit etymology is from the names of the streams Varaṇā (mod. Barnā) and Āsī, the former a river of some size on the north and east of the city, the latter a rivulet now embraced within its area ”

“ Before the SOCIETY For the PROPAGATION of the GOSPEL, at the anniversary meeting on the 21st of February, 1766.
From the free-savages, I now come (the last point I propose to consider) to the savages in bonds. By these I mean the vast multitudes yearly stolen from the opposite continent, and sacrificed by the colonists to their great idol, the GOD OF GAIN. But what then? say these sincere worshippers of Mammon; they are our own property which we offer up. Gracious God! to talk (as in herds of cattle) of property in rational creatures! creatures endowed with all our faculties ”

“ The harbor is excellent, and is the entrepôt to the celebrated Bihé section, through a series of tribes which Pinto visited and which he describes as of superior physique and intelligence. Benguella was once the seat of an active slave trade, and Monteiro says, in his volume published in 1875, that he has seen caravans of 3,000 blacks coming into Benguella from Bihé, fully 1,000 of which were slaves. The white settlers cleared many fine plantations about Benguella, which they stocked with slaves and upon which large crops of cotton were formerly raised. ”

“ The aborigines of Loanda owe much to the Catholic Church. Its priests have taught the natives many trades and industries. There are four newspapers published in the city, but they deal mainly in unpleasant personalities.
Even more important than Angola, in a commercial and political sense, is the Portuguese province to the south, known as Benguella, with Benguella as the capital. The town is an old one and has not shared the decay incident to the early Portuguese settlements on the western coast. ”

“ If she had indeed any sin upon her conscience connected with that fatal night, what terrible retribution must now have been hers. Were Benja living she would still be in the enjoyment of wealth, pride, power; would still be reigning at the once much-coveted Hall of Alnwick, its sole mistress. With the death of the children, all had gone from her. No human care or skill could have saved the life of her own son; but Benja?--Heaven did not call him. ”

“ Over a wall, beside it, there tumbled into the street some stray tendrils of a wild vine from Benvolio's garden. Suddenly Benvolio began to fancy that the book the young girl in the garden was reading was none other than a volume of his own, put forth some six months before. His volume had a white cover and so had this; white covers are rather rare, and there was nothing impossible either in this young lady's reading his book or in her finding it interesting. Very many other women had done the same. ”

“ Patenaw is a very long and a great towne. In times past it was a kingdom, but now it is vnder Zelabdim Echebar, the great Mogor.... In this towne there is a trade of cotton, and cloth of cotton, much sugar, which they carry from hence to Bengala and India, very much Opium, and other commodities."—R. Fitch, in Hakl. ii. 388. 1616.—"Bengala, a most spacious and fruitful Province, but more properly to be called a kingdom, which hath two very large Provinces within it, Purb (see POORUB) and Patan, the one lying on the east, and the other on the west side of the River Ganges."—Terry, ed. ”

“ If any future Clive should fight a battle in Bengal, decisive of the fate of India, and feel at all desirous that the field of his fame should remain intact, I would respectfully advise him not to come to blows within twenty good miles of the Ganges, if he can possibly avoid it, for that headlong flood, in the course of its erratic movements, will sooner or later be sure to sweep it away. ”

“ Benvolio had never seen him before, and he had no wish ever to see him again. He had not proposed to himself to marry Scholastica, and even if he had, I am pretty sure he would now have taken the modest view of the matter, and decided that his hand and heart were an insufficient compensation for the forfeiture of a miser's fortune. The young girl never spoke of her uncle: he lived quite alone apparently, haunting his upper chambers like a restless ghost, and sending her, by the old serving-woman, her slender monthly allowance, wrapped up in a piece of old newspaper. ”

“ AMONG the famous men of Bengal in the nineteenth century no name deserves a more honoured place than that of Ram Mohan Roy. At once the pioneer of the great Renaissance that was slowly dawning in Bengal and the first representative of India to the British people, he opened up to his fellow countrymen new paths of progress and reform. ”

“ A native of Bengal [Baboo] . In the following early occurrence in Portuguese, Bengala is used:
1552.—"In the defence of the bridge died three of the King's captains and Tuam Bandam, to whose charge it was committed, a Bengali (Bengala) by nation, and a man sagacious and crafty in stratagems rather than a soldier (cavalheiro) ."—Barros, II., vi. iii. [1610.—"Bangasalys." See quotation from Teixeira under BANKSHALL.]
A note to the Seir Mutaqherin quotes a Hindustani proverb: Bangālī jangālī, Kashmīrī bepīrī, i.e. ”

“ Those of the interior are inhabited by Gentiles, subject to the King of Bengal, who is a Moor; and the seaports are inhabited by Moors and Gentiles, amongst whom there is much trade in goods and much shipping to many parts, because this sea is a gulf which enters towards the north, and at its inner extremity there is a very great city inhabited by Moors which is called Bengala, [285] with a very [179] good harbour. Its inhabitants are white men and well formed. ”

“ Genovefa, in Begga's church, where it worked miraculous cures, and was adorned with votive offerings of gold and precious stones. The monastery of Anden was afterwards converted into a collegiate church of thirty-two canonesses of noble families, with ten canons to officiate at the altar. Begga is said by some authorities to have founded the Béguines, who devoted themselves to religion under simple vows not taken for life. ”

“ Several districts belonging to Bengal lie interspersed within these mountains, but none beyond them; for to the westward they extend several degrees, and are in some parts impassable, as far as the province of Berar in the Decan; to the north they divide. Bengal from the southern division of BEHAR, and to the south, seem the natural separation of Bengal from ORIXA, which nevertheless has a tract of country within them extending 20 miles along the sea-coasts from Ballasore to the river of Pipley, which disembogues opposite to the Island of Sagore. ”

“ Rigid with fright, Mistress Bengli stumbled along the swaying arras and turned into an archway that brought them to a narrow hall. From the corners of her eyes she saw that Abdullah had his simitar in his left hand, and the gleam of bare steel sent a chill into her veins.
“It is not fitting, lady,” went on the minstrel, “that a man of Khar should loiter in the hall of the feasters when a battle is joined. So, pray that no man of yours shall meet with us, and lead me to the stables—nay, not into the light!” ”

“ Benker rose also.
"Nonsense. You swore that I was Walter when we first met. Take a good look at me now, so that you may be sure that I am not he. I don't want to have his rascalities placed on my shoulders."
Mrs. Benker took a good look and sighed. "You're not him, but you're very like. May I ask if you are twins, sir?"
"No. Our eyes are the only things that we have in common. We got those from our mother, who was an Italian. I take after my mother, and am black, as you see me. My brother favored my father, who was as red as an autumn sunset." ”