BHAMO` (6), a town in Burmah, the chief centre of trade with China, conducted mainly by Chinese, and a military station, only 40 m. from the Chinese frontier.

BHARTPUR` (68), a town in Rajputana, in a native state of the name; yielding wheat, maize, cotton, sugar, with quarries of building stone; 30 m.  W. of Agra; carries on an industry in the manufacture of chowries.

BHARTRIHARI, Indian author of apothegms, who appears to have lived in the 11th century B.C., and to have been of royal rank.

BHILS, a rude pro-Aryan race of Central India, still untrained to settled life; number 750,000.

BHOD-PA, name given to the aborigines of Thibet, and applied by the Hindus to all the Thibetan peoples.

BHOPAL` (952), a well-governed native state in Central India, under British protection, with a capital city (70) of the same name; under a government that has been always friendly to Britain.

BHUTAN (20), an independent state in the Eastern Himalayas, with magnificent scenery; subsidised by Britain; has a government like that of Thibet; religion the same, though the people are at a low stage of civilisation; the country exports horses, musk, and salt.

BIAF`RA, BIGHT OF, a large bay in the Gulf of Guinea, in W. Africa; includes several islands, and receives into it the waters of the Calabar rivers.

BIARD, AUGUSTE FRANCOIS, French genre painter, born at Lyons; journeyed round the world, sketching by the way; was successful in rendering burlesque groups (1800-1882).

BIARRITZ, a bathing-place on the Bay of Biscay, 6 m.  SW. of Bayonne; became a place of fashionable resort by the visits of the Empress Eugenie.

BIAS, one of the seven wise men of Greece, born at Priene, in Ionia; lived in the 6th century B.C.; many wise sayings are ascribed to him; was distinguished for his indifference to possessions, which moth and rust can corrupt, and thieves break through and steal.

BIBLE, THE (i. e. the Book par excellence, and not so much a book as a library of books), a collection of sacred writings divided into two parts, the Old Testament and the New; the Old, written in Hebrew, comprehending three groups of books, the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa, bearing on the religion, the history, the institutions, and the manners of the Jews; and the New, written in Greek, comprehending the Four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles.  The Old Testament was translated into Greek at Alexandria by 72 Jews, 280 B.C., and is known as the Septuagint; and the whole book, Old and New, was translated into Latin in a grotto near Bethlehem by St. Jerome, A.D. 385-404, and is known as the Vulgate, after which the two came to be regarded by the Church as of equal divine authority and as sections of one book.  It may be permitted to note that the Bible is written throughout, not in a speculative or a scientific, but a spiritual interest, and that its final aim is to guide men in the way of life.  The spirit in which it is composed is the spirit of conviction; its essence, both in the root of it and the fruit of it, is faith, and that primarily in a moral power above, and ultimately a moral principle within, both equally divine.  The one principle of the book is that loyalty to the divine commands is the one foundation of all well-being, individual and social.