MON TEFIORE’S COMMERCIAL DICTIONARY. 
wine, often used for the adulteration of the 
aim wines, in order to imitate port. 
«* Bengal, a country of Hindoostan Proper, 
bounded on the west by Orissa and Bahar, 
on the north by Bootan, on the east by As- 
sem and Meckley, and on the south by the 
bay of Bengal. Its extent from east to west 
is upwards of 400 miles, and from north to 
south above 300. The country consists of 
one vast plain of the most fertile soil, being 
annually overflowed by the Ganges, as Egypt 
is by the Nile. The bay of Bengal is the 
Jargest and deepest in the world, and the 
Ganges being navigable for a great distance 
‘up the’country, affords every facility for con- 
veyance of the commerce of this country. A 
trade is here carried on with Agra, Delhi, 
and the provinces adjacent to these superb 
capitals, in salt, sugar, opium, silk, «silk 
stuffs, muslins, diamonds, and other pie- 
cious stones. There is also a valuable inland 
trade carried on with West Patna, anda ya- 
riety of other places throughout India. Pat- 
na is the principal place in the wofld for the 
cultivation of epium. Besides what is cars 
ried into the interior, there are annually ex- 
ported betiveen 3000 and 4000 chests, each 
weighing 300 pounds. This opium, how- 
ever, not being prepared and purified, like 
that of Syria and Persia, is far from being so 
valuable. ‘There is also a material trade car- 
ried on by the natives, chiefly with the dis- 
trict of Catek, a district of some extent a 
little below the westernmost mouth of the 
Gangés, the port of which is Balasore, and 
whence the people of Catek carry on a_navi- 
gation and trade with the Maldive islands, 
and also with the conntry of Asham. Forty 
vessels, of 500 or 600 tons each, dre sent 
from the Ganges to Asham, laden with salt, 
which yields 200 per cent. profit ;, they re- 
&éive in payment, silk, ivory, musk, eagle- 
wood, gumlac, and a small quantity of gold 
695 
and silver. With respect to the immense 
trade carried on by the East India Company 
with Bengal, see East India Company ; see 
also Calcutta and Madras. 
“© Berlice, a country of Guiana, on the 
north-east coast of South America, situated 
on a river of the same name, in N. lat. 6 deg. 
20 min. and 60 deg. W. long. about eight 
miles west from the mouth of the river of 
Surinam. This colony was established by 
the Dutch in the beginning of the 17th cen- 
tury ; and in the year 1720 there were six 
sugar works, besides some plantations of in- 
digo and cacao. It has; notwithStanding 
the climate is extremely unhealthy, ‘and the 
soil inferior to Surinam and Demerary, great- 
ly flourished. Berbice was taken by the Eng- 
lish in 1796, but restored to the Bataviagi re - 
public by the treaty of peace of 1801.” 
Both these classes of articles are ex 
ecuted with great propriety : the author 
has selected his materials from the term 
reporters, and commercial writers of the 
most acknowledged authority, and has 
included a great mass of result from the 
most recent decisions. ‘This ¢oimbined 
intelligence has been compressed intd 
moderate compass, and is well adapted 
for the library both of the merchant and 
the statist. Unlike his predecessor Peu- 
chet, Montefiore has neither overloaded 
his earlier articles with a needless in- 
cumbrance of detail, nor stripped his 
concluding pages to a disappointing bare- 
ness. His utility will not be confined to 
Great Britain alone, it will favour the 
continental adoption of that precise le- 
gislation concerning property, which 
grows out of commerce alone, and is 
the basis of all civilization. 
Yy & 
