BASSO RELIEVO BAST1LE. 



443 



and Euphrates, and is navigable for vessels of 500 

 tons to Bassora, 70 miles. Merchants from Arabia, 

 Turkey, Armenia, and Greece, also Jews and In- 

 dians, reside here. The British and Dutch have 

 consuls here, and their ships come from India loaded 

 with merchandise. The Arabs have more power 

 than the Turks, and the language of the former is 

 chiefly spoken. The prince pays but little respect 

 to the Ottoman court. The city is surrounded by a 

 wall about ten miles in circuit, from twenty to twenty- 

 five feet thick. The houses are generally mean, 

 being constructed of clay, with a small proportion of 

 bricks ; and the bazars, though containing the richest 

 products of the East, are but miserable edifices. 

 Almost all the inhabitants of the city are connected 

 with trade, and its commerce is extensive, as it is the 

 grand emporium for all the produce of India sent to 

 the Turkish empire. The trade of the interior is 

 conducted by means of caravans to Aleppo and Bag- 

 dad. The town is unhealthy, the environs fertile. 

 As to the religion of the inhabitants, besides Moham- 

 medans, there are Syrian Jacobites and Nestorians, 

 iind monks from Europe, besides some modern Sa- 

 beans, called disciples of John. 



BASSO REUE\X>. See Dass-Relief. 



BASS VIOL; a stringed instrument, resembling', in 

 form, the violin, but much larger. It has four strings 

 and eight stops, which are subdivided into semi- 

 stops, and is played with a bow. 



BASTARD. The Romans distinguished two kinds 

 of natural children nothi, the issue of concubinage, 

 and spurii, the children of prostitutes; the former 

 could inherit from the mother, and were entitled to 

 support from the father ; the latter had no claims 

 whatever to support. Is non habet patrem, cui pater 

 est populus. The Athenians treated all bastards with 

 extreme rigour. By the laws of Solon, they were 

 denied the rights of citizenship. A law of Pericles 

 ordered the sale of 5000 bastards as slaves. What 

 rendered these regulations more severe was, that not 

 only the issue of concubinage and adultery, but all 

 children whose parents were not both Athenians, 

 were considered bastards at Athens. Thus Themis- 

 tocles, whose mother was a native of Halicarnassus, 

 was deemed a bastard. The law, as might be ex- 

 pected, was often set aside by the influence of power- 

 ful citizens. Pericles himself had it repealed in 

 favour of his child by Aspasia, after he had lost his 

 legitimate children by the plague. The condition of 

 bastards has been different in different periods of 

 modern history. Among the Goths and Franks, they 

 were permitted to inherit from the father. Thiery, 

 the natural son of Clovis, inherited a share of his 

 father's conquests. William the Conqueror, natural 

 son of Robert I., duke of Normandy, and of Arlette, 

 daughter of a furrier of Falaise, inherited his father's 

 < lominions. 1 1 e called himself fPtllelmiis, cognomento 

 Jiafanliis. The celebrated Dunois styled himself, in 

 liis letters, the bastard of Orleans. In Spain, bastards 

 have always been capable of inheriting. The bas- 

 tardy of Henry of Transtamare did not prevent his 

 accession to the throne of Castile. In France, the 

 condition of bastards was formerly very different in 

 the different provinces. Since the revolution, it has 

 been regulated in a uniform manner by tha general 

 law of the kingdom. The Code civil thus fixes their 

 rights : If the father or mother leave legitimate des- 

 cendants, the bastard is entitled to one third of the 

 portion he would have inherited had he been a lawful 

 child ; if the father or mother die without descen- 

 dants, but leave ascendants, or brothers or sisters, 

 then lie is entitled to one half of such a portion ; if 

 the father or mother leave no ascendants nor des- 

 cendants, nor brothers nor sisters, he is entitled to 

 three quarters of such a portion ; and if the father or 



mother leave no relations within the degrees oi 

 succession, he is entitled to the whole property. 

 These regulations do not apply to the issue of an 

 incestuous or adulterous connexion. The law allows 

 no civil privileges to individuals who owe their exis- 

 tence to the violation of human and divine laws; it 

 grants them only support. According to the ancient 

 customs, the bastards of kings, acknowledged by 

 their fathers, were princes ; those of princes were 

 gentlemen. Several distinguished men, and fabulous 

 heroes, have been bastards William, who conquered 

 England; Dunois, who delivered France ; the duke 

 of Vendome, the duke of Berwick, the marslial Saxe ; 

 Bacchus, Hercules', and Romulus. 



By the common law of England, a child born after 

 marriage, however soon, is legitimate, or at least he 

 is presumed to be so; for one born in wedlock, and 

 long enough after the marriage to admit of the 

 period of gestation, may still be proved illegitimate, 

 in case of absence and non access of the husband, 

 and under some other circumstances. According to the 

 common law, a bastard is not the heir of any one ; 

 and, on the other hand, his only heirs are his children 

 born in wedlock, and their descendants. According 

 to the Roman law, one born out of wedlock might be 

 legitimated by subsequent marriage and acknow- 

 ledgment of his parents. In 1236, the English pre- 

 lates proposed the introduction of the Roman law, in 

 this respect, into England, to which the nobility made 

 the celebrated reply, Nohimus leges Anglic mutare, 

 (We are unwilling to change the laws of England). 

 The Roman law has been long adopted in Scottish 

 law, 



BASTIA ; the former capital of the island of Corsica 

 (Ion. 9 26' 30'' E. ; lat. 42 41' 36" N.), upon a hill 

 in the north-east part of the island, in the shape of 

 an amphitheatre. It is badly built, has narrow streets, 

 a strong citadel near the sea, a spacious, but not very 

 commodious harbour. The inhabitants (11,400) car- 

 ry on a considerable trade in hides, wine, oil, figs, and 

 pulse. The stilettoes manufactured here are held in 

 great esteem by the Italians. In 1745, B. was taken 

 by the British, but restored in the following year to 

 the Genoese. In 1748, it was unsuccessfully besieged 

 by the Austrians and Piedmontese ; in 1768, it was 

 united with France. It afterwards fell, for a short 

 time, into the power of the British. On the new 

 division of the French territories (1791), B. was made 

 the capital of the department of Corsica, of which, at 

 present, Ajaccio is the capital. 



BASTILE ; formerly a famous castle in Paris, in which 

 state prisoners and other persons arrested by lettres 

 de cachet were confined. These letters of arrest 

 were issued in the name of the king, but the names 

 of the individuals were inserted by the ministers, 

 who were the depositaries of these letters. Of the 

 origin of this custom, we may perhaps find the expla- 

 nation in Montesquieu's Esprit dcs Loix, where it is 

 said, " Honour is the virtue of monarchies, and often 

 supplies its place." A nobleman was unwilling to be 

 dishonoured by a member of his family. Filial diso- 

 bedience and unworthy conduct were not uncommon 

 among the over-refined nobility of France. In such 

 cases, fathers and relations often requested the con- 

 finement of the offender, until the head of the family 

 should express a wish for his release. At first, this 

 privilege was limited to the first families in the coun- 

 try. The next step was, that the ministers of 

 government considered themselves entitled to the 

 same privileges as heads of families among the nobi- 

 lity. If an offence was committed in their offices or 

 households, which, if known, would have cast a 

 shadow upon the ministers themselves, they arrested, 

 iimlii pwprio, the obnoxious individuals, and often 

 made use of their privilege to put out of sight pei- 

 3 K i, 2 



