BEN 



gal for the purpofe of commerce, viz. the En^liHi, the 

 Dutch, the French, and the Danes. The Engh(h are the 

 principal, and their cliief fettlement is at Calcutta, the pre- 

 fent capital of the country. (See Calcutta.) liuro- 

 peans lead, in Bengal, a very eafy life. The men, who are 

 almoft all in the fervice of the company, devote a part of the 

 morning to bufinefs, and perfons of fortune keep in daily 

 employment a black writer, for which he receives 20 or 2J 

 rupees per month. They fpend tin: remainder of their time 

 in perfonal improvement or recreation. BeCdcs the black 

 writers, mod Europeans have alfo one or two banyans, who 

 note down all payments and receipts, and who adjiill all pe- 

 cuniary matters in buying and fcllinp;. Mooriih domelllcs 

 are kept for the menial fervices of the honfe, and " peons," 

 to run before the palankeens, and to carry an umbrella, Or 

 parafol, over the l.ead of their mailer, when he goes out ; and 

 ever)- houfe has likcwife a porter, whofe fole occupation is 

 to anlwer the door ; and one or two fcts of " bcrras," or pa- 

 lankeen bearers, together with a " harry maid," or " mata- 

 rani," who carries out the dirt ; and a great number of 

 flaves, both male and female. 



The current coins in Bengal, and in the whole extent 

 of Hindoftan, are gold and filvcr rupees ; which fee. See 

 alfo MoTiuR. Copper coin is not feen in Bengal. For 

 change thty make ufe of cowries, 80 of which make a 

 " poni," and 60 or 6^ ponis, according to the fcarcity or 

 plenty of cowries in the country, make a rupee. However, 

 there is great variation in the value of cowries in Bengal, 

 Weights are calculated by the Sar, anfwcring nearly to two 

 pounds avoirdupoife, of which 40 make a maund ; which 

 fee. The meafjres of length are cobidos, and gefs or gofs, 

 wWch fee. Diftances between places are meafurcd by cofs. 

 ^ee Coss. The vcflels ufed for inland navigation are burs, 

 budgerows, and pulwhas, which fee. The general convey- 

 ance of paflengers by land is on a fort of litters, called palan- 

 keens, which fee. For an account of the manners and euf- 

 toms of the inhabitants of Bengal, and various other parti- 

 culars ; fee Calcutta, HiNnosTAu, and India. See 

 sJfo Gentoos, Hindoos, and Brahmins. 



Bengal, iay of, is a lai-ge gulf in the Indian ocean, be- 

 tween the two peninfulas of India ; bounded on the north by 

 the coal! of the province of Bengal, on the eaft by the king- 

 doms of Aracan, Pegu, Siam, the peninfula of Malacca, or 

 Malaya, and part of the ifland of Sumatra; on the fouth by 

 the great Indian ocean, and on the weft by the coafts of 

 Oriffa, Coromandcl, and the ifland of Ceylon. The Ganges 

 and feveral other rivers, difcharge tbemi'elves into this gulf ; 

 it contains many iflands ; and it abounds with bays, harbours, 

 and port towns. Its widcfl extent is about 86 leagues, and 

 its length about 72 leagues. In a more confined view it may 

 be faid to begin at cape Palmiras. 



Bengai, Zanjujjf c/", or Bf.ngalese, is derived from 

 the Shanfcrit (which fee), and diftinft from the Perfian, 

 Moors, and Hindoftantiic, which are fpoken in feveral parts 

 of this province, and each of which has its peculiar depart- 

 ment in the bufinefs of the country'. Its alphabet, like that 

 of the Shanfcrit, confids of 50 letters, of the form, found, 

 and arrangement of which Halhed has given a very particu- 

 lar and detailed account in his " Grammar of the Bengal 

 Language," printed at Hoogly in Bengal in 1778. The 

 only impediments in acquiring the knowledge of this lan- 

 guage are the great number of letters in its alphabet, the in- 

 tricate variety of their combinations, and the difGculty of pro- 

 nunciation ; but the grammatical part is fimple, though dif- 

 fufe, and complete without being complex. Its rules are 

 plain, and its anomalies few. The vowels are diftributed 

 into long and Ihort, the latter of which are often omitted in 



BEN 



writing', and they arc invariably fubjoined to the confonant 

 with which they are uttered, and never precede them. As 

 every confonant, therefore, inherentlypofleffes the Ihort vowel 

 on which its utterance depends, it is plain that no two confo- 

 nants could have been joined together, and fucceffively pro- 

 nounced in the fame fyllable, but that a vowel muft neceffarily 

 have intervened. In order to remedy this inconvenience, a 

 fctofdiftind charaiters was invented, called " P.holaas," or 

 adjunfts. Thefe are certain fubordinate and fubfidiaiy 

 figures, eleven in number, that may be attached to each of 

 the confonants in the alphabet refpeClively, and thus provide 

 againft the too frequent recurrence of the internal vowel. 

 Exclufively of thefe " P,holaas," almoft any two or three 

 confonants may be blended together, for fupplying the 

 omifTion of the internal vowel. The compound letters 

 may be foiTned by placing one letter immediately under 

 another ; or by blending two letters together, fo as by 

 their union to make one charafter ; or by making the 

 firft of tlie two confonants much fmaller than the other 

 letters, which latter mode is the molt common. The 

 genders of this language are three, and the terminations 

 ufually diftinguifhing the mafculine are aa, and thofe of the 

 feminine are ee ; but it is not neceffary that every noun com- 

 prehending fex (hoiild be diilinguifhed by a particular termi- 

 nation, or mode of formation, cxprefsly to denote its gender^ 

 The Bengalefe has four cafes befides the vocative, and in 

 this rtfpeft it is much inferior to the Shanfcrit, which com- 

 prehends eight different cafes. The Bengal nouns have 

 neither dual nor plural numbers; and the fame form of noun 

 ferves for the iingular or plural. In compofitionsof this lan- 

 guage, though the firft and fecond perfons occur very fre- 

 quently, the ufe of the pronoun of the third is very rare ; and 

 in order to avoid the application of the words he and they, 

 the names of perfons are repeated in a manner that is very 

 tirefome and difgufting. The fecond perfon is always ranked 

 before the firft, and the third before the fecond. The per- 

 fonal pronouns have feven cafes, which are very irregularly 

 varied. The indefinite pronouns are all aptotes in Bengalefe, 

 as they are in Latin and Greek. The Shanfcrit, which 

 is the parent of the Bengalefe, as well as the Arabic, 

 Greek, and Latin verbs, are furnilhed with a fet of inflec- 

 tions and terminations, fo comprehenlive and fo complete, 

 that by their mere form they can exprefs all the diftindions 

 both of perfon and time. By their root they denote a par- 

 ticular aft, and by their intieftion they exprefs the time when 

 it takes place, and the number of the agents ; and thus their 

 feparatc qualities are perfeftly united. Every Shanfcrit 

 verb has a form equivalent to the middle voice of the Greek, 

 ufed through all the tenfes with a refleftive fenfe, and the 

 former is the moft extenfive of the two in its ufe and ofSce ; 

 becaufe in Greek the refleftive can only be adopted intranfi- 

 tively when the aftion of the verb defcends to no extraneous 

 fubjeft ; but in Shanfcrit, the verb is at the fame time both 

 reciprocal and tranfitive. Neither the Shanfcrit, nor the 

 Bengalefe, nor the Hindoftannic, have any word correfpond- 

 ing to the fenfe of the verb / have, and therefore the idea is 

 always expreffed by e/l mihi ; and of courfe there is no 

 auxiliary form in the Bengalefe verb anfwering to I have 

 •written, but the fenfe is conveyed by another mode. As the 

 verb fubftantive to be in all languages is defeftive and irregular, 

 it is called in Shanfcrit a " femi-verb ;" and it is obferved, by 

 the ingenious writer above cited, that the prefent tenfe of this 

 verb, both in Greek and Latin, and alfo in the Perfian, ap- 

 pears evidently to be derived from the Shanfcrit. In the 

 Bengalefe, this verb has only two diftinftions of time, the 

 prefent andthe paft; and the terminations of the feveral perfons 

 of thefe ferve as a model forthofe of the fame tenfe in all other 

 6. v?rbs. 



