White Nile was the main stream was, however, shown to be accurate by subsequent exploration. In 1856 he endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to establish commercial relations with Abyssinia through Massawa. In 1861–1862 he and his wife travelled in Syria and Palestine, and went to Egypt with the object of promoting trade with Central Africa and the growth of cotton in the Sudan. In 1865 he again went to Abyssinia, for the purpose of obtaining from King Theodore the release of the British captives. On learning that the captives had been released, Beke turned back, but Theodore afterwards re-arrested the party. To the military expedition sent to effect their release Beke furnished much valuable information, and his various services to the government and to geographical research were acknowledged by the award of £500 in 1868 by the secretary for India, and by the grant of a civil list pension of £100 in 1870. In his seventy-fourth year he undertook a journey to Egypt for the purpose of determining the real position of Mount Sinai. He conceived that it was on the eastern side of the Gulf of Akaba, and his journey convinced him that his view was right. It has not, however, commended itself to general acceptance. Beke died at Bromley, in Kent, on the 31st of July 1874.
Beke’s writings are very numerous. Among the more important, besides those already named, are: An Essay on the Nile and its Tributaries (1847), The Sources of the Nile (1860), and The British Captives in Abyssinia (1865). He was a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and for his contributions to the knowledge of Abyssinia received its gold medal, and also that of the Geographical Society of France. As a result of a controversy over the statements of another Abyssinian explorer, Antoine Abbadie, Beke returned the medal awarded him by the French Society.
See Summary of the late Dr Beke’s published works and . . . public services, by his widow (Tunbridge Wells, 1876).
BÉKÉSCSABA, a market-town of Hungary, 123 m. S.E. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900) 37,108, mostly Slovaks and Lutherans, who form the largest Lutheran community in Hungary. The town is situated near the White Körös, with which it is connected by a canal, and is an important railway-junction in central Hungary. Békéscsaba possesses several large milling establishments, while the weaving of hemp and the production of hemp-linen is largely pursued as a home industry. The town carries on an active trade in cereals, wines and cattle.
BEKKER, AUGUST IMMANUEL (1785–1871), German philologist and critic, was born on the 21st of May 1785. He completed his classical education at the university of Halle under F. A. Wolf, who considered him as his most promising pupil. In 1810 he was appointed professor of philosophy in the university of Berlin. For several years, between 1810 and 1821, he travelled in France, Italy, England and parts of Germany, examining classical manuscripts and gathering materials for his great editorial labours. He died at Berlin on the 7th of June 1871. Some detached fruits of his researches were given in the Anecdota Graeca, 1814–1821; but the full result of his unwearied industry and ability is to be found in the enormous array of classical authors edited by him. Anything like a complete list of his works would occupy too much space, but it may be said that his industry extended to nearly the whole of Greek literature with the exception of the tragedians and lyric poets. His best known editions are: Plato (1816–1823), Oratores Attici (1823–1824), Aristotle (1831–1836), Aristophanes (1829), and twenty-five volumes of the Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae. The only Latin authors edited by him were Livy (1829–1830) and Tacitus (1831). Bekker confined himself entirely to textual recension and criticism, in which he relied solely upon the MSS., and contributed little to the extension of general scholarship.
See Sauppe, Zur Erinnerung an Meineke und Bekker (1872); Haupt, “Gedächtnisrede auf Meineke und Bekker,” in his Opuscula, iii.; E. I. Bekker, “Zur Erinnerung an meinen Vater,” in the Preussisches Jahrbuch, xxix.
BEKKER, BALTHASAR (1634–1698), Dutch divine, was born in Friesland in 1634, and educated at Groningen, under Jacob Alting, and at Franeker. He was pastor at Franeker, and from 1679, at Amsterdam. An enthusiastic disciple of Descartes, he wrote several works in philosophy and theology, which by their freedom of thought aroused considerable hostility. His best known work Die Betooverde Wereld (1691), or The World Bewitched (1695; one volume of an English translation from a French copy), in which he examined critically the phenomena generally ascribed to spiritual agency, and attacked the belief in sorcery and “possession” by the devil, whose very existence he questioned. The book is interesting as an early study in comparative religion, but its publication in 1692 led to Bekker’s deposition from the ministry. He died at Amsterdam.
BEKKER (or Wolff), ELIZABETH (1738–1804), Dutch novelist, was married to Adrian Wolff, a Reformed clergyman, but is always known under her maiden name. After the death of her husband in 1777, she resided for some time in France, with her close friend, Agatha Deken. She was exposed to some of the dangers of the French Revolution, and, it is said, escaped the guillotine only by her great presence of mind. In 1795 she returned to Holland, and resided at the Hague till her death. Her novels were written in conjunction with Agatha Deken, and it is somewhat difficult to determine the exact qualities contributed by each. The Historie van William Levend (1785), Historie van Sara Burgerhart (1790), Abraham Blankaart (1787), Cornelie Wildschut (1793–1796), were extremely popular.
BEL, the name of a chief deity in Babylonian religion, the counterpart of the Phoenician Baal (q.v.) ideographically written as En-lil. Since Bel signifies the “lord” or “master” par excellence, it is, therefore, a title rather than a genuine name, and must have been given to a deity who had acquired a position at the head of a pantheon. The real name is accordingly to be sought in En-lil, of which the first element again has the force of “lord” and the second presumably “might,” “power,” and the like, though this cannot be regarded as certain. En-lil is associated with the ancient city of Nippur, and since En-lil with the determinative for “land” or “district” is a common method of writing the name of the city, it follows, apart from other evidence, that En-lil was originally the patron deity of Nippur. At a very early period—prior to 3000 B.C.—Nippur had become the centre of a political district of considerable extent, and it is to this early period that the designation of En-lil as Bel or “the lord” reverts. Inscriptions found at Nippur, where extensive excavations were carried on during 1888–1900 by Messrs Peters and Haynes, under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania, show that Bel of Nippur was in fact regarded as the head of an extensive pantheon. Among the titles accorded to him are “king of lands,” “king of heaven and earth” and “father of the gods.” His chief temple at Nippur was known as E-Kur, signifying “mountain house,” and such was the sanctity acquired by this edifice that Babylonian and Assyrian rulers, down to the latest days, vied with one another in embellishing and restoring Bel’s seat of worship, and the name itself became the designation of a temple in general. Grouped around the main sanctuary there arose temples and chapels to the gods and goddesses who formed his court, so that E-Kur became the name for an entire sacred precinct in the city of Nippur. The name “mountain house” suggests a lofty structure and was perhaps the designation originally of the staged tower at Nippur, built in imitation of a mountain, with the sacred shrine of the god on the top. The tower, however, also had its special designation of “Im-Khar-sag,” the elements of which, signifying “storm” and “mountain,” confirm the conclusion drawn from other evidence that En-lil was originally a storm-god having his seat on the top of a mountain. Since the Euphrates valley has no mountains, En-lil would appear to be a god whose worship was carried into Babylonia by a wave of migration from a mountainous country—in all probability from Elam to the east.
When, with the political rise of Babylon as the centre of a great empire, Nippur yielded its prerogatives to the city over which Marduk presided, the attributes and the titles of En-lil were transferred to Marduk, who becomes the “lord” or Bel of later days. The older Bel did not, however, entirely lose his standing. Nippur continued to be a sacred city after it ceased
