110
BANGOR — BANKIM
steam tramway, and the railway to Korat, on the lower sections of which the traffic has been steadily increasing, was opened for traffic to that place towards the end of 1900. The affairs of the town were for a long time controlled by a Local Government Department. Latterly a Sanitary Board has been created, and has done excellent work, not before it was needed. In the near future a municipality will probably be formed in which the European residents will be represented in proportion to their interests, in which case it may be expected that the long-talked-of waterworks and drainage scheme will be effectively carried out. There are good dispensaries and hospitals, and French, Koman Catholic, and American Protestant missions. Steps are being taken to improve primary education by raising the efficiency of the monastery schools and bringing them under regular Government supervision. The population, though composed principally of Siamese and Chinese, includes representatives of every race to be found in Indo-China, as well as a large number of natives of India. The total has been variously estimated, and probably exceeds 400,000. The climate, though enervating from the humidity of the atmosphere, is not one of extreme heat, owing to its proximity to the gulf, from which during the hot season (February to April) a strong sea-breeze blows nearly every day. 93° Fahr. is an exceptional maximum in the daytime, and at night the thermometer generally falls below 90°, and renders sleep possible. In the rainy season (May to October) there is a rainfall which seldom exceeds 50 inches. The cold season which follows is dry and pleasant, the temperature at night occasionally falling below 70° Fahr. In 1888, 472 ships of 352,445 tons (396 of 300,247 tons, steam) cleared the port; in 1898 the total number was 524 of 453,341 tons (509 of 444,653 tons, steam). These figures do not include junks, of which from 200 to 300 enter the port from the Malay peninsula, Cambodian, and South China ports in the course of the year. For the ten years ending 1898 British shipping averaged 74 per cent, of the whole, and in value of cargoes carried reached an even higher percentage. The transference of both the Holt Singapore and Scottish Oriental Hongkong lines to the German flag in 1899, and the enterprise of the Danish East Asiatic Company, will effect a considerable reduction in these figures in the next few years. In 1889 the total exports were valued at £2,286,280, and in 1899 at £3,123,775 ; the value of the rice output in 1899 was £2,223,953, and of teak £323,867. The imports in 1889 were valued at £1,593,257, and in 1899 at £2,532,137, treasure being the largest item in both years, followed by cotton goods, opium, silk goods, gunny bags, iron, steel, and machinery. For recent authorities, see Siam. (h. W. Sm.) Bangor, a municipal (1883) and contributory parliamentary borough (Carnarvon district), seaport, and market town of Carnarvonshire, North Wales, at the north end of Menai Strait, 240 miles W. of London by rail. The Cathedral has been restored; there are three other churches and twenty-one Nonconformist chapels. The town council possess the gas and water works, electric light works, a fine promenade pier and ferries, fine (enclosed) open-air sea-water baths, museum and reading-room, infectious diseases hospital, and public cemetery. The University College of North Wales (1883) is located here, and a hall for female students has been provided. There are also the Independent and Baptist Colleges, the Normal College, the North Wales Training College, and two intermediate schools (boys and girls), two public halls, and an infirmary. Area of municipal borough, 1208 acres. Population (1881), 9005; (1901), 11,269. Bangor, a city and seaport of Maine, U.S.A., capital of Penobscot county, situated in the southern part of the State, on the west bank of Penobscot river. Several branches of the Maine Central Railway have their
termini here. Power for manufacturing is supplied by the Penobscot, and the city has large and varied manufactures. The lumber business is, however, still of the greatest importance, 175,000,000 feet of lumber being sawn annually. Population (1880), 16,856; (1900), 21,850. Bangweulu, a shallow lake of Eastern Central Africa, roughly oval in shape, formed by the head stream of the Congo. It lies between 10° 48' and 11° 31' S. lat. and is cut by 30° E. long. Except on the west, its shores are fringed with marsh, overgrown with reeds and papyrus. The three islands Kirui, Kisi, and Mbawala much diminish the extent of open water, the channel between the two former being 3J miles wide with a depth of 12| feet, and that between Kisi and Mbawala nearly 5 miles with 15 feet in the centre. On the west shore a long narrow peninsula almost separates the lakelet Chifunawuli from the main body of water. The Chambezi, the most remote head stream of the Congo, enters the south-east corner through a mass of aquatic vegetation, while some 25 miles farther west the Luapula makes its exit through a vast marsh extending to 12° 20' S. lat. Though heard of by the Portuguese traveller Lacerda in 1798, Bangweulu was first reached in 1868 by Dr Livingstone, who died six years later among the swamps to the south. It was partially surveyed in 1883 by the French traveller Giraud, and first circumnavigated by Mr Poulett Weather ley in 1896. Its altitude is about 3700 feet. See Geographical Journal, vol. xii. p. 241 ; vol. xiv. p. 561. Ba.njerina.Sin (Dutch, Bcmdjermasin), a district in the south-east of Borneo, on the Barito, now, after much fighting and insurrection, the chief district in the residency of South and East Borneo. The seat of the Resident is at the towrn of Banjermasin, in 3° 18' S., 114° 35' E., on the left bank of the Barito, where its tributary, the Martapura, forms with it the small island of Tatas. As both these rivers are navigable for large vessels, the town is a trade-centre for the products of all the districts along their banks (benzoin, rattans, wax, gold, diamonds, iron, and weapons). The population in 1898 was 48,021, including 2230 Chinese, 882 Arabs, and 531 Europeans. Bankim Chandra Chatterji (1838-1894), the greatest novelist of India in the 19th century, was born in the district of Twenty-four Parganas in Bengal in 1838. He received an English education, first in the Hugh College, and then in the Presidency College of Calcutta, and he was the first B.A. of the Calcutta University. Shortly after leaving college he published his first historical novel, the Durges-Nandini, or The Chieftain's Daughter. To Bankim Chandra is due the credit of creating in India a school of fiction after the modern European model. His first work, named above, and modelled upon the style of Sir Walter Scott, made a great sensation in Bengal. It was followed by the Kapala-Kundala and the Mrinalini, and established his fame as a writer, with a creative imagination and a power of delineation as yet unsurpassed in India. In 1872 he brought out his first social novel, the Bisha-Brikkha, or The Poison Tree, which was followed by others in rapid succession. For over twenty years the reading public in Bengal recognized and felt the power of the talented novelist, and Bengali ladies in the zenana read every new work of Bankim Chandra as it issued from the press. During all these years Bankim Chandra was serving the British Government as a deputymagistrate in various districts of Bengal. His ability as a magistrate and as an official was appreciated, and oh his retirement he was decorated and made a Companion of the Indian Empire. In his last years he wrote on Hindu religion, and died in 1894. Some of his novels have been
