BELBEIS BELEM 483 he was blinded by his own uncle, for which | he took terrible revenge on a number of his ! enemies when king. Beta III. reigned from 1173 to 1196. He warred successfully against the Poles, Austrians, and Venetians, and recon- quered from the last named some cities in Dal- matia. He was married to a sister of Philip Au- j gustus, king of France. Beta IV. reigned from 1235 to 1270. He was son of Andrew II., was ; crowned in childhood, and when his father j went to Palestine received the title of rex junior, and finally joined in the opposition of the nobility against him. The greater part of his reign was stormy ; the nobility continued in its turbulence, and Hungary was dreadfully devastated by the invasion of the Mongols (1241), before whom he had to fly to Dalma- tia. (See HITNGAEY.) BELBEIS, Belbeys, or Belbes, a town of Lower Egypt, capital of a district of the same name, 28 m. N. N. E. of Cairo; pop. about 5,500. About 14 m. N. N. W. is the site of Bubastus, where traces of the Pelusian arm of the Nile are still visible, which probably led Bishop William of Tyre erroneously to identify Belbeis with Pelusiura. North of the town are the ruins of the city of Patumus, supposed to be the Pithour in the building of which the Israel- ites were employed by their Egyptian task- masters. The crusaders destroyed Belbeis, which was subsequently rebuilt and became an important station on the caravan road to Syria. It has not retained its prosperity. Napoleon I. had the fortifications repaired in 1798, but they have since fallen to decay. BELCHER, Sir Edward, a British naval officer and explorer, grandson of Chief Justice Belcher of Nova Scotia, born in 1799. He entered the navy at an early age, and, after having taken part as midshipman in the defence of Gaeta and the battle of Algiers, was in 1819 appointed to the Myrmidon sloop, destined for the African station. In 1825 he became as- sistant surveyor to the Behring strait discovery expedition under Capt. Beechey in the Blossom. In 1829 he was promoted to the rank of com- mander, and served on the coasts of Africa and of Portugal, rendering on the latter occa- sion valuable services to the British residents by protecting their property during the politi- cal troubles in Portugal. Subsequently he ex- plored the Pacific in the surveying vessel Sul- phur, passed over to the Chinese waters in 1841, materially assisting in the operations of the British army near Canton, and in acknowl- edgment of these services was knighted and appointed post captain. He published an ac- count of this voyage in his "Narrative of a Voyage Round the World " (1843). Afterward he was employed on board of the Samarang on surveying service in the East Indies, and was severely wounded while assisting the rajah of Sarawak, Sir James Brooke, in his efforts to subdue the pirates of Borneo. In 1852 he was sent in search of Sir John Franklin with five vessels, and made some important explorations in the neighborhood of Melville island. He rescued McClure and his crew, who had been three years imprisoned in the ice, but was obliged to abandon four of his own vessels, and reached home in 1854. On his return to England, he was tried before a court martial for voluntarily abandoning the ships. He was acquitted, and his sword returned to him; but while some of the other officers were commended, his name was passed over in significant silence. He is now (1873) a vice admiral. Besides his popular " Narrative," he has written " The Last of the Arctic Voyages " (2 vols., 1855). BELCHER. I. Jonathan, governor of Massa- chusetts and New Jersey, born at Cambridge, Mass., in January, 1681, died at Elizabeth town, N. J., Aug. 31, 1757. He graduated at Har- vard college in 1699, visited Europe, and made acquaintance with the princess Sophia and her son, afterward George I., and subsequently be- came a merchant in Boston. He was chosen a member of the council, and in 1729 went as agent of the colony to England. At the death of Gov. Burnet in 1730 he was appointed to the government of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, which station he held 11 years, and was then superseded. Repairing to Eng- land, he obtained the government of New Jersey, where he arrived in 1747, and where he spent the remainder of his life. He en- larged the charter of Pnnceton college, and was its chief patron and benefactor. II. Jona- than, chief justice of Nova Scotia, second son of the preceding, died at Halifax in March, 1767. He graduated at Harvard college in 1728, stud- ied law at the Temple in London, and was one of the first settlers of Chibucto, afterward called Halifax. In 1760 he was appointed lieu- tenant governor, and in 1761 chief justice. BELCHER, Tom, an English pugilist, born at Bristol in 1783, died at Peckham, Dec. 9, 1854. He was the hero of 12 prize fights, in eight of which he was the conqueror, in three he was defeated, and the 12th was a drawn battle. He was one of the 18 pugilists selected to act as pages at the coronation of George IV., to protect the access to Westminster abbey. BELED UL-JERID, " the land of dates," a ster- ile region of Africa S. of the Atlas chain, on the borders of the great Sahara, extending from the borders of Morocco to Tripoli. It received its name from the numerous date palms found in its oases. BELEM, a suburb of Lisbon, Portugal, on the Tagus, S. W. of the city. It derives its name from the church of Our Lady of Bethlehem, built here by King Emanuel in 1499, on the return of Vasco da Gama from his expedition to India around the Cape of Good Hope. This magnificent structure was erected on the site of the chapel in which Da Gama and his com- panions passed the night in prayer previous to embarkation. The stone is a carbonate of lime obtained in the vicinity, and was originally white, but is now of a rich golden hue. The
