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Bengal (BAY OF that portion)

BAY OF, that portion of the Indian Ocean which lies between Hindustan and Farther India, or Burma, Siam, and Malacca, and may be regarded as extending S. to Ceylon and Sumatra.

It receives the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Irrawadi. Calcutta, Rangoon, Madras are the most important towns on or near its coasts.

BENGUELA (ben-gā'la), a district of the Portuguese colony of Angola on the W. coast of South Africa; The country BENIN is mountainous in the interior, and. thickly intersected by rivers and streams.

Its vegetation is luxuriant, including every description of tropical produce, and animal life is equally abundant. Copper, silver, iron, salt, sulphur, petroleum, and other minerals are found. The natives are mostly rude and barbarous. Pop. over 2,000,000. The capital, also called Benguela, or San Felipe de Benguela, is situated on the coast, on a bay of the Atlantic, in a charming, but very unhealthful, valley. It was founded by the Portuguese in 1617, and was formerly an important center of the slave trade, but has now only a spasmodic trade in ivory, wax, gum, copal, etc. Pop. about 3,600.