(JOHN' BAPTIST), Italian traveler: b. Padua 1778; d. 3 Dec. 1823. Destined for a monastic life he was educated at Rome, but left the city when it was occupied by the French and in 1803 went to England, where he acted in Ast ley's amphitheatre. Here he acquired, besides an acquaintance with the English language, much knowledge of the science of hydraulics, the study of which had been his chief occupa tion in Rome and which afterward carried him to Egypt. He left England after a residence of nine years and took his way through Portu gal, Spain and Malta to Egypt. There he lived from 1815 to 1819, at first as a dancer, till he won the favor of the pasha. Belzoni kept the rude inhabitants of the country in awe by his extraordinary stature and strength. The ob ject of his journey to Egypt was to build a hydraulic engine for Mohammed Ali, to raise the waters of the Nile. Here he met Burck hardt and Salt and by them was advised to take up the exploration of Egyptian antiquities. He opened the second of the pyramids of Ghizeh, known by the name of Cephrenes. In the year 1816 he succeeded in transporting the Lust of Memnon from Thebes to Alexandria, whence it was taken to the British Museum. In 1817 he entered several catacombs near Thebes, especially one in a fine state of preser vation in the valley of Biban el Molook, which is considered to be the mausoleum of Psamme tichus, and from which he took the splendid alabaster sarcophagus which is now in the Brit ish Museum. On 1 August in the same year he opened the temple of Ipsambul, near the second cataract of the Nile, which two Frenchmen, Cailliaud and Drovetti, had discovered the year before, hut had not succeeded in opening. Bel zoni discovered a subterranean temple in its ruins, which until that time had been unknown. He then visited the coasts of the Red Sea and the city of Berenice, discovering the emerald mines of Zubara and made an expedition into the oasis of Jupiter Ammon. Belzoni refuted Cailliaud's assertion, that he had found the famous Berenice, the great emporium of Europe and India, by subsequent investigations on the spot, and by the actual discovery of the ruins of that great city four days' journey from the place which Cailliaud had taken for Berenice. Belzoni's 'Narrative of the Operations and Re cent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia; and of a Journey to the Coast of the Red Sea in Search of Berenice; also of another to the Oasis of Jupiter Ammon' (London 1820), ac companied by a folio volume of 44 copper-plate engravings, was received with general approba tion. Padua, his native city, requited his pres ent of two Egyptian statues from Thebes with a medal by Man fredini. In the year 1823 this
enterprising traveler had made Preparations for passing from Benin to Hausa and Timbuktu, when he died at Gato, on his way to Benin, 3 Dec. 1823. His knowledge of draughtsmanship was of great service to him in his archaeological researches. In 1829 his widow published his fine drawings of the royal tombs of Thebes. He believed the Nile and Niger to be different streams, and that the Niger emptied its waters into the Atlantic Ocean; opinions which have long been proved to be correct.
BEM, Josef, a distinguished military com mander: b. Tarnow, in Galicia, 1795; d. Aleppo, Syria, 1850. He was educated at the University of Cracow, and in 1810 was admitted into the corps of cadets founded at Warsaw by Na poleon, afterward entered the horse artillery, and took part as lieutenant in the expedition of the French army in Russia. For the bravery here displayed by him he received the decora tion of the cross of the Legion of Honor. On hearing of the outbreak of the Polish revolu tion, he at once hurried to Warsaw, and dur ing the whole of the Polish struggle he dis played great gallantry and military skill. On the night of 7 Sept. 1831, he held the bridge of Praga with his artillery, hut the following morning, on hearing of the agreement con cluded with the Russians, withdrew to Modlin. After the fall of Warsaw he went to Prussia, and in 1832 to Paris, where he was occupied partly with political schemes, partly with scien tific pursuits. Upon the commencement of the Austrian insurrection in 1848, Bern proceeded there and took a prominent part in conducting the defense of Vienna • against the imperial troops. Toward the end of the year he re ceived a commission from the new Hungarian government to undertake the conquest of Tran sylvania, and crossed over into that territory at the head of a large army, raised by his own exertions in an incredibly short space of time. His progress here was marked with great suc cess, with occasional checks; and in March 1849, he succeeded in driving the Austrians, with their Russian auxiliaries, into Wallachia. He subsequently made an incursion into the Banat which he compelled Puchner to evacu ate. keturning to Transylvania, he found him self opposed by overwhelming numbers, and, after several reverses, returned to Hungary, where he took part in the disastrous battle of Temesvar. Shortly after he went to Turkey, became a convert to Mohammedanism, and re ceived an appointment in the Sultan's army under the name of Amurath Pasha. He wrote a work on mnemonics entitled 'Expose general de la methode mnemonique polonaise.' Con sult Czetz, 'Bans Feldzug in Siebenbilrgen' (Hamburg 1850); and Lajos, N., 'Le general Bern) (Paris 1851).