mperature in the hot season is very
oppressive and relaxing. The Bishnupur raj was one of the largest estates
in Bengal in the end of the 18th century, but it was sold for arrears of
revenue shortly after the conclusion of the permanent settlement in 1793.

BANN, the principal river in the north of Ireland. Rising in the Mourne
mountains in the south of the Co. Down it runs N.W. until it enters Lough
Neagh (_q.v._), which it drains N.N.W. to an estuary at Coleraine, forming
Lough Beg immediately below the larger lough. The length of its valley
(excluding the lesser windings of the river) is about 90 m. The total
drainage area, including the other important feeders of Lough Neagh, is
about 2300 sq. m., extending westward to the confines of the Co. Fermanagh,
and including parts of the Cos. Down and Antrim, Armagh and Monaghan,
Tyrone and Londonderry. The river has valuable salmon fisheries, but is not
of much importance for navigation. Above Lough Neagh it is known as the
Upper Bann and below as the Lower Bann.

BANNATYNE, GEORGE (1545-?1608), collector of Scottish poems, was a native
of Newtyle, Forfarshire. He became an Edinburgh merchant and was admitted a
burgess in 1587. Some years earlier, in 1568, when the "pest" raged in the
capital, he retired to his native county and amused himself by writing out
copies of poems by 15th and early 16th century Scots poets. His work
extended to eight hundred folio pages, divided into five parts. The MS.
descended to his only daughter Janet, and later to her husband's family,
the Foulises of Woodhall and Ravelston, near Edinburgh. From them it passed
to the Advocates' library, where it is still preserved. This MS., known as
the "Bannatyne Manuscript," constitutes with the "Asloan" and "Maitland
Folio" MSS. the chief repository of Middle Scots poetry, especially for the
texts of the greater poets Henryson, Dunbar, Lyndsay and Alexander Scott.
Portions of it were reprinted (with modifications) by Allan Ramsay in his
_Ever Green_ (1724), and later, and more correctly, by Lord Hailes in his
_Ancient Scottish Poems_ (1770). The entire text was issued by the
Hunterian Club (1873-1902) in a handsome and generally accurate form. The
name of Bannatyne was honoured in 1823 by the foundation in Edinburgh of
the Bannatyne Club, devoted to the publication of historical and literary
material from Scottish sources. The thirty-third issue of the club (1829)
was _Memorials of George Bannatyne_ (154