BUBASTIS, an Egyptian goddess, the Egyptian Diana, the wife of Ptah; and a city in Lower Egypt, on the eastern branch of the Nile.

BUCCANEERS, an association, chiefly English and French, of piratical adventurers in the 16th and 17th centuries, with their head-quarters in the Caribbean Sea, organised to plunder the ships of the Spaniards in resentment of the exclusive right they claimed to the wealth of the S. American continent, which they were carrying home across the sea.

BUCCLEUCH, a glen 18 m.  SW. of Selkirk, with a stronghold of the Scott family, giving the head the title of earl or duke.

BUCEN`TAUR, the state galley, worked by oars and manned by 168 rowers, in which the Doge of Venice used to sail on the occasion of the annual ceremony of wedding anew the Adriatic Sea by sinking a ring in it.

BUCEPH`ALUS (i. e. ox-head), the horse which Alexander the Great, while yet a youth, broke in when no one else could, and on which he rode through all his campaigns; it died in India from a wound.  The town, Bucephala, on the Hydaspes, was built near its grave.

BUCER MARTIN, a German Reformer, born at Strassburg; originally a Dominican, adopted the Reformed faith, ministered as pastor and professor in his native place, differed in certain matters from both Luther and Zwingli, while he tried to reconcile them; invited by Cranmer to England, he accepted the invitation, and became professor of Divinity at Cambridge, where he died, but his bones were exhumed and burned a few years later (1491-1551).

BUCH, LEOPOLD VON, a German geologist, a pupil of Werner and fellow-student of Alexander von Humboldt, who esteemed him highly; adopted the volcanic theory of the earth; wrote no end of scientific memoirs (1774-1853).

BUCHAN, a district in the NE. of Aberdeenshire, between the rivers Deveron and Ythan; abounds in magnificent rock scenery.  The Comyns were earls of it till they forfeited the title in 1309.

BUCHANAN, CLAUDIUS, born at Cambuslang, near Glasgow, chaplain in Barrackpur under the East India Company, vice-provost of the College at Fort William, Calcutta; one of the first to awaken an interest in India as a missionary field; wrote “Christian Researches in Asia” (1756-1815).

BUCHANAN, GEORGE, a most distinguished scholar and humanist, born at Killearn, Stirlingshire; educated at St. Andrews and Paris; professor for three years in the College at St. Barbe; returned to Scotland, became tutor to James V.’s illegitimate sons; imprisoned by Cardinal Beaton for satires against the monks, escaped to France; driven from one place to another, imprisoned in a monastery in Portugal at the instance of the Inquisition, where he commenced his celebrated Latin version of the Psalms; came back to Scotland, was appointed in 1562 tutor to Queen Mary, in 1566 principal of St. Leonard’s College, in St. Andrews, in 1567 moderator of the General Assembly in 1570 tutor to James VI., and had several offices