BASTI, a town and district of British India, in the Gorakhpur division of the United Provinces. The town, a collection of villages, is on the river Kuana, 40 m. from Gorakhpur by railway. The population in 1901 was 14,761. It has no municipality. The district has an area of 2792 sq. m. It stretches out in one vast marshy plain, draining towards the south-east, and traversed by the Rapti, Kuana, Banganga, Masdih, Jamwar, Ami and Katneihia rivers. The tract lying between these streams consists of a rich alluvial deposit, more or less subject to inundations, but producing good crops of rice, wheat and barley. In 1901 the population was 1,846,153, showing an increase of 3% in the decade. A railway from Gorakhpur to Gonda runs through the district, and the river Gogra is navigable. A large transit trade is conducted with Nepal. The export trade of the district itself is chiefly in rice, sugar and other agricultural produce.
BASTIA, a town and seaport on the eastern coast of the island of Corsica, 98 m. N.N.E. of Ajaccio by rail. Pop. (1906) 24,509. Bastia, the chief commercial town in Corsica, consists of the densely-populated quarter of the old port with its labyrinth of steep and narrow streets, and of a more modern quarter to the north, which has grown up round the new port. La Traverse, a fine boulevard, intersects the town from north to south. Rising from the sea-shore like an amphitheatre, Bastia presents an imposing appearance, which is enhanced by the loftiness of its houses; it has, however, little of architectural interest to offer. Its churches, of which the largest is San Giovanni Battista, are florid in decoration, as are the law-court, the theatre and the hôtel-de-ville. The citadel, which dominates the old port, has a keep of the 14th century. As capital of an arrondissement, Bastia is the seat of a tribunal of first instance and a sub-prefect, while it is also the seat of the military governor of Corsica, of a court of appeal for the whole island, of a court of assizes, and of a tribunal and a chamber of commerce, and has a lycée, a branch of the Bank of France, and a library with between 30,000 and 40,000 volumes. The town has active commerce, especially with Italy. The new port has 1100 ft. of quayage, served by a railway, and with a depth alongside of 25 ft. The total number of vessels entered in 1907 was 721 with a tonnage of 337,551, of which 203,950 were French. The chief exports are chestnut extract for tanning, cedrates, citrons, oranges, early vegetables, fish, copper ore and antimony ore. Imports include coal, grain, flour and wine. Industry consists chiefly in fishing (sardines, &c., and coral), the manufacture of tobacco, oil-distilling, tanning, and the preparation of preserved citrons and of macaroni and similar provisions.
Bastia dates from the building of the Genoese fortress or “bastille” by Lionello Lomellino in 1383. Under the Genoese it was long the principal stronghold in the north of the island, and the residence of the governor; and in 1553 it was the first town attacked by the French. On the division of the island in 1797 into the two departments of Golo and Liamone, Bastia remained the capital of the former; but when the two were again united Ajaccio obtained the superiority. The city was taken by the English in 1745 and again in 1794.
BASTIAN, ADOLF (1826- ), German ethnologist, was born at Bremen on the 26th of June 1826. He was educated as a physician, but from his early years devoted himself to travel. Proceeding to Australia in 1851 as surgeon on a vessel, he had visited almost every part of the world before his return in 1859. In 1861 he made an expedition to the Far East which lasted five years. Upon his return he commenced the publication of his great work on The Peoples of Eastern Asia, an immense storehouse of facts owing little to arrangement or style. He settled in Berlin, where he was made professor of ethnology at the university and keeper of the ethnological museum. He succeeded R. Virchow as president of the Berlin Anthropological Society, and to him was largely due the formation in 1878 of the German Africa Society of Berlin, which did much to encourage German colonization in Africa. Later he undertook further scientific travels in Africa, South America and India. The results of these explorations were made public in a long series of separate publications comprising several on Buddhism, and on the psychological problems presented by native superstitions. Bastian also edited the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie from 1869, in conjunction with Virchow and Robert von Hartmann. On his seventieth birthday, 1896 (during which year he started on an expedition to Malaysia), he was presented with a volume of essays composed by the most distinguished ethnologists in celebration of the event and dedicated to him. Among his more important works may be mentioned:—Der Mensch in der Geschichte (Leipzig, 1860); Die Völker des östlichen Asien (Jena, 1866-1871); Ethnologische Forschungen (Leipzig, 1871-1873); Die Kulturländer des alten Amerika (Berlin, 1878); Der Buddhismus in seiner Psychologie (Berlin, 1881); Indonesien (Leipzig, 1884); Der Fetisch an der Küste Guineas (Berlin, 1885); Die mikronesischen Kolonien (1899-1900); Die wechselnden Phasen im geschichtlichen Sehkreis und ihre Rückwirkung auf die Völkerkunde (1900).
BASTIAT, FRÉDÉRIC (1801-1850), French economist, was the son of a merchant of Bayonne, and was born in that town on the 29th of June 1801. Educated at the colleges of Saint-Sever and of Sorèze, he entered in 1818 the counting-house of his uncle at Bayonne. The practical routine of mercantile life being distasteful to him, in 1825 he retired to a property at Mugron, of which he became the owner on the death of his grandfather. Here Bastiat occupied himself with farming, his leisure being devoted to study and meditation. He welcomed with enthusiasm the Revolution of 1830. In 1831 he became a juge de paix of his canton, and in 1832 a member of the conseil général of the Landes. In 1834 he published his first pamphlet, and between 1841 and 1844 three others, all on questions of taxation affecting local interests. During this period an accidental circumstance led him to become a subscriber to an English newspaper, the Globe and Traveller, through which he was made acquainted with the nature and progress of the crusade of the Anti-Corn-Law League against protection. After studying the movement for two years, he resolved to inaugurate a similar movement in France. To prepare the way, he contributed in 1844 to the Journal des Économistes an article “Sur l’influence des tarifs anglais et français,” which attracted great attention, and was followed by others, including the first series of his brilliant Sophismes Économiques.
In 1845 Bastiat came to Paris in order to superintend the publication of his Cobden et la Ligue, ou l’agitation anglaise pour la liberté des échanges, and was very cordially received by the economists of the capital. From Paris he went to London and Manchester, and made the personal acquaintance of Cobden, Bright and other leaders of the league. When he returned to France he found that his writings had been exerting a powerful influence; and in 1846 he assisted in organizing at Bordeaux the first French Free-Trade Association (Association pour la Liberté des Échanges). The rapid spread of the movement soon required him to abandon Mugron for Paris.