Bassorah, a port in Asiatic Turkey, on the Shatt-el-Arab; a place of great commercial importance when Bagdad was the seat of the caliphate; for a time sank into insignificance, but has of late revived.
Population (circa 1900) given as 40,000.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Bassompierre, François de * Basti`a