is duty by them. And so
the expression _bunkum_ came into use.

Another word which may go with these, because it also begins with the
letter _b_, is _bedlam_. We describe a scene of great noise and
confusion, as when a number of children insist on talking all
together, as a "perfect bedlam." The word _bedlam_ comes from
Bethlehem. In the Middle Ages there was a hospital in London kept by
monks of the Order of St. Mary of Bethlehem. In time this house came
to be known as "Bedlam," and as after a while the hospital came to be
an asylum for mad people, this name came to be used for any lunatic
asylum. From that it came to have its modern use of any great noise or
confusion.

The sport of shooting pheasants is very English, and few people think
that the pheasant is a foreign bird, introduced into England, just as
in fact the turkey, which seems to belong especially to the English
Christmas, came to us from America. The _pheasant_ gets its name from
the river Phasis, in the Eastern country of Pontus. It may seem
peculiar that a bird coming from America should be called a _turkey_;
but we saw in an earlier chapter how vague the people of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries were about America. When Columbus reached the
shore of that continent, people thought he had sailed round by another
way to the "Indies." In nearly all European countries the turkey got
names which show that most people thought it came from India, or at
least from some part of the "Indies." Even in England it was called
for a time "cok off Inde." In Italy it was _gallina d'India_ (or
"Indian hen"). The modern French words for male and female turkeys
come from this mistake. In French the bird was at first known as
_pouille d'Inde_ (or "Indian fowl"). The name came to be shortened
into the one word _dinde_, and then, as people thought this must mean
the female turkey, they made a new word for the male, _dindon_.

But though so many words come from the names of places, and some of
these would not seem to do so at first sight, there are other words
which seem to come from place-names which do not do so at all.
_Brazil_ wood is found in large quantities in Brazil, but the wood is
not called after the country. On the contrary, the country is called
after the wood. This kind of wood was already used in Europe in the
twelfth century, and its name is found in several European languages.
When the Portuguese adventurers found such large quantities in this
part o