nt, of Bearn; and Sauveterre, a town finely
situated on the Gave d'Oloron, with an old bridge, remains of a feudal
castle, and a church in the Romanesque and Gothic styles.

BASSET, or BASSETTE, a French game of cards played by five persons with a
pack of fifty-two cards. Once very popular, it is now practically obsolete.
It is said to be of Venetian origin and to have been introduced into France
by Justiniani, the ambassador of Venice in the second half of the 17th
century. It resembles lansquenet (_q.v._) in a general way, in that it is
played between a banker and several punters, the players winning or losing
according as cards turned up match those already exposed or not.

BASSET HORN (Fr. _Cor de Basset_, or _Cor de Bassette_; Ger. _Bassethorn_,
_Basshorn_; Ital. _Corno di Bassetto_), a wood-wind instrument, not a
"horn," member of the clarinet family, of which it is the tenor. The basset
horn consists of a nearly cylindrical tube of wood (generally cocus or
box-wood), having a cylindrical bore and terminating in a metal bell wider
than that of the clarinet. For convenience in reaching the keys and holes,
the modern instrument is usually bent or curved either near the mouthpiece
or at the bell, which is turned upwards. The older models were bent in the
middle at an obtuse angle, and had at the bottom of the lower joint, near
the bell, a wooden block, inside which the bore was reflexed, and bent down
upon itself.[1] The basset horn has the same fingering as the clarinet, and
corresponds to the tenor of that instrument, being pitched a fifth below
the clarinet in C. The alto clarinet in Eb is often substituted for the
basset horn, especially in military bands, but the instruments differ in
three particulars:--(1) The basset horn has a metal bell instead of the
pear-shaped contracted bell of the alto clarinet. (2) The bore of the
basset horn is wider than that of the alto clarinet in Eb, or of the tenor
clarinet in F. (3) The tube of the basset horn is longer than that of the
clarinet, and contains four additional long keys, worked by the thumb of
the right hand, which in the clarinet is only used to steady the
instrument. These keys give the basset horn an extended compass of two
tones downwards to F [Notation: F2.] whereas the Eb clarinet only extends
to G [Notation: G2.] and the F clarinet to A [Notation: A2.] (actual
sounds). This brings the compass of the basset horn to a range of four
octaves from [Notation: C3 t