Rig Veda), it is sometimes regarded as a late addition. But we can scarcely think the main conception late, as it is so widely scattered that it meets us in most mythologies, including those of Chaldaea and Egypt, and various North-American tribes. Not satisfied with this myth, the Aryans of India accounted for the origin of species in the following barbaric style. A being named Purusha was alone in the world. He differentiated himself into two beings, husband and wife. The wife, regarding union with her producer as incest, fled from his embraces as Nemesis did from those of Zeus, and Rhea from Cronus, assuming various animal disguises. The husband pursued in the form of the male of each animal, and from these unions sprang the various species of beasts (SatapathaBrahmana, xiv. 4, 2; Muir i. 25). The myth of the cosmic egg from which all things were produced is also current in the Brah manas. In the Puranas we find the legend of many successive creations and destructions of the world a myth of world-wide distribution. As a rule, destruction by a deluge is the most favourite myth, but destructions by fire and wind and by the wrath of a god are common in Australian, Peruvian and Egyptian tradition. The idea that a boar, or a god in the shape of a boar, fished up a bit of earth, which subsequently became the world, out of the waters, is very well known to the Aryans of India, and recalls the feats of American musk-rats and coyotes already described. The tortoise from which all things sprang, in a myth of the Satapatha-Brahmana, reminds us of the Iroquois turtle. The Greek and Mangaian myth of the marriage of Heaven and Earth and its dissolution is found in the Aitareya-Brahmana (Haug's trans. ii. 308; Rig Veda, i. Ixii.). So much for the Indian cosmogonic myths, which are a collection of ideas familiar to savages, blended with sacerdotal theories and ritual mummeries. The philosophical theory of the origin of things, a hymn of remarkable stateliness, is in Rig Veda, x. 129. The Scandinavian cosmogonic myth starts from the abyss, Ginnungagap, a chaos of ice, from which, as it thawed, was produced the giant Ymir. Ymir is the Scandinavian Purusha. A man and woman sprang from his armpit, like Athene from the head of Zeus. A cow licked the hoar-frost, whence rose Bur, whose children, Odin, Vile and Ve, slew the giant Ymir. "Of his flesh they formed the earth, of his blood seas and waters, of his bones mountains, of his teeth rocks and stones, of his hair all manner of plants." This is the story in the Prose Edda, derived from older songs, such as the Grimmersmal. However the distribution of this singular myth may be explained, its origin can scarcely be sought in the imagination of races higher in culture than the Tinneh and Tacullies, among whom dogs and beavers are the theriomorphic form of Purusha or Ymir. Myths of the Origin of Man.-These partake of the conceptions of evolution and of creation. Man was made out of clay by a supernatural being. Australia: man was made by Pund-jel. New Zealand: man was made by Tiki; "he took red clay, and kneaded it with his own blood." Mangaia: the woman of the abyss made a child from a piece of flesh plucked out of her own side. Melanesia: "man was made of clay, red from the marshy side of Vanua Levu"; woman was made by Qat of willow twigs. Greece: men were λáμаτа λû, figures baked in clay by Prometheus.2 India: men were made after many efforts, in which the experimental beings did not harmonize with their environment, by Prajapati. In another class of myths, man was evolved out of the lower animals -lizards in Australia; coyotes, beavers, apes and other beasts in America. The Greek myths of the descent of the Arcadians, Myrmidons, children of the swan, the cow, and so forth, may be compared. Yet again, men came out of trees or plants or rocks: as from the Australian wattle-gum, the Zulu bed of reeds, the great tree of the Ovahereros, the rock of the tribes in Central Africa, the cave of Bushman and North-American and Peruvian myth, "from tree or stone (Odyssey, xix. 163). This view was common among the Greeks, who boasted of being autochthonous. The Cephisian marsh was one scene of man's birth according to a fragment of Pindar, who mentions Egyptian and Libyan legends of the same description. " Myths of the Arts of Life.-These are almost unanimously attributed to "culture-heroes," beings theriomorphic or anthropomorphic, who, like Pund-jel, Qat, Quawteaht, Prometheus, Manabozho, Quetzalcoatl, Cagn and the rest, taught men the use of the bow, the processes (where known) of pottery, agriculture (as Demeter), the due course of the mysteries, divination, and everything else they knew. Commonly the teacher disappears mysteriously. He is often regarded by modern mythologists as the sun. Star Myths." The stars came otherwise," says Browning's Caliban. In savage and civilized myths they are usually metamorphosed men, women and beasts. In Australia, the Pleiades, as in Greece, were girls. Castor and Pollux in Greece, as in Australia, were young men. Our Bear was a bear, according to Charlevoix and Lafitau, among the North-American Indians; the Eskimo, Black Yajur Veda and Satapatha-Brahmana; Muir, i. 52. Aristophanes, Aves, 686; Etym. Magn., s.v. 'IKOPLOV. Pausanias saw the clay (Paus. x. iv.). The story is also quoted by Lactantius from Hesiod. according to Egede, who settled the Danish colony in Greenland, regarded the stars very nonsensically," as "so many of their ancestors "the Egyptian priests showed Plutarch the stars that had been Isis and Osiris. Aristophanes, in the Pax, shows us that the belief in the change of men into stars survived in his own day in Greece. The Bushmen (Bleek) have the same opinion. The Satapatha-Brakmana (Sacred Books of the East, xii. 284) shows how Prajapati, in his incestuous love, turned himself into a roebuck, his daughter into a doe, and how both became constellations. This is a thoroughly good example of the savage myths (as in Peru, according to Acosta) by which beasts and anthropomorphic gods and stars are all jumbled together. The Rig Veda contains examples of the idea that the good become stars. Solar and Lunar Myths.-These are universally found, and are, too numerous to be examined here. The sun and moon, as in the Bulgarian ballad of the Sun's Bride (a mortal girl), are looked on as living beings. In Mexico they were two men, or gods of a human character who were burned. The Eskimo know the moon as a man who visits earth, and, again, as a girl who had her face spotted by ashes which the Sun threw at her. The Khasias make the sun a woman, who daubs the face of the moon, a man. The Homeric hymn to Helios, as Max Müller observes, looks on the sun as a half-god, almost a hero, who had once lived on earth." This is precisely the Bushman view; the sun was a man who irradiated light from his armpit. In New Zealand and in North America the sun is a beast, whom adventurers have trapped and beaten. Medicine has been made with his blood. In the Andaman Islands the Sun is the wife of the Moon (Jour. of Anth. Soc., 1882). Among aboriginal tribes in India (Dalton, p. 186) the Moon is the Sun's bride; she was faithless and he cut her in two, but occasionally lets her shine in full beauty. The Andaman Islanders account for the white brilliance of the moon by saying that he is daubing himself with white clay, a custom common in savage and Greek mysteries. The Red Men accounted to the Jesuits for the spherical forms of sun and moon by saying that their appearance was caused by their bended bows. The Moon in Greek myths loved Endymion, and was bribed to be the mistress of Pan by the present of a fleece, like the Dawn in Australia, whose unchastity was rewarded by a gift of a red cloak of opossum skin. Solar and lunar myths usually account for the observed phenomena of eclipse, waning and waxing, sunset, spots on the moon, and so forth by various mythical adventures of the animated heavenly beings. In modern folk-lore the moon is a place to which bad people are sent, rather than a woman or a man. The mark of the hare in the moon has struck the imagination of Germans, Mexicans, Hottentots, Sinhalese, and produced myths among all these races. Myths of Death.-Few savage races regard death as a natural event. All natural deaths are supernatural with them. Men are assumed to be naturaliy immortal, hence a series of myths to account for the origin of death. Usually some custom or "taboo" is represented as having been broken, when death has followed. In New Zealand, Maui was not properly baptized. In Australia, a woman was told not to go near a certain tree where a bat lived; she infringed the prohibition, the bat fluttered out, and men died. The Ningphoos were dismissed from Paradise and became mortal, because one of them bathed in water which had been tabooed (Dalton, p. 13). In the Atharva Veda, Yama, like Maui in New Zealand, first " spied out the path to the other world," which all men after him have taken. In the Rig Veda (x. 14), Yama" sought out a road for many." In the Solomon Islands (Jour. Anth, Inst., Feb. 1881), "Koevari was the author of death, by resuming her cast-off skin." The same story is told in the Banks Islands. In the Greek myth (Hesiod, Works and Days, 90), men lived without "ill diseases that give death to men" till the cover was lifted from the forbidden box of Pandora. As to the myths of Hades, the place of the dead, they are far too many to be mentioned in detail. In almost all the gates of hell are guarded by fierce beasts, and in Ojibway, Finnish, Greek, Papuan and Japanese myths no mortal visitor may escape from Hades who has once tasted the food of the dead. Myths of Fire-stealing.-Those current in North America (where an animal is commonly the thief) will be found in Bancroft, vol. iv. The Australian version, singularly like one Greek legend, is given by Brough Smyth. Stories of the theft of Prometheus are recorded by Hesiod, Aeschylus, and their commentators. Muir and Kuhn may be consulted for Vedic fire-stealing. Heroic and Romantic Myths.-In addition to myths which are clearly intended to explain facts of the universe, most nations have their heroic and romantic myths. Familiar examples are the stories of Perseus, Odysseus, Sigurd, the Indian epic stories, the adventures of Ilmarinen and Wainamoinen in the Kalewala, and so forth. To discuss these myths as far as they can be considered apart from divine and explanatory tales would demand more space than we have at our disposal. It will become evident to any student of the romantic myths that they consist of different arrange survivals of savage fancy, see Fortnightly Review, May 1872, " Myths and Fairy Tales." The old explanation was that märchen are degenerate heroic myths. This does not explain the märchen of African, and perhaps not of Siberian races. In this sketch of mythology that of Rome is not included, because its most picturesque parts are borrowed from or adapted into harmony with the mythology of Greece. Greece, India and Scandinavia will supply a fair example of Aryan mythology (without entering on the difficult Slavonic and Celtic fields). (A. L.) MYXOEDEMA (or athyrea), the medical term for a constitutional disease (see METABOLIC DISEASES) due to the degeneration of the thyroid gland, and occurring in adults; it may be contrasted with cretinism, which is a condition appearing in early childhood. There are two forms, myxoedema proper and operative myxoedema (cachexia strumipriva). (1) Myxoedema has been termed "Gull's Disease" from Sir William Gull's observations in 1873. Women are more often the victims than men, in a ratio of 6 to 1. It frequently affects members of the same family and may be transmitted through the mother, and it has been observed sometimes to follow exophthalmic goitre. The symptoms are a marked increase in bulk and weight of the body, puffy appearance of skin which does not pit on pressure, the line of the features becoming obliterated and getting coarse and broad, the lips thick and nostrils enlarged, with loss of hair, subnormal temperature and marked mental changes. There is striking slowness of thought and action, the memory becomes defective, and the patient becomes irritable and suspicious. In some instances the condition progresses to that of dementia. The thyroid gland itself is diminished in size, and may become completely atrophied and converted into a fibrous mass. The untreated disease is progressive, but the course is slow and the symptoms may extend over 12 to 15 years, death from asthenia or tuberculosis being the most frequent ending. (2) Symptoms similar to the above may follow complete removal of the thyroid gland. Kocher of Bern found that, in the total removal of the gland by operation, out of 408 cases operative myxoedema occurred in 69, but it is thought that if a small portion of the gland is left, or if accessory glands are present, these symptoms will not develop. The treatment of myxoedema is similar to that of cretinism. ments of a rather limited set of incidents. These incidents have | myths may be adorned and classified märchen, in themselves been roughly classified by Von Hahn.' We may modify his arrangement as follows. There is (1) the story of a bride or bridegroom who transgresses a commandment of a mystic nature, and disappears as a result of the sin. The bride sins as in Eros and Psyche, Freja and Oddur, Pururavas and Urvasi. The sin of Urvasi and Psyche was secing their husbands-naked in the latter case. The sin was against "the manner of women." Now the rule of etiquette which forbids seeing or naming the husband (especially the latter) is of the widest distribution. The offence in the Welsh form of the story is naming the partner-a thing forbidden among early Greeks and modern Zulus. Presumably the tale (with its example of the sanction) survives the rule in many cases. (2) "Penelope formula." The man leaves the wife and returns after many years. A good example occurs in Chinese legend. (3) Formula of the attempt to avoid fate or the prophecy of an oracle. This incident takes numerous shapes, as in the story of the fatal birth of Perseus, Paris, the Egyptian prince shut up in a tower, the birth of Oedipus. (4) Slaughter of a monster. This is best known in the case of Andromeda and Perseus. (5) Flight, by aid of an animal usually, from cannibalism, human sacrifice, or incest. The Greek example is Phrixus, Helle, and the ram of the golden fleece. (6) Flight of a lady and her lover from a giant father or wizard father. Jason and Medea furnish the Greek example. (7) The youngest brother the successful adventurer, and the head of the family. We have seen the example of Greek mythic illustrations of "Jüngstenrecht," or supremacy of the youngest, in the Hesiodic myth of Zeus, the youngest child of Cronus. (8) Bride given to whoever will accomplish difficult adventures or vanquish girl in race. The custom of giving a bride without demanding bride-price, in reward for a great exploit, is several times alluded to in the Iliad. In Greek heroic myth Jason thus wins Medea, and (in the race) Milanion wins Atalanta. In the Kalewala much of the Jason cycle, including this part, recurs. The rider through the fire wins Brunhild but this may belong to another cycle of ideas. (9) The grateful beasts, who, having been aided by the hero, aid him in his adventures. Melampus and the snakes is a Greek example. This story is but one specimen of the personal human character of animals in myths, already referred to the intellectual condition of savages. (10) Story of the strong man and his adventures, and stories of the comrades Keen-eye, Quick-ear, and the rest. Jason has comrades like these, as had Ilmarinen and Heracles, the Greek "strong man.' (11) Adventure with an ogre, who is blinded and deceived by a pun of the hero's. Odysseus and Polyphemus is the Greek example. (12) Descent into Hades of the hero. Heracles, Odysseus, Wainamoinen in the Kalewala, are the best-known examples in epic literature. These are twelve specimens of the incidents, to which we may add (13) "the false bride," as in the poem of Berte aux grans Pies, and (14) the legend of the bride said to produce beast-children. The belief in the latter phenomenon is very common in Africa, and in the Arabian Nights, and we have seen it in America. Of these formulae (chosen because illustrated by Greek heroic legends)-(1) is a sanction of barbarous nuptial etiquette; (2) is an obvious ordinary incident: (3) is moral, and both (3) and (1) may pair off with all the myths of the origin of death from the infringement of a taboo or sacred command; (4) would naturally occur wherever, as on the West Coast of Africa, human victims have been offered to sharks or other beasts; (5) the story of flight from a horrible crime, occurs in some stellar myths, and is an easy and natural invention; (6) flight from wizard father or husband, is found in Bushman and Namaqua myth, where the husband is an elephant; (7) success of youngest brother, may have been an explanation and sanction of "Jüngsten-recht "-Maui in New Zealand is an example, and Herodotus found the story among the Scythians; (8) the bride given to successful adventurer, is consonant with heroic manners as late as Homer; (9) is no less consonant with the belief that beasts have human sentiments and supernatural powers; (10) the strong man," is found among Eskimo and Zulus, and was an obvious invention when strength was the most admired of qualities; (11) the baffled ogre, is found among Basques and Irish, and turns on a form of punning which inspires an "ananzi" story in West Africa; (12) descent into Hades, is the natural result of the savage conception of Hades, and the tale is told of actual living people in the Solomon Islands and in New Caledonia; Eskimo Angekoks can and do descend into Hades-it is the prerogative of the necromantic magician; (13) "the false bride," found among the Zulus. does not permit of such easy explanation-naturally, in Zululand, the false bride is an animal; (14) the bride accused of bearing beast-children, has already been disposed of; the belief is inevitable where no distinction worth mentioning is taken between men and animals. English folk-lore has its woman who bore rabbits. MYZOSTOMIDA, a remarkable group of small parasitic worms which live on crinoid echinoderms; they were first discovered by Leuckart in 1827. Some species, such as Myzostoma cirriferum, move about on the host; others, such as M. glabrum, remain stationary with the pharynx inserted in the mouth of the crinoid. M. deformator gives rise to a gall" on the arm of the host, one joint of the pinnule growing round the worm so as to enclose it in a cyst (see fig. E); whilst M. pulvinar lives actually in the alimentary canal of a species of Anledon. A typical myzostomid (see A, B, C) is of a flattened rounded shape, with a thin edge drawn out into delicate radiating cirri. The skin is ciliated. The dorsal surface is smooth; ventrally there are five pairs of parapodia, armed with supporting and hooked setae, by means of which the worm adheres to its host. Beyond the parapodia are four pairs of organs, often called suckers, but probably of sensory nature, and comparable to the lateral sense organs of Capitellids (Wheeler). The mouth and cloacal aperture are generally at opposite ends of the ventral surface. The former leads to a protrusible pharynx (B), from which the oesophagus opens into a wide intestinal chamber with branching lateral diverticula. There appears to be no vascular system. The nervous system consists of a circumoesophageal nerve, with scarcely differentiated brain, joining below a large ganglionic mass no doubt representing many fused ganglia (B). The dorsoventral and the parapodial muscles are much developed, whilst the coelom is reduced mostly to branched spaces in which the genital products ripen. Full-grown myzostomids are hermaphrodite. The male organ (C) consists of a branched sac opening to the exterior on each side. The paired ovaries discharge their products into a median coelemic chamber with lateral branches (C), often called the uterus, from which the ripe ova are discharged by a median dorsal pore into the terminal region of the rectum (cloaca). Into this same cloacal chamber open ventrally a pair of ciliated tubes communicating by funnels with the coelom (Nansen and Wheeler); these are possibly nephridia, and excretory in function. The Myzostomida are protandric hermaphrodites, being functional males when small, hermaphrodite later, and finally functional females (Wheeler). Small "males" are in some species constantly associated with large hermaphrodites, but according to Beard there are in some cases true dwarf males, comparable to the complementary males described by Darwin in the Cirripedia. The embryology of Myzostoma has been ph. C E D, Larva of Myzostoma glabrum. E, Portion of the arm of Penta- cyst long provisional setae. The mesoderm becomes segmented, and the parapodia subsequently develop from before backwards; but almost all internal traces of segmentation are lost in the adult. The structure and development of the Myzostomida seem to show that they are nearly related to Polychaeta (sce CHAETOBODA), though highly modified in relation to their parasitic mode of life. AUTHORITIES.-L. v. Graff, Das Genus Myzostoma (Leipzig. 1877); and "The Myzostomida," Challenger Reports (1884), vol. x.; E. Metchnikoff, Zeit. Wiss. Zool. (1866), vols. v., xvi.: J. Beard, Mitth. Z. St Neapel (1884), vol. v.; W. M. Wheeler, ibid. (1896), (E. S. G.) vol. xii. MZABITES, or BENI-MZAB, a confederation of Berber tribes, now under the direct authority of France. Of all the Berber peoples the Mzabites have remained freest from foreign admixture. Their own country is a region of the Algerian Sahara, about 100 m. south of El-Aghuat. It consists of five oases close together, viz. Ghardaia, Beni-Isguen, El-Ateuf, Melika and Bu Nura, and two isolated oases farther north, Berrian and Guerrara. The total population numbered at the 1906 census 45,996, of whom about 100 were Europeans and a very small proportion Arabs and Jews. The Mzabites are of small and slender figure, with very short necks and under-developed legs. Their faces are flat, with short nose, thick lips and very deep-set eyes, and their complexion pale. Their dress is a shirt of thick wool, usually many-coloured. They are agriculturists, and are also famed as traders. The butchers, fruiterers, bath-house keepers, road-sweepers and carriers of the African littoral from Tangier to Tripoli are nearly all Mzabites. Their industries, too, are highly organized. The Mzabite burnouses and carpets are found throughout North Africa. Their commercial honesty is proverbial. Nearly all read and write Arabic, though in talking among themselves they use the Zenata dialect of the Berber language, for which, in common with other Berber peoples, they have no written form surviving. They are Mahommedans, of the Ibadite sect, and are regarded as heretics by the Sunnites. Tiaret by the Fatimites, took refuge during the roth century According to tradition the Ibadites, after their overthrow at in the country to the south-west of Wargla, where they founded an independent state. In 1012, owing to further persecutions, they fled to their present quarters, where they long remained n, Ciliated tube (nephridium?). invulnerable. After the capture of El-Aghuat by the French, o, Opening. ov, Ovary. P. Parapodium. ph, Pharynx. s, Sense organ. vn, Ventral ganglionic mass. 9, Female opening. studied by Metchnikoff and Beard. Cleavage leads to the formation of an epibolic gastrula and ciliated embryo which hatches as a free-swimming larva remarkably like that of a Polychaete worm (D). The larva is provided with postoral and perianal ciliated bands, and on either side with a bunch of XIX 3* the Mzabites concluded with the Algerian government, in 1853, a convention by which they engaged to pay an annual contribution of £1800 in return for their independence. In November 1882 the Mzab country was definitely annexed to Algeria. Ghardaia (pop. 7868) is the capital of the confederation, and next in importance is Beni-Isguen (4916), the chief commercial centre. Since the establishment of French control, Beni-Isguen has become the dépôt for the sale of European goods. French engineers have rendered the oases much more fertile than they used to be by a system of irrigation works. (See also ALGERIA.) See A. Coyne, Le Mzab (Algiers, 1879); Rinn, Occupation du Mzab (Algiers, 1885); Amat, Le M'Zab et les M'Zabiles (Paris, 1888). Also ALGERIA and BERBERS. N NAAS (pron. Nace, as in place), a market town of Co. Kildare, Ireland, 20 m. S.W. from Dublin on branches of the Great Southern and Western railway and of the Grand Canal. Pop. (1901) 3836. It is situated among the foothills of the Wicklow Mountains, close to the river Liffey. The town is of great antiquity, and was a residence of the kings of Leinster, the place of whose assemblies is marked by a neighbouring rath or mound. Naas returned two members to the Irish parliament from 1559 until the union in 1800. Of a castle taken by Cromwell in 1650, and of several former abbeys, there are no remains. Punchestown racecourse, 2} m. S.E., is the scene of well-known steeplechases. NABATAEANS, a people of ancient Arabia, whose settlements in the time of Josephus (Ant. i. 12. 4; comp. Jerome, Quaest. in Gen. xxv.) gave the name of Nabatene to the border-land between Syria and Arabia from the Euphrates to the Red Sea. Josephus suggests, and Jerome, apparently following him, affirms, that the name is identical with that of the Ishmaelite tribe of Něbãiōth (Gen. xxv. 13; Isa. lx. 7), which in later Old Testament times had a leading place among the northern Arabs, and is associated with Kedar (Isa. lx. 7) much as Pliny v. 11 (12) associates Nabataei and Cedrei. The identification is rendered uncertain by the fact that the name Nabataean is properly spelled with not (on the inscriptions, cf. also Arabic Nabal, Nabil, &c.). Thus the history of the Nabataeans cannot certainly be carried back beyond 312 B.C., at which date they were attacked without success by Antigonus I. Cyclops in their mountain fortress of Petra. They are described by Diodorus (xix. 94 seq.) as being at this time a strong tribe of some 10,000 warriors, pre-eminent among the nomadic Arabs, eschewing agriculture, fixed houses and the use of wine, but adding to pastoral pursuits a profitable trade with the seaports in myrrh and spices from Arabia Felix, as well as a trade with Egypt in bitumen from the Dead Sea. Their arid country was the best safeguard of their cherished liberty; for the bottle-shaped cisterns for rain-water which they excavated in the rocky or argillaceous soil were carefully concealed from invaders. Petra (q.v.) or Sela' was the ancient capital of Edom; the Nabatacans must have occupied the old Edomite country, and succeeded to its commerce, after the Edomites took advantage of the Babylonian captivity to press forward into southern Judaea. This migration, the date of which cannot be determined, also made them masters of the shores of the Gulf of 'Akaba and the important harbour of Elath. Here, according to Agatharchides (Geog. Gr. Min., i. 178), they were for a time very troublesome, as wreckers and pirates, to the reopened commerce between Egypt and the East, till they were chastised by the Greek sovereigns of Alexandria. A letter which regularly follows M in the alphabet, and, | important part in the so-called "Yankee" pronunciation of like it in its early forms has the first limb longer than Americans. (P. Gr.) the others; thus, written from right to left, . The Semitic languages gradually diminish the size of the other two limbs, while the Greek and Latin alphabets tend to make all three of equal length. The earliest name of the symbol was Nun, whence comes the Greek ny (v). The sound of n varies according to the point at which the contact of the tongue with the roof of the mouth is made; it may be dental, alveolar, palatal or guttural. In Sanskrit these four sounds are distinguished by different symbols; the last two occur in combination with stops or affricates of the same series. The French or German n when standing by itself is dental, the English alveolar, i.e. pronounced like the English and d against the sockets of the teeth instead of the teeth themselves. The guttural nasal is written in English ng as in ring; for the palatal n as in lynch there is no separate symbol. The sound of n stands in the same relation to d as m stands to b; both are ordinarily voiced and the mouth position for both is the same, but in pronouncing n the nasal passage is left open, so that the sound of n can be continued while that of d cannot. This is best observed by pronouncing syllables where the consonant comes last as in and id. When the nasal passage is closed, as when one has a bad cold, m and n cannot be pronounced; attempts to pronounce moon result only in bood. Two important points arise in connexion with nasals: (1) sonant nasals, (2) nasalization of vowels. The discovery of sonant nasals by Dr Karl Brugman in 1876 (Curtius, Studien, 9, pp. 285-338) explained many facts of language which had been hitherto obscure and elucidated many difficulties in the Indo-European vowel system. It had been observed, for example, that the same original negative prefix was represented in Sanskrit by d, Greek by a, in Latin by in and in Germanic by un, and these differences had not been accounted for satisfactorily. Dr Brugman argued that in these and similar cases the syllable was made by the consonant alone, and the nasal so used was termed a sonant nasal and written . In most cases Sanskrit and Greek lost the nasal sound altogether and replaced it by a vowel a, a, while in Latin and Germanic a vowel was developed independently before the nasal. In the accusative singular of consonant stems Sans. pādam, Gr. Tóda, Lat. pedem, Sanskrit and Greek did not, as generally, agree, but it was shown that in such cases there were originally two forms according to the nature of the sound beginning the next word in the sentence. Thus an original Indo-European *pedm, would not be treated precisely in the same way if the next word began with a vowel as it would when a consonant followed. Sanskrit had adopted the form used before vowels, Greek the form before consonants and each had dropped the alternative form. The second pointthe nasalizing of vowels-is difficult for an Englishman to understand or to produce, as the sounds do not exist in his language. Thus in learning to pronounce French he tends to replace the nasalized vowels by the nearest sounds in English, making the Fr. on a nasalized vowel (o), into Eng. ong, a vowel followed by a guttural consonant. The nasalized vowels are produced by drawing forward the uvula, the "tab" at the end of the soft palate, so that the breath escapes through the nose as well as the mouth. In the French nasalized vowels, however, many phoneticians hold that, besides the leaving of the nasal passage open, there is a change in the position of the tongue in passing from a to a. The nasalized vowels are generally written with a hook below, upon the analogy of the transliteration of such sounds in the Slavonic languages, but as the same symbol is 'often used to distinguish an " 'open" vowel from a "close" one, the use is not without ambiguity. On the other hand, it is not admissible to write a for the nasalized vowel in languages which have accent signs, e.g. Lithuanian. It is possible to nasalize some consonants as well as vowels; nasalized spirants play an The Nabataeans had already some tincture of foreign culture when they first appear in history. That culture was naturally Aramaic; they wrote a letter to Antigonus "in Syriac letters," and Aramaic continued to be the language of their coins and inscriptions when the tribe grew into a kingdom, and profited by the decay of the Seleucids to extend its borders northward over the more fertile country east of the Jordan. They occupied Hauran, and about 85 B.C. their king Aretas (Haritha) became lord of Damascus and Coele-Syria. Allies of the first Hasmonaeans in their struggles against the Greeks (1 Macc. v. 25, ix. 35; 2 Macc. v. 8), they became the rivals of the Judaean dynasty in the period of its splendour, and a chief element in the disorders which invited Pompey's intervention in Palestine. The Roman arms were not very successful, and King Aretas retained his whole possessions, including Damascus, as a Roman 1 See EDOM, and (for the view that Mal. i. 1-5, refers to the expulsion of Edomites from their land) MALACHI. states, founded by a member of the Phulkian family, which estab vassal. As" allies "of the Romans the Nabataeans continued to flourish throughout the first Christian century. Their power extended far into Arabia, particularly along the Red Sea; and Petra was a meeting-place of many nations, though its commerce was diminished by the rise of the Eastern trade-route from Myoshormus to Coptos on the Nile. Under the Roman peace they lost their warlike and nomadic habits, and were a sober, acquisitive, orderly people, wholly intent on trade and agriculture (Strabo xvi. 4). They might have long been a bulwark between Rome and the wild hordes of the desert but for the short-wheat, millets, pulses, cotton and sugar. The estimated gross sighted cupidity of Trajan, who reduced Petra and broke up the Nabataean nationality (105 A.D.). The new Arab invaders who soon pressed forward into their seats found the remnants of the Nabataeans transformed into felläḥin, and speaking Aramaic like their neighbours. Hence Nabataeans became the Arabic name for Aramaeans, whether in Syria or Irak, a fact which has been incorrectly held to prove that the Nabataeans were originally Aramaean immigrants from Babylonia. It is now known, however, that they were true Arabs-as the proper names on their inscriptions show-who had come under Aramaic influence. See especially on this last point (against Quatremère, Journ. asial. xv., vol. ii., 1835), Nöldeke in Zeit. d. morgenländ. Gesell. xvii. 705 seq., xxv. 122 seq. The so-called "Nabataean Agriculture (Falaha Nabaliya), which professes to be an Arabic translation by Ibn Wahshiya from an ancient Nabataean source, is a forgery of the 10th century (see A. von Gutschmid, Z. d. morgenl. Ges. xv. 1 seq.; Nöldeke, ib. xxix. 445 seq.). Complete bibliographical information is given by E. Schürer in his sketch of Nabataean history appended to Gesch. d. Jud. Volkes (1901, vol. i.; cf. Eng. edition, 1890, i. 2, pp. 345 sqq.); to this may be added the article by H. Vincent, Rev. bibl. vii. 567 sqq., and, for more general information, R. Dussaud, Les Arabes en Syrie (1907). For early external evidence see H. Winckler, Keil. u. Alte Test. p. 151 seq.; M. Streck, Mitteil. d. vorderasiat. Gesell. (1906). pt. iii., and Klio, 1906, p. 206 seq. The Nabataean inscriptions (see SEMITIC LANGUAGES) are collected in the Corpus Inscr. Semiticarum of the French Academy, pt. ii. see also the Academy's Répertoire d'épigr. sém.; and the discussions, &c., in the writings of Clermont-Ganneau (Rec. d'archéol. Orient.) and M. Lidzbarski (Handbuch d. nord-semit. Epig.; Ephemeris f. sem. Epig.). For English readers the selection in G. A. Cooke, North-Semitic Inscriptions (Oxford, 1903) is the most useful. (W. R. S.; S. A. C.) NABBES, THOMAS (b. 1605), English dramatist, was born in humble circumstances in Worcestershire. He entered Exeter College, Oxford, in 1621, but left the university without taking a degree, and about 1630 began a career in London as a dramatist. His works include: Covent Garden (acted 1633, printed 1638), a prose comedy of small merit; Tottenham Court (acted 1634, printed 1638), a comedy the scene of which is laid in a holiday resort of the London tradesmen; Hannibal and Scipio (acted 1635, printed 1637), a historical tragedy; The Bride (1638), a comedy; The Unfortunate Mother (1640), an unacted tragedy; Microcosmus, a Morall Maske (printed 1637); two other masques, Spring's Glory and Presentation intended for the Prince his Highnesse on his Birthday (printed together in 1638); and a continuation of Richard Knolles's Generall Historie of the Turkes (1638). His verse is smooth and musical, and if his language is sometimes coarse, his general attitude is moral. The masque of Microcosmus-really a morality play, in which Physander after much error is reunited to his wife Bellanima, who personifies the soul-is admirable in its own kind, and the other two masques, slighter in construction but ingenious, show Nabbes at his best. Nabbes's plays were collected in 1639; and Microcosmus was printed in Dodsley's Old Plays (1744). All his works, with the exception of his continuation of Knolles's history, were reprinted by A. H. Bullen in his Old English Plays (second series, 1887). See also F. G. Fleay, Biog. Chron. of the English Drama (1891). NABHA, a native state of India, within the Punjab. Area, 966 sq. m. Pop. (1901) 297,949. Its territories are scattered; one section, divided into twelve separate tracts, lies among the territories of Patiala and Jind, in the east and south of the Punjab; the other section is in the extreme south-east. The whole of the territories belong physically to a plain; but they vary in character from the great fertility of the Pawadh region to the aridity of the Rajputana desert. Nabha is one of the Sikh 1 Compare 2 Cor. xi. 32. The Nabatacan Aretas or Aeneas there mentioned reigned from 9 B.C. to A.D. 40. NĀBIGHA DHUBYĀNĪ [Ziyād ibn Mu'awiyya] (6th and 7th centuries), Arabian poet, was one of the last poets of pre-Islamic times. His tribe, the Bani Dhubyan, belonged to the district near Mecca, but he himself spent most of his time at the courts of Hira and Ghassan. In Hira he remained under Mondhir (Mundhir) III., and under his successor in 562. After a sojourn at the court of Ghassan, he returned to Hira under Nu'man. He was, however, compelled to flee to Ghassan, owing to some verses he had written on the queen, but returned again about 600. When Nu'man died some five years later he withdrew to his own' tribe. The date of his death is uncertain, but he does not seem to have known Islam. His poems consist largely of eulogies and satires, and are concerned with the strife of Hira and Ghassan, and of the Bani Abs and the Bani Dhubyān. He is one of the six eminent pre-Islamic poets whose poems were collected before the middle of the 2nd century of Islam, and have been regarded as the standard of Arabian poetry. Some writers consider him the first of the six. His poems have been edited by W. Ahlwardt in the Diwans of the six ancient Arabic Poets (London, 1870), and separately by H. Derenbourg (Paris, 1869, a reprint from the Journal asiatique for 1868). (G. W. T.) NABOB, a corruption of the Hindostani nawab, originally used for native rulers. In the 18th century, when Clive's victories made Indian terms familiar in England, it began to be applied to Anglo-Indians who returned with fortunes from the East. NABUA, a town in the extreme S. of the province of Ambos Camarines, Luzon, Philippine Islands, on the Bicol river, about 22 m. S.S.E. of Nueva Cáceres, the capital. Pop. (1903) 18,893. Nabua is in the district known as La Rinconada-a name originally given to it on account of its inaccessibility. It is connected by road, railway and the Bicol river (navigable for light-draft boats) with Nueva Cáceres. Nabua is the centre of an agricultural region, which produces much rice and some Indian corn, sugar and pepper. The language is Bicol. NACAIRE, NAKER, NAQUAIRE (Arab. naqāra), the medieval name for the kettledrum, the earliest representation of which appears in the unique MS. known as the Vienna Genesis (5th or 6th century). The nacaire was, according to Froissart, among the instruments used at the triumphal entry of Edward III. into Calais. The Chronicles of Joinville describe the instrument as a kind of drum: "Lor il fist sonner les tabours que l'on appelle nacaires." Chaucer, in his description of the tournament in the Knight's Tale, line 1653, also refers to this early kettledrum. NACHMANIDES (NAHMANIDES), the usual name of MOSES BEN NAHMAN (known also as RAMBAN), Jewish scholar, was born in Gerona in 1194 and died in Palestine c. 1270. His chief work, the Commentary on the Pentateuch, is distinguished by originality and charm. The author was a mystic as well as a philologist, and his works unite with peculiar harmony the qualities of reason and feeling. He was also a Talmudist of high repute, and wrote glosses on various Tractates, Responsa and other legal works. Though not a philosopher, he was drawn into the controversy that arose over the scholastic method of Maimonides (q.v.). He endeavoured to steer a middle course between the worshippers |