Page:A dictionary of the Book of Mormon.pdf/120

Desolation, Land of. into the sea. In the year A. C. 361, the Lamanites attacked Desolation, but were repulsed and driven back to their own lands. During the next year they made another ineffectual attack, in which they sustained great loss. So great was the exultation of the Nephites at this last victory that their excesses knew no bounds, and they gave way so grossly to iniquity, that Mormon refused to lead them any longer to battle. Strong in their own vain strength, in A. C. 363 the Nephites invaded the lands of the Lamanites, but were disastrously repulsed and pursued, and the city ot Desolation was wrested from them; they, however, recaptured it shortly after. In A. C. 366, the Lamanites once more became the masters of the city, but lost it again the following year. The Nephites retained possession of this stronghold until A. C. 375, when the Lamanites drove them out of all that region, and apparently held it until the end of the war, and the extinction of the Nephites at Cumorah.  DESOLATION, LAND OF. Before the time of the Nephites this region was thickly inhabited by the Jaredites. In the days of the latter people Bountiful formed its southern border. The two lands apparently joined at the Isthmus of Panama. At first, like most frontier districts, it extended indefinitely into the uninhabited regions. When other lands were colonized its boundaries became more definitely fixed. It is generally supposed to have embraced within its borders the region know to moderns as Central America. Its capital was a city of the same name, probably built in later years, as it is never mentioned but by Mormon in the account of the long series of wars in which he took so prominent a part.   DESOLATION OF NEHORS. The name given by the Nephites to the spot where the sin-stained city of Ammonihah once stood. It received that name because it remained a 