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LEFT TAOISM, or TAONISM 250 TAPESTRY that had preceded them, by believing firmly that ultimately good would gain the victory over evil, and by insisting that good* should be returned for evil, as the sure way to overcome it. The head of the body was a sort of patriarch, who had the power of transmitting his dignity and office to a member of his own family, and the descendants of the first are said to have held the office for centuries. Tao was afterward personi- fied, and regarded as the first being of the universe. The Taoists attributed to him eternity and invisibility ; but they do not seem to have regai'ded him as being in any way able to assist or comfort his followers. All they had to do was to contemplate him and his virtues, and to strive to keep in the "way." When Tao- ism appears as a definite factor in the history of China, in the 3d century B, c, it appears as a congeries of supersti- tions. Taoism was largely modified by Buddhism, some of the doctrines and practices of which it adopted ; but it still adheres to its old superstitions, though in its treatises it enjoins much of the Confucian and the Buddhistic morality. TAOBMINA, a town on the E. coast of Sicily; on a lofty rock 900 feet above the sea; 35 miles S. W. of Messina. It has numerous relics of antiquity, as an aqueduct, tesselated pavements, and the remains of a theater, reckoned one of the most splendid ruins in Sicily, and commanding a view of almost unpar- alleled magnificence. Taormina (ancient Tauromenium), founded by the Siculi in the 4th century B. C, was long a Roman possession. It was taken by the Sara- cens in 902 and 962, by the Normans in 1078, by the French in 1676, and in 1849 by the Neapolitans under Filangleri. TAOS, the most N. of the Pueblo tribes of North American Indians. They live in New Mexico, in a village of the same name, on the Rio de Taos, 50 miles N. of Santa Fe, and number about 400. TAPAJOS, a river of Brazil, rises in the Serra Diamantina, 20 miles from the headwaters of the Paraguay, and after a N. course of 1,100 miles, joins the Amazon in Ion. 35° W. The Tapajos is a dark, wide stream, and is navigable throughout most of its length. Steamers ply on its lower course for several hun- dred miles. TAPESTBY, an ornamental textile used for the covering of walls and furni- ture, and for curtains and hangings. In its method of manufacture it is inti- mately related to Oriental carpets, which are made in precisely the same way as certain kinds of tapestry, the only dis- tinction being that carpets are meant for floor-covering alone. Fine storied tapestries ai'e, however, much more elab- orate and costly than any carpets, and they have altogether different artistic pretensions. Tapestries are divided into two classes, according as they are made in high warp or low warp looms. The former in manufacture have their warp threads stretched in a vertical manner with a roller at the top around which the warps are wound, and another at the bottom for receiving the finished tapes- try. On the low warp looms the warp is extended horizontally, there being an arrangement in both for shedding or separating the warp into two leaves, front and back, as in ordinary weaving. It is in high warp looms that the most elaborate storied or pictorial tapestries are made, low warp looms being more largely devoted to the production of still life and non-pictorial decorative compo- sitions. Notwithstanding these dift'er- ences, it is difficult to distinguish between tapestries which have been made on high and low warp looms respectively, though the latter are more rapidly and conse- quently less expensively woven. The art of tapestry-working is of high antiquity, and it may be that the curtains of the tabernacle "of blue and purple and scarlet, with cherubim of cunning work" (Exod. xxvi: 1), were a kind of tapestry, though more probably they were of nee- dle work. The so-called Bayeaux Tapes- try is really embroidered work of the pe- riod of William the Conqueror. The art of tapestry working, and indeed all fine weaving, came to Europe from the East, and so well was this recognized that dur- ing the Middle Ages the fabric was gen- erally known as Sarrazinois. So far as is known the art of high warp tapestry weaving was first practiced in Flanders toward the end of the 12th century, and it flourished in the rich and prosperous towns of Arras, Valenciennes, Lille, Brussels, etc., and from the predominant importance of the first of these towns storied tapestries came to be generally known as "Arras." The disasters which, overwhelmed the land during the contest with the Spanish power led many of the most skillful of the tapestry weavers to seek an asylum in foreigri lands, and thus the art spread to various European centers. Repeated attempts had been made in France from the middle of the 16th century onward to establish the industry, but it was not till two Flemish workers, Comans and De la Planche, were engaged for an establishment for- merly occupied by a family of wool dyers called Gobelin, that the industry was suc- cessfully founded and the famous Gobel- ins factory begun.