Page:EB1911 - Volume 21.djvu/658

Rh In three-handed pinochle the “ melds" are exposed before a card la played, and no player may ' meld ” after he has layed to the first trick. A rule IS sometimes made that an overlooked combination may be scored by the other players Four-handed pinochle IS play ed either with partners or each player for himself.

PINSK, a town of Russia, in the government of Minsk, at the confluence of the Strumen and Pina rivers, 196 m. S.W. by rail of Minsk. Pop, 27,938, two-thirds being Jews. The town carries on considerable trade, due to the navigable river Pina, which connects It with the fertile regions in the basin of the Dnieper, and, by means of the Dnieper-and-Bug canal, with Poland and Prussia, while the Oginsky canal connects it with the basin of the Niemen Pottery, leather, oil, soap and beer are the chief products of the local industries. The draining of the marshes around Pinsk was begun by the government in 1872, and by 1897 8,000,000 acres had been drained at an average cost of 3S. per acre. Pinsk (Pinesk) is first mentioned in 1097 as a town belonging to Sviatopolk, prince of Kiev. In 1132 it formed part of the Minsk principality. After the Mongol invasion of 1239–42 it became the chief town of a separate principality, and continued to be so until the end of the 13th century In 1320 it was annexed to Lithuania; and in 1569, after the union of Lithuania with Poland, it was chief town of the province of Brest. During the rebellion of the Cossack chief, Bogdan Chmielnicki (1640), the Poles took it by assault, killing 14,000 persons and burning 5000 houses. Eight years later the town was burned by the Russians. Charles XII. took it in 1706, and burned the town with its suburbs. Pinsk was annexed to Russia in 1795.

PINSUTI, CIRO (1829–1888), Anglo-Italian composer, was born at Siena, and was educated in music, for a career as a pianist, partly in London and partly at Bologna, where he was a pupil of Rossini. From 1848 he made his home in England, here he became a teacher of singing, and in 1856 he was made a professor at the Academy of Music in London. He became ell Lnown as a composer of numerous favourite songs and part-songs, as well as of three operas brought out in Italy, and it is by the former that he is still remembered.

PINT (derived probably through Spanish, from Lat. pincta, picta, a painted or marked vessel), a liquid measure of capacity, equivalent to of a gallon The imperial British pint=.57 of a litre, 34.66 cub. in. The United States standard pint=.47 of a litre, 28 cub. in. The word appears in French as pinte for a liquid measure as early as the 13th century.

 PINTO, ANÍBAL (1825-1884), Chilean president, was born at Santiago, Chile. After a diplomatic training in the legation at Rome he learned the practice of administration as intendente of Concepcion, and from 1871 to 1876 was minister of war and marine under Errázuriz During his term of office as president (1876 to 1881) Pinto had to deal first with a severe financial crisis, and then to conduct the struggle with Peru and Bolivia, in which he displayed great coolness of judgment and devotion to duty.

PINTO, FERNÃO MENDES (1509-1583), Portuguese adventurer, was born at Montemor-o-Velho, of poor and humble parents, and entered the service of a noble lady in Lisbon, being afterwards for two years page to the duke of Aveiro in Setubal. Desiring to try his fortune in the East, he embarked for India in 1537 in a fleet commanded by the son of Vasco da Gama, and for twenty-one years travelled, fought and traded in China, Tartary, Pegu and the neighbouring countries, sailing in every sea, while in 1542-1543 he was one of the 'first Europeans to visit Japan, where he introduced the musket. Though he was thirteen times a captive and seventeen times sold into slavery, his gay and dauntless spirit brought him through every misfortune He was soldier and sailor, merchant and doctor, missionary and ambassador, moreover, as the friend and travelling companion of St Francis Xaviei, he lent the apostle of the Indies the money with which to build the first Jesuit establishment in Japan. In January 1554 Mendes Pinto was in Goa, vuaiting for a ship to take him to Portugal, when he took a sudden resolution to enter the company of Jesus and devote a large part of the capital he had accumulated to the evangelization of Japan. The viceroy appointed him ambassador to the king of Bungo in order to give the mission an official standing, and on the 18th of April he set sail with the provincial, Father Belchior Nunes. Owing to bad weather and contrary winds, however, the missioners did not reach Japan until July 1556, but the success of the mission represented a notable service to the cause of Christianity and civilization. On the 14th of November 1 5 56 Father Belchior and Mendes Pinto began their return voyage and reached Goa on the 17th of February 1557. During his stay of a twelvemonth there, the latter left the company, being dispensed from his vows for want of vocation at his own request, though a modern authority states that he was expelled because he was found to be a marrano, i.e. to possess Jewish blood. He finally returned to Portugal on the 22nd of September 1558, and settled at Pragal near Almada, where he married and wrote his famous book, the Peregrination; the MS., in fulfilment of his wishes, was presented by his daughter to the Casa Pia for penitent women in Lisbon, and it was published by the administrators in 1614. When Philip II. of Spain came to Portugal as its king, he listened with pleasure to the account of Mendes Pinto's travels, and by letter of the 15th of January 1583 gave him a pension for his services in the Indies. But the reward came too late, for the great traveller died on the 8th of July.

In the light of our present-day knowledge of the East, Pinto is regarded as having been on the whole a careful observer and truthful narrator, but this was not always the case Some witty countryman of his own parodied his name into Fernzio, mentes? Mintol (“ Ferdinand, do you lie? I do!”), and the English dramatist Congreve only expressed the general opinion of the unlearned when he wrote in Love for Love “ Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude.” It must be remembered that Pinto wrote the Peregrinatzon long subsequent to the events he records, and this fact and a certain fertility of imagination sufficiently account for inexactitudes. Furthermore, as the book was only published posthumously, he never had the opportunity of correcting the proofs. Some of his most marvellous stories are expressly given on the authority of writers belonging to the countries he describes; others he tells from hearsay, and Oriental informants are prone to exaggeration. But if he somewhat adorned the truth, he did not wilfully misrepresent it The book itself gives the impression of sincerity, and the editors of the first editio11 bear witness to the probity, good faith and truthfulness of Mendes Pinto as a man. Herrera Maldonado prefaced his Spanish translation of the Peregrinalion (1620) by a lengthy and erudite apology to demonstrate its authenticity, and Castilho has reinforced his arguments by modern testimonies. In the narrative portions of his work Pinto's style is simple, clear and natural, his diction rich, particularly in sea terms, and appropriate to his varying subjects There is an entire absence of artifice about the book, which must always rank as a classic, and it might fairly be argued that Mendes Pinto did for the prose of Portugal what Camoens did for its poetry; this is the more remarkable, because it does not appear that he ever received any education in the ordinary sense. He wrote the book for his children to learn to read by, and modestly excused its literary defects by alleging his rudeness and lack of talent. Tradition has it that the MS. was entrusted to the chronicler Francisco de Andrade for the purpose of being polished in style and made ready for press, but that all he did was to divide it into chapters.

The Peregrznatzon has gone through many editions subsequent to that of 1614, and in 1865 Castilho published excerpts in his Lwrarza Classico portugueza with an interesting notice of Mendes Pinto's life and writings. Versions exist in German (3 editions), French (3 editions), Spanish (4 editions), and in English by Henry Cogan, London (1663, 1692 and-abridged and illustrated, with introduction by Arminius Vambéry-1891). Cogan omits the chapters relating to Mendes Pinto's intercourse with, and the last days of, St Francis Xavier, presumably as a concession to anti-Catholic prejudice.

See Chrisfovao Ayres, Ferndo Mendes Pinto (Lisbon, 1904). Ferndo Mendes Pinto e o Japdo (Lisbon, 1906); also Substdzos: para a bzographza de Ferndo Mendes Pinto by Jordio de Freitas (Coimbra, 1905). (E. P.)