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 Mr Loch and others was by an act of shameless treachery made prisoner. In the succeeding negotiations Wade took a leading part, and on the establishment of the legation at Peking he took up the post of Chinese secretary of legation. In 1862 he was made a Companion of the Bath. On the return of Sir Frederick Bruce to England in 1864 he remained as charge d'affaires, and again from 1869 to 1871, when he was appointed minister, he filled the acting post. The Tientsin massacre in 1870 entailed long and difficult negotiations, which were admirably conducted by Wade. On the assumption of power by the emperor T'ung-chih he, in common with his colleagues, requested an audience in accordance with the treaties, which was for the first time granted as a right. The murder of A. R. Margary near Man-wyne in Yunnan in 1875 threatened at one time to cause a rupture with the Chinese government, and as a matter of fact Wade did leave Peking. But the Chinese, finding that he was in earnest, dispatched Li Hung-Chang after him to Chefoo, where the two diplomatists arranged the penalties which were to be paid for the crime, and concluded a convention which, after a considerable interval, was ratified by the governments. Wade was then made K.C.B., and in 1883 retired from the service. On his return to England the attractions of his old university induced him to take up his residence at Cambridge, where he was appointed the first professor of Chinese. He died there on the 31st of July 1895. In 1889 he was made G.C.M.G. In 1868 he had married Amelia, daughter of Sir John Herschel.

 WADE (or ), SIR WILLIAM (1546–1623), English statesman and diplomatist, was the eldest son of Armagil Wade (d. 1568), the traveller, who sailed with a party of adventurers for North America in 1536, and later became (1547) one of the clerks of the privy council in London and a member of parliament. William Wade obtained his entrance into official life by serving William Cecil, Lord Burghley, sending information to this statesman from Paris and from Italy. He also passed some time in Strassburg; then in 1581 he became secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham and in 1583 a clerk of the privy council. He visited Vienna, Copenhagen and Madrid on public business, and in 1585 he went to Paris, being waylaid and maltreated on his return near Amiens by influential personages who disliked the object of his mission. In 1586 he went to Chartley and took possession of Mary Stuart's papers, and in 1587 was again in France. During the remainder of Elizabeth's reign Wade was much occupied in searching for Jesuits and in discovering plots against the life of the queen. James I., who knighted him in 1603, employed him in similar ways, and he was fully occupied in unravelling the plots which marked the early years of the new reign. For some time Wade was a member of parliament. He retired from public life in 1613, and died on the 21st of October 1623. Sir William was a shareholder in the Virginia company, and the Wades of Virginia claim descent from his father.  WADEBRIDGE, a market town and seaport in the St Austell parliamentary division of Cornwall, England, on the Great Western and London & South-Western railways, 38 m. W.N.W. of Plymouth. Pop. of urban district (1901), 2186. It is picturesquely situated at the head of the estuary of the river Camel, 7 m. from its mouth in Padstow Bay on the north coast. A stone bridge, consisting of seventeen arches, was built in 1485 over the river, and made a county bridge under James I. The parish church of Egloshayle, nearly 2 m. from the town, is in the main Perpendicular, with a beautiful tower; but part of the fabric is Early English. The neighbouring church of St Breock is Decorated and Perpendicular, with a fine font of the earlier period. An ancient round-headed cross stands near the town. There is considerable agricultural trade, and iron founding is carried on; while in the neighbourhood some copper, lead, granite and slate are worked and exported in small vessels; coal, timber and general merchandise being imported.  WADELAI, a station on the east bank of the Upper Nile in the British protectorate of Uganda, in, , 200 m. in a direct line N.N.W. of Entebbe on Victoria Nyanza, and 72 m. by river below Butiaba on Albert Nyanza. The government station was built on a hill 160 to 200 ft. above the Nile at a spot where the river narrows to 482 ft. and attains a depth of 30 ft. At this place was a gauge for measuring the discharge of the river. Wadelai was first visited by a European, Lieut. H. Chippendall, in 1875, and was named after a chieftain who, when visited by Gessi Pasha (on the occasion of that officer's circumnavigation of Albert Nyanza), ruled the surrounding district as a vassal of Kabarega, king of Unyoro. The region was annexed to the Egyptian Sudan and Wadelai's village chosen as a government post. This post was on the western bank of the Nile, 1¼ m. below the existing station. Here for some time Emin Pasha had his headquarters, evacuating the place in December 1888. Thereafter, for some years, the district was held by the Mahdists. In 1894 the British flag was hoisted at Wadelai, on both banks of the Nile, by Major E. R. Owen. Some twelve years later the government post was withdrawn. There is a native village at the foot of the hill.  WADHWAN, a town of India, in Kathiawar, Bombay, the capital of a petty state of the same name, and the junction of the Kathiawar railway system with the Bombay and Baroda line, 389 m. N. of Bombay. Pop. (1901) 16,223. It has considerable trade and manufactures. There is a school for girasias or subordinate chiefs. The civil station, under British administration, had a population in 1901 of 11,255. The state of Wadhwan has an area of 236 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 34,851; revenue, £25,000. Cotton trade and stone-quarrying are important, and there are manufactures of soap and saddlery.  WADI, also written wady, in some dialects wad; Arabic for a “valley,” hence a stream or river flowing through a valley, as well as the valley itself. It is a common term in place names.  WADI HALFA, or, a town of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, in , , on the right bank of the Nile, 5 m. S. of the northern frontier of the Sudan. It is the chief town of the Halfa mudiria, is 770 m. S. of Cairo by rail and steamer, and 575 m. N.N.W. of Khartum by rail. Some 6 m. above the town is the second cataract, and on the west bank of the Nile opposite Halfa are the ruins of the ancient Egyptian city of Buhen (Bohon). Halfa is the northern terminus of the Sudan railway and the southern terminus of a steamboat service on the Nile, which, running to Shellal (Assuan), connects there with the Egyptian railways.

Wadi Halfa is a general designation including the native village of that name, the camp, founded by the British in 1884 as their base in the operations for the relief of General Gordon, and the civil cantonment established at the same time. This cantonment occupies the site of a Nubian village, and round it has grown a thriving town, at first named Taufikia, but now called Halfa. It has a population (1907) of about 3000. The camp is 15 m. S. of Halfa. Here are the barracks, officers' quarters, railway works, and an esplanade along the river front. The village of Wadi Halfa is 3 m. S. of the camp.  WAD MEDANI, a town of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, capital of the Blue Nile mudiria, in, , on the left bank of the Blue Nile, 110 m. by rail and 147 m. by river, S.E. of Khartum. Pop. about 20,000. It is the chief depot for grain raised in the Gezira, has oil and soap works, and is a thriving commercial centre, being on the main trade route between Khartum and Abyssinia. The town, which is of considerable antiquity, contains some fine buildings, the chief mosque having a conspicuous tower. Wad Medani was almost destroyed during the Mahdia, but its return to prosperity under Anglo-Egyptian rule was rapid. In 1900 it was connected by railway with Khartum, and thus the hindrance to trade through the Blue Nile being scarcely navigable between January and June was overcome. In 1910 railway communication between the town and Kordofan was established. (See, § Anglo-Egyptian.) <section end="Wad Medani"/> <section begin="Wafer"/>WAFER, a thin flat cake or sheet of paste, usually circular in shape. The derivation of the word, which is the same as “waffle,” a batter-cake cooked in waffle-irons and served hot, is given under “Goffer,” which is adapted from the French form of the Teutonic original. As articles of stationery, wafers consist of thin brittle, adhesive disks, used for securing papers together, and for forming a basis for impressed official seals. They are<section end="Wafer"/>