Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/331

Rh had been a distinguished soldier under Aetius, and also after the death of that general ; for his election to the purple he was indebted to the powerful Count Ricimer, patrician of Rome. To put a stop to the harassing incur sions of the Vandals he, in 458, resolved to lead an expedi tion against Genserie himself ; for this purpose he got together a large army, composed chiefly of barbarians, and, passing the Alps in November 458, made Lyons, and afterwards Aries, his headquarters until the preparations for the invasion of Africa had been completed. Having during his stay in Gaul succeeded in pacifying Theodoric, he, in the beginning of 460, crossed the Pyrenees for the purpose of joining his armament at Carthagena. Genseric, however, after all overtures for peace had been rejected, succeeded through the treachery of certain officers in surpris ing the Roman fleet, most of the ships being either taken or destroyed. Majorianus returned at once to Gaul, where he made peace with Genseric in the following year. Soon afterwards, while at Tortona in Lombardy, he was sur rounded by partisans of Ricimer, and compelled to abdicate (August 2, 461). He died, most probably by violence, five days afterwards, and was succeeded on the throne by Severus. He was the author of several laws, which, &quot;remarkable for an original cast of thought and expression, faithfully represent the character of a sovereign who loved his people, who sympathized in their distress, who had studied the causes of the decline of the empire, and who was. capable of applying (as far as such reforma tion was practicable) judicious and effectual remedies to the public disorders &quot; (Gibbon, Decline and Fad, chap. 39). MAKALLA, or MACULLA, a port on the south coast of Arabia, in 14 31 N. lat. and 49 13 E. long. The town, which appears to be of no great antiquity, is described by Wellsted as built on a low projecting point, with many lofty and substantial houses, and a suburb of huts, chiefly inhabited by slaves, Somalis, and Arab sailors, on the slopes leading up to a lofty chalk-hill (Jebel el-Kara) which overhangs the town. The Arab inhabitants are of the Beni Is4 tribe. The Somali traders do not settle perman ently in MakallH, but they form an important element in the population. There are also Indian residents (Banians). The harbour is good, and the town, which may be regarded as the port of Hadramaut, rose during the decline of Aden to the rank of the chief emporium between India and the Somali coast. It still exports, among other productions of Hadramaut, tobacco, mother-of-pearl, and incense to Jeddah and shark fins to India, but has lately declined in the general transformation of the character of the Eastern trade. According to the latest Arabic accounts (see Badger in the Academy, March 4, 1882), the town contains about a thousand houses. Makalla is governed by a prince or nakib who is esteemed one of the chief minor potentates of that coast. The present prince Salah el-Kesadi has made himself quite independent of the sur rounding Bedouins, and is even reported to have made conquests in the interior. MAKKARf. Abu l- Abbas Ahmed ibn Mohammed el- Makkari, Arabic historian, was born at Tilimsan (Tlemcen) in Algeria, towards the close of the 16th century, and studied at Fez, where he remained occupied with literary pursuits till, for some unknown cause, he was driven into exile and, after visiting Mecca, settled in Cairo. In 1628 he came to Damascus after a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Warmly received by the scholars there, he delivered lec tures on the traditions of the Prophet, and in the evenings entertained his friends with stories of the glories of Moslem Spain, a subject of interest to all Arabs, and especially to those of Syria. His friends made him promise to reduce his narrative to writing, and on returning to Cairo he 311 devoted three years to this task. He had divorced his wife and made other preparations to settle definitively in Damascus when death overtook him in 1631. Makkary s great work, The Breath of Perfume from the Branch of Green Andalusia, and Memorials of its Vizier Lisdn el-Din ibn cl Khatib, consists, as the name indicates, of two parts. The first is a general history and description of Mohammedan Spain, mainly in the form of analecta from a number of authors, with many verses interspersed. This part, which is of great historical value, was published in an (incomplete) English version by P. de Gayangos (London, 1840-43) and in Arabic by Wright, Krehl, Dozy, and Dugat (Analcctcs sur I histoire et la literature dcsArabes dEspaync, Leyden, 1855, 1856, 1858, 1861). An edition in four volumes, published at Cairo (1863), contains also (in vols. iii. and iv.) the life of the famous statesman and author Lisan el-Din, vizier of Granada (ob. 1374). Further references to literature are given by Pertsch, Arab. Hdschr. zu Gotha, No. 1697. Among other works of Makkaii a commentary on the prolegomena of Ibn Khaldun is mentioned (H. Kh., 8043). MAK6, a corporate town of Hungary, and capital of the trans-Tisian county of Csanad, is situated near the right bank of the Maros, about 15 miles east-south-east of Szeged, in 46 13 N. lat., 20 28 E. long. The town consists of the three wards of Bujak, Szent-Lorincz. (Saint- Lawrence), and Ujvaros (New Town), and has, besides the usual official buildings connected with the administration of a county, Romanand Greek Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinist churches, and a synagogue ; also an elegant (Calvinist) gymnasium, the bishop of Csanad s palace and gardens, royal and circuit courts of law, barracks, tax and salt offices, a timber trading agency, a manufactory of agricultural implements, and numerous mills. The sur rounding country is fertile. The communal lands are extensive, and afford excellent pasturage for horses and sheep, as also for large herds of horned cattle, for the size and quality of which Mako has obtained a high repute. An abundance of fish and aquatic fowl is supplied by the Maros, the water of which river is used also for drinking purposes, that from the wells being unpalatable. The town is protected from inundations of the Maros by a powerful dike, but the commune nevertheless sometimes suffers during the spring floods (see HUNGARY, vol. xii. p. 363). The population, which is chiefly agricultural, amounted in 1880 to 30,077, 1 mostly Magyars by nationality. A great part of the business of the town is in the hands of Jews. MAKRlZf. Taki el-Din Ahmed ibn All el Makrlzi (1364 2 -1441), one of the most meritorious of Arabic historians and archajologists, was descended on both sides from families of scholarly distinction. His hereditary surname of Makrizf, by which he is usually known, was derived from Makriz, a suburb of Ba lbek, with which town his paternal ancestors had been connected. Taki el-Din himself was born in Cairo, and spent his life mainly in Egypt, where he was brought up as clerk in a Govern ment office, and at a later date he became Mohtesib (a sort of police officer in charge of the markets) for Cairo and northern Egypt, and afterwards inspector of the Kalanesf foundation at Damascus. He declined the post of cadi in the latter town. He was, however, mainly engrossed in scholarly pursuits as a traditionist and a jurisconsult, but especially as an indefatigable student of history. He is reproached by his contemporaries for a somewhat inordinate zeal in theological controversy, but otherwise passed a quiet and uneventful life. Makrfzf s literary activity was very great ; he was not a man of original power, and his books are largely compilations, in which he is not always scrupulous in naming the sources to which he is indebted, but his learning was vast, his observation accurate, and his 1 Roman Catholics, 11,178 ; Greek Catholics, 1456 ; Greek Eastern Church, 50; Calvinists, 15,492; Lutherans, 445; Jews, 145J ; Unitarians, 4. 2 The year of his birth is variously given as 760, 766, 7by A.H. ; but 766 A.H. (1364 A.D.) is the date best authenticated.