Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/491

Rh M A N M A N 467 tion such as is also common iu the north of China, it is perfectly sterile. In- other parts fine crops of millet and various kinds of grain are grown, and on it trees flourish abundantly. The climate over the greater part of the country varies between the two extremes of heat and cold, the thermometer ranging be tween 90 in the summer and 10 U below zero in the winter. As in the north of China, the rivers are frozen up during the four winter months. After a short spring the heat of summer succeeds, which in its turn is separated by an autumn of six weeks duration from snow and ice. The trees and plants are much the same as those common in England, and severe as the weather is in winter the less elevated mountains are covered to their summits with trees. The wild animals also are those known in Europe, with the addition of tigers and panthers. Bears, wild boars, hares, wolves, foxes, and wild cats are very common, and, in the north, sables are found in great numbers. One of the most noticeable of the birds is the Mongolian lark (Mclanocoryphya mongolica), which is found in a wild state both in Manchuria and in the desert of Mongolia. This bird is exported in large numbers to northern China, where it is much prized on account of the extraordinary power it possesses of imitating the songs of other birds, the different tones of the barks of dogs, and the mews and hisses of cats, as well as all the noises peculiar to the neighbourhood in which it lives. The Manchurian crane is common, as also are eagles, cuckoos, laughing doves, &c. Insects, of which there are, accord ing to the Russians, one thousand different species, abound, owing to the swampy nature of much of the country. The rivers are well stocked with fish, especially with salmon, which forms a common article of food among the people. In such immense shoals do these fish appear in some of the smaller streams that numbers are squeezed out on to the banks and there perish. This fact possibly gave rise to the legend of a certain Prince whose royal mother became preg nant by the influence of the rays of the sun, and who brought forth an egg from which the prince was sprung. His supernatural origin excited the alarm of the king s ministers, who advised that he should be put to death, but his mother, having warning of their intention, sent him away privately. This Manchurian Phaeton thereupon wandered forth, and in his travels came to a river having neither bridge nor ferry. In his difficulty he cried for help to his father the Sun, and instantly fishes rose to the surface of the water and formed themselves into such close array that the prince was able to walk to the opposite bank on their backs. In minerals Manchuria is very rich: coal, gold, iron (as well as magnetic iron ore), and precious stones are found in quantities which suggest that if better appliances were employed than are now in use the returns might be very large. Of the crops grown by the people indigo and opium are the most lucrative. The indigo plant is grown in large quantities in the plain country to the north of Moukden, and is transported thence to the coast in carts, each of which carries rather more than a ton weight of the dye. The poppy is cultivated wherever it will grow, the crop being far more profitable than that of any other product. Cotton, tobacco, pulse, millet, wheat, and barley are other crops grown by the Manchurian farmers. History. Manchow, or more correctly Manchn, is, as has been said, not the name of the country but of the people who inhabit it. The name is a modern one, having been adopted by a ruler who rose to power in the beginning of the 13th century. Before that time the Manchus were more or less a shifting population, with no fixed location, and, being broken up into a number of tribes, they went mainly under the distinctive name of those clans which at different periods exercised lordship over them. Thus under the Chow dynasty (1122-225 B.C.) we find them spoken of as Sewshin, and at subsequent periods they were known as Yih-low, Wuh- keih, Moh-hoh, Pohai, Niichin, and according to the Chinese his torians also as K etan. Throughout their history they appear as a rude people, the tribute they brought to the Chinese court consisting of stone arrow-heads, hawks, gold, and latterly ginseng. Assum ing that, as the Chinese say, the K etans were Manchus, the first appearance of the Manchus, as a people, in China dates from the beginning of the 10th century, when K etans having first conquered the kingdom of Pohai crossed the frontier into China and estab lished the Leaou or Iron dynasty in the northern portion of the empire. These invaders were in their turn overthrown two cen turies later by another invasion from Manchuria. These new conquerors were Niichins, and, therefore, direct ancestors of the Manchus. On assuming the imperial yellow in China, their chief a lopted the title of Kin or &quot; Golden &quot; for his dynasty. &quot; Iron &quot; (Leaou), he said, &quot; rusts, but gold always keeps its purity and colour, therefore my dynasty shall be called Kin.&quot; In a little more than a century, however, the Kins were driven onit of China by the Mongols under Jenghiz Khan. But before the close of their rule a miraculous event occurred on the Shan-a-lin mountains which is popularly believed to have laid the seeds of the greatness of the present rulers of the empire. Three heaven-born maidens, so runs the legend, were bathing one day iu a lake under the Shan-a-lin mountains when a passing magpie dropped a ripe red fruit into the lap of one of them. The maiden ate the fruit, and in due course a child was born to her, whom she named Aisin Gioro, or the Golden. When quite a lad Aisin Gioro was elected chief over three contending clans, and established his capital at Otole near the Shan-a-lin mountains. His reign, however, was not of long dura tion, for his subjects rose against him and murdered him, together with all his sons except the youngest, Fancha, who, like the infant Haitu in Mongolian history, was miraculously saved from his pursuers. Nothing is recorded of the facts of Aisin Gioro s reign except that he named the people over whom he reigned Manclm, or &quot;Pure.&quot; His descendants, through the rescued Fancha, fell into complete obscurity until about the middle of the 16th century, when one of them, Norhaehi by name, a chieftain of a small tribe, rose to power. Taking advantage of the shifting scenes of Man churian politics, Norhaehi played with skill and daring the role which had been played by Jenghiz Khan more than three centuries before in Mongolia. With even greater success than his Mongolian counterpart, Norhaehi drew tribe after tribe under his sway, and after numerous wars with Corea and Mongolia, he established his rule over the whole of Manchuria. Being thus the sovereign of an empire, he, again like Jenghiz Khan ; adopted for him&elf the title of Ying-ming, &quot; Brave and Illustrious,&quot; and took for his reign the title of T een-ming. Thirteeen years later, in 1617, after numerous border fights with the Chinese, Norhaehi drew up a list of &quot;seven hates,&quot; or indictments, against his southern neighbours, and, not getting the satisfaction he demanded, declared war against them. The progress of this war. the hastily patched up peace, the equally hasty alliance and its consequences, being matters of Chinese history, have been treated cf under the article CHIISM. At the present day the Manchus are rapidly dying out before the quietly advancing Chintse settlers. By far the greater number of the present inhabitants of Manchuria are Chinamen. The Chinese system of education is adopted everywhere throughout the country ; the Chinese language is taught in all the schools ; and Manchuria promises to become before long as much a Chinese province as Chih-le or Shantung. See Journeys in North China, Manchuria, and Eastern Mongolia, by the Rev. Alexander Williamson; The Manchus, by Rev. John Ross; Man-chow if ucn lew kaou. (R. K. D. ) MAND^EANS, also known as Sabians, Nasorseans, or St John s Christians, 1 an Oriental sect of great antiquity, interesting to the theologian as almost the only surviving example of a religion compounded of Christian, heathen, and Jewish elements on a type which is essentially that of ancient Gnosticism. The Mandseans, who can never have been numerous, and are now much decayed, are found in the marshy lands of South Babylonia (al-bataih), the ancient refuge of so many strange sects, particularly in the neighbourhood of Basrah (or Bussorah), and in Khiizistan (Disful, Shuster). 2 They speak the languages of the localities in which they are settled (Arabic or Persian), but the language of their sacred books is an Aramaic dialect, which has its closest affinities with that of the Babylonian Talmud, written in a peculiar character suggestive of the old Palmyrene. 3 The existence of the Mandseans has been known since the middle of the 17th cen tury, when the first Christian missionaries, Ignatius a Jesu 4 1 The first of these names (not Mendreans or Mandaites) is that given by themselves, and means yvdiffriKoi, followers of Gnosis (S^SUKKD, from fcnJSD, Hebr. SHE). The Gnosis of which they profess themselves adherents is a personification, the aeon and mediator &quot; knowledge of life &quot; (see below). The title Nasorseans (Nas6raye), according to Petermann, they give only to those among themselves who are most distinguished for knowledge and character. Like the Arabic Nasara, it is originally identical with the name of the half heathen half Jewish-Christian Nao&amp;gt;pa?oj, and indicates an early connexion with that sect. The inappropriate designation of St John s Christians arises from the early and imperfect acquaintance of Christian missionaries, who had regard merely to the reverence in which the name of the Baptist is held among them, and their frequent baptisms. In their dealings with members of other communions the designation they take is Sabians, in Arabic Subba (sing. Sabi ), from S3y=J?2V, to baptize, thus claiming the toleration extended by the Koran (Sur- 5, 73; 22, 17; 2, 59) to those of that name. 2 Recent accounts (188 2) represent them as shrunk to 200 families, and seeking a new settlement on the Tigris, to escape the persecutions to which they are exposed. 3 See Noldeke s admirable Mandaische Grammalik, Halle, 18/5. _ 4 Narratio originis, rituum, et err or urn Christianorum S. Joannis, Rome, 1652.