Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/553

Rh MAR M A R 525 his advances. The sanguinary battle of Harlaw arrested the progress of the Highlanders, and left Mar master of the field. Earl Alexander died in 1435, when the right to the earldom passed to Isabel s nearest heir, Robert Lord Erskine (descended from a daughter of Earl Gratney), who established his right by retour in 1438, and became earl of Mar. The crown, however, had seized on the valuable territories of the earldom, of which he could only obtain partial possession ; and James II. and his advisers, after temporizing for a length of time, in 1457 reduced Earl llobert s retour by a collusive &quot; service negative,&quot; based on the plea that, either by the bastardy of Alexander or in virtue of a resignation by him to James L, the earldom had lapsed to the crown, two ex fade worthless pretexts, inasmuch as Alexander had only been a liferenter. The wrongful possession of the crown lasted more than a century, in the course of which time the earldom was twice temporarily in possession of younger members of the royal house, and portions of it were given away to favourites ; while its lawful owners, the Erskines, continued loyally to serve the sovereigns who had usurped their inheritance. At length, on 23d May 15G5, Queen Mary, made aware of the wrongs inflicted by her predecessors, and &quot; moved by conscience &quot; to make the fullest reparation, granted to John Lord Erskine a charter restoring the earldom of which he and his ancestors had been unjustly deprived. The earl of Mar, thus replaced in his rights, was regent of Scotland during the last two years of his life ; and his son, who succeeded him in 1572, and was treasurer to James VI., recovered by process of law those portions of his inheritance which had been alienated by the crown during the period of illegal possession. In the next two genera tions the attachment of the family to the Stewarts brought with it fines and impaired fortunes. John, earl of Mar, fourth in descent from the treasurer, headed the rebellion of 1715, and suffered attainder, but escaped abroad and survived till 1732. His daughter Lady Frances (who married an Erskine, the younger son of her uncle, Lord Grange) would, but for the attainder, have inherited his title ; and what remained of the lands was preserved to her by arrangement with the commissioners of forfeited estates. In 1824 her son, John Francis Erskine of Mar, was, as &quot;grandson and lineal heir&quot; of the attainted earl, restored by Act of Parliament from the effects of the forfei ture. At the death in 1866 of John Francis Miller Erskine, earl of Mar, grandson of the restored earl, there seemed no room for doubt that the earldom devolved, in accordance with the rule of succession which it had always followed, on his sister s son John Francis Erskine Goodeve, in preference to his cousin and heir male, the earl of Kellie. The latter, however, claimed, not indeed the ancient dignity, but a separate titular earldom, supposed to have been bestowed by Queen Mary, not by her charter above alluded to, but by a lost and till then unheard-of patent a few weeks later in date, and with a different remainder, namely, to heirs male of the body. The resolution of the committee of privileges of the House of Lords in 1875, finding Lord Kellie entitled to the earldom thus claimed by him, has caused great surprise ; and Scotch lawyers generally, while disbelieving as a question of fact in this creation of 1565, seem also to hold in point of law that the resolution alluded to leaves untouched the right of the heir general to the ancient historical honour. The same view has been expressed by way of protest by a large number of the Scottish peers, and enforced by the late earl of Crawford in his ably written posthumous work The Earldom of Har in Sunshine and Shade. MARABOUT is a corruption of the Arabic Mordbit, a Moslem name for a hermit or a devotee. Primarily the word is derived from ribdf, a fortified frontier station. To such stations pious men betook them to win religious merit in war against the infidel ; their leisure was spent in devotion, and the habits of the convent superseded those of the camp (see De Slane in Jour. As., 1842, i. 168; Dozy, Suppl t i. 502). Thus rildt came to mean a religious house or hospice (zdwiya). The great sphere of the marabouts is North Africa. There it was that the com munity formed by King Yahya and the doctor Abdalla developed into the conquering empire of the Morabits, or, as Christian writers call them, the ALMOEAVIDES (q.v.), and there still, among the Berbers, the marabouts enjoy extra ordinary influence, being esteemed as living saints and mediators. They are liberally supported by alms, direct all popular assemblies, and have a decisive voice in intertribal quarrels and all matters of consequence. On their death their sanctity is transferred to their tombs, where chapels are erected and gifts and prayers offered. The prominent part which the marabouts took in the resistance offered to the French by the Algerian Moslems is well known ; and they have been similarly active in recent politico-religious movements in Tunis and Tripoli. MARACAIBO, a city and seaport of Venezuela, the capital of the state of Zulia (formerly Maracaibo), lies about 25 miles from the sea on the west bank of Lake Maracaibo, the suburbs presenting, with their cocoa-nut groves, a fine contrast to the background of barren-looking hills sloping up from the shore to a height of about 200 feet. The streets are laid out at right angles ; the houses are poor structures of a crude concrete or rubble, strength ened by wooden beams ; and even the public buildings such as the churches, the government house, the court house, and the theatre owe their pretentious appearance to plaster and paint. The water of the lake being brackish, and the sinking of Artesian wells as yet in the experimental stage, Maracaibo is dependent on the rains for its drinking water. The markets are well supplied with provisions (especially game), and the lower classes, with whom the plantain forms the staff of life, are able to subsist in a state of comparative idleness. The prosperity of the place is due to the fact that it forms the outlet for the produce of a wide region ; and if the bar at the mouth of the lake, preventing the entrance of vessels drawing more than 10 or 11 feet, were removed Maracaibo would bid fair to become the chief mercantile centre of the north coast of South America. Coffee, not of prime quality, cocoa, and hides are the principal exports at present, $4,029,852 out of the $4,188,617 at which the whole exports were valued in 1880 being drawn from those items. Steamers ascend the Catatumbo as far as San Buenaventura and Villarnizar and the Escalente to Santa Cruz, thus tapping the border provinces of both Venezuela and Colombia. Bricks and tiles, leather and admirable saddlery, cocoa-nut oil, sugar, rum, and chocolate are manufactured in the town. Though the Jesuit College, which formerly made Maracaibo one of the few real seats of learning in this part of the world, no longer exists, means of education are fairly abundant (a national college, a nautical school, &amp;lt;kc.); and, although they devote them selves mainly to political agitation, the upper classes are not without culture. Maracaibo was founded by Alonso Pacheco in 1571. The population, returned in 1873 as 21,954, is estimated at 30,000 in 1881. See En gel, &quot;Maracaibo,&quot; in Zeit. d. Ges. Erdk., Berlin, 1870; and U. S. Consular Reports, 1882. MARAGHA, a town of Persia, province Azerbijan, 37 20 N., 46 25 E., 68 miles from Tabriz, 232 north-west of Tehran, pleasantly situated in a long narrow valley opening towards Lake Urmiah, which lies 10 miles to the north-west. The town consists mostly of mud houses enclosed by a high dilapidated wall, and containing no conspicuous buildings except a large bazaar and fine pubHc bath. Nasir-ed-dfn s observatory formerly stood on a hill to the west, where there are some old tombs covered with Cufic inscriptions. The surrounding gardens and planta-