Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/599

Rh M A R M A R the Turkish pirates, the commercial importance of Marsala remained in abeyance till the construction of the new port to the south of the town. The sea-wall for this was begun in 1818 ; but it was not till 1835-36 that the pier was constructed. A great part of the surface of 44 acres con stituting the port is now silted up ; new works, however, on an extensive scale, are being undertaken. The wine trade, which forms the staple, was commenced in the end of the last century by Woodhouse & Co.; and the wines first got into favour by being supplied to the English fleet in 1802. They are for the most part white, and are usually &quot;fortified.&quot; The number of seagoing vessels that entered at Marsala in 1863 was 149, with a burden of 9791 tons ; in 1880 there were 249 vessels of 16,645 tons. From 31,350 in 1861 the population of the commune had in creased by 1881 to 40,251 ; that of the town was 14,105 in 1871, or, with the suburbs of Porta Garibaldi, Porta Mazzara, and .Porta Trapani, 17,666. On the small island of San Pantaleone, about 6 miles north of Marsala, lay the Carthaginian stronghold of Motya (Ital., Mozia}. 1 After the destruction of this settlement by Dionysius in 397 B.C. the defeated party established a new colony on the neighbouring promontory of Lilybteum. It was there that in 276 B.C. the Carthaginians held out successfully against Pyrrhus, who had already driven them from the rest of Sicily ; and it was only after a siege of ten years that in the first Punic War they were obliged to surrender the fortress to the Romans. Under its new possessors Lilybreum continued to flourish and became the residence of one of the two qiifestors of Sicily. It was still an important city under the later empire, and when occupied first by the Goths and then by the Vandak. The Arabs called it Mersa Aly, &quot;port of Aly,&quot; and Edrisi (12th century) describes it a.i a considerable town, which, having been ruined, had been restored by Roger I. It was at Mar sala that Garibaldi began his Sicilian campaign in 1860. MARSDEN, WILLIAM (1754-1836), an eminent Ori ental scholar, was the son of a Dublin merchant, and was born in 1754. After studying at Trinity College, he obtained an appointment in the civil service of the East India Company, and set sail for Bencoolen, Sumatra, in 1771. There he soon rose to the office of principal secretary to the Government, and was at the same time intent on acquiring that intimacy with the Malay language, and that knowledge of the country, which were afterwards the sources of Ms literary reputation. Returning to England in 1779 with a pension, he retired into literary seclusion, and in 1782 produced The History of Sumatra. Marsden was appointed .in. 1795 second secretary and afterwards first secretary to the admiralty. In 1807 he retired again into private life, and, devoting himself to study, published in 1812 his Grammar and Dictionary of the Malay Language, and in 1817 his translation of the Travels of Marco Polo. A pension of 1500, which he had received on his retirement from office, he voluntarily resigned in 1831 for the behoof of the public. In 1834 he presented his rich collection of Oriental coins to the British Museum, and his library of books and Oriental MSS. to King s College, London. He died of apoplexy in October 1836. Marsden s other works are Numismata. Orientalia, London, 1823-25; Catalogue of Dictionaries, Vocabularies, Grammars, and Alphabets, 1796 ; and several papers on Eastern topics in the Philosophical Transactions and the Arch&ologia. His name will also be remembered in connexion with African philology, as he had the first in England, and, it would appear, independently of Lichtenstein and Vater drawn attention to the affinity of the Congo and Mozambique languages with those spoken by the Kaffre race. See Tuckey s Narrative of an Expedition to explore the River Zaire, London, 1818, p. 386 sq. MARSEILLES (Fr. Marseille], the third largest city of France, and the chief commercial port of the Mediter ranean, in 43 17 N. lat. and 5 22 E. long., is the chief town of the department of Bouches du Rhone, headquarters of the 1 5th army corps, the seat of a bishop, and of numerous 1 The ruins of Motya were excavated by Schliemann in 1876. Academy, March 1876, p. 288. See 571 The population commercial and scientific institutions. (1881) is 360,099. The old harbour of Marseilles opens on the west to the Gulf of Lyons ; and the famous Rue de la Cannebiere, leading east-north-east from the inner end of the harbour, and continued by the Rue de Noailles, the Alices de Meilhan, and the Boulevard de Longchamps, to the Palais des Arts, forms the first main artery of the town. A second great artery, at right angles to the first, connects the Aix gate and its triumphal arch with the grand Promenade du Prado, by the Cours Belsunce and the Rue de Rome. North of the old harbour, between the Aix gate and the sea, lies the old town of Marseilles. The finest streets, the Rue St Ferreol, the Rue Paradis, and the Rue de Breteuil, are to the south of the Rue Cannebiere, Plan of Marseilles. running parallel with the Rue de Rome, between it and the foot of the hill upon which is Notre Dame de la Garde. From La Cannebiere to La Joliette, the centre of the new docks, runs the broad Rue de la Re publique, lined with fine buildings, and opening a line through the oldest part of the town. The entrance to the old harbour is defended by Fort St Jean on the north and Fort St Nicolas on the south. Behind the latter is the Anse (Creek) de la Reserve. Beyond this again, situated in succession along the shore, come the old imperial palace, the Anse du Pharo, the military exercising ground, and the Anse des Catalans. The new parts of the town extend in this direction to the Vallon d Endoume behind Fort St Nicolas. To the old harbour, which covered only 70 acres, the basin of La