Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/54

Rh 44 M E E M E K clusters of grapes might be gathered two cubits in length.&quot; The Arab traveller Ibn Haukal, writing in the 10th century, remarks that &quot; the fruits of Merv are finer than those of any other place, and one cannot see in any other city such palaces with groves and streams and gardens.&quot; A local proverb says, &quot;Sow a grain to reap a hundred.&quot; All cereals and many fruits grow in great abund ance. The Turcomans possess a famous breed of horses, not prepos sessing in appearance, being somewhat leggy and long in the back and neck, but capable of accomplishing long distances 50 or 60 miles for several days in succession, and with very little food. Their great peculiarity appears to be their hairlessness ; the coat is very fine, the mane and tail very scanty. This breed of horses, as well as the wealth of the Merv Tekkes in camels and flocks, is fast disappearing. The Turcomans are noted as excellent workers in silver and as armourers, and their carpets are superior to Persian. They also make felts and a rough cloth of sheep s wool. One of the chief occupations of the male sex is the repair of the dams and the clearing of the canals, upon the efficiency of which their existence is dependent. The services of a large number of workmen are always held in readiness for the purpose. In 1878 the unusual mass of water in the Murghab carried away the dam, and the drying up of some of the canals nearly led to a failure of the crops. Climate. The position of Merv, in the midst of sandy deserts in the heart of Asia, makes the climate in the heat of summer most oppressive. The least wind raises clouds of fine sand and dust, which fill the air, render it so opaque as to obscure the noonday sun, and make respiration difficult. In winter the climate is very fine. Snow falls rarely, and melts at once. History. The name Merv, or some similar form, occurs at a very early period in the history of the Aryan race. Under Mouru we find it mentioned with Bakhdi (Balkh) in the geography of the Zend Avesta (Vendidad, fargand L, ed. Spiegel), which dates prob ably from a period anterior to the conquest of Bactria by the Assyrians, and therefore at least one thousand two hundred years before the Christian era. Under the name of Margu it occurs in the cuneiform inscriptions of Darius Hystaspis, where it is referred to as forming part of one of the satrapies of the ancient Persian empire (Inscrij&amp;gt;tioncs Behistani, ed. Kossowicz). It afterwards became a pro vince (Mediae??) of the Grseco- Syrian, Parthian, and Persian king doms. On the Margus the Epardus of Arrian and now the Murghab stood the capital of the district, Antiochia Margiana, so called after Antiochus Soter, who rebuilt the city founded by Alexander the Great. About the 5th century, during the dynasty of the Sasa- nids, Merv was the seat of a Christian archbishopric of the Nestorian Church. In the middle of the 7th century the flood of Arab conquest swept over the mountains of Persia to the deserts of Central Asia. Merv was occupied 666 A.D. by the lieutenants of the caliph Othman, and was constituted the capital of Khorasan. From this city as their base the Arabs, under Kuteibe bin Muslim, early in the 8th century brought under subjection Balkh, Bokhara, Ferghana, and Kashgaria, and penetrated into China as far as the province of Kan-su. In the latter part of the 8th century Merv became obnoxious to Islam as the centre of heretical propaganda preached by Mokannah (Haschem ben Hakem), the &quot; veiled prophet of Khorasan,&quot; who claimed to be the incarnation of the Deity. In 874 Arab rule in Central Asia came to an end. Dur ing their dominion Merv, like Samarkand and Bokhara, became one of the great schools of science, and the celebrated historian Yakut studied in its libraries. About 1037 the Seljukian Turks crossed the Oxus from the north and raised Toghrul Beg, grandson of Seljuk, to the throne of Persia, founding the Seljukian dynasty, with its capital at Nishapur. A younger brother of Toghrul, Daoud, took possession of Merv and Herat. Toghrul was succeeded by the renowned Alp Arslan (the great lion), whose sway was so vast that, according to tradition, no fewer than twelve hundred kings, princes, and sons of kings and princes did homage before his throne. Alp Arslan was buried at Merv. It was about this time that Merv reached the zenith of her glory. During the reign of Sultan Sanjar of the same house, towards the middle of the llth century, Merv was overrun by the Turcomans of Ghuz, and the country was reduced to a state of misery and desolation. These Turcomans, the ancestors of the present tribes of Turcomania, were probably introduced into the country by the Seljukian Turks as military colonists. They formed the van of their armies, and rendered efficient service so long as the dynasty lasted, and after wards took part in the wars of Tamerlane. In 1221 Merv opened its gates to Toulai, son of Jenghiz, khan of the Mongols, on which occasion the inhabitants, to the number of 700,000, are said to have been butchered. From this time forward Merv, which had been the chief city of Khorasan, and was popularly supposed to contain a million inhabitants, com menced to languish in obscurity. In the early part of the 14th century MITV was again the seat of a Christian archbishopric of the Eastern Church. On the death of the grandson of Jenghiz Khan Merv became included in the possessions of Toghluk Timur Khan (Tamerlane), in 1380. In 1505 the decayed city was occupied by the Uzbeks, who five years later were expelled by Ismail Khan, the founder of the Suii avean dynasty of Persia. Merv thencefor ward remained in the hands of Persia until 1787, when it was attacked and captured by the emir of Bokhara. Seven years later the Bokharians razed the city to the ground, broke down the dams, and converted the district into a waste. About 1790 the Sarik Turcomans pitched their tents there. &quot;When Sir Alexander Burnes traversed the country in 1832, the Khivans were the rulers of Merv, the nomad population being subject to them. About this time the Tekke Turcomans, then living at Orazkala on the Heri-rud, were forced to migrate northward in consequence of the pressure from behind of the Persians. The Khivans contested the advance of the Tekkes, but ultimately, about the year 1856, the latter be came the sovereign power in the country, and have ever since resisted all attempts at reconquest. Authorities. Besides the standard travels of Wolff, Ferrier, Vambery, Burnes, Abbott, Mouravieff. and others, the following works and papers of more recent date may be consulted with advantage: Sir II. Rawlinson s England and Russia in the East; O Donovan s correspondence with the Daily News, 1880-81; O Donovan s Merv,&quot; Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc.; Col. Stewart s &quot;Country of the Tekke Turcomans,&quot; Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc., with excellent map ; &quot; The New Russo- Persian Frontier, 1881,&quot; Proc. Hoy. Geog. Soc.; Girard de Rlalle, itemoire sur I Asie Centrale; Sir H. Rawlinson, &quot;Road to Merv,&quot; Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc.; Col. Baker s Clouds in the East; Captain Napier s Reports,&quot; Jour. Roy. Geog. Soc.; Hutton s Central Asia; Marvin s Merv; Col. Potto s Steppe Campaigns; Sir Charles MacGregor s Journey through Khorassan ; Bonlger s England and Russia in Central Asia ; Captain Butler s Communications to the Public Press ; Lessar s &quot; Journeys,&quot; Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc.; O Donovan s Merv Oasis; Papers on the Turcomans, &amp;lt;fec., by Col. Petrusevitch, Proc. Imp. Russ. Geog. Soc., Caucasus section ; Col. Grodekoff s Journey from Tashkend to Persia, 1880 ; Captain Kuropatkin s Turcomania, 1880 ; Col. Veniukoffs Progress of Russia in Central Asia, 1877, and other papers by the same author; Col. Kostenko s &quot;Turkestan,&quot; Jour. R. U. S. Instn.; Schuyler s Turkistan; correspondence on Central Asia pre sented to parliament, &c. (F. C. II. C.) MF.RYON, CHARLES (1821-1868). The name of Meryon is associated with that spirited revival of etching in France which took place in the middle of the 19th century, say from 1850 to 1865, but it is rather by the individuality of his own achievements, and the strength of his artistic nature, than by the influence he exercised that Meryon best deserves fame. No doubt his work encouraged others to employ the same medium of expression, and so great was his own perfection of technique that he may well have been made a model ; but, after all, the medium he selected, and in which he excelled, was but the accident of his art ; he was driven to it in part by stress of circum stances by colour blindness ; and, even with colour blind ness, his extraordinary certainty of hand and his delicate perception of light, aided by his potent imagination, would have made him a great draughtsman not alone upon the copper. Charles Mdryon was born in Paris in 1821. His father was an English physician, his mother a French dancer. It was to his mother s care that Meryon s childhood was confided. She was supplied with money, and she gave the boy passionate affection, if not a wise training. But she died when he was still very young, and Meryon in due time entered the French navy, and in the corvette &quot; Le lihin &quot; made the voyage round the world. He was already a draughtsman, for on the coast of New Zealand he made pencil drawings which he was able to employ, years after wards, as studies for etchings of the landscape of those regions. The artistic instinct developed, and, while he was yet a lieutenant, Meryon left the navy. Finding that he was colour-blind, Meryon determined to devote himself to etching. He entered the work-room of one Blery, from whom he learnt something of technical matters, and to whom he always remained grateful. Meryon was by this time poor. It is said that he might have had assistance from his kindred, but he was too proud to ask it. And thus he was reduced to the need of executing for the sake of daily bread much work that was wholly mechanical and irksome. Resolutely, though unwillingly, he became the hack of his art, doing frequently, from the day when he was first a master of it to the day when insanity disabled him, many dull commissions which paid ill, but paid better than his original works. Among learner s work, done for his own advantage, are to be counted some studies after the