Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/56

Rh 46 M E S M E S them migrated north-eastwards to the basins of the Kama and Byelaya, and thus the Meschers divided into two branches. The western branch became Russified, so that the Mescheryaks of the governments of Penza, Saratoff, Ryazan, and Vladimir have adopted the customs, language, and religion of the conquering race ; but their ethnogra phical characteristics can be easily distinguished in the Russian population of the governments of Penza and Tamboff. The eastern branch has taken on the customs, language, and religion of Bashkirs, with whom their fusion is still more complete. They can be distinguished from their neighbours only by their more peaceful character. This Bashkir-Mescheryak branch was estimated by Rittich in 1875 to number 138,000. They make 6 percent, of the population of the government of Upa, and 22 per cent, in the district of Birsk. The number of the western Mescheryaks is unknown, and could hardly be estimated on account of their mixture with Russians. It is only in the government of Penza that they have maintained their national features ; there they make 3 per cent, of the population. MESCHOVSK, a district town of Russia, in the govern ment of Kaluga, 45 miles to the south-west of the capital of the province. It is an old town supposed to date from the 13th century, and it is often mentioned in Russian annals under the names of Mezetsk, Mezechevsk, or Meschorsk. About the end of the 14th century it was embraced in Lithuania, and it was ceded to the Moscow &quot; great principality &quot; in 1 494. It was often pillaged by Tar tars in the 16th century, and during the great disturbances of 1610 all its inhabitants were killed by the Zaporoghi Cossacks, and the fort was taken by Poles, who returned it to Russia only after the treaty of Deulm. The country round Meschovsk is not fertile ; but, from its position on old established routes to the south, the town has become a centre of considerable trade. Its annual fair, which takes place on the grounds of the very old Petrovsk monastery, is important to the surrounding districts for the export sale of horses, grain, hemp, hempseed oil, and coarse linen, and for the import trade in cottons, woollens, and earthen and glass wares, the whole turn-over reaching about 100,000. Population, 7400. MESHED (properly Mesh-hed, i.e., &quot;place of martyr dom,&quot; &quot;shrine&quot;), a city of northern Persia, capital of Khorasan, 472 miles east of Tehran, 201 miles north-west of Herat, 36 17 40&quot; N., 52 35 29&quot; E., lies on a plain watered by the Keshaf-riid, a tributary of the Heri-rud, and is surrounded by mud walls 4 miles in circumference, with a dry ditch 40 feet deep at some points, which could be flooded from the neighbouring reservoir and watercourses. Within this enclosure is a strong citadel, with good walls 25 feet high, residence of the prince governor of Khorasan. There are five gates, from one of which, the Bala KhiabAn, the Khiaban main street runs right through the city, form ing a fine boulevard planted with plane and mulberry trees, and with a stream of dirty water running down its whole length. In the centre is an open parallelogram 160 yards by 75, encircled by double-storied cloisters, and pierced on the long side by a high arched porch leading directly to the great mosque, whose gilded dome rises above the shrine of the famous Imam Riza. 1 The marble tomb of the saint, 1 All Riza (or el-Rida), the eighth imam of the Shi a, is the Ah ibn Musa from whom the party of Alides had such hopes under the caliphate of Mamun (see MOHAMMEDANISM). He died at Tiis, 818 A.D., and was buried by Mamun s orders in the vicinity of that town beside the grave of Harun el-Rashid. To the Alides he was a martyr, being believed to have been poisoned by the caliph. Ibn Batata, who describes both shrines (iii. 77 sq. ), tells how the pious visitors to the shrine of AH ibn Musa used to spurn with their feet the tomb of Rashid. In his time a considerable town had been formed around the shrine under the name of Meshhed el-Rida and ultimately the new town eclipsed the older city of Tus. which is the most venerated spot in the whole of Persia, and yearly visited by from 80,000 to 100,000 pilgrims, is surrounded by a silver railing, and approached by a flight of inlaid marble steps. Eastwick, the only European before O Donovan Avho penetrated as far as the parallelogram, describes the mosque as large enough to contain three thousand people. It is flanked by two gilded minarets, one of which, 120 feet high, is extremely beautiful, with an exquisitely carved capital, built by Shah Abbas. The faqade is entirely covered with blue and white enamelled tiles. To the mosque are attached as many as two thousand attendants and retainers of all sorts, including no less than five hundred mollahs. Beyond the dome is Gauhar Shah s handsome mosque, surmounted by an immense blue dome, and also flanked by two minarets. In the main street is a public kitchen supported by the enormous revenues of the shrine, where eight hundred devotees are daily supplied with food gratuitously. The only other notable buildings in the place are some colleges and twenty- two caravanserais, one of which is of great size. Meshed does a considerable local and transit trade to the yearly value of about 600,000 tomAns, and its bazaars are always well stocked with silks, velvets, felts, cottons, shawls, carpets, lacquer work, lambskins, hardware, glass, china, and other goods from South Persia, India, Turkestan, and Russia. The European trade is now entirely controlled by Russia, and European manufactured articles are mostly all from that country. The chief manufactures are silk, satin, velvet, and checked-cotton fabrics, carpets, shawls, noted sword blades, shagreen, and turquois jewellery. AVithin the enclosures are extensive cemeteries far exceeding the local requirements, large numbers of the faithful being brought from all parts of the Shi a world to be buried in the vicinity of Riza s shrine under the belief that their eternal salvation is thereby ensured. Some 10 miles west of Meshed is a powder factory, formerly under Colonel Dolmage, where powder of excellent quality is pro duced. The district, although fertile, does not produce sufficient for the inhabitants, so that much grain has to be imported from Kurdistan and Nishapiir. The climate is very severe in winter, with much snow ; in summer it is less sultry than might be expected, the temperature ranging from 76 F. to 90 or 92 F., and in excep tional years 94 to 98 F. The population is variously estimated at from 45,000 (Connolly) and 60,000 (Ferrier) to 80,000 and 100,000 (Eastwick). The settled residents, exclusive of pilgrims and foreign traders, are estimated by O Donovan at 50,000. The main caravan routes from Khiva, Bokhara, Samarkand, and Herat converge at Meshed, whence lines of traffic radiate to Kiichan for the Atrek valley and the Caspian, to Nishapiir and Bostam for Tehran, to Tabas for Isfahan, to Khaf for Sistan and Kirman. It thus occupies a position in north-eastern Persia analogous to that of Tabriz in the north-west. MESHED-ALI, i.e., the shrine of the &quot; martyr &quot; AH, is a town of Asiatic Turkey, province of Baghdad, 50 miles south of Kerbela, close to the ruins of Kufa, and 2 miles west of the Hindiye branch of the Euphrates, the reputed burial-place of the caliph Ali. 2 It stands on the east scarp of the Syrian desert, and is enclosed by nearly square brick walls flanked by massive round towers dating from the time of the caliphs. Under the gilded dome of the great mosque, which occupies the centre of the town, is the shrine of Ali, which is held by the Shi a as at least as holy as the Kaaba itself. Any Moslem buried within sight of the dome being certain of salvation, large numbers of bodies are yearly sent from all parts for interment here. Besides the mosque with its richly decorated faqade, the only noteworthy building is a good bazaar supplied from Baghdad and Basra. The town itself, which Lady Anne 2 Whether the place really contains the grave of Ali was long disputed, and the story given in defence of its claims is doubtless apocryphal. The dome was built under the Abbasids, and the resting- place of the caliph unknown or concealed under the Omayyads (Ibii Haukal, p. 163).