Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/900

Rh 868 M O S M O S (Most Star, Old Bridge) is probably Roman. The town has a good trade and manufactures excellent Damascus swords ; and the grapes and wine of Mostar are celebrated throughout the south Slavonic countries. The population, 7300 in 1844, had increased to 10,848 by 1879. Whether its ancient name was Saloniana, Sarsenterum, or An- dretium, there is little doubt that Mostar, or, to use the older Slavonic name, Vitrinitcha, dates from the time of the Romans. It was enlarged in 1440 by Radivoi Gost, mayor of the palace to Stephen, first duke of St Sava. Immediately on their conquest of Herzegovina it was chosen by the Turks as their headquarters ; and it afterwards became the capital of the independent government of Ali Pasha and Stolac. See Evans, Through Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1876 ; Wilkinson s Dalmutia and Montenegro, vol. ii. (view and plan at pp. 59-60) ; and Caix de Saint Aymour in Rev. des D. Mondes, February 1883. MOSUL, an important town in Mesopotamia, on the right bank of the Tigris, in 36 35 N. lat. and 43 3 E. long. In Mosul, as in Baghdad, only part of the space within the walls is covered with buildings and the rest is occupied by cemeteries ; even the solid limestone walls of the ancient town are half in ruins, being serviceable only in the direc tion of the river, where they check inundations. Of the town gates at present in use, five are on the south, two on the west, two on the north, and the great bridge gate on the east. Leaving Mosul by the last named, the traveller first crosses a stone bridge, 157 feet long ; then a kind of island (140 feet), which is overflowed only in spring and summer by the Tigris ; next a stretch of the river Avhich, at such times as it is not fordable, is spanned by a bridge of boats, the bridge proper covering only one-sixth of the full width of the stream. During the season of low water excellent vegetables, particularly water-melons, are grown upon the islands and dry portions of the river-bed. The interior of Mosul has an insignificant appearance, only a few of the older buildings being left, among which may be mentioned the Great Mosque, with its leaning minaret, formerly a church dedicated to St. Paul. The private houses are partly of brick and partly of stone, the district furnishing an excellent and easily- wrought building-stone resembling marble. Handsome well-built halls (Iwdns) may be seen in many houses ; the underground dwellings also, to which the inhabitants retire during the day-time in the hot months of summer, are well and solidly built. The houses are high, and during three or four months of the year the inhabitants sleep on the flat roofs. The streets are for the most part badly paved and very narrow, a small square in the market place, overlooked by airy coffee-booths, being almost the only open space. The shops are few and poor. The industry, in comparison with former times, when the town had so considerable a manufac ture in &quot;muslin &quot; as to give its name to that fabric, is very unim portant ; trade also, which is almost exclusively in the hands of native merchants, has fallen off greatly. Gall nuts, gathered on the neighbouring Kurdish mountain slopes, are mostly exported, but are also made use of by native dyers ; and hides, wax, cotton, and gum are sold. Very few Europeans live in Mosul, though the market is abundantly supplied with European goods. The whole sale trade, conducted by means of caravans, has greatly declined from its former importance, owing not only to changes which have been taking place in commercial routes generally, but also to the dangers of the roads near Mosul ; for to the north and east of the town there are wild tribes of Kurds, some of whom continue to assert their independence of the Osmanli rule, while the Yezidis, a Kurdish tribe who have never yet accepted Islam, dwell in the Sinjar mountains, upon a northern spur of which the town stands. Semi-independent tribes of Bedouins also roam over the plains in the immediate vicinity. The wild hordes of the Shammar Bedouins have often plundered or threatened the citizens. Mosul, therefore, has a somewhat isolated position, and this perhaps is one reason why Christians and Moslems have lived together on better terms here than elsewhere. Both are animated by an active local patriot ism, and both honour the same patron saints, Jirjis (St George) and Jonah ; the grave of the latter is pointed out on an artificial mound on the left bank of the Tigris. The language of the people of Mosul is a dialect of Arabic, partly influenced by Kurdish and Syriac. The population is probably 25,000 to 30,000. It is stated that the town is divided into 32 quarters, of which one is Jewish and three are Christian, while the rest are Moslem. The Moslems call themselves either Arabs or Kurds, but the prevalent type, very different from the true Arabian of Baghdad, proves the Aramaean origin of many of their number. Of the Christians the community of the Chaldreans, i.e., those who have gone over from Nestorianism to Catholicism, seems to be the most important ; there are also Syrian Catholics and Jacobites. Mosul has for several centuries been a centre of Catholic missionary activity, the Dominicans especially, by the foundation of schools and printing-offices, having made a marked impression upon an intelligent and teachable population. There are very few Protest ants. Mosul shares the severe alternations of temperature experienced by Upper Mesopotamia (see MESOPOTAMIA). The summer heat is extreme, and in winter frost is not unknown. Nevertheless the climate is considered healthy and agreeable ; copious rains fall in general in winter. The drinking water is got from the muddy Tigris. At the north-east corner of the town is a sulphur spring, and 4 leagues to the south there is a hot sulphur spring (Haminam Ali), much frequented by invalids. Mosul probably occupies the site of a southern suburb of ancient NINEVEH (q.v. ), but it is very doubtful whether the older name of Mespila can be traced in the modern Al-Mausil (Arab., the place of connexion); it is, however, certain that a town with the Arabic name Al-Mausil stood here at the time of the Moslem conquest (636 A.D.). The town reached its greatest prosperity towards the beginning of the decline of the caliphate, when it was for a time an independent capital. The dynasty of the Hamdanids reigned in Mosul from 934, but the town was conquered by the Syrian Okailids in 990. In the llth century it belonged to the Seljuks, and in the 12th, under the sway of the Atabeks, particularly of Zenki, it had a short period of splendour. Saladin besieged it unsuccessfully in 1182. Among the later rulers of Mosul the only conspicuous name is that of Lulu, in the first half of the 1 3th century. The town suffered severely from the Mongols under Hulagu ; under Turkish rule it became the capital of a small pashalik, bounded on the one side by the vilayet of Diarbekr, on the other by that of Baghdad. The Persians occupied Mosul for a short time in 1623, until it was, soon after wards, recovered by Sultan Murad IV. It was visited by an earth quake in 1667, and was unsuccessfully besieged by the Persians under Nadir Shah in 1743. The governorship of the pashalik was long hereditary in the originally Christian family of the Abd-al-Jalil, until the Porte, during the course of the present century, succeeded after a long and severe contest in establishing a more centralized system of government. Compared with what it was in the Middle Ages the present town is much deteriorated, its decay having advanced steadily from the beginning of the Turkish dominion. T See Hitter, Asien, vol. vii. A map of the town accompanies Cernik s paper, &quot; Studienexpedition durch die Gebiete des Euphrat und Tigris,&quot; in Erganzungs- heft No. 45 of Petermann s Mittheilungen, 1870. END OF VOLUME SIXTEENTH. NKILL AND COMPANY, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.