Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/359

Rh N E P N E R 345 consequence in the state were filled by Jung, his brothers, and other ! relatives. In 1850, finding himself securely seated in power, Jung | Bahadur paid a visit to England, which made a great impression on | his acute intellect, and ever after he professed and proved himself to be a staunch friend of the British. On his return in 1851, he at once devoted himself to reforming the administration of the country. Every department in the state in turn felt the benefit j of his resolute will, and, whatever may have been the means by which he gained power, it must be allowed that he exercised it so as to prove himself the greatest benefactor his country has ever , possessed. In 1853 a treaty for the extradition of criminals was ; proposed, but it was not ratified till February 1855. In 1854 the | Nepalese entered into a war with Tibet, which lasted with varying success till March 1856, when peace was concluded on terms very j favourable to Nepal. In June 1857 intelligence of the mutiny of the native troops in Hindustan reached Nepal, and produced much excitement. Jung Bahadur, in spite of great opposition, stood firm as a friend of the British. On the 26th June 4000 troops were sent off to assist, and these rendered good service in the campaign against the mutineers. Jung himself followed on the 10th of December, with a force of 8000 men, 500 artillerymen and 24 guns, but some what late to be of much use. Many of the mutineers and rebels, ! including the infamous Nana Sahib, took refuge in the Nepalese terai, and it was not till the end of 1859 that they were finally swept out of the country. The Nana was said to have died of fever in the terai, along with several others of the rebel leaders, and it is probable that this was the case, although for many years tales were circulated of his being still alive, and of his having been seen in various parts of Nepal and British India. His wives and a few attendants resided for many years near Kathmandu. In return for the aid afforded to the British, Jung Bahadur was well rewarded. He was created a G.C. B., and in 1873 a G. C.S.I., honours of which he was not a little proud. The troops employed received food and pay from the day of leaving Kathmandu ; hand some donations were given to those severely wounded, and to the relatives of the killed ; great quantities of muskets and rifles were presented to the Nepalese Government ; and, to crown all, a large portion of the terai was restored to Nepal. This ground contains most valuable sal and sisu forests, and yields a revenue of several lakhs of rupees yearly. From the termination of the mutiny Nepalese history has been uneventful. The country has been prosperous, and the relations with the British have continued to be most friendly. Nevertheless the restrictions on commerce, and the prohibitions against Europeans entering the country, or travelling beyond certain narrow limits, are as rigidly enforced as they were a hundred years ago. Sir Jung Bahadur died suddenly in the terai in 1877. In spite of all the exertions he had made to bring about a better state of things, three of his wives were allowed to immolate themselves on his funeral pyre. His brother, Sir Ranadip Singh Bahadur, G.C. S.I., succeeded him as prime minister. Shortly after his accession to power a plot was formed against him, but he showed himself as prompt to meet such an emergency as his late brother had been, for nearly forty of the conspirators were seized and executed in a summary manner, and others, who escaped, are now living in exile. The rajas of the GSrkhali line in Nepal, with dates of accession, are Prithiwi-niLrayana Sah (1768), Pratapa-sinha Sail (1774), Rana Bahadur Sah (1777), Girvan-yuddha Vikrama Sah (1799), Rajendra Vikrama Sah (1816), Surendra Vikrama Sah (1847), Prithiwi Yir Vikrama Sah (1881). (D. WR.) NEPHRITE. See JADE. NEPOMUK, ST JOHN OF. See JOHN, vol. xiii. p. 718. NEPOS, CORNELIUS, a Roman historian, friend of Catullus, Cicero, and Pomponius Atticus, was probably a native of Verona. Nothing is known of his life, but he is recorded to have written a universal history under the title CkrQnica, letters to Cicero, and other works, especially a series of biographies styled De Viris Illustritnis. It is one of the problems of Latin literature whether or not any of these works have been preserved. There is a series of biographies, chiefly of Greek generals, first printed at Venice in 1471 under the title jEmilii Probi de Vita Excellentium. Other later editions bear slightly varying titles, and add the lives of Cato and Atticus. Many MSS. expressly assign the last to Cornelius Nepos, and in 1569 Lambinus, in a famous edition of the Lives, maintained that the whole of them were the work of Nepos. The chief argument in favour of this view is founded on the language, which is a model of chaste, elegant Latinity. The view of Lambinus has been very generally accepted ; the only question debated is whether all the lives are in the original condition, or whether some of them have been modified or abridged by vEmilius Probus. The editions of Nepos s Lives are extremely numerous, the book having long been much read in schools. NEPOS, JULIUS, the last but one of the Roman emperors of the West, from 474 to 475, was a nephew of that Marcellinus who in the latter half of the 5th century had established a semi-independent principality in Dalmatia. After the death of Olybrius, on October 23, 472, the throne of the West remained for some months vacant, during which Italy was abandoned to lawless barbarians. On the 5th of March 473, the army, at the instigation of Gundobald the Burgundian, who had suc ceeded to the power and authority of his uncle Ricimer, raised Glycerius, an obscure officer, to the imperial dignity. Meanwhile Leo I., emperor of the East, was discussing with his council the election of a new colleague for the Western empire. At length choice was made of Nepos, who married a niece of the empress Verina. After con siderable delay he landed in Italy and took Glycerius prisoner at Portus at the mouth of the Tiber in 474. Glycerius, being compelled to enter the church, was appointed bishop of Salona. The only event of the reign of Nepos was the inglorious cession to the Visigoths of the province of Auvergne. In 475 Orestes, father of Augus- tulus, who afterwards was the last emperor of the West, raised the standard of revolt and marched against Nepos at Ravenna. The emperor fled into Dalmatia, and con tinued to reside at Salona until his assassination by two of his own officers in 480. There exists some doubt, however, whether his death was, as Gibbon affirms, caused by his former rival, the bishop of Salona. NEPTUNE, the ftoman god of the sea, is probably adopted from Greek religion. The earliest reference to his worship is on the occasion when the Sibylline books included him among the gods to whom the first lecti- sternium was dedicated, 399 B.C. (Livy v. 13). In the poets no trait of Neptune occurs that is not directly borrowed from the Greek Poseidon. His festival, Neptunalia, was celebrated on July 23, and his temple stood near the Circus Flaminius. His worship was never popular or widespread in Rome. The god Portunus was thanked for naval victories in earlier times ; but Sextus Pompey called him self son of Neptune, and Agrippa dedicated to Neptune a temple in the Campus Martius in honour of the naval victory of Actium. NERAC, a town of France, formerly the capital of the duchy of Albret, is situated in the department of Lot-et- Garonne, on both banks of the Bayse, a navigable tributary of the Garonne, 16 miles west-south-west of Agen. It is a pretty and flourishing little place of 4803 inhabitants (1881 ; commune 7384), with cloth factories, cork-works, and a number of flour-mills ; the ruins of its castle are entered in the Government list of historical monuments ; and in the old royal park (La Garenne) it has one of the finest promenades of the south of France. Roman ruins of hot baths, villas, &c., discovered at Ne rac in 1831-33 show that the site must have been occupied in the 3d cen tury. In 1250 a Benedictine monastery was established, and in 1306 the lords of Albret expelled the monks and began to build a castle for themselves, which gradually grew into an imposing edifice. Here Marguerite d Angouleme held court as queen of Navarre, and fathered round her the Protestant literati of her time, Beza, larot, &c. ; here Henry IV. spent a large part of his youth ; and here Catherine de Medici in 1579 held a conference with the Protestant leaders. The town was dismantled in 1622 by Louis XIII. because it had sided with the Protestant party. NERBUDDA (properly NARBADA), one of the great rivers of India, traditionally regarded as the boundary between Hindustan proper and the Deccan. It rises on the summit of Amarkantak hill in Rewah state, in 22 XVIL 44