Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/752

 734: MONASTERY MONBUTTOO the sea. The chief rivers are the Blackwater, Fane, Glyde, and Finn. There are several lakes, the largest being Muckno, or Barrac Lough, which is about 3 m. long and 1 m. broad. The soil is moory and peaty in the elevated districts, but fertile in the central and southern. The staple manufactures are linen, woollen, and earthenware. The minerals are iron, lead, coal, slate, marble, and building stone. The chief towns are Monaghan, the capital (pop. about 4,000), Clones, Castle Blay- ney, and Carrickmacross. It is traversed by the Ulster canal and various lines of railway. The county was a part of the grant made by Henry II. to De Courcy, was recaptured by the native chiefs, and in the. reign of Eliza- beth was erected into a shire. MONASTERY (Gr. novaarfjpiov, a house of re- tirement), the place in which monks or nuns live in seclusion. (See MONAOHISM.) In the beginning monasteries were to be found only in solitary places ; after a time some were built outside the walls of cities, and after the 5th century the cities themselves became the abode of cenobites. The growth of monaste- ries for women kept pace with those for men. St. Anthony built one for women in Egypt and placed his sister over it ; St. Pachomius did the same in Palestine. St. Basil erected several similar houses in Pontus and Cappa- docia. At Rome St. Constantia founded one near the church of Santa Agnese, and Marcella another near that of San Lorenzo. At the same epoch St. Eusebius of Vercelli built a monastery for women near his cathedral, and St. Ambrose another in Milan ; and St. Augus- tine a little later placed his sister at the head of a monastery in Africa. Similar establish- ments increased rapidly in western Europe. In both the East and the West the great re- ligious orders had numerous though separate houses for both sexes. The western monas- teries of the middle ages became, like those of Egypt and Palestine, so many little towns, containing all the industries necessary for their own subsistence. Not unfrequently, too, the neighboring peasants drew from the monks the necessaries of life and built their huts in close proximity to them. Such were the fa- mous convents of St. Gall, Fulda, Cluny, Ci- teaux, and Clairvaux, as well as the great mo- nastic establishments of the British isles ; and such are still the monasteries of the East. These houses are called abbeys when governed by an abbot or abbess, priories when ruled by a prior or prioress ; and when the superior has no such distinctive title, the house is called simply a monastery, convent, or nunnery. MONASTIR, or Bitolia, a town of European Turkey, in the vilayet and 80 m. W. N. W. of Salonica; pop. about 35,000, chiefly Greeks and Bulgarians. It is situated in the valley of a tributary of the Vardar, 1,700 ft. above the sea, and surrounded by lofty mountains. The town contains many mosques and a fine bazaar with thousands of shops. It has in recent times considerably increased in importance as a great military and commercial centre. Large quantities of manufactured goods are import- ed from Salonica, Constantinople, Belgrade, Trieste, Vienna, and other places, and export- ed to the interior. A Turkish governor and a Greek metropolitan bishop reside here ; the diocese is still called Pelagonia, the ancient Greek name of the district. MONBODDO, James Bnrnet, lord, a Scottish jurist, born at the family seat of Monboddo, in Kincardineshire, in 1714, died in Edinburgh, May 26, 1799. He graduated at the university of Aberdeen, and was sent to Groningen to study law. In 1738 he returned to Scotland, and practised at the bar till 1767, when he was made a judge. His principal works are : "A Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of Language" (6 vols. 8vo, 1774-'92), and "An- cient Metaphysics" (6 vols. 4to, 1778). He especially admired the civilization of Greece, but maintained that the savage state was hap- piest, that men originally possessed no higher faculty than beasts, and that the orang outang is of the human species. MONBUTTOO, a country of central Africa, bor- dering on Nyam-nyam, Moruvoo, and Akka, between lat. 3 and 4 N., and Ion. 28 and 29 E. ; area, about 4,000 sq. m. ; pop. estima- ted by Schweinfurth in 1870 at 1,000,000. It is generally a table land 2,500 to 2,800 ft. above the sea, with gentle elevations in some places 100 ft. above the beds of the streams. It is traversed in the north by the Keebaly river, which is joined by the Gadda flowing in from the southwest. They form the Welle, which proceeds west along the southern por- tion of Nyam-nyam, and is enlarged by numer- ous tributaries, finally forming in its upper course the more easterly of the two arms, which, uniting in Baghirmi under the name of Shary, are the source of Lake Tchad. The country is described as very beautiful, with vast groves of plantains, oil palms, and other trees, and a delightful verdure. The sponta- neous production of fruits and tubers in pro- fusion limits cultivation to the narrowest bounds, and almost the only products requi- ring attention are sesame, ground nuts, sugar cane, and tobacco. The breeding of cattle is not practised by the Monbuttoo ; vast numbers of goats are stolen from their neighbors, but there is no attempt to rear them; and, ex- cepting dogs and poultry, they have no do- mestic animals. The people are of a lighter tint than other known nations of central Af- rica, and Schweinfurth compares the color of their skins to that of ground coffee. They differ from other negroes also in the greater length and curve of the nose. Weaving is unknown to them ; the men clothe themselves with the bark of the fig tree, and the women go almost entirely naked. They practise cir- cumcision, and polygamy is unlimited. They are ingenious Avorkers of copper and iron, ex- pert wood carvers, and display some facility