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 114 MYSORE mate is healthful. The average annual rainfall is about 30 inches. Mysore not only produces the grains, vegetables, and fruits common to southern India, but also many of those belong- ing to the temperate regions. A considerable portion of the surface is covered with jungle. Rice, sugar cane, ragi, a species of coarse grain, and wheat are the chief crops raised. The betelnut palm and the castor oil plant thrive well. Carbonate of soda, salt, and iron are found. The inhabitants are principally Hin- doos ; in 1872 there were 230,518 Mohamme- dans, 15,241 Christians, 14,600 Buddhists, and 2,843 of other creeds. The Roman Catholics claim about 20,000 converts. Coarse blankets, carpets, shawls, and cotton cloths are manu- factured. There are 3,072 m. of roads in the country, and 48 m. of railway. The total number of schools during 1871-'2 was 2,683, of which 603 were government institutions. Mysore is mentioned in the Hindoo mythologi- cal writings ; but the authentic history of the country commences, with the Mohammedan in- vasion in 1326, when it was incorporated with the empire of Delhi. The affairs of that em- pire soon afterward falling into confusion, My- sore was lost, and some Hindoos escaping from Mohammedan persecution in the north founded a city on the banks of the Tungabudra, which became the capital of a new state comprising nearly the whole of Mysore and part of the Carnatic; but in 1565 its ruler, Ram Rajah, was defeated and slain by the army of a Mo- hammedan confederation, and his capital taken and depopulated. A Mysorean chief, named Rajah Wadeyar, acquired possession of the fort and island of Seringapatam, and his successors, by a career of aggression, toward the close of the 17th century had extended their authority over the whole table land of Mysore. In 1731 the minister deposed the rajah, and in 1749 Hyder Ali made his appearance as a volunteer in the army of Mysore, and ultimately rose to be sovereign of the country. Upon the death of his son Tippoo Sahib in 1799, the British annexed a considerable portion of his domin-- ions to their Indian possessions, and allotted the territory now known as Mysore to the de- scendant of the rajah who had been supplanted by Hyder Ali ; but the country having fallen into a deplorable condition under his govern- ment, Lord W. Bentinck, the governor general of India, placed the civil and military admin- istration in the hands of a British commission, though the rajah still nominally retained au- thority. The rajah died childless in 1868, and a chief commissioner, who is directly respon- sible to the governor general of India, now administers the government in the name of the rajah's adopted son, who is a minor. (See HYDEE ALI, TIPPOO SAHIB, and SERINGAPATAM.} II. A city, capital of the state, 7 m. S. S. W. of Seringapatam, and 250 m. W. S. W. of Ma- dras, in lat. 12 19' N., Ion. 76 42' E.; pop. in 1872, 57,765. The town is built upon two small hills or parallel elevated ridges, 2,450 ft. MYSTERIES above the sea, and is fortified by a wall of earth with a moat, and by a quadrangular fort, within which stands the palace of the titular rajah. The buildings of the town are generally good, and the streets regular and well kept. The want of a sufficient supply of good drink- ing water is severely felt, and is the main cause of the unhealthiness of the place. Car- pet making is the chief industry. Mysore has always been the nominal and historic capital of the district; but it was neglected in favor of Seringapatam by Hyder Ali and his son, and has only recovered from its position of secon- dary importance within the present century. MYSTERIES (Gr. [tvarfpta, from nvelv, to shut the lips), ceremonies in ancient religions to which only the initiated were admitted. They may be obscurely traced in the early Orient, in the rites of Isis and Osiris in Egypt, in the Per- sian Mithraic solemnities, and in the festivals in- troduced into Greece with the worship of Bac- chus and Cybele ; and they lingered through the decline of Rome, and perhaps left their traces in the ceremonies of freemasonry. They consisted, in general, of rites of purification and expiation, of sacrifices and processions, of ecstatic or orgiastic songs and dances, of noc- turnal festivals fit to impress the imagination, and of spectacles designed to excite the most diverse emotions, terror and trust, sorrow and joy, hope and despair. The celebration was chiefly by symbolical acts and spectacles; yet sacred mystical words, formulas, fragments of liturgies, or hymns were also employed. There were likewise certain objects with which occult meanings that were imparted to the ini- tiated were associated, or which were used in the various ceremonies in the ascending scale of initiation. The sacred phrases, the cnrdpfara, concerning which silence was imposed, were themselves symbolical legends, and probably not statements of speculative truths. The most diverse theories have been suggested concerning the origin, nature, and significance of the Hellenic mysteries. As Schumann re- marks (GriecJiiscJie Alterthumer, 3d ed., Ber- lin, 1873), the very fact that it was not per- mitted to reveal to the uninitiated wherein these cults consisted, what were the rites pe- culiar to them, for what the gods were in- voked, or what were the names of the divini- ties worshipped, has been the cause of our ex- tremely incomplete information in regard to them. The oldest of the Hellenic mysteries are believed to be those of the Cabiri in Samothrace and Lemnos, which were renowned through the whole period of pagan antiquity. Though they were only less august than the Eleusinian, nothing is certain concerning them, and even the names of the divinities are known to us only by the profanation of Mnaseas. (See CABIRI.) The Eleusinian were the most ven- erable of the mysteries. "Happy," says Pin- dar, "is he who has beheld them, and de- scends beneath the hollow earth; he knows the end, he knows the divine origin of life."