Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/531

 PILGRIMAGE PILLNITZ 515 markable celebrity. (See PARAY-LE-MONIAL.) Lourdes, a little town in the department of Hautes-Pyrenees, has become famous since 1858 for "the reported apparition of the Vir- gin Mary to Bernardette Soubirous, and La Salette, in Haute-Loire, for a similar appari- tion to two shepherd children. A monumental church has been erected at Lourdes, and the waters of an adjoining spring, reputed as pos- .sessing miraculous healing powers, are drunk by the pilgrims and sent to every part of the world. Pontigny also, where St. Thomas a Becket lived in exile among the Cistercian monks, and which contains the shrine of his ^exiled successor St. Edmund Rich, archbishop of Canterbury, was in the middle ages resorted to by many French and English pilgrims ; and on Sept. 2, 1874, 500 English pilgrims, headed !by Archbishop Manning and Lord Edmund Howard, went thither to invoke the interces- sion of St. Edmund in favor of the church in Italy and Germany. In May, 1874, American pilgrims to the number of 120 left New York for Paray-le-Monial and Rome. England num- bered many celebrated shrines of the Virgin Mary, the most ancient of which was Glas- tonbury, and the most renowned Walsingham. The shrine of St. Cuthbert at Durham, and still more that of St. Thomas a Becket at Canter- bury, were frequented by numerous pilgrims before the reformation. St. Winifred's chapel at Holywell, in northern Wales, has been a favorite place of pilgrimage since the 12th century. lona, off the west coast of Scotland, was long famed as a place of pilgrimage. In Ireland there were a great number of such places, the principal being the shrine of St. Patrick at Downpatrick, St. Patrick's Purga- tory, an island in Lough Derg, and Croagh Patrick, overlooking Clew bay in Mayo. In America the most noted places of pilgrimage are Guadalupe near the city of Mexico and St. Anne near Quebec, which is yearly frequented l>y crowds from every part of Canada. The Russian Orthodox church has also fostered the zeal for pilgrimages. Besides Jerusalem and the monastery of Mt. Athos, there are famous shrines at Kiev, the lavra (high monastery) of the Holy Trinity about 30 m. from Moscow, and St. Alexander Nevskoi near St. Peters- burg. Among the Mohammedans the pilgrim- age most in repute is that to Mecca. (See HADJI.) The favorite shrines for the Persians are Mesjid Ali, the burial place of the caliph AH, and Kerbela, where Hussein, son of Ali by Mohammed's daughter Fatima, was slain. The Persians also make visits to Mecca and Medina. In Hindostan there are innumerable holy places to which devotees resort, the most Celebrated of which are Juggernaut, Benares, Hurdwar, Dwarka, and Nassick. The pilgrim- ages are generally at festivals lasting several days, a part of the time being passed in re- ligious rites, a part in amusements, and a part in business. Thieving, lewdness, and all forms of villany are then especially rife. Some of the pilgrims lose all their means and have to beg their way home ; others resort to such places for the purpose of ending their exis- tence, for it is believed that those who die at certain of these holy spots are exempt from future suffering and metempsychosis. Many of the devotees in proceeding on a pilgrimage prostrate themselves on the ground at every step, repeating each time the name of the god or the place to which they are going. The Mongols have a strong taste for pilgrimages, and their country abounds with places of re- puted great sanctity, generally Buddhist mon- asteries, to which at certain times vast crowds are attracted. A rite greatly in vogue at such times consists in making the circuit of the monastery in a series of prostrations, the body being extended at full length and the forehead touching the ground at every step. As the monasteries with their outbuildings are often very large, it is frequently difficult to accom- plish the feat in a single day. The Japanese of the Shinto sect make pilgrimages to a famous temple in the province of Isje, which every one is obliged to visit at least once in his life. The journey is made generally in the spring and on foot. Other devotees, usually in companies of two or three, travel about the empire to visit the chief temples. They are dressed in white after a peculiar fashion, and obtain their bread by singing from house to house, many of them having no other occupation, but passing their lives in perpetual pilgrimage. In the cold- est weather pilgrims journey to certain temples with no covering but a little straw about their waists. They receive no charity, live poorly, and run nearly all the distance. The Sinai of the Japanese Buddhists is the volcano of Fusi- yama near Tokio (Yedo), and a yearly pilgrim- age to it is the duty of every one. PILLARS OF HERCULES. See GIBRALTAR. PILLAU, a seaport of Prussia, in the prov- ince of Prussia, 26 W. by S. of Konigsberg, on the Baltic, at the entrance of the Friscnes Haff, and on a tongue of land called the Para- dise on account of its fine situation ; pop. in 1871, 2,909, exclusive of the garrison. It is the port of Konigsberg for large vessels, a third class fortress, a favorite watering place, and one of the most important Prussian sea- ports. It has a school of navigation, and cap- tains and pilots are examined by committees sitting at Pillau. The shipping business has more than doubled within the last generation. The present town was founded in 1722, but Old Pillau, a village 1 m. N. E. of it, is much older, as is also the fortress. PILLNITZ, or Pitoitz, a village of Saxony, on the right bank of the Elbe, 7 m. S. E. of Dres- den ; pop. about 600. The royal family reside here during the summer months. In its palace the emperor Leopold II. and Frederick William II. of Prussia met in August, 1791, and con- certed the preliminaries of a coalition to op- pose the progress of the French revolution, and enforce the regal rights of Louis XVI.