verses. About the same time he commenced, at the desire of the ruler of the neighbouring Shīrvān, his second romantic poem, the famous Bedouin love-story of Laila and Majnūn, which has so many points in common with Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, and finished it in the short space of four months. A more heroic subject, and the only one in which he made a certain attempt to rival Firdousī, was selected by our poet for his third epopee, the Iskandarnāma, or “Book of Alexander,” also called Sharafnāmā or Iqbālnāma-i-Iskandarī (“The Fortunes of Alexander”), which is split into two divisions. The first or semi-historical part shows us Alexander the Great as the conqueror of the world, while the second, of a more ethical tendency, describes him in the character of a prophet and philosopher, and narrates his second tour through the world and his adventures in the west, south, east and north. There are frequent Sūfic allegories, just as in the Makhzan; and quite imbued with pantheistic ideas is, for instance, the final episode of the first part, the mysterious expedition of Alexander to the fountain of life in the land of darkness. As for the date of composition, it is evident, from the conflicting statements in the different MSS., that there must have been an earlier and a later recension, the former belonging to 587–589 A.H., and dedicated to the prince of Mosul, ‛Izz-uddīn Mas‛ūd, the latter made for the atābeg Nusrat-uddīn Abū Bakr of Azerbaijan after 593 A.H., since we find in it a mention of Nizāmī’s last romance Haft Paikar, or the “Seven Beauties,” which comprises seven tales related by the seven favourite wives of the Sassānian king Bahrāmgūr. In this poem, which was written 593 A.H., at the request of Nūr-uddīn Arslān of Mosul, the son and successor of the above-mentioned ‛Izz-uddīn, Nizāmī returned once more from his excursion into the field of heroic deeds to his old favourite domain of romantic fiction, and added a fresh leaf to the laurel crown of immortal fame with which the unanimous consent of Eastern and Western critics has adorned his venerable head. The most interesting of the seven tales is the fourth, the story of the Russian princess, in which we recognize at once the prototype of Gozzi’s well-known Turandot, which was afterwards adapted by Schiller for the German stage. The five mathnawīs, from the Makhzan to the Haft Paikar, form Nizāmī’s so-called “Quintuple” (Khamsa) or “Five Treasures” (Panj Ganj), and have been taken as pattern by all the later epic poets in the Persian, Turkish, Chaghatāi and Hindustānī languages. Nizāmī died at Ganja in his sixty-fourth year, 599 A.H. (1203 A.D.).
The fullest account of Nizāmī is given in Dr W. Bacher’s Nizāmī’s Leben und Werke (Leipzig, 1871; English translation by S. Robinson, London, 1873; reprinted in the same author’s Persian Poetry for English Readers, 1883, pp. 103-244). All the errors of detail in Bacher’s work have been corrected by Dr Rieu in his Catalogue of the Persian MSS. in the British Museum (1881), ii. 563 sqq.
Principal Editions.—The whole Khamsa (lithographed, Bombay, 1834 and 1838; Teheran, 1845); Makhzan-ul Asrār (edited by N. Bland, London, 1844; lithographed, Cawnpore, 1869; English translation in MS. by Hatton Hindley, in the British Museum Add. 6961); Khosrau and Shīrīn (lithographed, Lahore, 1871; German translation by Hammer in Shīrīn ein persisches romantisches Gedicht, Leipzig, 1809); Laila and Majnūn (lithographed, Lucknow, 1879; English translation by J. Atkinson, London, 1836); Haft Paikar lithographed, Bombay, 1849; Lucknow, 1873; the fourth tale in German by F. von Erdmann, Behramgur und die russische Fürstentochter, Kasan, 1844); Iskandarnāma, first part, with commentary (Calcutta, 1812 and 1825; text alone, Calcutta, 1853; lithographed with marginal notes, Lucknow, 1865; Bombay, 1861 and 1875; English translation by H. Wilberforce Clarke, London, 1881; compare also Erdmann, De expeditione Russorum Berdaam versus, Kasan, 1826, and Charmoy, Expédition d’Alexandre contre les Russes, St Petersburg, 1829); Iskandarnāma-i-Bahrī, second part, edited by Dr Sprenger (Calcutta, 1852 and 1869). (H. E.)
NIZHNE-TAGILSK, popularly known as Tagil, a town and
ironworks of Russia, in the government of Perm, stands in a
longitudinal valley on the eastern slope of the Ural Mountains,
within a few miles of the place where the Tagil, cutting through
the eastern wall of the valley, escapes to the lowlands to join
the Tura, a tributary of the Tobol. The southern part of this
valley is occupied by the upper Tagil, and its northern portion
by the upper Tura, from which the Tagil is separated by a
low watershed. Pop. (1897) 30,000, all Great-Russians and
chiefly Nonconformists. The town is connected by railway
(the first in Siberia) with Perm and Ekaterinburg, the latter
distant 88 m. to the S.S.E. It was founded in 1725 by the
Russian mine-owner Demidov, and is still the property of his
family. Nizhne-Tagilsk is a central foundry for a number of
iron-mines and other works scattered in the valley of the Tagil
and its tributary the Salda. Gold, platinum and copper are also
mined at Nizhne-Tagilsk. The town carries on a brisk corn
trade. The inhabitants make wooden boxes and trays, which
are sent to the fairs of Irbit and Nizhniy-Novgorod.
NIZHNE-UDINSK, a town of East Siberia, in the government
of Irkutsk, 315 m. by rail W.N.W. of Irkutsk, on the Siberian
railway, and on the Uda river. It is a centre for the Biryusa
gold mines, and in winter the head of a line of communication
with the Lena and Bratsky Ostrog, on the Angara. Pop. (1897)
5803.
NIZHNIY-NOVGOROD or Nijni-Novgorod, abbreviated into Nizhegorod, a government of Central Russia, bounded by the
governments of Vladimir on the W., Kostroma and Vyatka
on the N. and N.E., Kazan and Simbirsk on the E., and Penza
and Tambov on the S., with an area of 19,792 sq. m., two-thirds
being on the right and the rest on the left bank of the Volga.
The smaller portion, with the exception of the better-drained
lands close to the river, is a low, flat, marshy region, covered
with thick forests and sandy hills, and thinly peopled. The
space between the Oka and the Volga, in the west, is also flat
and forest-grown. The best part of the government is that to
the east of the Oka; it is hilly, trenched by deep ravines and
better drained, and has patches of fertile black earth in the south.
The government is drained by the Volga with its tributaries,
the Kerzhenets and the Vetluga on the left, and the Sura (with
the Pyana) and the Oka on the right. These and their numerous
tributaries offer great facilities both for navigation and for the
transportation of timber. Numerous small lakes dot the government,
especially in the north, and close upon two-fifths of its
entire surface is still covered with forests, which occupy nearly
the whole of the Zavolyi (to the north of the Volga), and extend
without a break for 50 and 80 m. to the west and south-west.
respectively. The climate is severe, especially in the Zavolyi,
where the average yearly temperature is 5·6° Fahr. lower than
at Nizhniy. Besides the Carboniferous, Permian and Triassic
deposits (“variegated marls”), Jurassic deposits are found in
patches, chiefly in the south-east, as also in the south-west and
north. They are overlain with Cretaceous black clays and
sandstones. Thick strata of Tertiary sands, containing petrified
wood, are found in the Ardatov district, and over the whole
lie Glacial deposits, sandy gravels and clays.
Black earth, known as the “black earth of the plateau,” prevails on the high plains between the river valleys in the south-east; the “valley black earth,” even more fertile than the former, covers the gently-sloping portions of the territory, also in the south-east. More or less sandy clays are met with elsewhere, and there are large patches of sand. Iron ores (brown and spherosideritic), alabaster, limestone, sand (used for glass), salt and phosphorites are the chief useful minerals. There are also extensive deposits of peat.
The population increased from 1,376,000 in 1880 to 1,602,292 in 1897; of these 841,245 were women, and 140,347 lived in towns. The estimated pop. in 1906 was 1,823,600. They consist of Russians, to the extent of 88%; Mordvinians, to the number of 53,100; Cheremisses, 6700; with Tatars and Chuvashes. Of the total number in 1897 1,525,735 were Orthodox and Old Believers, 75,848 Raskolniks (Nonconformists), 51,236 Mussulmans and 3388 Jews. Both the birth-rate (53 in 1000) and the death-rate (42 in 1000) are high. A little over 53% of the area is available for agriculture, and of this 59% is owned by noblemen and 16% only by the peasantry, the remainder being owned by merchants and others. Of the cultivable land owned by the peasantry 55% is under crops, but of similar land owned by noblemen only 30% is cultivated. The principal crops are wheat, rye, oats, barley, pease and potatoes. In some years the yield is quite insufficient for the population, and every year over 100,000
