of commerce, as well as wool and butter. The imports, which consist chiefly of machinery, fruits (dried and fresh), wine, oil and textiles, do not much exceed half a million sterling annually.
TAGES (Tăgēs), a minor Etruscan deity, grandson of Jupiter, and founder of the art of divination in Etruria. According to the story, during the ploughing of a field near Tarquinii a being
of boyish appearance sprang out of the furrow. The shouts of
the ploughman (Tarchon) brought to the spot all the people
of Etruria, whom the boy proceeded to instruct in the art of
divination. Having done this, he suddenly disappeared. His
instructions were for some time handed down orally, but were
subsequently committed to writing, and formed the twelve books
of Tages, containing a complete system of Etruscan lore.
See Cicero, De Div. ii. 23; Ovid, Metam. xv. 553; Festus, s.v.; Mommsen, Hist. of Rome (Eng. tr.), bk. i. ch. 12.
TAGLIACOZZI, GASPARO (1546–1599), Italian surgeon, was born at Bologna in 1546, and studied at that university under Cardan, taking his degree in philosophy and medicine at the age of twenty-four. He was appointed professor of surgery and afterwards of anatomy, and achieved notoriety at least, and the fame of a wonder-worker. He died at Bologna on the 7th of November 1599.
His principal work is entitled De Curtorum Chirurgia per Insitionem Libri Duo (Venice, 1597; fol.,); it was reprinted in the following year under the title of Chirurgia Nova de Narium, Aurium, Labiorumque Defectu per Insitionem Cutis ex Humero, arte hactenus omnibus ignota, sarciendo (Frankfort, 1598, 8vo).
TAGLIACOZZO, a town of the Abruzzi, Italy, in the province of Aquila, 56 m. by rail E.N.E. of Rome, and 10 m. W. of
Avezzano. Pop. (1901) 4517 (town), 9061 (commune). It lies 2428 ft. above sea-level, at the mouth of the deep ravine of the Imele. It contains several old churches, notably S. Francesco,
with a line rose window in the façade, and medieval
houses. The palace, built at the end of the 14th century by
the Orsini, is fine. The place was given to the Colonna family
in 1526. At the end of 1268 a battle took place here between
Conradin of Hohenstaufen and Charles of Anjou, which resulted
in the defeat of Conradin and his execution.
TAGLIONI, MARIA (1804–1884), Italian ballet dancer, daughter of Filippo Taglioni (1777–1871), master of the ballet at Stockholm, Cassel, Vienna and Warsaw, was born at Stockholm on the 23rd of April 1804. She was trained by her father, who is said to have been pitilessly severe. It was to his care and her own special talent for dancing that she owed her success, for she possessed no remarkable personal attraction. Her first appearance was at Vienna on the 10th of June 1822, in a ballet of which her father was the author, La Réception d’une jeune nymphe à la cour de Terpsichore. Her success was immediate, and was repeated in the chief towns of Germany. On the 23rd of July 1827 she made her Paris debut at the Opera, in the Ballet de Sicilien, and aroused a furore of enthusiasm. Among her more remarkable performances were the dancing of the Tyrolienne in Guillaume Tell, of the pas de fascination in Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable, and in La Fille du Danube. At this period the ballet was an important feature in opera, but with her retirement in 1847 the era of grand ballets may be said to have closed. In 1832 she married Comte Gilbert de Voisins, by whom she had two children. Losing her savings in speculation, she afterwards supported herself in London as a teacher of deportment, especially in connexion with the ceremony of presentation at court. During the last two years of her life she lived with her son at Marseilles, where she died on the 23rd of April 1884. Taglioni is frequently mentioned in the novels of Balzac; and Thackeray, in The Newcomes, says that the young men of that epoch "will never see anything so graceful as Taglioni in La Sylphide."
TAGUS (Span. Tajo, Portug. Tejo), the longest river of the
Iberian Peninsula. Its length is 565 m., of which 192 are on
or within the frontier of Portugal, and the area of its basin is
about 31,850 sq. m. The basin is comparatively narrow, and
the Tagus, like the other rivers of the Iberian tableland, generally
flows in a rather confined valley, often at the bottom of a rocky
gorge below the general level of the adjacent country. The
river rises on the western slope of the Muela de San Juan (5225
ft.), a mountain which forms part of the Sierra de Albarracin,
88 m. E. of Madrid. Thence the Tagus flows at first north-
westwards, but, after receiving the Gallo on the right, it flows
west, and then south-west or west-south-west, which is its
general direction for the rest of its course. Regular river
navigation begins only at Abrantes, a few miles below which
the Tagus is greatly widened by receiving on its right bank the
impetuous Zezere from the Serra da Estrella. Passing Santarem, the highest point to which the tide ascends, and the limit
of navigation for large sailing vessels and steamers, the river
divides below Salvaterra into two arms, called the Tejo Novo
(the only one practicable for ships) and the Mar de Pedro.
These branches enclose a deltaic formation, a low tract of
marshy alluvium known as the Lezirias, traversed by several
minor channels. Both branches terminate in a broad tidal
lake immediately above Lisbon (q.v.). The Tagus estuary,
though partly blocked by a bar of sand, is one of the chief
harbours of south-western Europe.
The narrower part of the Tagus basin lies to the south, and the left-hand tributaries which drain it are almost all mere brooks, dry in summer. The principal exception is the Zatas or Sorraia, which, rising in the Serra d’Ossa, flows westwards across the plateau of Alemtejo, and joins the Mar de Pedro. The principal right-hand tributaries, besides the Gallo and Zezere, are the Jarama, descending from the tableland of New Castile a little below Aranjuez, the Alberche and the Tietar, which collect their head waters from opposite sides of the Sierra de Gredos, and the Alagon, from the rough and broken country between the Sierras de Gredos and Gata.
TAHITI, the largest and most important of the French Society Islands (q.v.) in the Pacific Ocean, in 17 38′ S., 149 30′ W. Pop. about 10,300. The island, in shape not unlike the figure 8, has a length of 33 m., a coast-line of 120, and an area of 402 sq. m. It is divided into two portions by a short isthmus (Isthmus of Taravao) about a mile in width, and nowhere more than 50 ft. above sea-level. The southern, the peninsula of Taiarapu, or Tahiti-iti (Little Tahiti) measures 11 m. in length by 6 m. in breadth; while the northern, the circular main island of Porionuu, or Tahiti-uni (Great Tahiti), has a length of 22 m. and a breadth of 20. The whole island is mountainous. A little to the north-west of the centre of Great Tahiti the double-peaked Orohena rises to 7349 ft., and the neighbouring Aorai is only a little lower. Little Tahiti has no such elevation, but its tower-like peaks are very striking. The flat land of the Tahitian coast, extending to a width of several miles—with its chain of villages, its fertile gardens, and its belt of palms, sometimes intersected by stream-fed valleys which open on the seashore—forms a most pleasing foreground to the grand mountain ranges. A good road surrounds the island, the extreme north of which is formed by Point Venus, W. of which lie the Bay of Matavai and Papeete, the European town and seat of government, on its beautiful harbour.
Climate.—The seasons are not well defined. Damp is excessive; there is little variation in the weather, which, though hot, is nevertheless not depressing, and the climate for the tropics must be considered remarkably healthy. The rainfall is largest between December and April, but there is so much at other times of the year also that these months hardly deserve the name of the rainy season. During this period north-west winds are frequent, continuing at times for weeks, and there are thunderstorms and hurricanes. These, while not generally destructive, are sometimes so, as notably the storm of the 13th of January 1903. During the eight drier and cooler months south-east trade winds prevail, but there are southerly winds which bring rain, and even westerly breezes are not infrequent. The mean temperature for the year on the coasts is 77° F. (maximum 84°, minimum 69°); and the average rainfall from December to March (4 months) is 29 inches; from April to November (8 months), 19 inches.
Fauna.—Mammals, as in other Polynesian islands, are restricted to a few species of bats (mostly of the genus Pteropus), rats and mice, none of them peculiar. Of domestic animals, the pig and the
dog—the former a small breed which quickly disappeared before
