the siege. This was the decisive action of the campaign in Central India, and Tantia Topi was obliged to seek refuge in the jungles of Rajputana and Bundelkhand, where he was taken by Major Meade, condemned, and executed on the 18th of April 1859. He was the only rebel leader in the Mutiny who showed any conspicuous military talent.
TAOISM, a form of religion in China, the name of which is taken from the ancient treatise called Tâo Teh King, supposed to be the work of the sage Lao-tsze (q.v.). The later characteristics of Taoism as a form of worship represent a corruption of the earlier doctrines of Lao-tsze, and the infusion of Buddhist and other ideas.
TAORMINA (ancient Tauromenium), a town on the E. coast of Sicily, in the province of Messina, from which town it is 30 m. S.S.W. by rail. Pop. (1901) 4110. It has come into great favour as a winter resort, especially with British and German visitors, chiefly on account of its fine situation and beautiful views. It lies on an abrupt hill 650 ft. above the railway station, and was founded by the Carthaginian Himilco in 397 B.C. for a friendly tribe of Sicels, after the destruction, by Dionysius the Elder of Syracuse, of the neighbouring city of Naxos. In 395 Dionysius failed to take it by assault on a winter's night, but in 392 he occupied it and settled his mercenaries there. In 358 the exiles from Naxos, after wandering up and down Sicily, at last found a home there. Its commanding site gave it considerable importance. It was the city at which both Timoleon and Pyrrhus first landed. During the First Punic War it belonged to the kingdom of Hiero, and after his death it enjoyed an exceptionally favoured position with regard to Rome, being like Messana and Netum, a civitas foederata. During the first Servile War it was occupied by Eunous and some of his followers, but was at length taken by the consul Publius Rupilius in 132. It was one of the strongholds of Sextus Pompeius, and after defeating him Augustus made it into a colonia as a measure of precaution, expelling some of the older inhabitants. In the time of Strabo it was inferior in population, as we should expect, to Messana and Catana; its marble, wine and mullets were highly esteemed. In A.D. 902 it was taken and burnt by the Saracens; it was retaken in 962, and in 1078 fell into the hands of the Normans.
The ancient town seems to have had two citadels; one of these was probably the hill above the town to the W. now crowned by a medieval castle, while the other was the hill upon which the theatre was afterwards constructed (E. A. Freeman, History of Sicily, iv. 506). There are some remains of the city walls, belonging to more than one period. It is indeed possible that one fragment of wall belongs to a period, before the foundation of the city, when the Naxians had a fortified port here (Evans in Freeman, op. cit., iv. 109 n. 1). The church of San Pancrazio, just outside the modern town, is built into a temple of the 3rd century B.C., the S. wall of the cella of which is alone preserved. Inscriptions prove that it was dedicated to Serapis. The other ruins belong in the main to the Roman period. The most famous of them is the theatre, largely hewn in the rock, which, though of Greek origin, was entirely reconstructed. The seats are almost entirely gone, but the stage and its adjacent buildings, especially the wall, in two storeys, at the back, are well preserved: some of its marble decorative details were removed for building material in the middle ages, but those that remained have been re-erected. The view from the theatre is of exceptional beauty, Mount Etna being clearly seen from the summit to the base on the S.W., while to the N. the rugged outlines of the coast immediately below, and the mountains of Calabria across the sea to the N.E. make up one of the most famous views in the world. There are also remains of a much smaller theatre (the so-called Odeum), and some large cisterns; a large bath or tank which was apparently open, known as the Naumachia, measures 426½ ft. in length and 39½ in width: only one of its long sides is now visible, and serves as a foundation for several houses in the main street of the modern town. The aqueducts which supplied these cisterns may be traced above the town. There are remains of houses, tombs, &c., of the Roman period, and fine specimens of Romanesque and Gothic architecture in the modern town.
See Rizzo, Guida di Taormina e dintorni, Catania, 1902.
(T. As.)
TAPACULO, the name[1] given in Chile to a bird of singular appearance—the Pteroptochus albicollis of ornithology, and applied in an extended sense to its allied forms, which constitute a small family, Pteroptochidae, belonging to the Clamatores division of Passeres, peculiar to South America. About 20 species, disposed by P. L. Sclater (Ibis, 1874, pp. 189–206) in 8 genera, are believed to belong to this group.
Tapaculo.
The species of the Family first made known is Scytalopus magellanicus, originally described in 1783 by J. Latham (Synopsis, iv. p. 464) as a Warbler. Even in 1836 J. Gould not unnaturally took it for a Wren, when establish in the genus to which it is now referred; but some ten years after Johannes Müller found that Scytalopus, together with the true Tapaculo, which was first described by Kittlitz in 1830, possessed anatomical characters that removed them far from any position previously assigned to them, and determined their true place as above given. In the meanwhile a kindred form, Hylactes, also first described in 1830, had been shown by T. C. Eyton to have some very exceptional osteological features, and these were found to be also common to Pteroptochus and Scytalopus. In 1860 J. Cabanis recognized the Pteroptochidae as a distinct Family, but made it also include Menura (see Lyre-bird), and in 1874 P. L. Sclater (ut supra) thought that Atrichia (see Scrub-bird) might belong here. It was A. Garrod in 1876 and 1877 who finally divested the Family of these aliens, but until examples of some of the other genera have been anatomically examined it may not be safe to say that they all belong to the Pteroptochidae.
The true Tapaculo (P. albicollis) has a general resemblance in plumage to the females of some of the smaller Shrikes (Lanius), and to a cursory observer its skin might pass for that of one; but its shortened wings and powerful feet would on closer inspection at once reveal the difference. In life, however, its appearance must be wholly unlike, for it rarely flies, hops actively on the ground or among bushes, with its tail erect or turned towards its head, and continually utters various and strange notes,—some, says Darwin, are “like the cooing of doves, others like the bubbling of water, and many defy all similes.” The “Turco,” Hylactes megapodius, is larger, with greatly developed feet and claws, but is very similar in colour and habits. Two more species of Hylactes are known, and
- ↑ Of Spanish origin, it is intended as a reproof to the bird for the shameless way in which, by erecting its tail, it exposes its hinder parts. It has been sometimes misspelt “Tapacolo,” as by C. Darwin, who gave (Journal of Researches, chap. xii.) a brief but entertaining account of the habits of this bird and its relative, Hylactes megapodius, called by the Chilenos “El Turco.”
