Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/180

168 A K NAKHICHEVAN-ON-THE-DON, a town of southern Russia, situated in the government of Ekaterinoslaff, dis trict of Rostoff, 6 miles by rail to the north-east of the latter town, on the right bank of the Don. It was founded in 1780 by Armenians who emigrated from the Crimea and were allowed to settle on the banks of the Don, forming there an independent district between Azoff and the fort of St Demetrius, now Rostoff ; they gave to the chief town of their new settlement the name of the older city in Caucasus. Owing to the fertility of the region, its advan tageous situation for trade, and the privileges granted to the settlers, Nakhichevan soon became a wealthy place, and it still is the administrative centre of the " Armenian district," which extends as a narrow strip along the banks of the Don, with a population of upwards of 25,000, of whom 16,500 principally Armenians, with some 2000 Russians are settled at Nakhichevan. The town has several tobacco and wadding factories, tallow-melting houses, soap-works, brick-works, and tanneries, with an aggregate annual production of about 100,000. The chief occupation of the Armenians, however, is trade, which they carry on throughout southern Russia, while the less wealthy of them are renowned as innkeepers on the Caucasus. The rural population depend mainly on cattle- breeding, and to some extent also on fishing. NAMAQUALAND, a vast region of south-western Africa, extending along the west coast for a distance of 600 miles from the south of Damaraland (22 43 S. lat.) to the north of the county of Clanwilliam (30 35 S. lat.), and stretching inland from 80 to 350 miles. It is divided by the lower course of the Orange River into two portions Little Namaqualand to the south, and Great Namaqua- land to the north. Little Namaqualand, incorporated with Cape Colony since 1865, has an area of 20,635 square miles, and in 1875 had a population of 12,233, of whom 2675 were whites. The seat of magistracy is at Spring- bokfontein, on a branch of the Buffels River, about 60 miles from the coast, with which it communicates by a mule-railway (96 miles long) ending at Port Nolloth on Robbe or Seal Bay. Ookiep, 6 miles to the north of Springbokfontein, is, next to the diamond fields of Kimberley, the most important mining place in South Africa, its copper mines (worked by the Cape Copper Mining Company) giving employment to about 1500 people; the output in 1882 was 16,311 tons of extremely rich ore. The European miners are mainly from Corn wall and Mansfeld. Copper is also worked at Concordia, Spektakel, and (since 1853) Kodas. Great Namaqualand has an area of 987,000 square miles, about sixteen times the size of England ; but its population does not exceed 20,000, mostly Namaquas and other Hottentots (see HOTTENTOTS). For 30, 40, or even 100 miles inland the country is a sandy waste, and on the eastern side it passes off into the great Kalahari desert. The central portion is traversed from north to south by the Fish River or Oub and its tributaries, which ultimately reach the Orange River about 70 miles above its mouth ; but, except after rain, they are mere dry beds. And the rains are periodical and partial, the result almost always of thunderstorms. In a few minutes after the thunder clouds have burst the country is flooded ; turbid currents half a mile wide roar through a ravine which has not shown a drop of water for years previously ; rivulets flow where one would think water had never run before (J. F. Wilson). The surface of the interior part of the country is covered with hills, irregularly distributed, but with a general tendency to run in lines parallel to the coast. Towards the south-east the Gei Kharas mountains reach a height of 6570 feet, and the smaller Khari Kharas group about 5200. The Nuaibeb mountains on the borders of Damaraland are a little higher (6700 feet). The only Europeans as yet settled in Great Namaqualand are the Basel and the Wesleyan missionaries; but it has been decided to establish a regular German colony at Angra Pequena, the only important bay on the whole coast. The country, like Little Namaqualand, has long been known to be rich in minerals. The proposal made about 1876 to annex it and Damaraland to Cape Colony fell through. See Andersson, Lake Ngami, &c. , London, 1856; Tindall, Lecture on Namaqualand, Cape Town; Carl Zerrenncr, Reise des Ingcnieurs A. Thies nach den Kupferbergiverken Namaqualands, Freiberg, 1860; Petermann s Mittheilungen, 1865, p. 389-91; W. C. Pal- grave s Report of Mission to Damaraland and Great Namaqualand in 187 6, Cape Town, 1877; Cape Monthly Magazine, 1871 and 1S80; Rev. Benjamin Kidsdale, Scenes and Adventures in Great Namaqua land, 1883. NAMES. Names, and the study of proper names of persons and places, are not without scientific and historical importance, but, on the whole, are perhaps rather matter of curious interest. It stands to reason that, even in the earliest societies of "articulate speaking men," all known persons, places, and groups of human beings must have had names by which they could be spoken of and by which they were recognized. The study of these names and of their survival in civilization enables us in some cases to ascertain what peoples inhabited districts now tenanted by persons of far different speech. Thus the names of mountains and rivers in many parts of England are Celtic, for example, to take familiar instances, Usk, Esk, and Avon. There are also local names (such as Mona, Monmouth, Mynwy, and others) which seem to be relics of tribes even older than the Celtic stocks, and " vestiges of non-Aryan people, whom the Celts found in possession both on the Continent and in the British Isles." l These are affairs of somewhat dubious conjecture, but it is certain enough that the Celtic names, with their mysterious and romantic sounds, do linger in English valleys like the last echoes of Arthur s horn among the hollows of the hills. And it is no less certain that the English name is some times the mere translation, perhaps unconscious, of the earlier Celtic appellation, often added to the more ancient word. Penpole Point in Somerset is an obvious example of this redoubling of names. As to the meaning and nature of ancient local names, they are as a rule purely descriptive. A river is called by some word which merely signifies "the water"; a hill has a name which means no more than " the point," " the peak," " the castle." Celtic names are often of a more romantic tone, as Ardna- murchan, " the promontory by the great ocean," an admirable description of the bold and steep headland which breasts the wash of the Atlantic. As a general rule the surviving Celtic names, chiefly in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, all contain some wide meaning of poetic appropriateness. The English names, on the other hand, commonly state some very simple fact, and very frequently do no more than denote property, such and such a town or hamlet, "ton" or "ham," is the property of the Billings, Uffings, Tootings, or whoever the early English settlers in the district may have been. The same attachment to the idea of property is exhibited in even the local names of petty fields in English parishes. Occasionally one finds a bit of half humorous description, as when a sour, starved, and weedy plot is named " starvacre " ; but more usually fields are known as "Thompson s great field," "Smith s small field," "the fouracre," or the like. The name of some farmer or peasant owner or squatter of ancient date survives for centuries, attached to what was once his pro perty. Thus the science of local names has a double historical value. The names indicate the various races 1 Elton, Origins of English History, p. 165 ; Rhys, Lectures on Celtic Philology, 181, 182.