Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/249

N A S N A S 237 Institute library occupies a building erected in 1882 at a cost of $130,000. Being the natural centre of a wide productive region, and well served by river and rail, Nash ville has an extensive and rapidly growing trade, especially in cotton and tobacco. Its manufacturing establishments comprise three large cotton factories (34,000 spindles, 700 hands in 1882), saw-mills, grist-mills, planing factories, carriage factories, extensive furniture factories, distilleries, paper-mills, cotton-seed-oil mills, and stove foundries. The population was 5566 in 1830, 10,165 in 1850, 16,988 in 1860, 25,865 in 1870, and 43,350 in 1880. Settled in 1780, Nashville received incorporation as a town in 1784 and as a city in 1806. It was not till 1843 that it became the capital of the State, though, with the exception of the period from 1815 to 1826, the legislature had met there from 1812. In February 1862 Nashville was evacuated by the Confederate General A. S. Johnston, and was held from that time by the Federal forces. The attempt made in December 1864 by the Confederate General Hood to recover the now strongly-fortified town resulted in the "battle of Nashville," in which his army was completely routed by that of General G. H. Thomas. NASIK, or NASSICK, a district in the Bombay presi dency, India, between 19 34 and 20 52 N. lat., and between 73 21 and 75 2 E. long., bounded on the N. by Khandesh, E. by the Nizam s Dominions, S. by Ahmed- nagar, and W. by Thana (Tanna), with an area of 5940 square miles. With the exception of a few villages in the west, the whole district is situated on a table-land from 1300 to 2000 feet above sea-level. The western portion is hilly, and intersected by ravines, and only the simplest kind of cultivation is possible. The eastern tract is open, fertile, and well cultivated. The Sahyadri range stretches from north to south ; the watershed is formed by the Chander range, which runs east and west. All the streams to the south of that range are tributaries of the Godavari. To the north of the watershed, the Girna and its tributary the Mosam flow through fertile valleys into the Tapti. The district generally is destitute of trees, and the forests which formerly clothed the Sahyadri hills have nearly dis appeared ; efforts are now being made to prevent further destruction, and to reclothe some of the slopes. The district contains several old hill forts, the scenes of many engagements during the Mahratta wars. Nasik district became British territory in 1818 on the overthrow of the peshwa. The population in 1881 was 781,206 (Hindus 683,579, Mohammedans 35,294). NASIK, the chief town of the district (population 22,436), is situated on the Godavari, and is considered a place of great sanctity by Hindus, who make pilgrimages to its temples from all parts of India. Places of worship fringe both banks of the river, and even the bed of the stream is thickly dotted with temples and shrines. Nasik has brass and copper works, but commercially is of little more than local importance. NASIR KHOSRAU. Abu Muin-ed-din Nasir b. Khosrau, the first great didactic poet of Persia, was a descendant of the imam AH Rida, and was born, according to his own statement in one of his kasidas, 394 A.H. (1004 A.D.), at Kubadiyan, near Balkh in Khorasan. The first forty-two years of his life are obscure ; we learn from incidental remarks of his that he was a Sunnite, probably according to the Hanafite rite, well versed in all the branches of natural science, in medicine, mathematics, astronomy, and astrology, in Greek philosophy, and the interpretation of the Koran ; that he had a comprehensive knowledge of many other philosophic systems and religious creeds professed in the East; and that he was, withal, much addicted to worldly pleasures, especially to excessive wine drinking, the renunciation of which forms a prominent topic in his later odes. He had studied Arabic, Turkish, Greek, the vernacular languages of India and Sind, and perhaps even Hebrew ; he had visited Multdn and Lahore, and been probably in an official capacity an eye-witness of the splendid Ghaznavide court under Sultan Mahmud, Firdousi s patron, and his son Mas ud. Later on he had chosen Merv for his residence, and was the owner of a house and garden there. When he first steps into the full light of history, in 437 A.H. (1045 A.D.), we see him in the position of a financial secretary and revenue collector of the Seljuk sultan Toghrulbeg, or rather of his brother Jaghirbeg, the emir of Khorasan, who had conquered Merv in 1037. The introductory passages of the Safarndma, together with a number of verses in the above-mentioned kasida, which belongs to the same period, clearly manifest the peculiar state of mind in which Nasir was at that time. Like Faust he had fathomed the depth of all human knowledge, like him he had passed through the whirlpool of passions and sensual pleasures, he had tried to drown his doubts and troubles in the wine cup, and yet he had only grown more and more dissatisfied with himself ; nothing could quench his ever-increasing thirst for a higher intelligence, for a more profound comprehen sion of the Godhead, and the manifestations of the divine power in the universe. He had evidently reached the turning-point of his life, and, inspired by a heavenly voice (which he pretends to have heard in a dream), he abjured all the luxuries of life, and resolved upon a pilgrimage to the holy shrines of Mecca and Medina, hoping to find there the solution of all enigmas, and to return a thoroughly reformed man. The graphic description of this journey is contained in the /Safarndma, a book that, quite apart from the personal interest we feel in the author, ranks high among the memoirs of travel as giving us the most authentic account of the state of the Mussulman world and the condition of Persia, Arabia, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt in the middle of the llth century. The minute sketches of Jerusalem and its environs, moreover, are of the highest practical value, even at the present day, for our explorations in the Holy Land. During the seven years of his journey (1045-52 A.D.) Nasir visited Mecca four times, and performed all the rites and observances of a zealous pilgrim ; but the fascinating influence of the Holy City upon his mind was greatly outweighed by that of Cairo, the capital of Egypt, and the residence of the Fatimite sultan Mostansir billali, the great champion of the Shfa, and the spiritual as well as political head of the house of All, which was just then waging a deadly war against the Abbaside caliph of Baghdad, and the great defender of the Sunnite creed, Toghrulbeg the Seljuk. At the very time of Nasir s visit to Cairo, the power of the Egyptian Fatimites was in its zenith; Syria, the Hijaz, Africa, and Sicily obeyed Mostansir s sway, and the utmost order, security, and prosperity reigned in Egypt. Cairo appeared as an earthly paradise in Nasir s eyes ; he became, as his poems clearly indicate, thoroughly imbued there with Shfa doctrines, and their successful introduction into his native country was henceforth the sole aim and object of his life. The hostilities he encountered in the propagation of these new religious ideas after his return to Khorasan in 1052 and Sunnite fanaticism compelled him at last to flee, and after many wanderings he found a refuge in Yunigan, in the mountains of Badakhshan, where he spent as a hermit the last decades of his life, and gathered round him a considerable number of devoted adherents, who have handed down his doctrines to many following generations. The Dabistan (translated by Shea and Troyer, Paris, 1843, vol. ii. p. 419 sq.) fixes his flight from Khorasan in 456 A.H. (1064 A.D.), but there is strong evidence in some of his kasidas that this event took place some four or five years before that date; and as his death occurred in 481 A.H. (1088 A.D.) he must have lived in his exile from