Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/668

610 N CJ B N U B broad) consists of eleven bays, including those of the west front, which, in the interior, forms a kind of transept. In the windows of the aisles, the arches of the triforium, and the windows of the clerestory the round type is main tained ; but double Pointed arches appear in the lower gallery ; and the vaults of the roof, originally six-ribbed, were rebuilt after the fire of 1293 in the prevailing Pointed style. Side chapels were added in the north aisle in the 14th century and in the south aisle in the 15th and the 16th, one of the latter (15th) is especially rich in decora tions. The flying buttresses of the building are at present (1884) being restored in the style of the 12th century. From the north-west corner of the nave runs the western gallery of a fine cloister, erected in 1230 ; and next to the cloister is the chapter-house of the same date, with its entrance adorned with statues of the bishops and other sculpture. The bishops tombs within the cathedral were destroyed during the Revolution. The chapel of the bishops palace is an example of the Early Pointed style ; the second bishops palace is a brick and stone structure in the Renaissance style ; the canons library was built of wood in the 15th century; and the town-house (Gothic and Renaissance) dates from 1485-1523. Among the town manuscripts is the Red Book or communal charter of Noyon. Remains of the Roman walls may be traced in the founda tions of various houses. Noyon has a good trade, and contains large sugar-refineries, chemical-works, tanneries, and cotton -spinning mills. The population of the com mune and that of the city were respectively 6268 and 5236 in 1872, and 6252 and 5780 in 1881. Noyon, the ancient Novioraagus Veromanduorum, was Christian ized by St Quentin at the close of the 3d century ; and in 531 St Medard, bishop of the district of Vermandois, transferred his see thither from St Quentin. The episcopate of St Eligius (640-648), the burial of Chilperic II. , the coronation of Pippin the Short in 752, and on the same occasion the coronation of his infant son Caiioman with tfie title of king of Noyon, the coronation of Charlemagne in 771, the plunder of the town by the Normans in 859 and 880, the ex pulsion of the castellan by the inhabitants, and in 997 the recog nition of the overlordship of the count of Flanders are the chief points in the history of Noyon down to the 10th century. In the llth the city, passing under the French crown, became one of the ecclesiastical peerages of the kingdom ; and at the beginning of the 12th century it easily obtained a communal charter through the favour of its bishops. The extent of the bishopric was considerably curtailed in 1135 by the breaking off of the diocese of Tournay. Noyon was ravaged by the English and the Burgundians during the Hundred Years War. In 1516 a truce was signed at Noyon by Francis I. and Charles V. The city was captured by the Spaniards in 1552, and afterwards by the Leaguers, who were expelled in 1594 by Henry IV. It lost its bishopric in 1791, and is at present only the chief town of a canton in the arrondissement of Compiegne. Calvin was born at Noyon in 1509. See Le Vasseur, Annahs de I figlise Cathedrale de Noyon, 1633 ; .Lafons de Melicocq, Reck. hist, sur Noyon, 1839 ; Barthelemy, Monogr. de I Eglise Notre Dame de Noyon; Vitet, Mongr. de I Eglise de N. D. de Noyon, 1845; and Moet de la Forte Maison, Antiquitcs de Noyon (1845). See Plate NUBIA, a country of north-east Africa, bounded on ^ ie ^ k v Egypt, on the S. by Abyssinia, Senaar, and ) Kordofan, and on the E. and W. by the Red Sea and the Libyan Desert respectively. It thus comprises the whole of the Nile valley, from Assuan (Oswan, Syene) near the first cataract southwards to Khartum (Khartoum) at the confluence of the White and the Blue Niles, stretching in this direction for about 560 miles between 16 and 24 N. lat., and for nearly the same distance east and west between 31 and 39 E. long. But Nubia has at no time formed a strictly political, ethnical, or even administrative expres sion. Unless it can be identified with the Nob or Nub that is, " Gold " region of the hieroglyphic records, the term was unknown to the ancients, by whom everything south of Egypt was vaguely called Ethiopia, the land of the dark races. It is first associated historically, not with any definite geographical region, but with the Nobatae, a negro people removed by Diocletian from the western oasis to the Nile valley above Egypt (Dodecaschcenus), whence the turbulent Blemmyes had recently been driven east wards. From Nuba, the Arabic form of the name of this people, conies the modern Nubia, a term about the precise meaning of which no two writers are of accord. Locally it is restricted to a comparatively small district, the Wady al-Nuba, reaching from Sebu c along the Nile southwards to the north frontier of Dongola. Officially it finds no recognition as an administrative division of the khedive s possessions, the region commonly understood by Nubia, as above roughly defined, being completely absorbed for administrative purposes, partly in the government of Upper Egypt, but mainly in that of Egyptian or Eastern Sudan (Soudan). 1 Within these two governments it com prises the whole of the four mudiriehs (provinces) of Berber, Taka, Dongola (Donkola), and Suakin (more correctly Sawakin), besides parts of Massowah, Khartum, and Esneh (Upper Egypt), with a total area of about 345,000 square miles, and a population vaguely estimated (1878, 1882) at from 1,000,000 to 1,500,000. But, apart from political and ethnical considerations, Nubia is physically a sufficiently intelligible expression. Merging westwards in the sands of the Libyan desert, and limited eastwards by the Red Sea, it comprises the whole of the rugged and mainly arid steppes and plateaus through which the united White and Blue Niles, after their junction at Khartum, force their way down to Upper Egypt. In this section, which may be regarded as the upper course of the Nile proper, there occurs a continuous series of slight falls and rapids, including all the historical " six cataracts," beginning a few miles below Khartum (the sixth at J. Garri), and terminating at Philse, close to the Egyptian frontier. Between these extreme points the total fall in a distance of 1150 miles is about 760 feet (from 1160 feet above sea-level at Khartum to 400 at Philae). Here the river describes two great bends, the first, from Khartum to Merawi (Napata) below the fourth cataract, comprising the Bahiiida desert on the west, the second, thence to Egypt, comprising the Nubian desert on the east, the two roughly corresponding to the conven tional divisions of Upper and Lower Nubia respectively. Throughout the whole of this section the Nile receives no affluents on its left bank, and on its right one only, the Atbara, which joins it from Abyssinia just above Al- Mesherif (Berber). Hence all Nubia west of the Nile, and most of the region east of the Nile that is, from the Atbara confluence to Egypt are mainly arid wastes, rocky in the east, sandy in the west, relieved on both sides by some grassy steppe lands, and by a few small oases. Of the Nubian, which is sometimes called the Korosko, desert, and the northern section of which is named from its nomad Bisharl inhabitants, the prevailing features are bare or scrubby sandstone plains broken by moderately high rugged granite hills and ranges, such as the J. Jerfa, J. Elbe 1 , J. Kawewad, and J. Shikr, and intersected in many places by numerous small " kh6rs " or wadies running in various directions across the plateau. The wells and oases occur ring along these depressions afford the only means of com munication across this region, as well as in the more sandy Bahiuda wilderness on the opposite side of the Nile. Thus are formed all the great caravan routes, of which the most important are (1) from Derr and Korosko across the Ababdeh country by the Hurat wells southwards to Abu Hamid, 230 miles, shorter by about one-third than the long and difficult water journey between these two points ; (2) from Ambukol to Khartum, which describes an arc of 200 miles to the southern curve enclosing the Bahiuda desert ; (3) from Berber eastwards to the Red Sea at Suakin, 280 miles, difficult, with little fodder and rare 1 See Belnn in Bevolkerung der Erde for July 1882.