NABOB NADIR SHAH 123 NABOB (Hind, nawaufy, a title of office in India, applied during the Mogul empire to the imperial lieutenant or viceroy of a province. The word is the plural of naib, prince, it being a custom of the natives to address all great men in the plural number. As the power of ihe emperors declined, their deputies became independent. They made war upon each other, and the country was perpetually disturbed by their contentions. The English, availing thein- selves of these dissensions, reduced them in de- tail to mere pensioners on their bounty. In the English language the word nabob signifies a man who has acquired great wealth in the East. NACHTIGAL, Gustav, a German traveller, born at Eichstedt, Prussian Saxony, Feb. 23, 1834. He practised medicine in Algeria from 1859 to 1863, when he entered the service of the bey of Tunis as a military doctor, and eventually became his body physician. In 1869 he vol- unteered to accompany a caravan to Kuka, to convey presents from the king of Prussia to the sheikh of Bornoo in return for his kind- ness to various German travellers. He left Tripoli Feb. 18, 1869, and reached Moorzook March 27. While the expedition was delayed he explored Tibesti, the country of the Tib- boos, and finally left Moorzook April 18, 1870, reaching Kuka July 6. He collected geograph- ical materials about Bornoo, visited Kanem and Lake Tchad, acquiring much valuable in- formation concerning the southern Sahara, and went to Baghirmi, where he explored the Shari and its many branches, returning several times to Kuka. In the beginning of March, 1873, he set out on his return through Waday, passing S. of Lake Tchad to Abeshr, the present capital of Waday. While there he visited Bar Runga, a vassal state, which stretches south- ward to about lat. 8 N. He arrived at the capital of Darfoor on March 17, 1874, and reached Cairo in November, no European hav- ing ever before succeeded in making the jour- ney through from Waday. Petermann pub- lished in 1874 his Die trilutaren Heidenlander JSaghirmis. For an account of his late explo- rations see the London " Geographical Maga- zine" for October, 1874. NACOGDOCHES, an E. county of Texas, bound- ed S. W. by the Angelina river and E. by the Attoyac, which unite at the S. E. corner ; area, 886 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 9,614, of whom 3,275 were colored. It has an undulating surface, occasionally hilly and broken, and generally well timbered. The soil varies greatly, but is mostly fertile, cotton and corn being the prin- cipal crops. Good iron ore exists. The chief productions in 1870 were 217,861 bushels of Indian corn, 16,515 of barley, 35,113 of sweet potatoes, 4,531 bales of cotton, 62,334 Ibs. of butter, and 5,490 gallons of sorghum molas- ses. There were 1,971 horses, 3,607 milch cows, 9,563 other cattle, 2,470 sheep, and 16,089 swine. Capital, Nacogdoches. NADIR SHAH, or Ruli Khan, a king of Persia, born in Khorasan in 1688, assassinated June 19 or 20, 1747. His father was a maker of sheep- skin caps and coats4 For four years Nadir was held in captivity by the Uzbecks, from which at the age of 21 he escaped, and after- ward entered the service of the governor of Khorasan. Here he attained high rank, but was degraded and punished, whereupon he placed himself at the head of a band of rob- bers. The invading Afghans had dethroned the Persian monarch early in the 18th century. Nadir joined Tarn asp, son of the shah, with 5,000 men, in 1727, was given the supreme command, drove the Afghan king out of Kho- rasan, overtook the retreating army at Per- sepolis, and cut it to pieces. For these ser- vices he received in 1730 the provinces of Kho- rasan, Mazanderan, Seistan, and Kerman, and took the title of Tamasp Kuli (Tamasp's slave), to which Khan was added by the king. In 1731 he defeated the Turks on the plains of Hamadan, and then marched against the Af- ghans. In his absence Tamasp was defeated by the Turks and signed a treaty ceding them several provinces. Nadir, taking advantage of the popular discontent, proclaimed that he would carry on the war, and in August, 1732, dethroned the sovereign, who was afterward put to death. The infant son of Tamasp was made nominal ruler as Abbas III., but died early in 1736; and at an assembly called to consider the state of the kingdom, Nadir accepted the crown. He had already recovered from the Turks the ceded provinces, and he now moved against the Afghans. He captured the city of Candahar in 1738, and his son Riza Kuli crossed the Oxus and overthrew the ruler of Bokhara and the Uzbecks. Afghanistan was conquered, and Nadir, marching into Hindo- stan in 1739, defeated the Mogul army, and entered Delhi. The inhabitants of that city rose against their conquerors, and Nadir there- upon ordered a general massacre of Hindoos in every house in which a dead Persian was found. He returned to Persia with plunder amounting to $100,000,000, including the Koh- i-noor diamond, having also taken from the Mogul emperor the provinces west of the In- dus. In 1740 he subjugated the sovereign of Bokhara, and defeated .and put to death the khan of Khiva. In his latter years he became capricious and cruel, finally putting whole cities to the sword on the slightest pretext. He had also grown so avaricious that the taxes levied upon the empire were intolerable. At length four noblemen, who learned that their names were in a proscribed list, broke into his tent at night and despatched him. His life was written in Persian by Mirza Mohammed Ma- hadi Khan, his secretary, and translated into French by Sir W. Jones (London, 1770 ; Eng- lish, 1773). A detailed account of his career is given by Malcolm in the second volume of the "History of Persia" (1815), and of his ear- lier life and conquests by Fraser, whose author- ities were Persian manuscripts, in his " TTio - tory of Nadir Shah" (1742). His-
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