Chapter 24

Other plants to which the name of ipecacuanha has been popularly applied are American ipecacuanha (Gillenia stipulacea), wild ipecacuanha (Euphorbia Ipecacuanha), bastard ipecacuanha (Asclepias curassavica), Guiana ipecacuanha (Boerhavia decumbens), Venezuela ipecacuanha (Sarcostemma glaucum), and ipecacuanha des Allemands (Vincetoxicum officinale). All these possess emetic properties to a greater or less degree.The termpoayais applied in Brazil to emetic roots of several genera belonging to the natural orders Rubiaceae, Violaceae and Polygalaceae, and hence several different roots have from time to time been sent over to England as ipecacuanha; but none of them possesses the ringed or annulated appearance of the true drug. Of these the roots ofIonidium Ipecacuanha,Richardsonia scabraandPsychotria emeticaare those which have most frequently been exported from Brazil or Colombia.

The termpoayais applied in Brazil to emetic roots of several genera belonging to the natural orders Rubiaceae, Violaceae and Polygalaceae, and hence several different roots have from time to time been sent over to England as ipecacuanha; but none of them possesses the ringed or annulated appearance of the true drug. Of these the roots ofIonidium Ipecacuanha,Richardsonia scabraandPsychotria emeticaare those which have most frequently been exported from Brazil or Colombia.

1The name is the Portuguese form of the native wordi-pe-kaa-guéne, which is said to mean “road-side sick-making plant” (Skeat,Etym. Dict.1898).

IPEK(Slav.Petch, Lat.Pescium), a town of Albania, European Turkey, in the vilayet of Kossovo and sanjak of Novibazar, 73 m. E.N.E. of Scutari, near the eastern base of the Mokra Planina, the Montenegrin frontier, and the headwaters of the Ibar and White Drin. Pop. (1905), about 15,000, principally Albanians and Serbs. A small stream bearing, like several others in the Balkan peninsula, the name of Bistritza (the bright or clear), flows through the town. On one of the neighbouring heights is situated the monastery of Ipek, founded by Archbishop Arsenius in the 13th century, and famous as the seat until 1690 of the patriarchs of the Servian church. The buildings are surrounded by thick walls, and comprise a large central church (Our Lady’s), and two side chapels (the Martyrs’ and St Demetrius’), each surmounted by a leaden cupola. The church dates from the 16th and 17th centuries. Among its numerous objects of interest are the white marble tombs of Arsenius and other chiefs of the Servian church, and the white marble throne on which the patriarchs were crowned. Ipek has been incorrectly identified by some writers with Doclea or Dioclea (Duklé in Montenegro), the birthplace of Diocletian, and the capital of a small principality which was overthrown by the Bulgarians in the 11th century.

See Barth,Reise durch das Innere der europäischen Turkei(Berlin, 1864); A. P. Irby and G. M. M. Mackenzie,Travels in the Slavonic Provinces of Turkey(1877); M. E. Durham,Through the Lands of the Serb(London, 1904).

IPHICRATES,Athenian general, son of a shoemaker, flourished in the earlier half of the 4th centuryB.C.He owes his fame as much to the improvements which he made in the accoutrements of the peltasts or light-armed mercenaries (so called from their small round shield,πέλτη) as to his military successes. Increasing the length of their javelins and swords, substituting linen corselets for their heavy coats-of-mail, and introducing the use of a kind of light leggings, called after him “iphicratides,” he increased greatly the rapidity of their movements (Diod. Sic. xv. 44). He also paid special attention to discipline, drill and manœuvres. With his peltasts Iphicrates seriously injured the allies of the Lacedaemonians in the Corinthian War, and in 392 (or 390) dealt the Spartans a heavy blow by almost annihilating amora(battalion of about 600 men) of their famous hoplites (Diod. Sic. xiv. 91; Plutarch,Agesilaus, 22). Following up his success, he took city after city for the Athenians; but in consequence of a quarrel with the Argives he was transferred from Corinth to the Hellespont, where he was equally successful. After the peace of Antalcidas (387) he assisted Seuthes, king of the Thracian Odrysae, to recover his kingdom, and foughtagainst Cotys, with whom, however, he subsequently concluded an alliance. About 378 he was sent with a force of mercenaries to assist the Persians to reconquer Egypt; but a dispute with Pharnabazus led to the failure of the expedition (Diod. Sic. xv. 29-43). On his return to Athens he commanded an expedition in 373 for the relief of Corcyra, which was besieged by the Lacedaemonians (Xenophon,Hellenica, vi. 2). On the peace of 371, Iphicrates returned to Thrace, and somewhat tarnished his fame by siding with his father-in-law Cotys in a war against Athens for the possession of the entire Chersonese. The Athenians, however, soon pardoned him and gave him a joint command in the Social War. He and two of his colleagues were impeached by Chares, the fourth commander, because they had refused to give battle during a violent storm. Iphicrates was acquitted but sentenced to pay a heavy fine. He afterwards remained at Athens (according to some he retired to Thrace) till his death (about 353).

There is a short sketch of his life by Cornelius Nepos; see also C. Rehdantz,Vitae Iphicratis, Chabriae et Timothei(1854); Bauer,Griech. Kriegsaltert. in Müller’sHandbuch, 4, § 49; and histories of Greece,e.g.Holm, Eng. trans., vol. iii.

IPHIGENEIA,orIphianassa, in Greek legend, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytaem(n)estra. Agamemnon had offended Artemis, who prevented the Greek fleet from sailing for Troy, and, according to the soothsayer Calchas, could be appeased only by the sacrifice of Agamemnon’s daughter. According to some accounts the sacrifice was completed, according to others Artemis carried away the maiden to be her priestess in the Tauric Chersonese [Crimea] and substituted for her a hind. In this new country it was her duty to sacrifice to the goddess all strangers; and as her brother Orestes came to search for her and to carry off to Attica the image of the goddess, she was about to sacrifice him, when a happy recognition took place. These legends show how closely the heroine is associated with the cult of Artemis, and with the human sacrifices which accompanied it in older times before the Hellenic spirit had modified the barbarism of this borrowed religion. Orestes and Iphigeneia fled, taking with them the image; at Delphi they met Electra, the sister of Orestes, who having heard that her brother had been sacrificed by the Tauric priestess, was about to tear out the eyes of Iphigeneia. The brother and sister returned to Mycenae; Iphigeneia deposited the image in the deme of Brauron in Attica, where she remained as priestess of Artemis Brauronia. Attica being one of the chief seats of the worship of Artemis, this explains why Iphigeneia is sometimes called a daughter of Theseus and Helen, and thereby connected with the national hero. The grave of Iphigeneia was shown at Brauron and Megara. According to other versions of the legend, when saved from sacrifice Iphigeneia was transported to the island of Leuke, where she was wedded to Achilles under the name of Orsilochia (Antoninus Liberalis 27); or she was transformed by Artemis into the goddess Hecate (Pausanias i. 43. 1). According to the Spartans, the image of Artemis was transported by Orestes and Iphigeneia to Laconia, where the goddess was worshipped as Artemis Orthia, the human sacrifices originally offered to her being abolished by Lycurgus and replaced by the flogging of youths (diamastigosis, Pausan. iii. 16). At Hermione, Artemis was worshipped under the name of Iphigeneia, thus showing the heroine in the last resort to be a form of that goddess (Pausanias ii. 35. 1). Originally, Iphigeneia, the “mighty born,” is probably merely an epithet of Artemis, in which the notion of a priestess of the goddess had its origin. Iphigeneia is a favourite subject in Greek literature. She is the heroine of two plays of Euripides, and of many other tragedies which have been lost (see also Pindar,Pythiaxi. 23; Ovid,Metam.xii. 27). In ancient vase paintings she is frequently met with; and the picture by Timanthes representing Agamemnon hiding his face at her sacrifice was one of the famous works of antiquity (Pliny,Nat. Hist.xxxv. 10).

See M. Jacobson,De fabulis ad Iphigeniam pertinentibus(1888); R. Förster,Iphigenie(1898); H. W. Stoll in Roscher’sLexikon der Mythologie; and P. Decharme in Daremberg and Saglio’sDictionnaire des antiquités.

IPSWICH,a town of Stanley county, Queensland, Australia, on the river Bremer, 23½ m. by rail W. by S. of Brisbane. Pop. (1901), 8637. It is the centre of a rich and populous agricultural mining and manufacturing district. Coal is worked on the banks of the river with but little labour, as it crops out on the surface. There are a woollen factory, several saw-mills, and foundries and large railway workshops at North Ipswich. The first settlement was made here in 1829; the town was incorporated in 1860.

IPSWICH,a municipal, county and parliamentary borough and county town of Suffolk, England, 69 m. N.E. by E. from London by the Great Eastern railway. Pop. (1901), 66,630. It stands on a gentle ascent above the left bank of the river Gipping, which here widens into the tidal estuary of the Orwell. This land-locked inlet extends 11 m. S.E. to Harwich and Felixstowe at opposite sides of its mouth, near which the wider Stour estuary unites with it. Its banks are gently undulating, well wooded and picturesque. In the lower and older portion of Ipswich, with its irregular streets, are some few antiquarian remains. Sparrowe’s house (1567), named from a family which occupied it for some two centuries, is well preserved and has ornate gabled fronts to two streets. Archdeacon’s Place (1471) is another still earlier example. Wolsey’s Gateway (1528), a Tudor brick building, is the only remnant of the Cardinal’s foundation to supply scholars to his great college (Cardinal’s College, now Christ Church) at Oxford. The older churches are all towered flint-work structures, wholly or mainly Perpendicular in style, with the exception of St Peter’s, which is principally Decorated, with a Norman font of marble. They include St Margaret’s with a beautiful oak Tudor roof, elaborately paintedtemp.William and Mary; St Mary-at-Key (or Quay), with a similar roof; St Lawrence; and St Clement’s. The most noteworthy modern churches are St Michael’s (1880), All Saints’ (1892), St John the Baptist’s (1899) and St Bartholomew’s (1901). The Roman Catholic church of St Pancras (1863), a late First Pointed edifice, has a richly carved reredos and a lofty flèche. Among public buildings, the town hall (1868) is an imposing structure in Venetian style, with clock tower; forming part of a fine group including the corn exchange (1881) and post office (1880). The museum, including an art gallery, contains archaeological and ornithological collections, and a noteworthy seriesofRed Crag fossils. It was founded in 1847, and moved to new buildings in 1881. The East Suffolk hospital was founded in 1836. In the theatre David Garrick made his first important and regular appearance in 1741. The grammar school, dating at latest from 1477, was refounded by Queen Elizabeth in 1565, and is housed in buildings in Tudor style (1851). There are borough science, art and technical schools, with a picture gallery in the fine Tudor mansion (1549) in Christchurch Park. There are also a middle school for boys, a high school and an endowed school for girls, a scientific society, corporation library and small medical library. Of two beautiful arboretums the upper is public; part of Christchurch Park adjacent to this is owned by the corporation; there are also recreation grounds and a race-course. Industries include large engineering and agricultural implement works, railway plant works, the making of artificial manures, boots and shoes, clothing, bricks and tobacco and malting. The port has a dock of nearly 30 acres, accommodating vessels drawing 19 ft. and a large extent of quayage. Imports are principally grain, timber and coal; exports agricultural machinery, railway plant, artificial manures, oil cake, &c. Ipswich is a suffragan bishopric in the diocese of Norwich. The parliamentary borough returns two members. The corporation consists of a mayor, 10 aldermen and 30 councillors. Area, 8112 acres.

A Roman villa has been discovered here. But the Saxon settlement at the head of the Orwell was doubtless the first of any importance. In 991 the town (Gipeswic,Gipeswich) was sacked by vikings. It owes its subsequent prosperity to its situation on a harbour admirably suited for trade with the Continent. The townsmen had acquired the privileges of burgesses by 1086 when Roger Bigot kept the borough in theking’s hands. In 1200 King John granted the burgesses their first charter, confirming their town to them to be held at fee-farm, exempting them from tolls and similar customs, and granting them a gild-merchant. These liberties were extended in 1256; Edward I. and Edward III. both resumed the borough for short periods, but the charter of 1200 was confirmed by almost every subsequent sovereign. The burgesses were definitely incorporated in 1464 and re-incorporated in 1665 under a charter which remained in force previous to its modification by the Municipal Act of 1835, except during a short period in the reign of Charles II. From 1295 onwards the town has sent two representatives to parliament. The cattle market, held on Tuesdays, and the provision market on Saturdays are the prescriptive right of the corporation. A September fair, still held in 1792, was in the hands of the corporation in the 17th century. Large ironworks were established late in the 18th century. The wool and cloth trade which flourished here in the 14th and 15th centuries was superseded by the manufacture of sailcloth, now represented by the sacking industry.

SeeVictoria County History: Suffolk; J. Wodderspoon,Memorials of the Ancient Town of Ipswich(ed. 1850).

IPSWICH,a township of Essex county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., on both sides of the Ipswich river, about 27 m. N.N.E. of Boston. Pop. 1910 (Federal census), 5777. It is served by the Boston & Maine railroad. The surface is diversified by drumlins, vales, meadows, sand-dunes and tidal marshes. Ipswich has several manufacturing industries, including hosiery. The public library was the gift of Augustine Heard. Among the residences are several built in the 17th and 18th centuries. The oldest of these, the John Whipple House, is the home of the Ipswich Historical Society (1890), which has gathered here a collection of antiques and issues publications of antiquarian interest. In the Ipswich Female Seminary, which no longer exists, Mary Lyon taught from 1828 to 1834 and here planned Mount Holyoke Seminary; Professor J. P. Cowles and his wife conducted a famous school for girls in the building for many years. Facing the South Common were the homes of Rev. Nathaniel Ward (1578-1652), principal author of the Massachusetts “Body of Liberties” (1641), the first code of laws in New England, and author ofThe Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America, Willing to help mend his Native Country, lamentably tattered, both in the upper-Leather and the Sole(1647), published under the pseudonym, “Theodore de la Guard,” one of the most curious and interesting books of the colonial period; of Richard Saltonstall (1610-1694), who wrote against the life tenure of magistrates, and although himself an Assistant espoused the more liberal principles of the Deputies; and of Ezekiel Cheever (1614-1708), a famous schoolmaster, who had charge of the grammar school in 1650-1660. In the vicinity was the house of the Rev. William Hubbard (1621-1704), author of aNarrative of the Troubles with the Indians in New England(Boston, 1677) and a generalHistory of New England, published by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1815.

The town was founded under the name of Aggawam in 1633 by John Winthrop, jun., and twelve others, with a view to preventing the French from occupying the N. part of Massachusetts, and in the next year it was incorporated under its present name. In wealth and influence during the early colonial period it was little inferior to Boston, whose policies it not infrequently opposed. When Governor Andros and his Council in 1687 issued an order for levying a tax, a special town meeting of Ipswich promptly voted “that the s’d act doth infringe their Liberty as Free borne English subjects of His Majestie by interfearing with ye statutory Laws of the Land, By which it is enacted that no taxes shall be levied on ye Subjects without consent of an assembly chosen by ye Freeholders for assessing the same,” and refused to assess the tax. For this offence six leaders, headed by the Rev. John Wise, minister of the Chebacco Parish (now Essex), were prosecuted, found guilty, imprisoned for three weeks to await sentence and then disqualified for office; they were also fined from £15 to £50 each, and were required to give security for their good behaviour. In Ipswich were originally included the present townships of Hamilton (1793) and Essex (1819).

See T. F. Waters,Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony 1633-1700(Ipswich, 1905), and the publications of the Ipswich Historical Society.

IQUIQUE,a city and port of Chile, capital of the province of Tarapacá, 820 m. N. of Valparaiso, in 20° 12′ 15″ S., 70° 11′ 15″ W. Pop. (1895), 33,031; (1900, est.), 42,440. The coast here runs due N. and S. and the city is built on a narrow level plain between the sea and bluffs, the latter rising steeply 2000 ft. to the level of the great desert plain of Tarapacá, celebrated for its rich deposits of nitrate of soda. Facing the city is the low barren island of Serrano, or Iquique, which is connected with the mainland by a stone causeway 1500 ft. long, and shelters the anchorage from southerly storms. A mole extending from the N.E. end of the island affords some further protection. The city is laid out in the rectangular plan, with broad streets and large squares. Water is brought by pipes from Pica, 50 m. distant. Iquique is a city of much commercial importance and is provided with banks, substantial business houses, newspapers, clubs, schools, railways, tramways, electric lights, telephone lines, and steamship and cable communication with the outside world. It exports iodine and immense quantities of nitrate of soda obtained from the desert region of the province. A large number of vessels are engaged in the nitrate trade, and Iquique ranks as one of the two leading ports of Chile in the aggregate value of its foreign commerce. It is connected by rail with the inland town of Tarapacá and various mining centres, and through them with the ports of Pisagua on the N., and Patillos on the S. Iquique was an insignificant Peruvian fishing settlement until 1830 when the export of nitrate began. In 1868 the town was nearly destroyed by an earthquake, in 1875 by fire, and again in 1877 by earthquakes, a fire and a tidal wave. It was occupied by the Chileans in 1879 in the war between Chile and Peru, and was ceded to Chile by the treaty of the 20th of October 1883.

IQUITOS,a tribe of South American Indians. It is divided into many branches, some on the river Tigre, others on the Nanay. Missionary efforts have failed and they remain savages, worshipping figures carved in the shape of birds and beasts. They brew the Indian fermented liquorchichabetter than any of the neighbouring tribes, flavouring it with the shoots of some plant which has the effect of an opiate.

IQUITOS,a city and river port of Peru, and capital of the great inland department of Loreto, on the left bank of the upper Amazon near the mouth of the Rio Nanay, 87 m. below the mouth of the Ucayali and 930 m. from Puerto Bermudez. The geographical position of Iquitos is 3° 44′ S., 73° W. Pop. of the city (1906, est.), 6000; of the district (1906, est.), 12,000. Iquitos stands about 348 ft. above sea-level, on the low wooded banks of the river opposite some islands of the same name, and has a warm but healthful climate (mean annual temperature, about 78° F.). The city consists of twopueblos, the larger of which is occupied by Indians and half-breeds, the descendants of the Iquitos tribe from whom the city takes its name. The opening of the Amazon to navigation, and the subsequent arrival of foreign ocean-going vessels at Iquitos, added immensely to the importance of the city, and made it the commercial entrepôt of eastern Peru. In 1908 three lines of ocean-going steamers were making regular voyages up the Amazon to Iquitos (about 2500 m.). The city has a large import and export trade for an immense region watered by the Marañon, Huallaga, Ucayali and other large Amazonian rivers navigated from Iquitos by lines of small boats. Iquitos was put in wireless telegraphic communication with Puerto Bermudez on the 8th of July 1908, whence a land line runs across the Andes to Lima. Besides machine shops and shipbuilding facilities, the important industries are the weaving of hats and hammocks, and the preparation of salt fish; and there is a considerable export of rubber and straw hats. Tobacco is produced in the vicinity and sent to other parts of the Montaña region. Iquitos dates officially from 1863, when it had a population of 431, though there had been a white settlement there for more than half a century.

IRAK,a province of Persia, situated W. of Kum and Kashan and E. of Burujird, and paying a yearly revenue of about £16,000. The province has many flourishing villages which produce much grain, but its greatest income is derived from the carpets made in many of its villages and mostly exported to Europe, the value of which is estimated at about £100,000 per annum. An important British firm is established at Sultanabad, the capital of the province, solely for this trade. Sultanabad is situated 77 m. S.W. of Kum in 34° 6′ N. and 49° 42′ E. at an elevation of 5925 ft. It has a population of about 8000 and post and telegraph offices. It was founded in 1808 and made a recruiting centre for some battalions of infantry which were to form part of the reorganized Persian army as recommended by the chief of the French mission, General Gardane. In consequence of its recent foundation it is still occasionally spoken of as Shahr-i-no, the “new city.”

IRAK-ARABI(’Iraq-Arabi, “Arab Irak”), the name employed since the Arab conquest to designate that portion of the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates known in older literature as Babylonia. Irak is approximately the region below the Median Wall, from Opis on the Tigris, at the mouth of Shatt-el-Adhem, to the neighbourhood of Ramadieh (Ramadiya) on the Euphrates; that is, from nearly latitude 34° to the Persian Gulf, and from the Syrian desert to the Persian mountains. It consists of two unequal portions, an extensive dry steppe with a healthy desert climate, and an unhealthy region of swamps. There is a good deal more agriculture along the Euphrates than along the Tigris, but swamps are at the same time much more extensive along the former. The borders of both streams wherever there is habitation are lined with date-palms. This is especially true of the lower part of Irak in the Basra vilayet, where the date-palm forms dense groves bordering the banks for a distance of many days’ journey. A luxuriant vegetation of water plants is to be found in the swamps, which are the haunt of numerous wild beasts—pigs, lions, different kinds of aquatic animals and birds. These swamps are inhabited by a wild race of men, dark of hue, with many negroes among them, who cultivate rice and weave straw mats. Their chiefs, with their wives and a very few retainers or members of their immediate families, live in mud castles; the tribesmen live in rude huts of reeds and mats about these castles. In the main these swamp-dwellers, who designate themselvesMa‘-dan, keep pretty free both of the Turkish government and of the semi-Bedouins of Irak. Some of them are very lawless, especially the inhabitants of the region below the Shatt-el-Haī, between the two rivers. Here the Turkish government exercises no authority, and the tribesmen of the swamps play pirate on the merchandise passing up and down the Euphrates above Korna, where for some 80 m. the river has been allowed to form an immense swamp. Some of the Bedouin tribes also engage in marauding expeditions and terrorize certain portions of the country. Especially troublesome are the edh-Dhafir, westward of the Euphrates, opposite the mouth of the Shatt-el-Haī, and the Beni Lam (7500 tents strong) who occupy the country east of the Tigris to the south of Bagdad. Still more difficult of control is the great tribe of Shammar, who descend every year from the north, pitching their tents in the Jezireh (i.e.the region between the two rivers) southward of Bagdad, and terrifying the whole country during their stay. The Turkish government is, however, gradually extending its authority over all Irak partly by force, partly by treachery. The Affech nation, Ma‘-dan Arabs, occupying the swamps behind Diwanieh between the Tigris and Euphrates, and the great Montefich tribes, Bedouins who claimed the whole country southward of the Affech to the Shatt-el-Haī and beyond, have since 1880 been deprived gradually of their power and a considerable part of their independence. In 1903 the Turkish government transferred the capital of the sanjak of Hillah to Diwanieh opposite the Affech swamps, and there is now a line of towns, centres of Turkish power and Turkish force, extending southward from Ana to Nasrieh, at the mouth of the Shatt-el-Haī canal, while similar stations are being established or strengthened along the Tigris. Some important steps have also been taken by the Turkish government to control the Euphrates floods, and to drain the swamps in some sections of the country, especially westward of the Euphrates. A dam was built at the mouth of the Hindieh canal to prevent the waters of the Euphrates from losing themselves as heretofore in the swamps westward, and to assure a continual supply of water in the main bed of the Euphrates. It is, however, frequently carried away. The ancient Assyrium Stagnum, or Bahr Nejef near the town of that name, with other swamps formed by the overflow of the Hindieh, have been drained and turned into rice plantations. At the same time large sections of Irak have been converted into imperial domain, to the diminution of the revenues of the country but to the increase of the prosperity of the population which inhabits that domain. Something, though not very much, has thus been done to restore the land to its ancient fertility.

Ethnographically Irak is subject to a double influence. On the one hand the connexion with Nejd, the centre plateau of Arabia, continues uninterrupted, even the ’Agel Bedouins from central Arabia having a quarter of their own in Bagdad. Many of these Arabs come to Irak merely for a temporary residence, returning later to their homes with the earnings acquired in that comparatively rich country; but a considerable number remain permanently. Even stronger than the influence of Arabia is that of Persia. In general the inhabitants of Irak are Shi’ites not Sunnites, and their religious connexion and allegiance is therefore toward Persia, not Turkey. Persian customs are in fashion, Persian coinage is used equally with the Turkish, and in some parts, more especially in Bagdad, there is an important Persian quarter, while Kerbela and Meshed ‘Ali to the west of the Euphrates are really Persian enclaves in Turkish territory. No traces remain of that rich intellectual development which was produced in the time of the caliphs through the reciprocal action of Persian and Arabic elements. Still, the quick-wittedness of the inhabitants of Irak makes a decided impression on the traveller passing through Asiatic Turkey. Throughout Irak also Indian influence is visible in not a few particulars. In the hot summer months, for instance, when the natives live in those underground apartments calledserdab, the Indian punkah is used in the houses of the rich. There are also small Indian colonies at most of the large towns and a considerable trade with India is carried on, especially in horses.

The trade of Irak is even now not unimportant. The principal exports from Basra are dates, various grains, millet seed, rice and wool, while the imports consist chiefly of Manchester goods, lumber, petroleum, coal and household necessities. Besides this there is a considerable land commerce by caravan, of which Bagdad is the centre. The total value of the exports of Irak according to the official figures of the Turkish government amounts to nearly £2,000,000, while the imports of every kind reach the value of about £1,800,000. If the ancient system of irrigation were restored and the land restored to cultivation, the country could support five hundred times as many inhabitants as it usually contains. Steamboats navigate the Tigris only as far as Bagdad, and that with great difficulty. In general, communication by water is carried on by means of the most primitive craft. Goods are transported in the so-calledturradas, moderately big high-built vessels, which also venture out into the Persian Gulf as far as Kuwet. Passengers are conveyed, especially on the Euphrates, in themeshhuf, a very long narrow boat, mostly pushed along the river bank with poles or towed by ropes. The Mesopotamiankelleks, rafts laid on goat-skin bladders, come down the Tigris as far as Bagdad. At Bagdad round boats made of plaited reeds pitched with asphalt, the so-calledkufas(qufas), are used. At Basra thebellemsare in use, boats of large size, having the appearance of being hollowed out of tree trunks and partly in fact so constructed. There are no roads, and the extensive swamps and periodic inundations which lay large sections under water render land traffic by caravan somewhat uncertain.

Irak in general is an alluvial plain, formed by the deposits of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, with a few scattered reaches of sandappearing here and there. The mass of solid matter which the rivers deposit is very considerable. The maximum proportion for the Euphrates in the month of January is1⁄80and at other times1⁄200; for the Tigris the maximum is1⁄100. In general, the northern plains of the interior have a slight but well-defined southerly inclination, with local depressions. The territory undulates in the central districts, and then sinks away into mere marshes and lakes. The clay, of a deep blue colour, abounds with marine shells, and shows a strong efflorescence of natron and sea-salt. When the soil is parched the appearance of the mirage (serab) is very common. As extensive inundations in spring are caused by both the rivers, especially the Tigris, great changes must have taken place in this part of the country in the course of thousands of years. It has been asserted that in former times the alluvial area at the mouth of the river increased 1 m. in the space of thirty years; and from this it has been assumed that about the 6th centuryB.C.the Persian Gulf must have stretched from 45 to 55 m. farther inland than at present. The actual rate of increase at the present time is about 72 ft. per annum. While we may be unable to determine accurately the former physical configuration of southern Babylonia, it is at least certain that in Babylonian times the Euphrates and Tigris reached the sea as independent rivers, and Ritter estimates that in the time of Alexander the Great the embouchures were still separated by a good day’s journey. Although they cannot now be traced, great alterations have probably taken place also in the upper portions of the rivers as well as in the country near their mouths. The names of a large number of canals occur in the old Babylonian inscriptions, as in the works of the Arabian geographers, but while some of these have been traced it has not been possible hitherto to identify the greater number of them with actually existing canals or remains of canals. To the west of the Euphrates, on the edge of the Syrian desert from Hit downward to the neighbourhood of Basra and beyond, ran the Sa’ade, now for the most part dry, a very ancient canal, extended or enlarged at different periods. Lower down near Mussaib, the Hindieh canal, at least equal in volume to the present main stream, branches off and after traversing and irrigating an extensive territory rejoins the river at Samawa. Between the Euphrates and the Tigris, there was a large number of great canals, especially in the region northward of Babylon between that city and the northern edge of the alluvial plain, of which the most famous were the ‘Isa, the Sarsar, the Malk (“Royal”), the canal of Kutha, the Sura and the Arakhat (Shatt-en-Nil). Of these only one at present carries water, namely, the Nahr ‘Isa, which, leaving the Euphrates at Sakhlawieh (Sakh lawiya), terminates in extensive marshes near Bagdad; but this is now no longer navigable. Southward of Babylon the Daghara canal, which leaves the Euphrates a little below Hillah and empties into the Affech marshes, and the Shatt-el-Kehr, which, leaving that stream a little above Diwanieh, makes a great curve through the interior of the Jezireh, finally losing itself in the Hosainieh (Hosainiya) marshes near the mouth of the Shatt-el-Haï, are the only navigable or partly navigable canals of the Euphrates in the Jezireh. The Tigris canals are not so numerous as those of the Euphrates and were not so famous in history, but eastward of that river the great Nahrawan channel still exists in part, while the Tigris is connected with the Euphrates by a navigable stream, the Shatt-el-Haï, which leaves the former river at Kut-el-’Amara and enters the Euphrates at Nasrieh. Everywhere the country is intersected with ancient canals, some still deep dry beds, other so silted up that their course is represented only by parallel lines of hillocks. Some of these, of great antiquity, like the Shatt-en-Nil, which can be traced through its whole course from Babylon, through or past Nippur, Udnun (Bismya) Gishban (Gis-ukh), Erech and Larsa, to the Hosainieh marshes, were equally as important as the Euphrates itself; and indeed it may be said that in ancient times that stream after reaching the alluvial plain was divided into a large number of channels, partly natural partly artificial, no single one of which, but all together, constituted the Euphrates. By the restoration of these old canals, traces of which are met with at every step, the country might be again raised to that condition of high civilization which it enjoyed not only in antiquity but even as late as the time of the caliphs. The classical writers are unanimous in their admiration of Babylonia, and it is certain that nowhere else in the ancient world was the application of canals to the exigencies of agriculture worked out so successfully as here. The most luxuriant vegetation was diffused over the whole country and three crops were obtainable in the year. In the matter of civilization indeed no country of the ancient world surpassed. Babylonia. How densely peopled this country once was may be gathered from the fact that about 794B.C., 89 fortified towns and 820 smaller places in the Chaldaean region were captured during one military expedition. And even in the times of the caliphs there stood on the royal canal and its branches, north of Babylon, 360 villages, contributing in gold 225,000 dirhems to the state treasury besides the tax in kind. To-day the whole region from the swamps about Basra northward is dotted with ruin mounds, and at places the plain itself is strewn for miles with fragments of glass and pottery, evidence of earlier occupation, while, as stated, lines of canals of all possible sizes, from the great triple canals with four rows of parallel hillocks, down to the small canals for purposes of irrigation, intersect the country in every direction.

There seem to have been almost from the outset two centres which strove with one another for political supremacy in this region, the south and the north. In the north in the Babylonian time lay Kish, Akkad, Kutha (Tell-Ibrahim), Sippara (Abu Habba), Babylon and Borsippa (Birs-Nimrud). In the south were Eridu and Ur (Mughair)—originally on the shores of the Persian Gulf, now 125 m. inland—Erech (Warka), Larsa (Senkereh), Lagash (Tello) and Gishban (Yokha). Nearly in the centre lay Nippur and Udnun (Bismya). Besides these there were numerous other cities, some of considerable importance, which are known to us at present only by name; and there are in Irak hundreds of ruin mounds, some of them of considerable size, covering ancient Babylonian cities, the greater part of which are still unexplored and unidentified. During the period of Greek domination a Greek city, Seleucia (q.v.), which afterwards attained great prosperity, was founded by Seleucus I. in an extremely favourable situation on the right bank of the Tigris. Greek cities were founded also in the south, at the head of the Persian Gulf, and some of the ancient Babylonian cities of the interior like Lagash, Erech and Nippur, were rebuilt on the old sites. After the conquest of Babylonia by the Parthians (130B.C.) Ctesiphon (q.v.) was built on the east bank of the Tigris opposite Seleucia, and became the winter residence of the Persian kings. Later this double city became the imperial capital of the Sassanids, and under the name Madain still continued to flourish after the Arabic conquest, to be finally superseded by the neighbouring Bagdad. That region was called in the time of the Sassanids, Suristan, a translation of the Aramaean designation Beth-Aramaya, “country of the Syrians,” for the land was mainly occupied by Aramaeans. By a notable substitution the Arabs afterwards gave the name Nabat,i.e.Nabataeans, to these Aramaean tenantry, who it may be added were already found in these parts at the time of the Babylonian empire. Indeed, some small portion of this old Syrian population of Irak still remains distinguished by a special religion (seeMandaeans), chiefly on the shores of the lower Euphrates in the neighbourhood of Suk-esh-Sheiukh. Another important city of the Sassanian period was Perisabora, known in the Arabian period as Anbar, the centre also of Babylonian Judaism after the destruction of Pombeditha inA.D.588, situated on the east bank of the Euphrates in about the same latitude as Bagdad. During the Sassanian period flourished in the south-east the Arabic kingdom of Hira (q.v.). There was also for a time a Jewish kingdom in Babylonia, and Nehardea and Pombeditha are mentioned as centres of Jewish religions and national life during this period.

After the Arabian conquest in the 7th centuryA.D., Irak entered for a time on a new period of prosperity. Several important new cities were founded, among them Kufa, Basra, Wasit on the Shatt-el-Haï, and Bagdad on the site of an old Babylonian city of the same name, which later became under the Abbasid caliphs not only the capital of Irak but for a time the metropolis of the world (seeCaliphate). With the decay of the Abbasid power the system of irrigation began to fall into disrepair, the ancient sites were gradually deserted, and the country finally returned to a condition of semi-barbarism alternating between inundation and drought, which is its present state.

See Ritter,Die Erdkunde von Asien, 2nd ed., vol. vii., 10th and 11th parts (Berlin, 1843, 1844); W. F. Ainsworth,Researches in Assyria(London, 1838); F. R. Chesney,Expedition for the Survey of the Rivers Euphrates and Tigris(2 vols., London, 1850); W. K. Loftus,Chaldaea and Susiana(1857); F. Delitzsch,Wo lag das Paradies?(Leipzig, 1881); W. F. Ainsworth,The Euphrates Expedition(1888); J. P. Peters,Nippur(1897); E. Sachau,Am Euphrat und Tigris(1900); F. Delitzsch,Im Lande des einstigen Paradieses(1903). Maps: Chesney (1850); Selby, Bewsher and Collingwood (1871); Kiepert,Ruinenfelder(1883).

(A. So.; J. P. Pe.)

IRAK-I-AJAMI(i.e.Persian Irak), the name (now obsolete) of the important Persian province which the Arab geographers called Jebel (the mountainous region). It used to be the country bounded N. by Azerbaijan and Gílán, E. by Samnan and the central Persian desert, S. by Kerman, Fars and Arabistan,W. by Kermanshah and Kurdistan. Its length, N.W.-S.E., was about 600 m. from the Kaflán Kuh on the Kizil Uzain, the frontier of Azerbaijan, to the frontier of Kerman beyond Yezd, and its width, N.E.-S.W., about 300 m.

IRAN,the great plateau between the plain of the Tigris in the west and the valley of the Indus in the east, the Caspian Sea and the Turanian desert in the north, and the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean in the south, surrounded on all sides by high mountain ranges with a great salt desert in the centre. The modern name Iran, in middle-Persian Eran (a form preferred by many German authors) is derived from the ancientAryāna, “the country of the Aryans,”i.e.that part of the Aryans which we call Iranians. Eratosthenes limited the name of Ariana to the south-eastern part of Iran, and excluded Persia, Media and Bactria, and therein he is followed by Strabo (ii. 78, 130, xv. 720 ff.; Pomp. Mela i. 3; Pliny,Nat. Hist.vi. 113, 116, xii. 33); Pliny (Nat. Hist.vi. 93) confounds it with Arīa, Areia, Pers. Haraiva,i.e.the district of Herat; but Strabo himself says (xv. 724) that some extended the name to the Persians, Medes, Bactrians and Sogdians, as they all spoke the same language with small dialectic variations (cf. 727 and i. 66, xi. 523).

For the ethnography and history of Iran seePersia.

(Ed. M.)

IRBIT,a town of Russia, in the government of Perm, 110 m. N.E. of Ekaterinburg, and on the Irbit river. Pop. (1860) 3408, (1897) 20,064. It is famous for a great fair, held since 1643, which lasts from the 1st of February to the 1st of March (O.S.), and at which are sold (to an average annual value of over £4,000,000) cottons, woollens, flax and hemp, silks, leather, metals, metallic and other manufactured goods, furs, hides, felt, raw wool and tea.

IRELAND, JOHN(1761-1842), English divine and dean of Westminster, was born at Ashburton, Devonshire, on the 8th of September 1761, his father being a butcher in that town. For a short time he worked in a shoemaker’s shop. Subsequently he proceeded to Oxford, and in due course took holy orders. Through the interest of the earl of Liverpool he was in 1802 appointed a prebendary of Westminster Abbey, in 1815 he was promoted to the deanery of Westminster, and from 1816 to 1835 he was also rector of Islip, Oxfordshire. In 1825 he gave £4000 for the foundation at Oxford of four “Ireland” scholarships of the value of £30 a year each, “for the promotion of classical learning and taste.” He also gave £500 to Westminster school for the establishment of prizes for Latin hexameters. He died at Westminster on the 2nd of September 1842, and was buried in the abbey.

IRELAND, JOHN(1838- ), American Roman Catholic prelate, was born at Burnchurch, County Kilkenny, Ireland, on the 11th of September 1838. In 1849 he was taken to the United States by his parents, who settled at St Paul, Minnesota Territory. After being educated in France for the priesthood, he returned to the United States in 1861; he was ordained at St Paul and in the following year he accompanied the 5th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry south as chaplain. Subsequently he became rector of the cathedral at St Paul, and in 1870-1871 represented Bishop Thomas Langdon Grace (1814-1897) at the Vatican council at Rome. In 1875 he was appointed bishop of Nebraska, but at the urgent request of Bishop Grace the appointment was changed so that he might remain at St Paul as bishop-coadjutor with the right of succession; at the same time he was made titular bishop of Maronea. In 1884 he succeeded to the bishopric, and in 1888 he became the first archbishop of the see. His liberal views gave him a wide influence and reputation both within and without the church, and he came to be looked upon as a leader of the “American” as distinguished from the “Roman” party in the clergy. His views were, however, opposed by several leading Catholics; and several of his administrative acts, notably his plan for the partial taking over of control of the parochial schools by the local authorities (known from the town in which it was first attempted, “the Faribault plan”), were strenuously attacked. He was prominently identified with the planting of Catholic communities or colonies in the North-West, with the establishment of the Catholic University at Washington, and with the Catholic total abstinence movement. The degree of LL.D. was conferred on him by Yale University in 1901. He publishedThe Church and Modern Society(1896).

IRELAND, WILLIAM HENRY(1777-1835), forger of Shakespearian manuscripts, was born in London in 1777. His father, Samuel Ireland, was an engraver and author, and dealer in rare books and curios. In 1794 young Ireland, with his father, visited Stratford, where he met John Jordan, a local poet who had published a deal of gossipy matter about Shakespeare and had even forged the will of the poet’s father. Seeing his own father’s credulous interest, Ireland conceived the idea of doing a little forgery on his own account. He copied, in ink which had all the signs of age, Shakespeare’s style and handwriting, and produced leases, contracts with actors, notes, receipts, a profession of faith, and even a love letter to Anne Hathaway with an enclosed lock of hair, to the delight of his unsuspecting father, and the deception of many scholars who attested their belief in the genuineness of his finds. These he accounted for by inventing an ancestor “William Henrye Irelaunde,” to whom they had been bequeathed by Shakespeare in gratitude for rescue from drowning. At last the discovery of a whole new play namedVortigernwas announced. Sheridan purchased it for Drury Lane Theatre, and an overflowing house assembled on the 2nd of April 1796 to sit in judgment upon it. But away from the glamour of crabbed handwriting and yellow paper, the feeble dialogue and crude conceptions of the tragedy could not stand the test, and its one representation was greeted with shouts of laughter. Its fate prevented the composition of a series of historical plays, of whichHenry II.had already been produced by this audacious forger. Samuel Ireland the elder had published in 1795 theMiscellaneous Papers and Legal Instruments under the Hand and Seal of William Shakespeare; including the Tragedy of King Lear and a small fragment of Hamlet(dated 1796). He had the fullest belief in their authenticity, but the hostile criticism of Malone and others, and the unsatisfactory account of the source of the papers, made him demand a full disclosure from his son. Harassed by the success of his own deceit, which had carried him far beyond his first intention, Ireland at last confessed his fraud, and published (1796) anAuthentic Account of the Shakespearian MSS., and in 1805, a more elaborateConfession, entirely exculpating his father and making a full admission. The elder Ireland felt the disgrace very bitterly, and it probably hastened his death, which occurred in July 1800. After the exposure Ireland was forced to abandon both his home and his profession. He wrote several novels of no value, gradually sank into penury, and died on the 17th of April 1835.

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