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Among the eminent dead of the year here sketched and pictured are Robert Browning, John Ericsson, John Bright, Jefferson Davis, and Simon Cameron and John P. Usher, the last surviving members of President Lincoln's Cabinet. The article on Robert Browning presents a fine analysis of his style and a history of his works; that on Jefferson Davis includes, in rapid outline, the story of the Southern Confederacy and the civil war. The obituary sketches are very numerous and reasonably full. Among the noteworthy ones are those of the eminent lawyers S. L. M. Barlow and Leonard Swett, the actors John Gilbert and George Fawcett Rowe, the legislators Samuel S. Cox, George H. Pendleton, and Edward H. Rollins, the soldiers John F. Hartranft, Daniel H. Hill, and Henry J. Hunt, the journalists Samuel Wilkeson, Henry W. Grady, and Charles S. Collins, the educators Theodore D. Woolsey and James Ryland Kendrick, the physicians D. W. Bliss and Joseph E. Turner, the littérateurs S. Austin Allibone, David D. Lloyd, and William D. O'Connor, the jurist Stanley Matthews, the artist Robert W. Weir, the former mistresses of the White House Julia G. Tyler and Lucy W. Hayes, and the eminent women Mary L. Booth, Elizabeth C. Kinney, and Maria Mitchell. The illustrations include, besides those already mentioned, a large colored map of the eastern provinces of Canada, a full-page view of the newly discovered Mountains of the Moon, the Johnstown disaster, the first and last of the "Great Eastern," the St. Mary's Canal, Dalhousie College in Halifax, the new State-House of Georgia, the Parliament House in Toronto, a map of the newly surveyed Selkirk range, the Chamber of Commerce in Cincinnati, Canterbury College in New Zealand, and portraits of the young King and Queen of Portugal.

The illustrations were drawn by F. A. Carter, Edward L. Chichester, Clifton Johnson, William Kurtz, Jacques Reich, and A. C. Warren.

NEW YORK, April 2, 1890.

CONTRIBUTORS.

Among the Contributors to this Volume of the "Annual Cyclopædia" are the following:

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THE

ANNUAL CYCLOPÆDIA.

ABYSSINIA, a monarchy in eastern Africa. The area, exclusive of conquered territories of the Somalis and Gallas, is about 175,000 square miles; the population is not more than 3,500,000. The ruler bears the title of Negus Negusti, or "King of Kings." The inhabitants are Coptic Christians.

A

War with the Dervishes.-The Soudanese dervishes, or Mahdists, invaded the province of Amhara in 1885, and burned all the churches and houses, carrying the people away into slavery. In 1886 they devastated the Tshelga province, took many captives, massacred the monks of Mahebera, and burned the monastery. In 1887 the Negus Johannis defeated the dervishes; but in 1888, while he was contesting the advance of the Italians from Massowah to a summer station on the border of the Abyssinian plateau, he was called away by a new raid of the Mohammedans, who defeated the King of Godjam, and carried off thousands of his subjects to be sold into slavery. King Johannis gathered his warriors to defend the western country. King Menelek of Shoa, who had proclaimed war against his sovereign in order to supplant him as Negus, remained idle, with his larger army encamped in a strong place on the bank of the Abai, a confluent of the Blue Nile, dividing Shoa and Tigreh, while Johannis contended with unequal forces against the fanatical invaders who made western Abyssinia a desert, put many thousands to the sword, and sent the flower of the nobility and of the people as slaves to Mecca or Khartoum. The Abyssinians fought bravely, but were defeated in the principal battles. On March 10, 1889, the Negus attacked the dervishes' stronghold at Metemneh, on the frontier of the Soudan, but was driven back. The Negus himself was mortally wounded. On the 12th the dervishes followed up their success, attacked the King's camp, and completely routed his army. Ras Area and Ras Ailu fell in the engagement, while Ras Michael fled with the remnant of his command to Magdala, and Ras Aloula retreated to Tigreh.

The Contest for the Throne. When the Italians found they could not obtain from King John the footing in Abyssinia that they desired, they entered into negotiations with King Menelek of Shoa, whom they supplied with firearms in return for promises to give them a part of

VOL. XXIX.-1 A

Bogos for colonization and to concede to Italy commercial advantages over other European nations. The King's nephew Debeb, a son of the widow of Theodoros by her marriage with Ras Salasiem, they also encouraged in his aspirations to the supreme power, making use of him as an ally in the campaign against Ras Aloula until he went over to the enemy and turned against them the weapons they had furnished. Menelek assembled an army of 130,000 men on the border of Shoa to wage war against Johannis. The King marched to the south with the intention of forcing his rebellious vassal and rival into submission, but finding the latter intrenched in an impregnable position, he avoided a battle by turning aside with his army, which was already partly demoralized and suffering from want of food, and, marching to the northwest, began the campaign against the dervishes. When King John fell, Menelek proclaimed himself Negus Negusti, and after securing the adhesion of Ras Michael and the King of Godjam, advanced into Tigreh to try conclusions with Degiac Mangascia, a Shoan chief who in 1888 had fought the insurgent Wollo-Gallas, King John's nephew and chosen heir, whose cause had been espoused by Ras Aloula. Several fights between the partisans of the rival pretenders took place before the rainy season. Debeb entered Tigreh from the north with his well-armed troops to dispute the succession. Mangascia and Aloula invited him to an interview at Makalle, and when he came they treacherously made him a prisoner. The three Abyssinian abounas-Petros of Asmara, Lucas of Godjam, and Matheos of Shoarecognized Menelek as Negus, and most of the chiefs south of the Takaze gave him their allegiance. Mangascia's money did not long hold out, and when he was deserted by most of his men except Aloula's force, he entered into negotiations with the Italians. Before September all Abyssinia had submitted to Menelek's rule, with the exception of a small portion of Tigreh. King Menelek was the son of King Haelou of Shoa by a slave-woman, and was selected by his father to succeed him. The new ruler of Abyssinia has had men of ability among his generals and counselors, most of whom are hostile to Europeans. But such is not the character of Menelek. He is well disposed to white people, except mission

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