680 



DARIUS 



DARJEELING 



condition, and none came. At length, having 

 waited eight months for assistance, the colony 

 broke up. In the meantime, 1300 colonists had 

 set sail from Scotland, but ere they arrived the 

 pioneers had fled. A Spanish force of 1500 men, 

 and a squadron of 11 ships, immediately threatened 

 the new-comers. Captain Campbell marched by 

 night with a body of 200 Scots upon the Spanish 

 camp, which he broke and completely dispersed. 

 On returning to the fort, however, he found it 

 invested by the Spanish squadron. The am- 

 munition of the colonists had now become ex- 

 hausted, and they were obliged to capitulate, the 

 Spaniards granting honourable terms. Not more 

 than thirty of the colonists, among whom was 

 Paterson, who was rendered for a time insane 

 by his dreadful misfortunes, ever came back to 

 Scotland. The scheme and its collapse caused un- 

 precedented excitement in Scotland from 1693 till 

 1703, when the last of the adventurers reached 

 home, and contributed to render the union of the 

 kingdoms highly unpopular. It has been faiily 

 contended that, but for the hostility of the king 

 and the jealousy of the English companies, the 

 scheme might have led to enormous extension of 

 British commerce and British territory. And it 

 should be remembered that a Panama Canal was 

 included in the plans of the far-seeing projector. 

 The books ana other documents which had 

 belonged to the Company are preserved in the 

 Advocates' Library ; the most complete account 

 of the scheme is J. H. Burton's Darien Papers, 

 printed by the Bannatyne Club (1849). See also 

 his History of Scotland, vol. viii., and Warburton's 

 novel Dar*in. 



Dari'US (Ddryavus, Heb. Ddreydvesh), the name 

 of three kings of Persia. DARIUS I. (Hystaspis), 

 born in 548 B.C., was the son of Hystaspes (Vish- 

 taspa, in the Babylonian cuneiform Ustaashpi), of 

 the family of the Achsemenides (q.v.), and suc- 

 ceeded to the Persian throne in 521, after putting 

 to death the Magian Gaumata ( the Pseudo-Smerdis 

 of the Greeks ), who gave himself out to be Bardes, 

 brother of Cambyses. We possess accurate accounts 

 of his reign through a contemporary monument, 

 the great trilingual inscription on the rock of 

 Behistun (q.v.). He is there represented with his 

 foot on the body of Gaumata, and with nine con- 

 quered rebels in front of him, the first three from 

 Susiana, Babylon, and Media, the ninth a Sacian, 

 with the characteristic pointed hat mentioned in 

 Herodotus, vii. 64. The inscription states that 

 his father, Hystaspes, was the great-grandson of 

 Teispes, who was the son of Achsemenes. Darius 

 had for several years to contend with revolts in 

 all parts of his empire. Babylon resisted him 

 with especial obstinacy under Nidinta-Bel for 

 nearly two years (520-19), and revolting a second 

 time, under Arakha, was again taken (514). He 

 then reorganised the Persian empire, removing the 

 seat of government to Susa, dividing his dominions 

 into more than twenty satrapies, establishing a 

 regular system of taxation, and providing facilities 

 for communication and trade; while he also pushed 

 his conquests as far as the Caucasus and the Indus. 

 The Indian province paid into the exchequer 

 1,290,000 a year; Babylonia, 290,000; while 

 other eighteen satrapies contributed altogether 

 1,674,000. In his expedition against the Scythians 

 in 515, after carrying 700,000 men across the Bos- 

 porus on a bridge of boats, and subduing Thrace 

 and Macedonia, he was led on by the retreating 

 Scythians as far as the Volga, and returned to the 

 Danube with the loss of 80,000 of his warriors. He 

 returned to Susa, leaving Megabazos in Thrace 

 with a large part of his army. His first expedition 

 against the Athenians miscarried through the 

 wreck of his fleet at Mount Athos in 492; the 



second was decisively defeated at Marathon (q.v.) 

 in 490. He died in 485, before the Egyptian revolt 

 (487) had been subdued, and in the midst of his 

 preparations for a third expedition against the 

 Athenians, and was succeeded by Xerxes (q.v.). 

 Darius was a Persian by birth, and bred in the 

 Zoroastrian faith, which under him and his suc- 

 cessors became the state religion of the empire. 

 He is mentioned in the Old Testament as permit- 

 ting (520) the erection of the second temple at 

 Jerusalem, which was completed in the sixth year 

 of his reign (515). 



DARIUS II. ( Ochus, called by the Greeks Nothos, 

 'bastard'), illegitimate son of Artaxerxes I., in 

 424 B.C. snatched the crown from Sogdianus, his 

 also illegitimate brother, who had put to death the 

 rightful king, Xerxes II. He was entirely under 

 the influence of the eunuchs and women of his 

 harem, especially his cruel and depraved aunt and 

 spouse Parysatis ; and his reign was a long series 

 of miseries and crimes. The numerous revolts were 

 cruelly put down, except that of Amyrtjeus, satrap 

 of Egypt, who was independent from 414 to his 

 death in 408. After the failure of the Sicilian 

 expedition of the Athenians in 415, Darius seized 

 the opportunity to break the humiliating treaty of 

 449. Through Tissaphernes, satrap of Asia Minor, 

 and his successor Cyrus, younger son of Darius and 

 Parysatis, he gave so much support to the Spartans 

 against the Athenians in the Peloponnesian war as 

 turned the scale to the side of the former. He died 

 at Babylon in 405, and was succeeded by his eldest 

 son, Artaxerxes II. 



DARIUS III. (Codomannus), the last king of the 

 Persians, son of the Achiemenid Arsanes by Sisy- 

 gambis, daughter of Artaxerxes II. (q.v.). He is 

 briefly designated as ' Darius the Persian ' in Nehe 

 miah, xii. 22, and in the 1st Book of Maccabees is 

 called 'King of the Persians and Medes.' Arta- 

 xerxes III. had been poisoned by Bagoas in 338, and 

 the speedy death of his son and successor, Arses, 

 prepared the way for Darius III., who began to 

 reign in the same year as his conqueror Alexander 

 the Great (336). Defeated at the Granicus (334), 

 at Issus (333), and at Arbela (331), the handsome 

 and gentle king was betrayed and slain during his 

 flight by one of his satraps ( 330). See ALEXANDER 

 THE GREAT. 



DARIUS THE MEDE, mentioned in the Book of 

 Daniel, cannot with certainty be identified with 

 any historical king. 



Darjeelillg (Ddrjlling), a sanitary station in 

 the Lower Himalayas, and administrative head- 

 quarters of Darjeeling district, is situated on a 

 narrow ridge, at an elevation of 7167 feet above the 

 sea. It has a fine sanatorium ( 1883 ), a good water- 

 supply, and is an increasingly popular summer- 

 resort for visitors and invalids. The fashionable 

 month is October, after the rains, when the clear 

 atmosphere shows at its best a view of unsurpassed 

 extent and grandeur. Pop. 7018. DARJEELING 

 is the most northerly district of the Kuch Behar 

 division of Bengal, divided from Independent 

 Sikkim by a series of rivers and mountain -torrents. 

 Area, 1234 sq. m. Pop. (1872) 94,712 ;( 1895) 

 250,000, mostly Nepalis and other aboriginal or 

 semi-aboriginal tribes, attracted to the district by 

 the increased demand for labour on the railway 

 and in the tea-gardens. With a surface divided 

 between the Lower Himalayas and the marshy 

 sub-montane strip, the scenery of the district is 

 magnificent ; up to 12,000 feet the ridges are 

 clothed with valuable forests, and on the higher 

 slopes the rhododendron grows in gorgeous luxuri- 

 ance. The climate is excessively humid, but not 

 unhealthy. Food-crops are raised, and there is a 

 trade with Tibet and Nepal ; but the staple 

 industry is the cultivation of tea, of which the 



