10 



MiEllIS MOHAMMED. 



Bion, lie was rewarded with the order of merit. He 

 was made u colonel in 1761, afterwards lieutenant- 

 general, and. in 178:J, governor of Berlin. In the 

 reiuii of Frederic William 11., he was appointed gen- 

 mil ot'iiifuitry, and communded tlie Prussian troops 

 employed in 1793, in the disgraceful dismemberment 

 of Poland, on which occasion Maellendorf did every 

 thing in his power to alleviate the misfortunes of the 

 Poles. On his return home, he was created a field- 

 marshal, and, soon after, made governor of South 

 Prussia. He opposed the war with France which 

 followed ; but he succeeded the duke of Brunswick 

 in the command of the Prussian army on the Rhine, 

 in 1794, when he gained the victory of Kaiserslautern. 

 He was one of the principal advisers of the treaty of 

 Basle, in 1797, after which he was made grand-mar- 

 shal. Not being able to prevent, by his advice, hos- 

 tilities with France, in 1806, though far advanced in 

 years, he accepted a command, and, joining the army 

 of the duke of Brunswick, was present at Jena and 

 Auerstadt, where he was wounded. He retired to 

 Berlin, and, subsequently to Havelberg, where, ac- 

 cording to an odd Prussian usage, he held a prebend 

 in the ecclesiastical chapter. He died there, Jan. 

 28, 1816. 



MCERIS ; a lake of Egypt. According to Hero- 

 dotus, with whose account Diodorus and Mela agree, 

 it was, in his time, 3600 stadia, or 450 miles in cir- 

 cumference, and about 300 feet deep. He states it to 

 have been entirely the product of human industry. 

 Modern travellers describe it as at present about 

 thirty or forty miles long and six broad, and assert it 

 to be a natural basin. The works, therefore, which 

 Herodotus attributes to king Moeris, must have been 

 the canals which connected the lake with the Nile, 

 and the mounds, dams and sluices which rendered it 

 subservient to the purposes of irrigation. See the 

 works of Pococke, Denon, Belzoni, &c. , on Egypt. 



MCESIA ; a country lying north of Thrace and 

 Macedonia, and south of the Danube, corresponding 

 to the modern Servia and Bulgaria. It was at a re- 

 mote period inhabited by Scythians, with whom the 

 Getae were afterwards united. The country, was 

 conquered by the Roman emperors. The barbarians 

 early conquered this region, and it remained in the 

 hands of Sclavonians and Bulgarians. See Servia, 

 and Bulgaria. 



MCESOGOTHS. See Goths. 

 MOG ADOR, or MAG ADORE (called by the na- 

 tives Suera, or Suerrah) ; a seaport of Morocco, 100 

 miles west-south-west of Morocco ; Ion. 9 20' W. ; 

 lat. 31 30' N. ; population, according to Jackson, 

 10,000 ; to Robins, 30,000. It was founded in 1760, 

 by Sidi Mohammed, who spared no pains to make it 

 the principal seat of commerce in the empire ; and 

 most of the commerce between Europe and the em- 

 pire of Morocco is carried on through Mogador. It 

 is built in a low, flat desert of accumulating sand, 

 which separates it from the cultivated country. 

 Supplies are brought from gardens from four to twelve 

 miles distant. The town has a beautiful appearance 

 from the sea, the houses being all of stone and white; 

 but the streets, though regular and straight, are nar- 

 row and dirty, and the houses present a mass of dead 

 wall. The houses of the foreign merchants are spa- 

 cious. The roofs are flat, and the terraces serve as 

 a walk in the evening. It consists of two parts, one 

 of which may be called the citadel, containing the 

 custom-house, treasury, residence of the alcaide, and 

 the houses of the foreign merchants. The Jews, who 

 are not foreign merchants, reside in the outer town. 

 The harbour is about two miles in circuit ; but, as the 

 water, at ebb-tide, is only ten or twelve feet deep, 

 large ships must anchor one and a half-mile distant 

 from the battery. The exports consist of almonds, 



gains, bws-wr.x, goat-skins, olive oil, ostrich feathers 

 pomegranate-peels, and dates. See Morocco. 



MOGREBBINS ; Arabs of the western part of 

 Egypt. Many of them are found at Cairo, anil are 

 distinguished for their industry. 



MOGUL. See Mongols. 



MOHAMMED, the founder of a religion which 

 has spread over a great part of the Vast, and has been 

 productive of much good by the abolition of the wor- 

 ship of idols, was a scion of the Arabic line of Ko- 

 reish, and the family of Hashem, celebrated in the 

 country as the princes of the holy city of Mecca, and 

 guardians of the kaaba. The date of his birth is 

 placed with most probability in A. D. 569. Mecca 

 was his native place. His grandfather, Abtlul 

 Motalleb, a rich and noble citizen, had thirteen sons. 

 One of them, Abdallah, married Amira, and died 

 while his son Mohammed, or Mahomet, was still a 

 child. As he left little property, Mohammed was 

 educated first by his grandfather, and, after his death, 

 by his oldest uncle, Abu Taleb. This uncle, a mer- 

 chant, destined Mohammed for the same employment, 

 and was accompanied by him on a commercial jour- 

 ney to Syria. On this occasion, he visited a Nestorian 

 monastery, where he was especially distinguished by 

 one of the monks, and received impressions which 

 perhaps contributed to give the tone to his subsequent 

 character. The Mohammedan writers are very pro- 

 lix in their descriptions of the wonderful qualities of 

 mind and body for which their prophet was eminent 

 from his youth ; he shared, however, the general 

 ignorance of his countrymen. His uncle had recom- 

 mended him as agent to a rich widow, named 

 Khadijah, and he acquitted himself so much to her 

 satisfaction, that she married him, and thus placed 

 him in easy circumstances. She was fifteen years 

 older than he, but, from gratitude or prudence, he 

 lived with her in happy and faithful wedlock, and, 

 till her death, restrained the sensual appetites which 

 he afterwards indulged. He was still a merchant. 

 and made a second journey to Syria, where he again 

 had interviews with the Nestorian monks. He seems 

 to have had, from his youth, a propensity to religious 

 contemplation, for he was every year accustomed, in 

 the month Ramadan, to retire to a cave near Mecca, 

 and dwell there in solitude. At what time the idea 

 of a new religion came into his mind, whence, in the 

 midst of an idolatrous people, he derived the convic- 

 tion of the unity of God, and to what degree lie 

 blended the ambition to assume the prophetic charac- 

 ter with the struggle for personal aggrandizement, 

 are questions to which only conjectural answers can 

 be given. That an untaught Arab should conceive 

 elevated views of the state of man in his age, and 

 found on them comprehensive projects, is not cred- 

 ible : in all probability, his first plans were limited 

 to his countrymen. That he was honest in his zeal 

 to abolish idolatry, and disseminate a purer doctrine, 

 although he sought to obtain this object by deception, 

 may be easily believed, if we remember the many 

 examples of a similar inconsistency in other legisla- 

 tors and religious reformers. 



Mohammed began his pretended mission A. D. 

 609, in the fortieth year of his age. He first con- 

 verted his wife Khadijah, to whom he communicated 

 the particulars of an interview with the angel Gabriel, 

 by whom lie was declared an apostle of God. 

 Through her instrumentality, her uncle or cousin 

 Waraka was gained, who is said to have been a 

 Christian, and well acquainted with the Old and New 

 Testaments. These were followed by Mohammed's 

 servant, Zeid, to whom he gave his freedom, and by 

 his young nephew, the fiery AH. Of great impor 

 tance was the accession of Abubeker, a man of esti- 

 mable character, who stood in high respect, and per- 



