SUFFRAGANS SUFISM. 



439 



the harbour of Harwich. The Dehen has its source 

 near Debenham, and passing Woodbridge, widens 

 into Woodbridge haven, and enters the sea about 

 ten miles below that town. The Aid, rising north- 

 ward of Framlingham, and taking its course south 

 eastward, after approaching very near the sea at 

 Aldeburgh, where it expands greatly, turns towards 

 the south, and meets the sea below Orford. The 

 Blythe, rising at Laxfield, flows by Halesworth to 

 the sea at Southwold. The only canal in Suffolk 

 runs from Ipswich to Stow-Market. 



Suffolk generally presents a level surface, the 

 eminences being inconsiderable. The soil varies 

 much in different parts, and the kinds of land may 

 be distributed into clay, sand, loam, and fen. In 

 the interior is a tract, extending from north to 

 south, consisting chiefly of a strong clay, fertile in 

 a great degree for all the objects of husbandry. A 

 part of it, styled High Suffolk, has a soil so heavy 

 and tenacious, that in wet seasons the by-roads are 

 scarcely passable. Here is made much butter for 

 the London markets; the quantity sent annually 

 to the metropolis being about 40,000 firkins. The 

 sandy districts occupy the eastern and western 

 borders of the county : that towards the coast being 

 highly cultivated, the soil having in many parts 

 been much improved by the addition of shell marl. 

 Great changes have taken place on the Suffolk 

 coasts in consequence of the encroachments of the 

 sea, which have caused the partial destruction of 

 some once considerable towns, as Dunwich and 

 Aldeburgh. On the opposite side of the county 

 the sands are spread over nearly the whole of the 

 north-west angle, in which are a few spots of rich 

 land, but the county chiefly consists of barren 

 heaths and sheep-walks; and towards the Norfolk 

 border the sand is light and blowing, or subject to 

 be driven by the wind, as is also the case with the 

 south-eastern sandlands, between Woodbridge, 

 Orford, and Saxmundham. In these sandy districts 

 are many extensive rabbit warrens. The loam dis- 

 tricts are found almost exclusively on the borders 

 of the rivers. 



The manufactures of Suffolk consist principally 

 of wool-combing and spinning, making light stuffs, 

 buntings, crapes, and hempen cloth for home con- 

 sumption ; and at Mildenhall and Sudbury are 

 silk- works. The trade of the seaports depends 

 greatly on the exportation of corn and malt ; fine 

 sea-salt is made on the coast ; the herring and 

 mackerel fisheries are carried on at Lowestoff ; and 

 in the Orford river is an oyster-fishery. 



Suffolk has seven boroughs : Aldeburgh, Bury 

 St Edmond's, Dunwich, Eye, Ipswich (the county 

 town), Orford, and Sudbury. The market-towns 

 are : Beccles, Bildeston, Botesdale, Brandon, Bun- 

 gay, , Clare, Debenham, Framlingham, Hadleigh, 

 Halesworth, Haverhill, Ixworth, Lavenham, Lowes- 

 toff, Mendlesham, Mildenhall, Nayland, Needham- 

 market, Saxmundham, Southwold, Stow-market, 

 and Woodbridge ; but the markets of Bildeston, 

 Botesdale, Debenham, Ixworth, Lavenham, Men- 

 dlesham, and Nayland, are discontinued or very 

 inconsiderable. Population of the county in 1841, 

 315,073. 



SUFFRAGANS. See Bishops. 



SUFFRAGIUM (Latin for vote; hence the 

 English suffrage}, with the Romans, signified par- 

 ticularly the vote which every Roman citizen had 

 a right to give in the comitia, in regard to the 

 introduction or abolition of laws, the appointment 

 to offices, or an/ similar business. The citizens 



assembled, on such occasions, in the Campus Mar* 

 tins, every one in his century, which proceeded in 

 its turn to the ovile, the place assigned for voting. 

 At the entrance there were small bridges, upon 

 which certain persons (diril}itores~) gave them small 

 ballots; if a new law was to be introduced, two 

 ballots, one with the letters U. R. (Uti rogas, Let 

 it be as proposed), the other with the letter A. 

 (Antiquo, I leave it as it is); or, if an officer WHS 

 to be chosen, as many ballots were given as there 

 were candidates. The majority then decided. 



SUFISM; the pantheistic mysticism of the East, 

 which strives for the highest illumination of the 

 mind, the most perfect calmness of the soul, and 

 the union of it with God, by an ascetic life, and 

 the subjugation of the appetites. This pantheism, 

 clothed in a mystico-religious garb, has been pro- 

 fessed, since the ninth and tenth centuries, by a 

 sect which at present is gaining adherents continu- 

 ally, among the more cultivated Mohammedans, 

 particularly in Persia and India, and about twenty 

 years ago, comprehended 80,000 disciples in Persia, 

 who had renounced Mohammedism. One of the 

 most zealous Sufis is the Arabian Azzeddin, born 

 at Jerusalem, in the twelfth century, whose work 

 Birds and Flowers, a moral allegory, has been trans- 

 lated by Garcia de Tassy (Paris, 1821). All reli- 

 gious persons who live together in a monastic way, 

 devoted to an ascetic life, are called in the East Sufis. 

 Some have derived this word from the circumstance 

 that they dress in wool only : but Joseph von Ham- 

 mer (q. v.), has disproved this derivation, in the 

 Vienna Journal of Art, Literature, the Theatre, &c. 

 (1828, No. 59), and maintains that the name Soji is 

 related to the Greek <rpf , wise, and r<p,-, clear, on 

 account of the mirror which the Sofi carried as a 

 symbol, as well as to the Arabian safi (pure) The 

 Arabians had, from the earliest times, an inclination 

 to a life of religious contemplation and monastic 

 solitude. Hence as early as under the first caliphs, 

 religious fraternities were formed, which renounced 

 every thing earthly. As the four orthodox Moham- 

 medan sects established several systems of scholas- 

 tic philosophy, and a number of monkish orders 

 grew up, in the second century or Hegira, devout 

 persons, perplexed by this labyrinth, of discordant 

 theological opinions, found consolation in pious mys- 

 ticism. This was the origin of the Sufis, whose 

 idea of a mystical union of man with God (which, 

 however, is not founded in the doctrines of Moham- 

 medanism, but according to Langle's, Reiske, Ham- 

 mer, and Malcolm, is of Indian origin') gave rise to 

 fanaticism, similar to that of the Christian mystics. 

 The Sufis teach their doctrine under the images of 

 love, wine, intoxication, fire, &c. ; and the songs of 

 Hafiz, one of the most distinguished Sufis, which 

 seem to be Anacreontic strains in praise of love and 

 wine, should rather be considered as setting forth the 

 mystic doctrines of his sect. Even the dances of the 

 Mohammedan monks have a mystic meaning. By the 

 Devil, the Sufis generally understand the sensual 

 appetite; they acknowledge no other devil than the 

 darkness of the soul, unenlightened by truth. In the 

 first volume of the Transactions of the learned so- 

 ciety at Bombay (London, 1819) is an important 

 treatise on the mystic doctrine of the Sufis, by 

 Graham. The doctrines of the Oriental mystics 

 have also been illustrated by Silvestre de Sacy, in 

 the Pendnameh, by Erskine, in several treatises in 

 the Bombay Transactions, by Hammer, in his His- 

 tory of Persian Belles-lettres (under the heads of 

 Dsehelaleddin, Rumi, and Dschami), and particu- 



