NANA SAHIB 



405S 



NANKING 



Island. It is forty miles directly west of Van- 

 couver, with which it has fern' connection, and 

 is seventy-two miles north of Victoria, with 

 which it has connection by the Esquimalt & 

 Xanaimo Railway (now a part of the Canadian 

 Pacific system). The city is the capital of the 

 electoral district of the same name. Popula- 

 tion in 1911. 8.306. 



Nanaimo is known chiefly as a coal-mining 

 center and as a port. The Nanaimo coal field, 

 with an area of 300 or more square miles, is the 

 largest and richest in British Columbia, and 

 supplies more than half of the province's an- 

 nual production of that mineral. The coal 

 in fact, gave the city its popular name, 

 the Coal City. As a port Nanaimo offers prac- 

 tically unlimited water frontage and a harbor 

 which is remarkably safe and free from fogs. 

 Xanaimo and its neighborhood have a large 

 amount of shipping, in consequence of the ex- 

 port of coal to ports on the Pacific coast. It is 

 also a lumbering and fishing center. 



Nanaimo was founded in 1836 as a Hudson's 

 Bay Company's post. It has never had a 

 boom, but since the first development of the 

 coal mines has grown steadily. It was incor- 

 porated as a city in 1874, and in 1900 pur- 

 chased the waterworks system, which has re- 

 mained under municipal control. The city also 

 owns the electric-lighting system. The city has 

 a fine high school and four public schools the 

 Central, South Ward, North Ward and Middle 

 Ward. A Dominion biological station is situ- 

 ated on Departure Bay, a short distance north 

 of the city. W.B. 



NANA SAHIB, nah'na sah'ib (about 1820- 

 about 1860), a name applied to DUNDHU 

 PANTH, when he became leader of the Sepoys 

 in the Indian mutiny in 1857 (see SEPOY RE- 

 BELLION). He was an adopted son of the ruler 

 of the Mahratta state of Bithur, and was edu- 

 cated as a Hindu nobleman, but became active 

 in stirring up discontent upon the refusal of the 

 British government to continue a pension which 

 had been granted to his foster father. Upon 

 the outbreak of the mutiny in Cawnpore he 

 placed himself at the head of the rebels there, 

 and though he promised to spare the British if 

 they surrendered, he broke his word and com- 

 mitted such atrocities as horrified the world. 

 After the rebellion was suppressed he fled to 

 Nepal, and the time of his death is unknown. 

 As a consequence of the mutiny the govern- 

 ment of India was taken from the East India 

 Company by act of Parliament (see INDIA, sub- 

 title Government and History'}. 



NANCY, nahNsc', the capital of the French 

 department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, formerly 

 the capital of the province of Lorraine, 220 

 miles east of Paris, on the railway to Strass- 

 burg. It is situated on the Meurthe River, six 

 miles above its junction with the Moselle, and 

 on the Eastern and Marne-Rhine canals. The 

 first clash of the War of the Nations occurred 

 on the Alsace-Lorraine frontier near Nancy, 

 and the city was under bombardment a number 

 of times in 1914 and 1915 (see WAR OF THE NA- 

 TIONS). 



Nancy's real importance dates from the fif- 

 teenth century, when Charles the Bold, one of 

 the most powerful of the French vassals, was 

 defeated by Rene II, Duke of Lorraine, and 

 died at the city's gates. Nancy was the seat of 

 the dukes of Lorraine until 1766, when it passed 

 to the French, and it owes much of its archi- 

 tectural beauty to Stanislas Leszczynski, Duke 

 of Lorraine and king of Poland, who made it 

 one of the palatial cities of Europe. In 1814 

 and 1815 Nancy was occupied by the Allies who 

 were fighting Napoleon; during the Franco- 

 German War, in 1870, it was seized by the 

 German forces, and compelled to pay a heavy 

 ransom. The city is distinguished for its many 

 imposing triumphal arches. Before the War 

 of the Nations, Nancy had a population of 



i2o;ooo. 



NANKING', a Chinese city on the Yang-tse 

 River, about midway between Peking and Can- 

 ton, in former days one of the glories of the old 

 Chinese Empire, of which it was the seat of 

 government from 1368 to 1403. The name 

 Nanking means southern capital. It is now the 

 chief city and capital of the province of Ki- 

 angu-su, but derives much of its importance 

 from its military college, arsenal and gun and 

 ammunition factories. In the Tai-ping rebel- 

 lion, which brought ruin and desolation to 

 China between 1850 and 1864, Nanking suf- 

 fered greatly. In 1853 it was captured by the 

 rebels, who made it their capital, and it was 

 not retaken by the government forces until 

 1864. 



In the meantime nearly all of its historic 

 monuments and public edifices, including its 

 famous porcelain tower and the greater part of 

 its magnificent encircling walls, were destroyed. 

 The only features of historic interest that still 

 remain are the tombs of several emperors of 

 the Ming dynasty, on the eastern outskirts of 

 the city. In Nanking, in 1842, was signed the 

 first treaty between China and Great Britain. 

 The city was the seat of government of the 



