AB`OMEY, the capital of Dahomey, in W. Africa.

ABOU`KIR, village near Alexandria, in Egypt, on the bay near which Nelson destroyed the French fleet in 1799; where Napoleon beat the Turks, 1799; and where Abercrombie fell, 1801.

ABOUT, EDMOND, spirited French litterateur and journalist
(1828-1885).

ABRAHAM, the Hebrew patriarch, ancestor of the Jews, the very type of an Eastern pastoral chief at once by his dignified character and simple faith.

ABRAHAM, THE PLAINS OF, a plain near Quebec.

ABRAHAM-MEN, a class of lunatics allowed out of restraint, at one time, to roam about and beg; a set of impostors who wandered about the country affecting lunacy.

ABRAN`TES, a town in Portugal, on the Tagus; taken by Marshal Junot, 1807, and giving the title of Duke to him.

ABRAXAS STONES, stones with cabalistic figures on them used as talismans.

ABRUZ`ZI, a highland district in the Apennines, with a pop. of 100,000.

ABSALOM, a son of David, who rebelled against his father, and at whose death David gave vent to a bitter wail of grief.  A name given by Dryden to the Duke of Monmouth, son of Charles II.

ABSOLUTE, THE, the philosophical name for the uncreated Creator, or creating cause of all things, dependent on nothing external to itself.

ABSYRTUS, a brother of Medea, whom she cut in pieces as she fled with Jason, pursued by her father, throwing his bones behind her to detain her father in his pursuit of her by stopping to pick them up.

ABT, FRANZ, a German composer of song-music (1819-1885).

ABU, a mountain (6000 ft.) in Rajputana, with a footprint of Vishnu on the top, and two marble temples half-way up, held sacred by the Jains.

AB`UBEKR, as the father of Ayesha, the father-in-law of Mahomet, the first of the caliphs and the founder of the Sunnites; d. 634.

AB`U-KLEA, in the Soudan, where the Mahdi’s forces were defeated by Sir H. Stewart in 1885.

A`BUL-FARAJ, a learned Armenian Jew, who became bishop of Aleppo, and wrote a history of the world from Adam onwards (1226-1286).

ABUL-FAZEL, the vizier of the great Mogul emperor Akbar, and who wrote an account of his reign and of the Mogul empire; he was assassinated in 1604.

ABUL-FEDA, a Moslem prince of Hamat in Syria, who in his youth took part against the Crusaders, and wrote historical works in Arabic (1273-1331).

ABU-THA`LEB, uncle of Mahomet, and his protector against the plots of his enemies the Koreish.

ABY`DOS, a town on the Asiatic side of the Hellespont, famous as the home of Leander, who swam the Hellespont every night to visit Hero in Sestos, and as the spot where Xerxes built his bridge of boats to cross into Europe in 480 B.C.; also a place of note in Upper Egypt.

ABYSSIN`IA, a mountainous country SE. of Nubia, with an area of 200,000 sq. m., made up of independent states, and a mixed population of some four millions, the Abyssinians proper being of the Semite stock.  It is practically under the protectorate of Italy.