camps, or in quarters distant from rivers, have more or less the gravel, occasioned probably by the use of well water; but at Sennaar this malady is rare. The elephantiasis is not known, nor is the small pox endemial. The commerce of Sennaar consists chiefly in exchanging the productions of interior Africa with those of Egypt and Arabia. The most extensive communication is with Suakin and Jidda, by Shendi, and across the track extending from the Nile to the Red Sea. With Egypt the intercourse is conducted by two different routes. One leads along the east of the Nile, and follows the course of that river to Shendi, when the caravans strike across the vast deserts of Nubia. The other track is west of the Nile. The caravans here, in coming from Egypt, quit the Nile at Siout, then strike across the equally extensive desert to the west of that river. They refresh themselves at Charje or the Great Oasis, then proceed for some time by the same track as the caravans to Darfur, till they rejoin the Nile at Moscho, in the territory of Dangola. After passing through the capital of that kingdom, they come to Korti, where they proceed across the desert of Bahiouda, and, joining the Nile at Derri, follow its course to Sennaar. The commodities drawn from interior Africa, for export to Egypt and Arabia, are gold dust, called tibbar, ivory, civet, rhinoceros' horns, but, above all, slaves. The gold still maintains its reputation as the purest and best in Africa. The foreign commodity chiefly sought after is blue cloth from Surat. They receive also spices, hardware, and toys, particularly a kind of black beads made at Venice. In the early ages of Christianity this country, like Abyssinia, underwent a nominal conversion. The greater part of the inhabitants are now Mahometans however; but practise Pagan as well as Christian rites. The government is an absolute monarchy, founded as late as the sixteenth century by a body of Shilluk negroes. On the accession of a new king, all his brothers who can be found are almost invariably put to death no female is allowed to reign, and the princesses, who are very numerous, meet with little more respect than their female attendants. This absolute power, however, is tempered by an extraordinary limitation, which is, that the king may lawfully be put to death by a council of the great officers, whenever they choose to decide that his reign is no longer for the benefit of the public. The execution of the sentence is entrusted to an officer called the sid-el-koom, who is a member of the monarch's own family, and master of his household. The fact appears to be, that the hereditary kings have sunk into a species of pageants, kept up merely to amuse the people, and that the real power is now in the hands of the chief officers, civil and military. The troops stationed immediately around the capital consist of about 14,000, of a race of negroes called Nuba, from which is derived the general name of Nubia. The infantry are armed with a short javelin and a round shield, and appear to be by no means good troops; but the horse amounting to 1800, though armed only with coats of mail and a broad Sclavonian sword, appeared to Mr. Bruce equal to any he had seen. Sennaar has three tributary governments: Kordofan, situated between Sennaar and Darfur, to which latter country it is occasionally subjected; Fazuclo, to the south, a mountainous territory, affording a large supply of gold and slaves, the staples of interior Africa. The government of 'Sennaar, on conquering this territory, continued its mek or sovereign in the capacity of governor. The third government is that of El Acie, or Alleis, on the Bahr el Abiad, including the original country of the Shilluk tribes. The inhabitants are fishermen, and possess a vast number of boats, with large fleets of which they made their invasion in 1504, and possessed themselves of this sovereignty. Mr. Bruce, who passed through this country in his return from Abyssinia, gives a list of twenty kings who have reigned in it since its conquest by the Shilluks, and of the remarkable custom by which the king ascends the throne with the expectation of being murdered, whenever the general council of the nation thinks proper. The dreadful office of executioner belongs to a single officer, he says, styled, in the language of the country, Sid-el-Coom; and who is always a relation of the monarch himself. It was from his registers that Mr. Bruce took the list of the kings already mentioned, with the number of years they reigned, and which may therefore be received as authentic. The Sid-elCoom in office at the time that Mr. Bruce visited this country was named Achmet, and was one of his best friends. He had murdered the late king, with three of his sons, one of whom was an infant at its mother's breast; he was also in daily expectation of performing the same office to the reigning sovereign. He was by no means reserved concerning the nature of his office. When asked by Mr. Bruce why he murdered the king's young son in his father's presence? he answered that he did it from a principle of duty to the king himself, who had a right to see his son killed in a lawful and regular manner, which was by cutting his throat with a sword, and not in a more painful or ignominious way, which the malice of his enemies might possibly have inflicted. The king, he said, was very little concerned at the sight of his son's death, but he was so very unwilling to die himself that he often pressed the executioner to let him escape; but, finding his entreaties ineffectual, he submitted at last without resistance. On being asked whether he was not afraid of coming into the presence of the king, considering the office he might possibly have to perform? he replied that he was not in the least afraid on this account; that it was his duty to be with the king every morning, and very late in the evening; that the king knew he would have no hand in promoting his death; but that, when the matter was absolutely determined, the rest was only an affair of decency; and it would undoubtedly be his own choice rather to fall by the hand of his own relation in private than by a hired assassin, an Arab, or a Christian slave, in sight of the populace. On the death of any of the sovereigns of this country, his eldest son succeeds; on which as many of his brothers as can be found are apprehended, and put to death by the Sid-el-Coom. Women are excluded from the sovereignty here as well as in Abyssinia. The princesses of Sennaar, however, are worse off than those of Abyssinia, having no settled income, nor being treated in any degree better than the daughters of private persons. The king is obliged, once in his lifetime, to plough and sow a piece of ground, whence he is named Baady, the countryman or peasant,' a title as common among the monarchs of Sennaar as Cæsar was among the Romans. The royal family marry Arab women; the white color of the mother is communicated to the child. This, we are told by Mr. Bruce, is invariably the case when a negro man of Sennaar marries an Arab woman; and it holds equally good when an Arab man marries a negro woman; and he likewise informs us that he never saw one black Arab all the time that he was at Sennaar. The soil and climate of this country is extremely unfavorable both to man and beast. The men are strong and remarkable for their size, but short-lived; and there is such a mortality among the children that, were it not for a constant importation of slaves, the metropolis would be depopulated. The shortness of their lives, however, may perhaps be accounted for, from their indulging themselves from their infancy in every kind of excess. No horse, mule, nor ass, will live at Sennaar, or for many miles round it. The case is the same with bullocks, sheep, dogs, cats, and poultry; all of them must go to the sands every half year. Bruce assures us this is the case every where about the metropolis of this country, where the soil is a fat earth during the first season of the rains. Two greyhounds which he brought along with him from Atbara, and the mules he brought from Abyssinia, lived only a few weeks after their arrival at Sennaar. Several of the kings of Sennaar have tried to keep lions, but it was almost found impossible to preserve them alive after the rains. They will live, however, as well as other quadrupeds, in the sands, at no great distance from the capital. No species of tree, except the lemon, flowers near this city. In other parts the soil of Sennaar is exceedingly fertile, being said to yield 300 fold. About twelve miles to the north-west of Sennaar is a collection of villages named Shaddly, from a great saint of that name who constructed several granaries here. These granaries are large pits dug in the ground, and well plastered in the inside with clay, then filled with grain when it is at its lowest price, and afterwards covered up and plastered again at top: these pits they call matamores. On any prospect of dearth they are opened, and the corn sold to the people. About twenty-five miles north of Shaddly there is another set of granaries named Wed-Aboud, still greater than Shaddly; and upon these two the subsistence of the Arabs principally depends: for as these people are at continual war with each other, and direct their fury rather against the crops than the persons of their enemies, the whole of them would be unavoidably starved, were it not for this extraordinary resource. Small villages of soldiers are scattered up and down this country to guard the grain after it is sown, 6 which is only that species of millet named dora. There are great hollows made in the earth at proper distances throughout the country, which fill with water in the rainy season, and are afterwards of great use to the Arabs as they pass from the cultivated parts of the sands. The fly, which is such a dreadful enemy to the cattle, is never seen to the northward of Shaddly. To the west of these granaries the country is quite full of trees as far as the river Abiad, or El-aice. In this extensive plain there are two ridges of mountains, one called Jebbel Moira, or the Mountain of Water; the other Jibbel Segud, or the Cold Mountain. Both enjoy a fine climate, and serve for a protection to the farms about Shaddly and Aboud already mentioned. Here also are fortresses placed in the way of the Arabs, which oblige them to pay tribute in their flight from the cultivated country, during the rains, to the dry lands of Atbara. Each of these districts is governed by the descendants of their ancient and native princes, who long resisted all the power of the Arabs. Sacrifices of a horrid nature are said to have been offered up on these mountains till about the year 1554, when one of the kings of Sennaar besieged first one and then the other of the princes in their mountains; and, having forced them to surrender, he fastened a chain of gold to each of their ears, exposed them in the market-place at Sennaar, and sold them for slaves at less than a farthing each. Soon after this they were circumcised, converted to the Mahometan religion, and restored to their kingdom. Nothing,' says Mr. Bruce, is more pleasant, than the country around Sennaar in the end of August and beginning of September. The grain, being now sprung up, makes the whole of this immense plain appear a level green land, interspersed with great lakes of water, and ornamented at certain intervals, with groups of villages; the conical tops of the houses presenting at a distance the appearance of small encampments. Through this very extensive plain winds the Nile, a delightful river there, above a mile broad, full to the very brim, but never overflowing. Every where on these banks are seen herds of the most beautiful cattle of various kinds. banks of the Nile about Sennaar resemble the pleasantest part of Holland in summer: but soon after, when the rains cease, and the sun exerts its utmost influence, the dora begins to ripen, the leaves to turn yellow and to rot, the lakes to putrefy, smell, become full of vermin, and all its beauty suddenly disappears: bare scorched Nubia returns, and all its terrors of poisonous winds and moving sands, glowing and ventilated with sultry blasts, which are followed by a troop of terrible attendants; epilepsies, apoplexies, violent fevers, obstinate agues, and lingering painful dysenteries, still more obstinate and mortal. War and treason seem to be the only employments of this horrid people, whom Heaven has separated by almost impassable deserts from the rest of mankind; confining them to an accursed spot, seemingly to give them an earnest in time of the only other curse which he has reserved to them for an eternal hereafter.' The With regard to the climate of the country round Sennaar, Mr. Bruce has several very curious obser vations. The thermometer rises in the shade to 119°; but the degree indicated by this instrument does not at all correspond with the sensations occasioned by it, nor with the color of the people who live under it. Nations of blacks,' says he, live within lat. 13° and 14°; about 10° south of them, nearly under the line, all the people are white, as we had an opportunity of observing daily in the Galla Sennaar, which is in lat. 13°, and is hotter by the thermometer 50°, when the sun is most distant from it, than Gondar, which is a degree farther south when the sun is vertical. At Sennaar, from 70° to 78° of Fahrenheit's thermometer is cool; from 79° to 92° temperate; at 92° begins warmth. Although the degree of the thermometer marks a greater heat than is felt by us strangers, the sensations of the natives bear still a less proportion to that degree than ours. On the 2nd of August, while I was lying perfectly enervated on a carpet in a room deluged with water at twelve o'clock, the thermometer at 116°, I saw several black laborers pulling down a house, working with great vigor, without any symptoms of being incommoded.' The dress of the people of Sennaar consists only of a long shirt of blue cloth, which wraps them up from the under part of the neck to the feet. The men sometimes have a sash tied about their middle; and both men and women go barefooted in the houses, whatever their rank may be. The floors of their apartments, especially those of the women, are covered with Persian carpets. Both men and women anoint themselves, at least once a day, with camels' grease mixed with civet, which, they imagine, softens their skins, and preserves them from cutaneous eruptions, of which they are so fearful that they confine themselves to the house, if they observe the smallest pimple on their skins. With the same view of preserving their skins, though they have a clean shirt every day, they sleep with a greased one at night, having no other covering but this. Their bed is a tanned bull's hide, which this constant greasing softens very much; it is also very cool, though it gives a smell to their bodies from which they cannot be freed by any washing. Our author gives a very curious description of the queens and ladies of the court at Sennaar. He had access to them as a physician, and was permitted to pay his visit alone. He was first shown into a large square apartment, where there were about fifty black women, all quite naked, excepting a very narrow piece of cotton rag about their waists. As he was musing whether these were all queens, one of them took him by the hand, and led him into another apartment much better lighted than the former. Here he saw three women sitting upon a bench or sofa covered with blue Surat cloth; they themselves being clothed from the neck to the feet with cotton shirts of the same color. These were three of the king's wives; his favorite, who was one of the number, appeared to be about six feet high, and so corpulent that our traveller imagined her to be the largest creature he had seen next to the elephant and rhinoceros. Her features perfectly resembled those of a negro; a ring of gold passed through her under lip, and weighed it down, till, like a flap, it covered her chin, leaving her teeth bare, which were small and very fine. The inside of her lip was made black with antimony. Her ears reached down to her shoulders, and had the appearance of wings; there was a gold ring in each of them about five inches in diameter, and somewhat smaller than a man's little finger; the weight of which had drawn down the hole, where her ear was pierced, so much that three fingers might easily pass above the ring. She had a gold necklace of several rows, one below another; to which were hung rows of sequins pierced. She had two manacles of gold upon her ancles, larger than those used for chaining felons. Our author could not imagine how it was possible for her to walk with them, till he was informed that they were hollow. The others were dressed much in the same manner; only there was one who had chains coming from her ears to the outside of each nostril, where they were fastened. A ring was also put through the gristle of her nose, and which hung down to the opening of her mouth; having altogether something of the appearance of a horse's bridle; and Mr. Bruce thinks that she must have breathed with difficulty. SENNACHERIB, king of Assyria, succeeded his father Salmanasar, about A. A. C. 714. Hezekiah, king of Judea, having refused to pay him tribute, though he afterwards submitted, he invaded Judah with a great army, took several forts, and after repeated insolent and blasphemous messages besieged Jerusalem; but his army being suddenly smitten with a pestilence, which cut off 185,000 in a night, he returned to Nineveh, where he was murdered in the temple of Nisroch by his sons Adramelech and Sharezer, and was succeeded by his other son Esar-haddon. (See ASSYRIA, and 2 Kings xviii. and xix.) Herodotus tells us that he also attempted to invade Egypt, but was defeated by an army of rats. See EGYPT. SENNAR. See SENNAAR. SENNE, a river of the French empire, in the department of the Dyle, and ci-devant province of Austrian Brabant, which runs into the Demer, a little below Malines. SENNEFIELD, an imperial town of Germany, allotted by the division of the indemnities to the king of Bavaria, the same with Sennfield in Franconia, two miles south-east of Schweinfurt. SENNERTUS (Daniel), an eminent physician, born in 1572 at Breslaw. In 1593 he was sent to Wirtemberg, where he made great progress in philosophy and physic. He visited the universities of Leipsic, Jena, Francfort on the Oder, and Berlin; but soon returned to Wirtemberg, where he obtained the degree of M. D., and soon after a professorship in the same faculty He was the first who introduced the study of chemistry into that university, and gained great reputation by his works, his practice, and his benevolent disposition. He died of the plague at Wirtemberg, in 1637. By contradicting the ancients, he raised himself enemies. Having asserted that the seed of all living creatures is animated, and that the soul of this seed produces organisation, he was accused of impiety, and even blasphemy. Among his writings are, Epitome Naturalis Scientiæ, 1618, 8vo., repeatedly printed; Liber de Chymicorum consensu et dissensu cum Aristotelicis et Galenicis, 1629, 4to.; and Hypomnemata Physica, 1650. These were much in request in the seventeenth century, and were published collectively at Lyons, 1676, 6 vols. folio. SENNERTUS (Andrew), eldest son of the preceding, also received his education at Wirtemberg, and after visiting Leipsic, Jena, and Strasburg, and the Dutch universities, became professor of the oriental languages in that university. He died in 1679, aged sixty-three. Besides a number of philological dissertations, he was the author of Hypotyposis Harmonica Linguarum Orientalium, Chaldea, Syræ, Arabicæ cum Matre Hebræa, 1666, 4to.; Sciagraphia, Doctrinæ inextricabalis adhuc de Accentibus Hebræorum, 1664, 4to; Dissertatio de Linguarum Orientalium Originibus, Antiquitate, Progressione, Incrementis, 1669; &c. &c. SEN'NIGHT, n.s. Contracted from sevennight. The space of seven nights and days; a week. See FORTNIGHT. If mention is made, on Monday, of Thursday sennight, the Thursday that follows the next Thursday is meant. Time trots hard with a young maid between the contract of her marriage and the day it is solem. nized; if the interim be but a se'nnight, time's pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven years. Shakspeare. As You Like It. SENOC'ULAR, adj. Lat. seni and oculus. Having six eyes. Most animals are binocular, spiders octonocular, and some senocular. Derham's Physico Theology. SENOGALLIA, or SENA, an ancient town of Italy, in Umbria, on the Adriatic; built by the Galli Senones, A. U. C. 396. SENONES, in ancient history and geography, a people of Gallia Celtica, situated on the Sequana to the south of the Parisii, near the confluence of the Jeavana or Yonne with that river. Their most considerable exploit was their invasion of Italy, and taking and burning of Rome. See ROME. This was done by a colony of them long before transported into Italy, and settled on the Adriatic. Their chief towns in Italy were Sena, Pisaurum, Ariminum, and Fanum Fortunæ. Their capital Agendicum, in Gaul, was in the lower age called Senones, now Sens. In Italy, the Senones extended themselves as far as the river, Aesis; but were afterwards driven beyond the Rubicon, which became the boundary of Galla Cisalpina.-Polybius, Strabo. SENS, a considerable town of France, in the department of the Yonne, situated on a hill watered by that river, and by the Vanne. It is the see of an archbishop, and to the college belongs a museum and library. It has manufactures of woollens, velvet, stockings, gloves, and leather; the trade consists in corn, wine, wool, coal, and hemp. Several ecclesiastical councils have been held here; among others that of 1140, in which the famous Abelard was condemned. It was taken by an allied force, chiefly Austrian, on the 11th of February, 1814, but evacuated soon after. Thirty-four miles west of Troyes,, and eighty-four south-east of Paris. SENSE, n. s. SENSATION, SENS'ED, adj SENSE FUL, SENSE LESS, SENSE LESSLY, adv. SENSE LESSNESS, n. s. SENSIBILITY, SENSIBLE, adj. SENS'IBLENESS, n. s. SENSIBLY, adv. SENSITIVE, adj. SENSITIVELY, adv. SENSO'RIUM, n. s. SENS'ORY, Fr. sens; Lat. sensus. Faculty or power by which external objects are perceived; perception of such objects; hence intellectual perception; apprehension; understanding; reason; consciousness; hence also, meaning; import: sensation is, perception by means of the senses; hence mental emotion; sensed SENSUOUS, adj. j (obsolete), perceived by the senses: senseful, reasonable, judicious (also disused): senseless, wanting sense of any kind; ignorant; stupid; unreasonable: the adjective and adverb corresponding: sensibility is quickness or delicacy of sensation; delicate perception: sensible, having the use of the senses or power of perception by them; perceptible by the senses or by the mind; perceiving by the mind or senses; having moral or intellectual perception; convinced, persuaded; judicious; wise: the noun substantive and adverb following correspond: sensitive is having sense or perception as distinct from reason; the adverb corresponding the sensorium or sensory is the seat of sense, or that part of the body whence the senses transmit the perceptions to the mind: sensuous is tender; pathetic; (used only by Milton). This Basilius, having the quick sense of a lover, took as though his mistress had given him a secret Sidney. reprehension. The charm and venom which they drunk, Being diffused through the senseless trunk, stunk. Faerie Queene. In this sense, to be preserved from sin is not impossible. Hooker. Endless and senseless effusions of indigested prayers oftentimes disgrace, in most unsufferable manner, the worthiest part of Christian duty towards God. Id. things that are and are not sensible: it resteth, thereBy reason man attaineth unto the knowledge of fore, that we search how man attaineth un'o the knowledge of such things unsensible as are to be known. Id. That church of Christ, which we properly term his body mystical, can be but one; neither can that one be sensibly discerned by any, inasmuch as the parts thereof are some in heaven already with Christ. 1... You blocks! you worse than senseless things! Id. He is your brother, lords; sensibly fed Of that self-blood that first gave life to you. ld. These be those discourses of God, whose effects those that live witness in themselves; the sensible in their sensible natures, the reasonable in their reasonable souls. Raleigh. Spiritual species, both visible and audible, will work upon the sensories, though they move not any other body. Bacon. In a living creature, though never so great, the sense and the effects of any one part of the body instantly make a transcursion throughout the whole. Id. Bacon's Natural History. This color often carries the mind away, yea, it deceiveth the sense; and it seemeth to the eye a shorter distance of way, if it be all dead and continued, than if it have trees or buildings, or any other marks whereby the eye may divide it. Though things sensible be numberless, Yet only five the senses' organs be! Bacon. And in those five all things their forms express, Which we can touch, taste, feel, or hear, or see. To draw Mars like a young Hippolitus, with an effeminate countenance, or that hot-spurred Harpalice in Virgil, proceedeth from a senseless and overcold judgment. Peacham. The brain, distempered by a cold, beating against the root of the auditory nerve, and protracted to the tympanum, causes the sensation of noise. Harvey on Consumption. If we be not extremely foolish, thankless, or senseless, a great joy is more apt to cure sorrow than a great trouble is. Taylor. Some balances are so exact as to be sensibly turned with the eightieth part of a grain. Wilkins's Math. Magic. They would repent this their senseless perverseness when it would be too late, and when they found themselves under a power that would destroy them. Clarendon. Both contain Within them every lower faculty God, to remove his ways from human sense, Id. All before Richard I. is before time of memory, and what is since, is, in a legal sense, within the time of memory. Hale. Diversity of constitution, or other circumstances, vary the sensations; and to them of Java pepper is cold. Glanville's Scepsis. Let the sciolist tell me, why things must needs be so as his individual senses represent them; is he sure that objects are not otherwise sensed by others, than they are by him? And why must his sense be the infallible criterion? It may be, what is white to us, is black to negroes. Id. A blind man conceives not colours, but under the notion of some other sensible faculty. Id. The space left and acquired in every sensible moment in such slow progressions, is so inconsiderable, that it cannot possibly move the sense. I speak my private but impartial sense, With freedom, and, I hope, without offence. Id. Roscommon. A haughty presumption, that because we are enVOL. XX. couraged to believe that in some sense all things are made for man, that therefore they are not made at all for themselves. More. In one sense it is, indeed, a building of gold and silver upon the foundation of Christianity. Tillotson. The great design of this author's book is to prove this, which I believe no man in the world was ever so senseless as to deny. Id. Of the five senses two are usually and most properly called the senses of learning, as being most capable of receiving communication of thought and notions by selected signs: and these are hearing and seeing. Holder's Elements of Speech. Idleness was punished by so many stripes in public, and the disgrace was more sensible than the pain. Temple. A sudden pain in my right foot increased sensibly. If any one should be found so senselessly arrogant as to suppose man alone knowing and wise, and but yet the product of mere ignorance and chance, and that all the rest of the universe acted only by that blind haphazard, I shall leave with him that very rational and emphatical rebuke of Tully. Id. This great source of most of the ideas we have depending wholly upon our senses, and derived by them to the understanding, I call sensation. Ia. Vegetables have many of them some degrees of motion, and, upon the different application of other bodies to them, do very briskly alter their figure and motion, and so have obtained the name of sensitive plants, from a motion which has some resemblance to that which in animals follows upon sensation. ld. Bodies are such as are endued with a vegetative soul, as plants; a sensitive soul, as animals; or a rational soul, as the body of man. Ray. The sensitive plant is so called because, as soon as you touch it, the leaf shrinks. Mortimer. The senselessness of the tradition of the crocodile's moving his upper jaw, is plain, from the articulation of the occiput with the neck, and the nether jaw with the upper. Grew. Men, otherwise senseful and ingenious, quote such things out of an author as would never pass in conversation. Norris. It is a senseless thing, in reason, to think that one of these interests can stand without the other, when, in the very order of natural causes, government is preserved by religion. South's Sermons. The senseless grave feels not your pious sorrows. F. Rowe |