Suabia

“ Half a century or so before, Bishop Otto of Freising tells us “a certain count, by name Frederick, [18] sprung from one of the noblest families of Suabia, had founded a colony in a stronghold called Staufen.” Staufen, better known as Hohenstaufen, is a lofty hill about twenty miles from Waiblingen, and within the Suabian frontier. Frederick had been staunch to Henry IV. in his time of greatest difficulty, and received as his reward, together with the dukedom of Suabia, which the house of Zähringen had forfeited through disloyalty, the hand of the Emperor’s daughter Agnes. ”

“ Styra (now Stura) . A town in Eubœa, on the southwest coast, nearly opposite Marathon in Attica. The inhabitants took an active part in the Persian war, and fought at Artemisium, Salamis, and Platææ. They afterwards became subject to the Athenians. The town was destroyed in the Lamian war by the Athenian general Phædrus, and its territory was annexed to Eretia.
Suabia, Swabia, or Suevia (Ger. Schwaben) . An ancient duchy in the southwest of Germany, so named from a horde of Suevi, who spread over it in the 5th century; was a great duchy of the Frank empire till the 8th century. ”

“ His wife was Bertha, daughter of Aubert, marquis of Ivrea, and sister of Hardouin, king of Italy.
Adelaide married three times: (1) Herman, duke of Suabia; (2) Henry of Montferrat; (3) Odo of Savoy. It is supposed that she was not very young at the time of her first marriage. The marquisate of Susa could not be held by a woman, but she could transfer her claim to her husband. Accordingly, Herman obtained the investiture of the marquisate from his stepfather, the Emperor, Conrad II. Herman died, still young, in 1038, and Adelaide took upon herself the government of her father's inheritance. ”

“ On the last day of August 1344, Joan rendered homage to Americ, Cardinal of Saint Martin and legate of Clement VI, who looked upon the kingdom of Naples as being a fief of the Church ever since the time when his predecessors had presented it to Charles of Anjou, and overthrown and excommunicated the house of Suabia. For this solemn ceremony the church of Saint Clara was chosen, the burial-place of Neapolitan kings, and but lately the tomb of the grandfather and father of the young queen, who reposed to right and left of the high altar. ”

“ Stricca. Inf. xxix. 125. Strophades. Inf. xiii. 11. Styx. Inf. vii. 106; ix. 81 ; xiv. 116. Suabia. Par. iii. 1 19. Suicides. Inf. xiii. Sultan. Inf. v. 60 ; xxvii. 90. Par. xi. lOI. Sylvester, Fra. Par. ”

“ The ancient kingdom of Sofala extended north to the Luavo mouth of the Zambesi; and to the south, as far as the river Sofala, formerly to the river Sabia; and west as far as the kingdom of Manica.
The kingdom of Sofala, like all those comprehending Monomotapa Proper, is rich in mines of gold, silver, copper, and iron; precious stones of every variety have been found in this region, and may be obtained in considerable quantities.
The sugar cane, coffee, and indigo are growing [218] everywhere, while wheat is grown on the uplands. ”

“ WHILE these improvements were going on so prosperously in the central and northern territory of the descendents of Cush, their brethren to the south were not idle, they had extended themselves along the mountains that run parallel to the Arabian Gulf; which was in all times called Saba, or Azabo, both which signify South, not because Saba was south of Jerusalem, but because it was on the south coast of the Arabian Gulf, and, from Arabia and Egypt, was the first land to the southward which bounded the African Continent, then richer, more important, and better known, than the rest of the world. ”

“ Distant from Rondelo a hundred and thirty leagues is the Isle of Suaquem, where the Bassa of that country chooses his residence, for the convenience of receiving the tribute with greater exactness, there being a large trade carried on here with the Abyssins. The Turks of Suaquem have gardens on the firm land, not above a musket shot from the island, which supply them with many excellent herbs and fruits, of which I doubt whether there be not a greater quantity on this little spot than on the whole coast of Africa besides, from Melinda to Suez. ”

“ How can a town be governed properly when its capital is three thousand miles distant, and the only open route thither is, by river and sea, a month's journey? Perhaps the day is not far distant when Cuyabá, the most central city of South America, and larger than Corumbá, lying hundreds of miles further up the river, will set up a head of its own to rule, or misrule, the province. Brazil is too big, much too big, or the Government is too little, much too little. ”

“ The passage from Diamantino to Santarem occupies about twenty-six days.
Cuiaba is a flourishing town of about ten thousand inhabitants, situated on the river of the same name, which is thence navigable for large vessels to its junction with the Paraguay, which river is free from impediments to the ocean. It is the chief town of the rich province of Matto Grosso. It receives its supplies—the lighter articles of merchandise and luxury—by land, from Rio Janeiro; and its heavier articles—such as cannot be transported on mules for a great distance—by this route of the Tapajos. ”

“ Suebia was that part of Germany inhabited by the Suevi. It looks as though Tacitus considered that courage and manliness decreased the farther north one went. The Suiones allow themselves to be bullied by an absolute king, who sets a thrall to guard their weapons, and the Sitones are in a still worse plight, in allowing themselves to be governed by a woman. The Sitones are not mentioned before or after this in literature, and it seems as though the name must be due to some misunderstanding. ”

“ Thus Suva, the eye of Fiji and of the needle of the Pacific, is threaded, but there is nothing to sew. The unexpected never happens. There are no poets or philosophers, no theaters or cabarets in Suva, as far as mere eye can see,—nothing but smell of mold and copra (cocoanut oil) .
In Suva one cannot long remain alert. The sun is stupefying. The person just arrived finds himself stifled by the sharp smells all about him as though the air were poisoned with too much life. ”

“ The owner-engineer of the Sofala remained very still behind the two seamen of different race, creed, and color; the European with the time-defying vigor of his old frame, the little Malay, old, too, but slight and shrunken like a withered brown leaf blown by a chance wind under the mighty shadow of the other. Very busy looking forward at the land, they had not a glance to spare; and Massy, glaring at them from behind, seemed to resent their attention to their duty like a personal slight upon himself. ”

“ The fire-ship that once in every moon goes in and comes out of Pangu bay." More he did not know of her. And just as he had detected the faint rhythm of the propeller beating the calm water a mile and a half away, the time would come for the Sofala to alter her course, the lights would swing off him their triple beam--and disappear.
A few miserable, half-naked families, a sort of outcast tribe of long-haired, lean, and wild-eyed people, strove for their living in this lonely wilderness of islets, lying like an abandoned outwork of the land at the gates of the bay. ”

“ Suakin has been formed by nature as the principal port of the Egyptian Sûdan and the Nile provinces, but has never risen to a position of any pretension, and even now its prosperity is only comparative. The place was formerly held directly subject to Turkey, but in 1865 it was sold and handed over to the Viceroy of Egypt. The inhabitants depend for their water supply on two or three wells about a mile from the town, and also on rain-water, which is collected during the wet season in a large sort of reservoir at the same place. ”

“ The proper time for the Sofala to arrive at Batu Beru was an hour before sunset, and he looked picturesque, and somehow quite correct too, walking at the water's edge on the background of grass slope crown ed with a low long bungalow with an immensely steep roof of palm thatch, and clad to the eaves in flowering creepers. While the Sofala was being made fast he strolled in the shade of the few trees left near the landing-place, waiting till he could go on board. Her white men were not of his kind. ”

“ From Mazaba and Seilani and Subo, by the course which we came, towards the south part, take care; for there are many shoals, and they are very bad; for this a canoe would not stop which met us in this course.
From the mouth of the channel of Subo and Matan we went west in mid-channel, and met with the town of Subu, at which we anchored, and made peace, and there they gave us rice and millet and flesh; and we remained there many days; and the king and the queen, with many people, became Christians of their free will. ”

“ Then you steered straight for the land, and by-and-by three palms would appear on the sky, tall and slim, and with their disheveled heads in a bunch, as if in confidential criticism of the dark mangroves. The Sofala would be headed towards the somber strip of the coast, which at a given moment, as the ship closed with it obliquely, would show several clean shining fractures--the brimful estuary of a river. ”

“ I shall refer to the temperature that we experienced during the campaign further on.
The population of Suakin is very "mixed."
There are Arabs belonging to all the neighbouring tribes—Hadendowas, Amaras, Fadlabs, Beni Amers, Bisharems, and Shaharibs. There are also a number of Soumalis.
They are quite black in colour, and naked with the exception of a white cloth worn round the loins. The women, at least some of them, cover their faces with a thin white material, which they wear wound round them and over their heads. These are mostly the married women. ”

“ There is a saying in Egypt that whoever tastes the water of the Nile must some time return there, and I am very sure that he who drinks from the Siwa springs will always wish to go there again. Walking by moonlight under those huge, towering battlements of the strange old town, through streets and squares deserted save for an occasional white-robed figure, one could almost credit the queer stories of ghosts, jinns and afreets that are believed by the Siwans to haunt every spot in this mysterious little oasis which lies hidden among the great barren tracts of the pitiless Libyan Desert. ”

“ The houses of the Subanos are similarly constructed to those of the Manobos, Montéses, and other tribes, but are [358] not always raised so high from the ground, and are more roughly built. Their food is similar to that of the other heathen tribes. The men wear their hair long, but coiled up on the head, and covered with a kerchief worn like a turban. They dress in a tight jacket and trousers, either white, blue, or red. Sometimes they wear a sash. The men do not wear ear-ornaments of any kind. The women wear large combs made by themselves from bamboos, but no head-covering. ”

“ The famous discoverer, João de Souza Echevedo, in 1746, made this passage: he descended the river Cuiaba, and sailing up the Sypotuba to its very sources, he there passed his canoes over land into [416] the Sumidouro, which he navigated, following the current, notwithstanding that the river runs for some distance under ground, and thence derives its appellation. ”

“ The fourth class, with the less civilized Sumatrans, will take in the people of the new discovered islands in the South Sea; perhaps the celebrated Mexican and Peruvian empires; the Tartar hordes, and all those societies of people in various parts of the globe, who, possessing personal property, and acknowledging some species of established subordination, rise one step above the Caribs, the New Hollanders, the Laplanders, and the Hottentots, who exhibit a picture of mankind in its rudest and most humiliating aspect. ”

“ There is another small fort at Inhambane, and both these establishments are annexed to Sofala, and kept up for the purpose of collecting ivory, which the neighbouring forests abundantly supply. Sofala itself is a miserable village; but the country around is extremely fertile, and furnishes considerable quantities of rice, oranges, and many exquisite fruits to the inhabitants of Mosambique. ”

“ He never went abroad (405) so much as to take the air, without a carriage attending him, in which there was a million of sesterces in gold, ready at hand; until at last, at the time he was living in the town of Fundi, the province of Hispania Tarraconensis was offered him. After his arrival in the province, whilst he was sacrificing in a temple, a boy who attended with a censer, became all on a sudden grey-headed. This incident was regarded by some as a token of an approaching revolution in the government, and that an old man would succeed a young one: that is, that he would succeed Nero. ”

“ Let the Sulu be idolatrous or a fire worshiper and he will “go juramentado” on the strength of his faith in wooden or fire gods before he yields to a master or serves as a slave. He will die before he surrenders. Such metal is what makes the Sulus brave, independent, and unyielding. [251]
The Sulus watched the progress of Legaspi at Cebu, Panay, and Luzon, saw how the pagan chiefs were subjugated, and witnessed the expulsion of their brother Mohammedans from Manila. ”

“ Here the dwellings of the inhabitants resemble those of Lincolnshire, mud walls, and the inhabitants as filthy as the ground they tread on. The circle of Swabia is reckoned to be a fertile and well-cultivated country and its population proves that its peasantry are well fed. The hills are well covered with fir and oak, the remains of the old Hercynian Forest that once overspread this part of Germany from the Danube to the Rhine. The wild boar [77] and the wolf are the only savage animals that inhabit these regions. The clearing of the forest has very much influenced the climate of Italy ”