stan, and in Basra on the Euphrates; are a
religious sect; called also Sabians, and holding tenets gathered from
Christian, Jewish, and heathen sources, resembling those of the ancient
Gnostics; their priesthood admits women; their chief rite is baptism, and
hence their old name, Christians of St. John the Baptist.

MANDALAY (189), capital of Upper Burma, on the Irawadi, in the
centre of the country, 360 m. N. of Rangoon; was seized by the British in
1885. The Aracan Pagoda, with a brazen image of the Buddha, attracts many
pilgrims, and Buddhist monasteries cluster outside the town. There are
silk-weaving, gold, silver, ivory, and wood work, gong-casting and
sword-making industries. Great fires raged in it in 1886 and 1892.

MANDARIN, the name given by foreigners, derived from the Portuguese,
signifying to "command," to Chinese official functionaries, of which
there are some nine orders, distinguished by the buttons on their caps,
and they are appointed chiefly for their possession of the requisite
qualifications for the office they aspire to.

MANDEVILLE, BERNARD DE, a cynical writer, born at Dordrecht,
Holland; bred to medicine; came to London to practise; wrote in racy
English the "Fable of the Bees," intended to show, as Stopford Brooke
says, how the "vices of society are the foundation of civilisation," or
as Professor Saintsbury says, how "vice makes some bees happy, and virtue
makes them miserable"; the latter calls him "The Diogenes of English
Philosophy"; he affirmed that "private vices are public benefits," and
reduced virtue into a form of selfishness; his satire is directed against
the ethics of SHAFTESBURY (q. v.) (1670-1733).

MANDEVILLE, SIR JOHN, English adventurer, named of St. Albans, who
from his own account travelled over thirty years in the East, and wrote a
narrative of the marvels he experienced in a book of voyages and travels
published in 1356; the authorship of this book has been questioned, but
on this point there is no doubt that, as Professor Saintsbury says, "it
is the first book of belles-lottres in English prose."

MANDINGOES, a negro race in Senegambia, and farther inland around
the Quorra; are numerous and powerful, and arranged in separate
nationalities so to speak.

MANES, the general name given by the Romans to the departed spirits
of good men, who are conceived of as dwelling in the nether world, and as
now and again ascending to the upper.

MANES, MANI, or MANI