s
it is no more possible for him to receive pardon than for the dry wand in
his hand to bud again and blossom; in his despair he flees from Rome, but
is met by Venus, who lures him back to her cave, there to remain till the
day of judgment; meanwhile the wand he left at Rome begins to put forth
green leaves, and Urban, alarmed, sends off messengers in quest of the
unhappy knight, but they fail to find him.

TANNIN, an astringent principle found in gallnuts and the bark
chiefly of the oak.

TANTALUS, in the Greek mythology a Lydian king, who, being admitted
from blood relationship to the banquets of the gods, incurred their
displeasure by betraying their secrets, and was consigned to the nether
world and compelled to suffer the constant pangs of hunger and thirst,
though he stood up to the chin in water, and had ever before him the
offer of the richest fruits, both of which receded from him as he
attempted to reach them, while a huge rock hung over him, ever
threatening to fall and crush him with its weight.

TANTIA TOPEE, the most daring and stubborn of Nana Sahib's
lieutenants during the Indian Mutiny; in alliance with the Rani of Jhansi
he upheld for a time the mutiny after the flight of his chief, but was
finally captured and executed in 1859.

TAOISM, the religious system of LAOTZE (q. v.).

TAORMINA (2), a town of Sicily; crowns the summit of Monte Tauro, 35
m. SW. of Messina; chiefly celebrated for its splendid ruins of an
ancient theatre, aqueducts, sepulchres, &c.

TAPAJOS, one of the greater affluents of the Amazon; its head-waters
rise in the Serra Diamantina, in the S. of Matto-Grosso State; has a
northward course of over 1000 m. before it joins the Amazon; is a broad
and excellent waterway, and navigable in its lower course for 150 m.

TAPLEY, MARK, body-servant to Martin Chuzzlewit, in Dickens's novel
of the name.

TAPTI, a river of Bombay; has its source in the Betul district of
the Central Provinces, and flows westward across the peninsula 450 m. to
the Gulf of Cambay; is a shallow and muddy stream, of little commercial
use.

TARA, HILL OF, a celebrated eminence, cone-shaped (507 ft.), in
county Meath, 7 m. SE. of Navan; legend points to it as the site of the
residence of the kings of Ireland, where something like a parliament was
held every three years.

TARANAKI (22), a provincial district of New Zealand, occupying the
SW. corner of North Island; remarkable for its dense