settlements in the highlands of the protectorate, and by means of the railway to Victoria Nyanza taps the rich regions of the Nile sources. German, British, French and Austrian mail-boats call regularly at the port, which is connected by submarine cable with Zanzibar. Trade statistics are included in those of British East Africa (q.v.).
Mombasa Island (named after the town) is 3 m. long by 212 m. broad, with an area of 9 sq. m. Except at the western end, the coast of the island consists of cliffs from 40 ft. to 60 ft. high. The island contains many fertile plantations, chiefly of coco-nut palms, except on the side facing the ocean, where there is little vegetation, the coral reefs being but thinly covered with earth. There are no springs and the island is dependent for water on rain collected in tanks or drawn from wells—the latter brackish. Ruins of Arab, Portuguese and Turkish buildings are found in various parts of the island. At Ras Serani are the ruins of a chapel “Nossa Senhora das Merces,” built by the Portuguese in the 17th century on the site of a Turkish fort, and afterwards turned into a fort again by the Arabs.
Mombasa takes its name from Mombasa in Oman. A Perso-Arabic settlement was made here about the 11th century. It is mentioned by Ibn Batuta in 1331 as a large place, and at the time of Vasco da Gama’s visit (1498) it was the seat of considerable commerce, its inhabitants including a number of Calicut Banyans and Oriental Christians. The ruler of the city tried to entrap da Gama (or so the Portuguese navigator imagined), and with this began a series of campaigns which gave full force to its Swahili name Mvita (war). The principal incidents are the capture and burning of the place by Almeida (1505), Nuno da Cunha (1529), and Duarte de Menezes (1587)—this last as a revenge for its submission to the sultan of Constantinople—the revolt and flight (1631) of Yusuf ibn Ahmed (who murdered all the Portuguese in the town—over 100), and the three-years siege by the imam of Omam 1696–98 (the garrison being reduced to eleven men and two women), ending in the expulsion of the Portuguese. From the 12th of March 1728 to the 29th of November 1729 a Portuguese force from Goa again held Mombasa, when they were finally driven out by the Muscat Arabs. In December 1823 the Mazrui family, who had ruled in Mombasa from the early part of the 18th century, first as representatives of Oman, afterwards as practically independent princes, placed the city under British protection; and in February 1824 Lieut. J. J. Reitz was appointed commandant or resident at the city by Captain (afterwards Vice-Admiral) W. F. W. Owen. Reitz, after whom Port Reitz is named, died at Mombasa either in 1824 or 1825. The protectorate was repudiated by the British government, which left the place to be bombarded and captured by Seyyid Said of Oman, who made repeated attacks between 1829 and 1833, and only got possession in 1837 by treachery. Said thereafter made Zanzibar his capital, Mombasa becoming of secondary importance. A revolt against Zanzibar in 1875 was put down with British assistance. The British government in the following year vetoed a proposal by the khedive Ismail to annex Mombasa and its hinterland up to the equatorial lakes to Egypt—a project which originated with General C. G. Gordon, when that officer administered the Upper Nile provinces. In 1887 the city was handed over by the sultan of Zanzibar to the British for administration. It became the capital of the province of Seyyidie and of the East Africa protectorate. In 1907, however, the seat of the central government was removed to Nairobi (q.v.). Mombasa still forms, nominally, part of the sultanate of Zanzibar. The city, together with Malindi, is mentioned in Paradise Lost.
MOMEIN, the Burmese name of the Chinese city Têng-yueh-chow,
in the S.W. of the province of Yunnan, China. It was
opened to foreign trade by the Burmese Convention of 1897,
but so far no advantage has been taken of the permission.
It lies close to the Burmese frontier and on the old trade route
from Bhamo to Yunnan, but its importance as an outpost of
the British Empire is political rather than commercial. The
distance from Téng-yueh to Bhamo by the usual trade route
is 160 m., and is generally traversed by pack-animals in seven
or eight days. In a straight line the two towns are only 80 m.
apart. Near Momein and within its jurisdiction is the frontier
town of Manwyne, where A. R. Margary was assassinated in
January 1875.
MOMMSEN, THEODOR (1817–1903), German historian and
archaeologist, was born on the 30th of November 1817 at
Garding, in Schleswig. After being educated at the university
of Kiel he devoted himself to the study of Roman law and
antiquities. In 1843 a grant from the Danish government
enabled him to undertake a journey to Italy, which was to be
decisive for his future career. There he began the study of
Roman inscriptions, in association with other Italian and German
scholars, especially Borghesi, de Rossi and Henzen. His first
work was directed to the restoration of the old Italian dialects,
and the French government, which at one time proposed to
undertake the task of compiling a complete collection of all
extant Roman inscriptions, asked for his co-operation. When
they gave up the project it was taken up by the Berlin Academy,
which had recently completed the collection of Greek inscriptions
edited by Boeckh. They had already made a grant to Mommsen,
and in 1844 Savigny proposed that he should be appointed
to carry out the great work. Many years, however, passed
before the plan was finally approved. Meanwhile Mommsen
continued his work in Italy: he drew up a full memorandum
explaining the principles on which a Corpus inscriptionum
should be compiled, and on which alone he could undertake
the editorship. As a specimen he collected the inscriptions
of Samnium, and in 1852 published those of the kingdom of
Naples. These works caused him to be recognized as the
first authority in this field of learning. In 1847, however, he
was obliged to return to Germany: he first went to Schleswig,
where during the Revolution he edited a paper in which he
supported the claims of the Elbe Duchies; at the end of 1848
he was appointed professor of civil law at Leipzig. His work
there was interrupted by his political opinions. During 1848,
when the extreme party was in the ascendant, Mommsen
supported the monarchy against the Republicans. With
characteristic courage and independence, next year, when the
Revolution had spent its force and Beust executed his coup
d’état, he protested, with many of his colleagues, against this
act. In consequence he was summoned before a disciplinary
court, and, together with Haupt and Jahn, dismissed from
his professorship.
Mommsen found an asylum in Switzerland, and became professor at Zurich: he repaid the hospitality of the Republic by writing exhaustive monographs on Roman Switzerland. His spare time was occupied with the Roman History, the three volumes of which appeared between 1854 and 1856. His name at once became known throughout Europe. In this work, with a true insight into the relative importance of things, he passed over with a few strong broad touches the antiquarian discussions on the origins of the city, on which previous historians had laboured so long; but in place of this he painted with astonishing vigour the great political struggle that accompanied the fall of the republic. It was, above all, his new reading of old characters which demanded attention, if not always approval: Cicero, the favourite of men of letters, was for him “a journalist in the worst sense of the word”; Pompey, the hero of Plutarch and the Moralists, was brushed aside as a mere drill-sergeant; and the book culminated in the picture of Caesar, who established absolute rule in the name of democracy, “the complete and perfect man.”
The three volumes ended with the dictatorship of Caesar. The book has never been continued, for the volume on the Roman Provinces under the Empire, which appeared in 1884, is in reality a separate work. Mommsen was henceforward fully occupied with work of a more technical nature. In 1854 the definite offer was made to him by the Academy that he should be chief editor of a Corpus inscriptionum, with full control, and in order that he might carry on the work he was appointed in 1858 to a professorship at Berlin. The first volume appeared in 1861; five of the succeeding volumes he edited himself, and the
