In January 1860 Napier was appointed to the command of the 2nd division of the expedition to China under Sir Hope Grant, and took part in the action of Sinho, the storm of the Peiho forts, and the entry to Peking. For his services he received the thanks of parliament, and was promoted major-general for distinguished service in the field. For the next four years Napier was military member of the council of the governor-general of India and, on the sudden death of Lord Elgin, for a short time acted as governor-general, until the arrival of Sir W. T. Denison from Madras. In January 1865 he was given the command of the Bombay army, in March 1867 he was promoted lieutenant-general, and, later in that year, appointed to command the expedition to Abyssinia, selecting his own troops and making all the preparations for the campaign. He arrived at Annesley Bay in the Red Sea early in January 1868, reached Magdala, 420 m. from the coast, in April; stormed the stronghold, freed the captives, razed the place to the ground, returned to the coast, and on the 18th June the last man of the expedition had left Africa. He received for his services the thanks of parliament, a pension, a peerage, the G.C.B. and the G.C.S.I. The freedom of the cities of London and Edinburgh was conferred upon him, with presentation swords, and the universities bestowed upon him honorary degrees. In 1869 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. He held the command-in-chief in India for six years from 1870, during which he did much to benefit the army and to encourage good shooting. He was promoted general in 1874, and appointed a colonel-commandant of the Royal Engineers. In 1876 he was the guest of the German crown prince at the military manœuvres, and from that year until 1883 held the government and command of Gibraltar. In the critical state of affairs in 1877 he was nominated commander-in-chief of the force which it was proposed to send to Constantinople. In 1879 he was a member of the royal commission on army organization, and in November of that year he represented Queen Victoria at Madrid as ambassador extraordinary on the occasion of the second marriage of the king of Spain. On the 1st of January 1883 he was promoted to be field-marshal, and in December 1886 appointed Constable of the Tower of London. He died in London on the 14th of January 1890. His remains received a state funeral, and were buried in St Paul’s Cathedral on the 21st of January. He was twice married, and left a large family by each wife, his eldest son, Robert William (b. 1845), succeeding to his barony. A statue of him on horseback by Boehm was erected at Calcutta when he left India, and a replica of it was afterwards set up to his memory in Waterloo Place, London.
NAPIER, a seaport on the east coast of North Island, New
Zealand, capital of the provincial district of Hawke’s Bay,
200 m. by rail N.E. of Wellington. Pop. (1906) 9454. The
main portion of the town stretches along the flat shoreland of
Hawke’s Bay, while the suburbs extend over the hills to the north.
The site consists of a picturesque peninsula known as Scinde
Island. The harbour (Port Ahuriri) is sheltered by a breakwater.
The cathedral church of St John (1888) for the bishopric
of Waiapu, is one of the finest ecclesiastical buildings in New
Zealand, imitating the Early English style in brick. An
athenaeum, a small hospital, a lunatic asylum, a philosophical
society and an acclimatization society are among the public
institutions. The town (named after Sir Charles James Napier)
is under municipal government, and returns a member to the
New Zealand House of Representatives. The district is agricultural,
and large quantities of wool and tinned and frozen
meats are exported. There is railway communication with
Wellington, New Plymouth, and the Wairarapa, Wanganui
and Manawatu districts. Numerous old native pas or fortified
villages are seen in the neighbourhood.
NAPLES (Ital. Napoli, and Lat. Neapolis), formerly the capital
of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and since 1860 the chief town
of the province which bears its name, the smallest province
in the kingdom of Italy. It is the largest city in the country,
containing 547,503 inhabitants in 1901. It is a prefecture;
the see of a cardinal archbishop; the residence of the general
commanding the tenth Army Corps and of the admiral commanding
the second Naval Department of Italy; and it
possesses also an ancient and important university.
Naples disputes with Constantinople the claim of occupying the most beautiful site in Europe. It is situated on the northern shore of the Bay of Naples (Sinus Cumanus), in 40° 52′ N., 14° 15′ 45″ E., as taken from the lighthouse on the mole. By rail it is distant 151 m. from Rome, but the line is circuitous, and a direct electric line was contemplated in 1907, to run nearer the coast and shorten the distance from the capital by more than 30 m. (For map, see Italy.) The circuit of the bay is about 35 m. from the capo di Miseno on the north-west to the Punta della Campanella on the south-east, or more than 52 m. if the islands of Ischia, at the north-west, and of Capri, at the south entrance, be included. At its opening between these two islands it is 14 m. broad; while another 4 m. separates Capri from the mainland at the Punta della Campanella, and from the opening to its head at Portici the distance is 15 m. It affords good anchorage, with nearly 7 fathoms of water, and is Well sheltered, except from winds which blow from points between south-east and south-west. In the latter winds Sorrento should be especially avoided, as no safe anchorage can be found there at less than 15 fathoms, and the same remark applies to Capri with winds from S.W. to N.W. There is a perceptible tide of nearly 9 in.
On the north-east shore east of Naples is an extensive flat, forming part of the ancient Campania Felix, and watered by the small stream Sebeto and by the Sarno, which last in classical times formed the port of Pompeii. From this flat, between the sea and the range of the Apennines, rises Mount Vesuvius, at the base of which, on or near the sea-shore, are the populous villages of San Giovanni Teduccio, Portici, Resina, Torre del Greco, Torre dell’ Annunziata, &c., and the classic sites of Herculaneum and Pompeii. At the south-east extremity of the plain, 3 m. beyond the outlet of the Sarno, a great offshoot of the Apennines, branching from the main range near Cava, and projecting as a peninsula more than 12 m. west, divides the Bay of Naples from the bay of Salerno (Sinus Paestanus), and ends in the bold promontory of the Punta della Campanella (Promontorium Minervae), which is separated by a strait of 4 m. from Capri. On the north slope of this peninsula, where the plain ends and the coast abruptly bends to the west, stands the town of Castellammare, near the site of Stabiae, at the foot of Monte Sant' Angelo, which rises suddenly from the sea to a height of 4722 ft. Farther west, and nearly opposite to Naples across the bay, are Vico, Meta, Sorrento, Massa and many villages.
The north-west shore to the west of Naples is more broken and irregular. The promontory of Posilipo, which projects due south, divides this part of the bay into two smaller bays—the eastern, with the city of Naples, and the western, or Bay of Baiae, which is sheltered from all winds. A tunnel through the promontory, 2244 ft. long, 21 ft. broad, and in some places as much as 70 ft. high, possibly constructed by Marcus Agrippa in 27 B.C., forms the so-called grotto of Posilipo; at the Naples end stands the reputed tomb of Virgil. Beyond Posilipo is the small island of Nisida (Nesis); and at a short distance inland are the extinct craters of Solfatara and Astroni and the lake of Agnano. Farther west, on the coast, and provided with a convenient harbour, stands Pozzuoli (Puteoli), a city containing many Roman remains, but now chiefly remarkable for the large gunworks erected by Messrs Armstrong & Co.; and beyond it, round the Bay of Baiae, are Monte Nuovo, a hill thrown up in a single night in September 1538; the classic site of Baiae; the Lucrine Lake; Lake Avernus; the Lake of Fusaro (Acherusia Palus); the Elysian Fields; and the port and promontory of Misenum. Still farther to the south-west lie the islands of Procida (Prochyta) and Ischia (Pithecusa, Aenaria or Inarime), which divide the Bay of Naples from the extensive Bay of Gaeta. All this country was comprised in classical times under the title of the Phlegrean Fields, and was certainly then more actively volcanic than it now is, although the severe shock of earthquake which occurred in the island of Ischia in 1883 completely destroyed Casamicciola, and did serious damage to Forio, Lacco Ameno and Serrara Fontana, shows that there is great seismic activity in the locality. The whole region abounds with fissures from which steam highly charged with hydrochloric acid is continually issuing, and in many places boiling water is found at a very few feet below the surface.
The city of Naples is built at the base and on the slopes of a range of volcanic hills, and, rising from the shore like an amphitheatre, is seen to best advantage from the sea. From the summit occupied by the castle of St Elmo a transverse ridge runs south to form the promontory of Pizzofalcone, and divides the city into two natural crescents. The western crescent, known as the Chiaja ward, though merely a long narrow strip between the sea
