all his most popular and distinctive heroes and heroines, Digby Grand, Tilbury Nogo, the Honourable Crasher, Mr Sawyer, Kate Coventry, Mrs Lascelles, are or would be mighty hunters. Tilbury Nogo was contributed to the Sporting Magazine in 1853 and published separately in 1854. He showed in the adventures of Mr Nogo—and it became more apparent in his later works that he had a surer hand in humorous narrative than in pathetic description; his pathos is the pathos of the preacher. His next novel, General Bounce, appeared in Fraser's Magazine (1854). When the Crimean War broke out Whyte-Melville went out as a volunteer major of Turkish irregular cavalry; but this was the only break in his literary career from the time that he began to write novels till his death. By a strange accident, he lost his life in the hunting-field on the 5th of December 1878, the hero of many a stiff ride meeting his fate in galloping quietly over an ordinary ploughed field in the Vale of the White Horse.
Twenty-one novels appeared from his pen after his return from the Crimea:—Kate Coventry (1856); The Interpreter (1858); Holmby House (1860); Good for Nothing (1861); Market Harborouh (1861); The Queen's Maries (1862); The Gladiators (1863); Brookes of Bridlemere (1864); Cerise (1866); Bones and I (1868); The White Rose (1868); M or N (1869); Contraband (1870); Sarchedon (1871); Satanella (1873); Uncle John (1874); Sister Louise (1875); Katerfelto (1875); Rosine (1875); Roy's Wife (1878); Black but Comely (1878). Several of these novels are historical, The Gladiators being perhaps the most famous of them. As an historical novelist Whyte-Melville is not equal to Harrison Ainsworth in painstaking accuracy and minuteness of detail; but he makes his characters live and move with great vividness. It is on his portraiture of contemporary sporting society that his reputation as a novelist must rest; and, though now and then a character reappears, such as the supercilious stud-groom, the dark and wary steeple-chaser, or the fascinating sporting widow, his variety in the invention of incidents is amazing. Whyte-Melville was not merely the annalist of sporting society for his generation, but may also be fairly described as the principal moralist of that society; he exerted a considerable and a wholesome influence on the manners and morals of the gilded youth of his time. His Songs and Verses (1869) and his metrical Legend of the True Cross (1873), though respectable in point of versification, are of no particular merit.
WICHITA, a tribe of North American Indians of Caddoan stock. They call themselves Kitikitish or Tawéhash. Their former range was between the Red and Washita rivers, Oklahoma, and they are now on a reservation there. They were kinsmen of the Pawnee, and the French called them Pani Piqué (“Tattooed Pawnee”). They were known to other Indians as the “Tatooed People” in allusion to the extensive tattooing customary among them. They numbered 3000 in or about 1800, but only about 300 now survive.
WICHITA, a city and the county-seat of Sedgwick county, Kansas, U.S.A ., on the Arkansas river, at the mouth of the Little Arkansas, 208 m. (by rail) S.W. of Kansas City. Pop. (1880) 4911; (1890) 23,853; (1900) 24,671, of whom 1447 were foreign-born and 1389 were negroes; (1910 census), 52,450. Area, 18.75 sq. m. Wichita is served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Missouri Pacific, the St Louis & San Francisco, and the Kansas City, Mexico & Orient railways. The site of the city is level, about 1300 ft. above the sea. The principal public buildings are the Federal building, the city hall, the county court house, a Y.M.C.A. building, an auditorium and exposition hall and a Masonic Temple. In Wichita are Fairmount College (Congregational; co-educational; organized as a preparatory school in 1892 and as a college in 1895); Friends' University (Society of Friends; co-educational; 1898); and Mount Carmel Academy and the Pro-Cathedral School (both Roman Catholic). Among the city's parks (area in 1909, 325 acres) is one (Riverside) of 146 acres. The city is supplied with natural gas. Wichita is a transportation centre for the rich agricultural region surrounding it, and is an important market for broom-corn. In 1905 it ranked third among the cities of the state in value of its factory product ($7,389,844). The principal industry is slaughtering and meatpacking. The Kansas City, Mexico & Orient railway has carshops here. Wichita, named from an Indian tribe, was settled in 1870, and was chartered as a city in 1871. In 1909 the city adopted by popular vote government by commission under a state law of 1907 providing for a mayor and four commissioners, heads of the executive, finance, streets and public improvements, parks, public buildings and health, and water and lights departments, all elected for two years and nominated by primary election or by petition signed by at least 25 voters.
WICK, a royal, municipal and police burgh, seaport and county town of Caithness, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 7911. It is situated at the head of Wick Bay, on the North Sea, 327 m. N . of Edinburgh, by the North British and Highland railways. It consists of the old burgh and Louisburgh, its continuation, on the north bank of the river Wick, and of Pulteneytown, the chief seat of commerce and trade, on the south side. Pulteneytown, laid out in 1805 by the British Fishery Society, is built on a regular plan; and Wick proper consists chiefly of the narrow and irregular High Street, with Bridge Street, more regularly built, which contains the town hall and the county buildings. In Pulteneytown there are an academy, a chamber of commerce, a naval reserve station and a fish exchange. Among other buildings are the free libraries, the Rhind Charitable Institution and the combination hospital. The port consists of two harbours of fair size, but the entrance is dangerous in stormy weather. The chief exports are fish, cattle and agricultural produce, and the imports include coal, wood and provisions. Steamers from Leith and Aberdeen run twice a week and there is also weekly communication with Stromness, Kirkwall and Lerwick. It is to its fisheries that the town owes its prosperity. For many years it was the chief seat of the herring fishing on the east coast, but its insufficient harbour accommodation has hampered its progress, and both Peterhead and Fraserburgh surpass it as fishing ports. Women undertake the cleaning and curing, and the work attracts them from all parts. So expert are they that on the occasion of a heavy catch they are sent as far even as Yarmouth to direct and assist the local hands. Shipbuilding has now been discontinued, but boat-building and, net-making are extensively carried on. There are also cooperage, the manufacture of fish-guano and fish products, flour mills, steam saw mills, a ropery and a woollen manufactory, a brewery and a distillery. The town, with Cromarty, Dingwall, Dornoch, Kirkwall and Tain, forms the Wick group of parliamentary burghs. Wick (Vik or “bay”) is mentioned as early as 1140. It was constituted a royal burgh by James VI. in 1589, its superior being then George Sinclair, 5th earl of Caithness. By a parliamentary bounty in 1768 some impetus was given to the herring-fishery, but its real importance dates from the construction of a harbour in 1808.
WICKLOW, a county of Ireland in the province of Leinster, bounded E. by St George's Channel, N. by the county of Dublin, S. by Wexford and W. by Carlow and detached portions of Kildare. The area is 500,216 acres or about 782 sq. m. Wicklow is among the most famous counties of Ireland for beauty of scenery, both coastal and more especially inland. The coast is precipitous and picturesque, but very dangerous of approach owing to sandbanks. There are no inlets that can be properly termed bays. The harbour at Wicklow has a considerable trade; but that of Arklow is suitable only for small vessels. To the north of the town of Wicklow there is a remarkable shingle beach, partly piled up by the waves and currents. The central portion of the county is occupied by a mountain range, forming one of the four principal mountain groups of Ireland. The direction of the range is from N.E. to S.W., and the highest elevations are generally attained along the central line. The range consists of long sweeping moorlands, rising occasionally by precipitous escarpments into culminating points, the highest summits being Kippure (2473 ft.), Duff Hill (2364), Table Mountain (2416) and Lugnaquilla (3039), the last acquired by the War Office as a manœuvring ground. The range rises from the north by a succession of ridges intersected by deep glens, and subsides towards the borders of Wexford and Carlow. To the north its foothills enter county Dublin, and add attraction to the southern residential outskirts of the capital.
In the valleys there are many instances of old river terraces, the more remarkable being those at the lower end of Glenmalure and the lower end of Glendalough. It is in its deep glens that
