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kodugor, and on the Fala River, a tributary of the Little Scarcies. It was founded by the Sulimas, who revolted from the Mahometan Foulas, and its warlike inhabitants soon attained supremacy over the neighboring villages and country. The defences consist of a lofty stockade, and a moat about 20 feet deep and as many in breadth. From a distance the town appears like a grove of silk-cotton trees, and only at intervals are the brown roofs seen peering through the foliage. Major Laing about 1825 estimated the number of huts at about 4000. They are arranged in clusters round squares or court-yards, and though only built of clay are neat and even elegant. Winwood Reade, who was detained in the town during his Niger journey in 1869, has given a graphic description of life in Falaba in his African Sketch Book, vol. ii., 1873. See also Laing, Travels in W. Africa, 1825.

FALAISE, a town of France, the capital of an arrondissement in the department of Calvados, is situated on the right bank of the Ante, 21 miles S. by E. of Caen. It was formerly a place of some strength, and is still surrounded by old walls. The principal object of interest is the castle, now partly in ruins, but formerly the seat of the dukes of Normandy, and the birthplace of William the Conqueror. Near the castle, in the Place de la Trinité, is an equestrian statue in bronze of William the Conqueror, by Louis Rodel. Falaise has two large and populous suburbs, one of which, Guibray, rivals in size and importance the town itself, and is celebrated for its annual fair, which lasts from 10th to 25th August. The town contains a town-hall, a hospital, a theatre, several ancient churches, and a public library. The manufactures are chiefly cotton goods, hosiery, leather, and paper. The population in 1872 was 7749. FALASHAS (i. e., Exiles), the degenerate Jews of Abyssinia, found in considerable numbers in the provinces west of Takazze, namely, Semien, Wogara, Armatshoho, Walkait, Tehelga, Dembea, Tenkel, Dagusa, Alafa, Kunsula, Aschafer, Agarv-Meder, and Quara. It is doubtful whether they are to be ethnologically identified with the seed of Abraham, or regarded, like the Khazars of the 8th century, as, for the most part, mere proselytes to Judaism. As to the date when the race or the religion was introduced there is no authentic information,-one account carrying it back to the days of Solomon and his hypothetical son Menelek by the queen of Sheba, another to the time of the Babylonian captivity, and a third only to the 1st century of the Christian era. That one or other of the earlier dates is probably correct may be gathered from the fact that the Falashas know nothing of either the Babylonian or Jerusalem Talmud, make no use of the tephilin, and observe neither the feast of Purim nor the dedication of the Temple. They possess -not in Hebrew, of which they are altogether ignorant, but in Ethiopic (or Geez)—the canonical and apocryphal books of the Old Testament; a volume of extracts from the Pentateuch, with comments given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai; the Te-e-sa-sa Sanbat, or laws of the Sabbath; the Ardit, a book of secrets revealed to twelve saints, which is used as a charm against disease; lives of Abraham, Moses, etc.; and a translation of Josephus called Sana Aihud. A copy of the Orit or Mosaic law is kept in the holy of holies

sidered uninhabitable till the blood of a sheep or fowl has been spilt in it; a woman guilty of a breach of chastity has to undergo purification by leaping into a flaming fire; the Sabbath has been deified and, as the goddess Sanbat, receives adoration and sacrifice, and is said to have ten thousand times ten thousand angels to wait on her commands. There is a monastic system, introduced it is said in the 4th century A.D. by Aba Zebra, a pious man who retired from the world and lived in the cave of Hoharewa, in the province of Armatshoho. The monks must prepare all their food with their own hands, and no lay person, male or female, may enter their houses. Celibacy is not practised by the priests, but they are not allowed to marry a second time, and no one is admitted into the order who has eaten bread with a Christian, or is the son or grandson of a man thus contaminated. Belief in the evil eye or shadow is universal, and spirit-raisers, soothsayers, and rain-doctors are in repute. Education is in the hands of the monks and priests, and is confined to boys. Fasts, obligatory on all above seven years of age, are held on every Monday and Thursday, on every new moon, and at the passover (the 21st or 22d of April). The annual festivals are the passover, the harvest feast, the Baala Mazâlat or feast of tabernacles (during which, however, no booths are built), the day of covenant or assembly, and Abraham's day. It is believed that after death the soul remains in a place of darkness till the third day, when the first taskar or sacrifice for the dead is offered; prayers are read in the mesgeed for the repose of the departed, and for seven days a formal lament takes place every morning in his house. No coffins are used, and a stone vault is built over the corpse so that it may not come into direct contact with the earth. The Falashas are an industrious people, living for the most part in villages of their own, or, if they settle in a Christian or Mahometan town, occupying a separate quarter. They engage in agriculture, manufacture pottery, iron ware, and cloth, and are specially sought after for their skill in mason-work. Their numbers are variously estimated at from 80,000 to 200,000.

See Nott and Gliddon, Types of Mankind, 1868; Flad, Zwölf Jahre in Abyssinia, Basel, 1869, and his Falashes of Abyssinia, translated from the German by S. P. Goodhart, London, 1869.

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FALCON (Latin, Falco; French, Faucon; Teutonic, Faik or Valken), a word now restricted to the high-couraged and long-winged Birds-of-Prey which take their quarry as it moves; but formerly it had a very different meaning, being by the naturalists of the last and even of the present century extended to a great number of birds comprised in the genus Falco of Linnæus and writers of his day, while,

1 Unknown to classical writers the earliest use of this word is said to be by Servius Honoratus (circa 390-480 A.D.) in his notes on En. lib. x. vers. 145. It seems possibly to be the Latinized form of the Teutonic Falk, though fair is commonly accounted its root.

2 The nomenclature of nearly all the older writers on this point is extremely confused, and the attempt to unravel it would hardly repay the trouble, and would undoubtedly occupy more space than could here be allowed. What many of them, even so lately as Pennant's time, termed the "Gentle Falcon " is certainly the bird we now call the Gos-Hawk (i. e., Goose-Hawk), which name itself may have been transferred to the Astur palumbarius of modern ornithologists from one of the long-winged Birds-of-Prey.

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