The antiquities of Monte San Giuliano have been carefully investigated by Giuseppe Polizzi (Z Monumenti d’Antichità della Provincia di Trapani), and by Professor Salinas (Archivio Storico Siciliano, i., &c.). Compare Renan, Mélanges d’ Histoire et de Voyages·, and Sayce in Academy, 30th December 1882.

Montecuculi was an ardent lover of science, and wrote several important military works. The Opere, complete di Montecuculi were published in two volumes, at Milan in 1807, at Turin in 1821; and there is a German translation (1736) of his Memorie della gucrra ed istruzioni d’un generale.

See Campon, Raimondo Montecuculi, la suafamiglia e i suoi tempi (1877).

Apart from her new maritime district, Montenegro seems little better at first than a chaos of mountains, but on closer examination it appears that there are two distinct groups, an eastern and a western, divided by the Zeta-Moratcha valley. The loftiest summit is Dormitor, 8146 feet high, in the new territory near the north frontier, next come Kom Kutchi (8031), Kom Vassoyevitzki (7946), and Dormitor Schlime (7936). Had the original frontier of the Berlin congress towards the south-east been retained it would have run along the still higher Prokletia range. Many of the mountain-tops remain white with snow for the greater part of the year, and from some of the dark ravines the snow never disappears. The south-western portion of the country consists of limestone, the northeastern mainly of Palaeozoic sandstones and schists with underlying trap. In their general aspect the two regions are strikingly distinct. The former seems, as it were, one enormous mass of hard crystalline rock, bare and calcined, with its strata dipping to the south-west at an angle often of 70 degrees. Its whole surface has been split by atmospheric agencies into huge prismatic blocks, and the cracks have been gradually worn into fissures several fathoms deep. In some places the process has resulted in clusters of immense sharp-pointed crags, the sides of which are furrowed by rain-channels, while in others there are countless funnels running down into the rock for 200 feet and more. In like manner the interior of the mass is hollowed out into immense galleries and caves, and during the rainy season subterranean landslips frequently produce local earthquakes, extending over an area of 10 or 12 miles. The sandstone region, on the other hand, presents lofty but rounded forms, clothed for the most part with virgin forest or rich alpine pasture, broken here and there by dolomitic peaks.

The watershed between the Adriatic and the Black Sea crosses the country from west to east in a very irregular line, the southern districts being drained by the Zeta-Moratcha river system, which finds its way to the Adriatic by Lake Scutari and the Boyanna, while the streams of the northern districts form the head-waters of the Drina, which reaches the Danube by way of the Save. The Zeta, rising in Lake Slano, is remarkable for its subterranean passage beneath a mountain range 1000 feet high. At a place called Ponor the water plunges into a deep chasm, seeming almost to lose itself in foam, but at a distance, of several miles it reappears on the other side of the mountains. Its whole course to its junction with the Moratcha is about 30 miles. Rising in the Yavorye Planina, the Moratcha sweeps through the mountain gorges as a foaming torrent till it reaches the plain of Podgoritza; then, for a space, it almost disappears among the pebbles and other alluvial deposits, nor does it again show a current of any considerable volume till it approaches Lake Scutari. In the neighbourhood of Duklea and Leskopolye it flows through a precipitous ravine from 50 to 100 feet high. In the dry season it is navigable to Zhabliak. The whole course is about 60 miles. Of the left-hand tributaries of the Moratcha the Sem or Tsievna deserves to be mentioned for the magnificent canon through which it flows between Most Tamarui and Dinosha. On the one side rise the mountains of the Kutchi territory, on the other the immense flanks of the Prokletia range,—the walls of the gorge varying from 2000 to 4000 feet of vertical height. Lower down the stream the rocky banks approach so close that it is possible to leap across without trouble. The Ryeka issues full-formed from an immense cave southeast of Cettinye (Tsettinye) and falls into Lake Scutari. The three tributaries of the Drina which belong in part to Montenegro are the Piva, the Tara, and the Lim, respectively 55, 95, and 140 miles in length. The Tara forms the northern boundary of the principality for more than 50 miles, but the Lim leaves the country altogether after the first 30 miles of its course. Great alterations have taken place on Lake Scutari in recent times. The river Drin, which previous to 1830 entered the Adriatic to the south of Alesia near S. Giovanni di Medua, subsequently changed its course so as to join the Boyanna just below its exit from the lake; one of the chief results has been to raise the level of the lake, and so to flood the lower valleys of the tributary streams. When the International Frontier Commission was at Scutari in April 1879, the water stood 8 feet deep in some of the principal streets, and the inundation of city and suburbs lasted that year eight months. A few small lakes are scattered among the mountains, and it is evident that their number was formerly much greater. The plain or hollow of Cettinye was doubtless filled with water at no very distant (geological) date, and even now, when the sudden rains cannot escape fast enough by the ordinary subterranean outlet, the royal village suffers from a flood.

If the new territory be left out of view, there is but little farming land in Montenegro; the peasant is glad to enclose and protect the veriest patches of fertile soil retained by the hollows in the mountain sides, and one may see “flourishing little crops not a yard square.” “The largest landed proprietor is the holder of 60 acres” (Denton, Montenegro, p. 143); the other freehold estates vary from 2 to 20 acres, and it is usually not to the individual but to the house or family that the ownership belongs. Woods and pastures are the common property of the clan (pZeτne). The people live in small stone-built cottages, grouped for the most part in little villages, and their whole life is marked by extreme simplicity. Chastity is a national virtue, and in time of war the women and children of the Turks have often found their safest asylum among their hereditary foes. The main stock of the people is of Servian descent; and, though the purity of both blood and language has been to some extent affected by foreign elements, mostly Albanian and Turkish, the national unity has not been impaired. The curious Gipsy colony, which, though speaking Servian, never intermarries with the Montenegrins, is numerically of little importance. The great mass of the people belong to the Orthodox Greek Church, only some 7000 being Roman Catholics, and 3000 Mohammedans. According to Kaptsevitch, the population was 10,700 in 1838, 120,000 in 1849, 124,000 in 1852, and 170,000 in 1877, but in 1879 it was found that, inclusive of the new territory, the number could not exceed 150,000; since then about 15,000 have been added with Dulcigno. The official returns for 1882 (not based on a census, however) give 236,000 as the total, of whom some 23,000 live in the so-called towns.

Fauna. — Bears are still found in the higher forests, and wolves, and especially foxes, over a much wider area. A few chamois roam on the loftiest summits, the roebuck is not infrequent in the backwoods, the wild boar may be met with in the same district, and the hare is abundant wherever the ground is covered with herbage. There are one or two species of snakes in the country, including the poisonous Illyrian viper. Esculent frogs, tree frogs, the common tortoise, and various kinds of lizards are all common. The list of birds observed by Baron Kaulbars includes golden eagles and vultures, 12 species of falcons, several species of owls, nightingales, larks, buntings, hoopoes, partridges, herons, pelicans, ducks (10 species), goatsuckers, &c. The abundance of fish in Lake Scutari and the lower course of the Ryeka is extraordinary, the shoals of bleak (scor-antza, Lcudscus alburnus) that come up the river forming almost solid masses. Both trout and salmon are caught in the Moratcha.

Flora.— The flora of Montenegro is comparatively scanty. In the forest districts the beech is the prevailing tree up to a height of 5000 or 5500 feet, and then its place is taken by the pine. The chestnut forms little groves in the country between the sea and Lake Scutari, but never ascends more than 1000 feet, and the olive also is mainly confined to the neighbourhood of the Adriatic. Pomegranate bushes grow wild, and in many parts of the south cover the foot of the hills with dense thickets, the rich blossoms of which are one of the special charms of the spring landscape. Wheat, rye, barley, maize, capsicums, and a little tobacco are grown in the north, and in the south, vines, figs, peaches, apples, cherries, citrons, oranges, &c. The potato, introduced in 1786, is cultivated considerably beyond the local demand; the planting of mulberry trees and the rearing of silk-worms is of growing economical importance.

Towns.— Cettinye (j.v.), with about 2000 inhabitants, is the capital of the country. Podgoritza (about 6000 or 7000 in 1879, since reduced to 4000) is the principal trading town; it lies at the foot of the mountains (as its name imports), at the junction of the Ruibnitza with the Moratcha, and in Turkish hands was one of the strongest of their fortresses towards Montenegro. Dulcigno (see vol. vii. p. 520) has 3000 inhabitants (before the transfer 5000 to 7000). Niksitch, a fortified place on a slight eminence in the midst of a plain, is about the same size. Antivari (see vol. ii. p. 138), so called from its position opposite Bari in Italy, suffered greatly in the war 1879-80, and lost half of its 5000 inhabitants. Danilovgrad, with 2000, lies on the north side of the Zeta valley; in the vicinity is Orialuka, the prince’s palace with its mulberry nurseries, and the monasteries of Zhdrebanik (burnt by the Turks in 1877, but since rebuilt), while Tcheliya, Moratcha (the most ancient in the principality), and Ostrog (visited annually by about 10,000 pilgrims) are not far off. Spuzh (Spouge), a little lower on the same side of the stream, is a fortified post with about 1000 inhabitants. Nyegush or Nyegosh (1200), about three hours distant from Cettinye on the road to Cattaro, is the native seat of the reigning family, which originally came thither from Nyegush in Herzegovina. Zhabliak (1200) was once the “capital,” and has been a fortified post since the time of the Venetian power. Ryeka (1500), on the river of that name, is next to Podgoritza in commercial importance; the prince has two residences in the town. Grahovo (2000) is famous for the great battles of 1851 and 1876.

Montenegro is an absolute hereditary monarchy, vested according to the principle of primogeniture in the family of Petrovitch Nyegush. The prince bears the title “Prince of Montenegro and the Berda (mountains) ”—Montenegro here meaning the old Montenegrin nahias (provinces) of Katunska, Tzrmitza, Ryetchka, and Lyeshanska, and Berda the territory added in the 18th century, or the provinces Byelopavlitchska, Piperska, Moratchska, Vasoye-vitchska, and Kutska. A responsible ministry was introduced in 1877, and there are now separate departments of justice, foreign affairs, war, and finance and education. The highest administrative body is the council of state, instituted in 1879, and consisting of eight members appointed by the prince. Justice in ordinary cases is rendered in primitive fashion. Formal codes were drawn up by Peter I. (1798) and by Danilo (1855), but the real statute book is national custom. A great court, consisting of the minister of justice, and five members named by the prince, is held in the capital, and there are inferior courts in each of the captaincies (86 in 1879). While formerly the very president of the senate, Mirko Petrovitch (o⅛. 1865), whose songs are the delight of his countrymen, could neither read nor write, primary education has been widely diffused during the reign of Prince Nicholas (Nikita). In 1851 there was only one school, but before the recent war they had increased to 58, nearly every clan having one for girls as well as for boys. The female Montenegrin Institute (founded and supported by the empress of Russia) attracts pupils from beyond the frontier. It was from the printing-presses of Cettinye and Ryeka that the first books in the Slavonic languages were issued between 1483 and 1493, under the patronage especially of Ivan Beg and George (IV.) Crnoyevitch, “waywodes of the Zeta,” but this promise of literary productiveness was soon cut off by wars with the Turks. Peter Petrovitch Nyegush (1813-1851), who was called to rule in 1830, is recognized as perhaps the greatest of all Servian poets,—his Gorski Viyenac, or ‘‘Mountain Wreath,” giving dramatic expression to the “very soul of the Serbian people.” Though the press which he established in 1834 was destroyed in the war of 1852-53, another was soon obtained, and under Prince Nicholas, himself a poet, his memory has proved a potent stimulus to intellectual culture. The first Montenegrin newspaper, Gmogorac, now Gias Cmogorca, began to appear in 1870; the first book-shop was opened in 1879.

The Montenegrins, however, have had more to do with the sword than with the pen. “Every man, dressed in the picturesque costume of his tribe, carries his pistol and yataghan in his girdle.” Nominally the age of military service is between sixteen and sixty-five, but when war breaks out schoolboy and superannuated veteran are equally eager for the fray. When Prince Nicholas tried to prevent an old man of eighty from joining his forces, the insulted warrior drew his pistol and shot himself. War with the Turks, indeed, is the essence of Montenegrin history. On the death of the Servian king Stephen Dushan, Prince Balsha became independent lord of the province of the Zeta; and when the Servian power was shattered by the Turks in the battle of Kossovo (1389) his territory formed the asylum of all those who determined to make another stand for freedom. In 1485 Ivan Crnoyevitch, finding Zhabliak untenable, fixed his “capital” at Cettinye. In 1516 his son George, who had succeeded him, left his country to its fate; but the people chose their bishop as their chief. Prince-bishops or vladykas, elected by the people, continued to lead them with success against the common foe of Christendom till 1697, when the authority was handed over to Petrovitch Nyegush, with the right of appointing his successors, subject to national approval. At length, in 1851, Danilo, nephew and nominee of the previous vladyka Peter II., prevailed on the ‘ ‘ skuptchina” to declare Montenegro a secular state with the hereditary government of a prince. His nephew Nicholas succeeded to the throne in 1860, and at the close of the war 1876-78 Montenegro was declared a sovereign principality. For an account of the defeats and victories (the latter by far the more numerous) which have marked the national struggle for existence during its four centuries, the reader is referreαto Denton’s Montenegro (Lond., 1877).

See Observations on Montenegro (St Pet., 1881), by Baron Kaulbars, Russian member of the International Commission; Wilkinson's Dalmatia and Montenegro (1848); Wingfield, Tour in Dalmatia, &c. (1859); Viscountess Strangford, The Eastern Shores of the Adriatic (1864); A. J. Evans, Illyrian Letters (1878); W. E. Gladstone in the Nineteenth Century, i.; Freeman, in Macmillan’s Mag., 1876; Schwarz, Montenegro (1882). See also the bibliographies in Dull, de la Soc. de Géogr. (Paris, 1865) and Valentinelli, Bib. della Dadmazia (Agram, 1855).

MONTEREY, a city of Mexico, capital of the state of Nuevo Leon, lies 1600 feet above the sea on a sub-tributary of the Rio Grande del Norte, 150 miles south-south-west of Nuevo Laredo, and 190 west-south-west of Matamoras. A handsome and well-planned city, with a cathedral and a number of good public buildings, Monterey is also in commercial and manufacturing activity the most important place in the northern parts of the republic, and one of the principal stations on the railway opened in 1882 between the city of Mexico and the United States frontier (at Matamoras and Nuevo Laredo). The population was about 37,000 in 1880. The city was founded in 1596, became a bishopric in 1777, and was captured by the United States forces under General Taylor in September 1846.

Although, however, Montesquieu was enough of a grand seigneur to be laughed at, and enough of a careful steward of his goods to be reviled for avarice, by those of his contemporaries who did not like him, these matters by no means engrossed or even chiefly occupied his thoughts. In his great study at La Brède (a hall rather than a study, some 60 feet long by 40 wide) he was constantly dictating, making abstracts, revising essays, and in other ways preparing his great book. Like some other men of letters, though perhaps no other has had the experience in quite the same degree, he found himself a little hampered by his earlier work. He may have thought it wise to soften the transition from the Lettres Persanes to the Esprit des Lois, by interposing a publication graver than the former and less elaborate than the latter. He had always, as indeed was the case with most Frenchmen of his century, been interested in ancient Rome and her history; and he had composed not a few minor tractates on the subject, of which many titles and some examples remain, besides the already-mentioned dialogue on Sylla. All these now took form in the Considérations sur les Causes de la Grandeur et la Décadence des Romains, which appeared in 1734 at Amsterdam, without the author’s name. This, however, was perfectly well known; indeed, Montesquieu formally presented a copy to the French Academy. Anonymity of title-pages was a fashion of the day which meant nothing. The book was not extraordinarily popular in France at the time. The author’s reputation as a jester stuck to him, and the salons affected to consider the Lettres Persanes and the new book respectively as the “grandeur ' r and the “décadence de Μ. de Montesquieu;” but more serious readers at once perceived its extraordinary merit, and it was eagerly read abroad. A copy of it exists or existed which had the singular fortune to be annotated by Frederick the Great, and to be abstracted from the Potsdam library by Napoleon. It is said, moreover, by competent authorities to have been the most enduringly popular and the most widely read of all its author’s works in his own country, and it has certainly been the most frequently and carefully edited. Its merits are indeed undeniable. Merely scholastic criticism may of course object to it, as to every other book of the time, the absence of the exactness of modern critical inquiry into the facts of history; but this is only a new example of a frequent ignoratio elenchi. The virtue of Montesquieu’s book is not in its facts but in its views. It is (putting Bossuet and Vico aside) almost the first important essay in the philosophy of history. The point of view is entirely different from that of Bossuet, and it seems entirely improbable that Montesquieu knew anything of Vico. In the Grandeur et Décadence the characteristics of the Esprit des Lois appear with the necessary subordination to a narrower subject. Two things are especially noticeable in it: a peculiarity of style, and a peculiarity of thought. The style has a superficial defect which must strike every one, and which was not overlooked by those who were jealous of Montesquieu at the time. The page is broken up into short paragraphs of but a few lines each, which look very ugly, which irritate the reader by breaking the sense, and which prepare him to expect an undue and ostentatious sententiousness. The blemish, however, is chiefly mechanical, and, though no editor has hitherto had the perhaps improper audacity so to do, it would be perfectly possible to obliterate it without changing a word. On the other hand, the merits of the expression are very great. It is grave and destitute of ornament, but extraordinarily luminous and full of what would be called epigram, if the word epigram had not a certain connotation of flippancy about it. It is a very short book; for, printed in large type with tolerably abundant notes, it fills but two hundred pages in the last edition of Montesquieu’s works. But no work of the century, except Turgot’s second Sorbonne Discourse, contains, in proportion to its size, more weighty and original thought on historical subjects, while Montesquieu has over Turgot the immense advantage of style.

Although, however, this ballon d , essai, in the style of his great work, may be said to have been successful, and though much of that work was, as we have seen, in all probability already composed, Montesquieu was in no hurry to publish it. He went on “cultivating the garden” diligently both as a student and as an improving landowner. He had lawsuits, sometimes on his own account, sometimes on that of others, and in one case he won from the city of Bordeaux no less than eleven hundred arpents of, it is true, the unproductive landes of the country. He is said to have begun a history of Louis XI., and there is a story that it was completed but burnt by mistake. He wrote the sketch of Lysimaque for Stanislaus Leczinski; he published new and final editions of the Temple de Gnide, of the Lettres Persanes, of Sylla et Eucrate (which indeed had never been published, properly speaking). After allowing the Grandeur et Décadence to be reprinted without alterations some half dozen times, he revised and corrected it. He also took great pains with the education of his son Charles and his daughter Denise, of whom he was extremely fond. He frequently visited Paris, where his favourite resorts were the salons of Madame de Tencin and Madame d’Aiguillon. But all the time he must have been steadily working at his book, indeed, a contemporary accuses him of having only gone into society to pick up materials for it. But it seems that he did not begin the final task of composition till 1743. Two years of uninterrupted work at La Brède finished the greater part of it, and two more the rest. It was finally published at Geneva in the autumn of 1748, in two volumes quarto. The publication was, however, preceded by one of those odd incidents which in literature illustrate Clive’s well-known saying about courts-martial in war. Montesquieu summoned a committee of friends, according to a very common practice, to hear and give an opinion on his work. It was an imposing and certainly not an unfriendly one, consistingof Hénault, Helvétius, the financier Silhouette, the dramatist Saurin, Crébillon the younger, and lastly, Fontenelle,—in fact, all sorts and conditions of literary men. The members of this eminently competent tribunal unanimously, though for different reasons and in different forms of expression, advised the author not to publish a book which has been recently described by a judge of certainly not less competence as “one of the most important books ever written,” and which, when importance of matter and excellence of manner are jointly considered, may be almost certainly ranked as the greatest book of the French 18th century.

Montesquieu, of course, did not take his friends’advice. In such cases no man ever does, and in this case it was certainly fortunate. The Esprit des Lois represents the reflexions of a singularly clear, original, and comprehensive mind, corrected by forty years’ study of men and books, arranged in accordance with a long deliberated plan, and couched in language of remarkable freshness and idiosyncrasy. The title has been somewhat cavilled at, and, like that of the Considérations, it gave a handle to the somewhat malicious frivolity of the salons. But if it had been preserved in full it would have escaped much of the criticism which it has received. In the original editions it runs I.’Esprit des Lois: ou du Rapport que les Lois doivent avoir avec la Constitution de chaque Gouvernement, les Moeurs, le Climat, la Religion, le Commerce, etc. It consists of thirty-one books, which in some editions are grouped in six parts. This division into parts is known to have entered into the author’s original plan, but he seems to have changed his mind about it. Speaking summarily, the first part, containing eight books, deals with law in general and with forms of government; the second, containing five, with military arrangements, with taxation, &c.; the third, containing six, with manners and customs, and their dependence on climatic conditions; the fourth, containing four, with economic matters; and the fifth, containing three, with religion. The last five books, forming a kind of supplement, deal specially with Roman, French, and feudal law. The most noteworthy peculiarity of the book to a cursory reader lies in the section dealing with effects of climate, and this indeed was almost the only characteristic which the vulgar took in, probably because it was easily susceptible of parody and reductio ad absurdum. But this theory is but the least part of the claims of the book to attention. Its vast and careful collection of facts, the novelty and brilliancy of the generalizations founded on them, the constructive spirit which penetrates it, its tolerance, its placid wisdom lighted up by vivacious epigram, could only escape the most careless reader. The singular spirit of moderation which distinguishes its views on politics and religion was indeed rather against it than in its favour in France, and Helvétius, who was as outspoken as he was good-natured, had definitely assigned this as the reason of his unfavourable judgment. On the other hand, if not destructive it was sufficiently critical, and it thus raised enemies on more than one side. Montesquieu was thought too English in his ideas by some, the severe defenders of orthodoxy considered him latitudinarian, and one zealous Jansenist informed him that he was “a pig.” It was long suspected, but is now positively known, that the book (not altogether with the goodwill of the pope) was put on the Index, and the Sorbonne projected, though it did not carry out, a regular censure. To all these objectors the author replied in a masterly défense', and there seems to be no foundation for the late and scandalous stories which represent him as having used Madame de Pompadour’s influence to suppress criticism. The fact was that, after the first snarlings of envy and incompetence had died away, he had little occasion to complain. Even Voltaire, who was his decided enemy, was forced at length to speak in public, if not in private, complimentarily of the Esprit, and from all parts of Europe the news of success arrived.

Montesquieu enjoyed his triumph rather at La Brède than at Paris. He was becoming an old man, and, unlike Fontenelle, he does not seem to have preserved in old age the passion for society which had marked his youth. A rather dubious description, published long after his death, represents him as “wandering in his woods from morn to night with a white cotton nightcap on his head, and a vine prop on his shoulder.” This, in the florid language of its time (the Republican period), is probably only an imaginative expression of his known interest in managing his estate. But he certainly spent much of his later years in the country, though he sometimes visited Paris, and on one visit had the opportunity, which he is likely to have enjoyed, of procuring the release of his admirer La Beaumelle from an imprisonment which La Beaumelle had suffered at the instance of Voltaire. He is said also to have been instrumental in obtaining a pension for Piron. Indeed, indigent or unlucky men of letters found in him a constant protector, and that not merely at the royal expense. Nor did he by any means neglect literary composition. The curious little romance of Arsace et Ismenie, a short and unfinished treatise on Taste, many of his published Pensées, and much unpublished matter date from the period subsequent to the Esprit des Lois. He did not, however, live many years after the appearance of his great work. At the end of 1754 he visited Paris, with the intention...

Montevideo owes its origin not to the commercial advantages of its position but to the jealousy of the Spaniards towards the Portuguese, which led Zabala, viceroy of Buenos Ayres, to erect a fort at this point in 1717. In 1726 the first settlers were introduced from the Canary Islands and Andalusia, and more than fifty years passed before the settlement was declared a port; but by 1781 it had 6460 inhabitants, and by 1792 was importing to the value of 2,993,267 dollars, and exporting to the value of 4,150,523. In 1808 the governor of Montevideo was the first to revolt against the Spanish authorities, and to establish an independent junta; twenty years later, after much disastrous confusion and conflict, the city became the recognized capital of the newly-formed republic of Banda Oriental. Its population, which had been about 36,000 at the opening of the century, was reduced to 9000 by 1829; and it had hardly recovered its ground in this respect (31,189) when, in 1843, Rosas, dictator of Buenos Ayres, wishing to compel annexation to Buenos Ayres, commenced the siege which was irregularly maintained till 1852, and left the city and the country exhausted and almost ruined. By 1860, however, the population had increased to 49,548; and though the Brazilians blockaded the port in 1864-5 and reinstated ex-president Flores the prosperity of the place was but little impaired. During the Paraguayan war, which lasted till 1864, Montevideo grew rapidly rich, attracting a large share of the trade diverted from Buenos Ayres. Immigrants flocked from all quarters, and excessive investments were made in all kinds of real property. The valuation of the city and suburbs, which was 14,156,000 dollars in 1860, reached the sum of 74,000,000 dollars in 1872. Reckless speculation, political dissension, and the financial mismanagement of the Government have told heavily; the value of house property has greatly diminished, and commercial activity has been grievously restricted. Since 1881, however, Montevideo has been rapidly recovering, and its natural advantages are so great that, with better political circumstances, a future of yet higher prosperity may be anticipated.

Notices of Montevideo will be found in Bonelli, Travels in Bolivia, <fcc., 1854; Hadtield 1 Brasil, the River Plate, <fcc., 1854, and his supplemental volume, 1868; Mulhall, Handbook of the River Plate Republics, 1874; and Gallenga, South America, 1881. See also Brignardello, Delle vicende dell' America merid. e specialm. di Montevideo nell' Uruguay, Genoa, 1879; The Republic of Uruguay, 1883; the reports of the municipal junta, and Vaillants statistical publications.