he Mahdi, after three days' fighting, of an Egyptian
army under Hicks Pasha and other English officers; its trade consists of
ivory, gold, feathers, and gum.

OBELISK, a tall four-sided pillar, generally monolithic, tapering to
a pyramidal pointed top, erected in connection with temples in Egypt, and
inscribed all over with hieroglyphs, and in memorial, as is likely, of
some historical personage or event; they are of ancient date.

OBER-AMMERGAU, a small village in Bavaria, 45 m. SW. of Muenich;
famed for the Passion Play performed there by the peasants, some 500 in
number, every ten years, which attracts a great many spectators to the
spot; the play was instituted in 1634 in token of gratitude for the
abatement of a plague.

OBERLIN, JEAN FRIEDRICH, a benevolent Protestant pastor, born at
Strasburg; laboured all his life at Ban de la Roche, a wild mountain
district of Alsace, and devoted himself with untiring zeal to the
spiritual and material welfare of the people, which they rewarded with
their pious gratitude and warmest affection.

OBERON, the king of the fairies, and the husband of Titania.

OBI, a river and, with its tributaries, great water highway of West
Siberia, which rises in the Altai Mountains, and after a course of 2120
m. falls into the Arctic Ocean.

OBJECTIVE, a philosophical term used to denote that which is true
universally apart from all merely private sense or judgment, and finds
response in the universal reason, the reason that is common to all
rational beings; it is opposed to subjective, or agreeable to one's mere
feelings or fancy.

OBLATES, the name given to an organisation of secular priests living
in community, founded by St. Charles Borromeo at the end of the 16th
century, and who are ready to render any services the bishop may require
of them.

OBOE, a treble-sounding musical instrument of the reed class, to
which the bassoon is reckoned the bass.

OBELUS, a small coin worth about a penny, according to a custom
among the Greeks placed in the mouth of a corpse at burial to pay to
Charon to ferry the ghost of it over the Styx.

O'BRIEN, WILLIAM, journalist, and a Nationalist ex-M.P. for Cork;
was twice over imprisoned for political offences; had to retire in 1895;
_b_. 1852.

O'BRIEN, WILLIAM SMITH, Irish patriot; entered Parliament in 1826;
sat for Limerick from 1835 to 1843, when he joined the Repeal Association
under O'Connell, but separated from it; jo