lpole, but afterwards, from a slight, became his bitterest
enemy and most formidable opponent; he contributed a good deal to his
fall, but, unable to take his place, contented himself with a peerage,
his popularity being gone (1682-1764).

PULTOWA (43), a town in Southern Russia, 90 m. by rail SW. of
Kharkoff, on an affluent of the Dnieper; manufactures leather and
tobacco; here Peter the Great won his victory over Charles XII. of Sweden
in 1709.

PULTUSK, a Polish town, 33 m. N. of Warsaw; here Charles XII. gained
a victory over the Saxons in 1703, and the French over the Russians in
1806.

PULU, a kind of silk obtained from the fibres of a fern-tree of
Hawaii.

PUNCH, the name of the chief character in a well-known puppet show
of Italian origin, and appropriated as the title of the leading English
comic journal, which is accompanied with illustrations conceived in a
humorous vein and conducted in satire, from a liberal Englishman's
standpoint, of the follies and weaknesses of the leaders of public
opinion and fashion in modern social life. It was started in 1841 under
the editorship of Henry Mayhew and Mark Lemon; and the wittiest literary
men of the time as well as the cleverest artists have contributed to its
pages, enough to mention of the former Thackeray, Douglas Jerrold, and
Tom Hood, and of the latter Doyle, Leech, Tenniel, Du Maurier, and
Lindley Sambourne.

PUNDIT, a Brahmin learned in Sanskrit and in the language,
literature, and laws of the Hindus.

PUNIC FAITH, a plighted promise that one can put no trust in, such
as the Romans alleged they systematically had experience of at the hands
of the Poeni or Carthaginians.

PUNIC WARS, the name given to the wars between Rome and Carthage for
the empire of the world, of date, the first from 264 to 241, the second
from 218 to 201, and the third from 149 to 146 B.C., due all to
transgressions on the one side or the other of boundaries fixed by
treaty, which it was impossible for either in their passion of empire to
respect. It was a struggle which, though it ended in the overthrow of
Carthage, proved at one time the most critical in the history of Rome.

PUNJAB (25,130), "five rivers," a province in the extreme NW. of
India, watered by the Indus and its four tributaries, Jhelum, Chenab,
Ravee, and Sutlej; its frontiers touch Afghanistan and Cashmir. Mountain
ranges traverse the N., W., and S; little rain falls; the plains are dry
and hot i