i

R

Raabe's Gesammelte Erzählungen appeared in 4 vols. (1896-1900); there is no uniform edition of his larger novels. See P. Gerber, Wilhelm Raabe (1897); A. Otto, Wilhelm Raabe (1899); A. Bartels, Wilhelm Raabe: Vortrag (1901).

RABA BEN JOSEPH BEN HAMA (c. 280-352), Babylonian rabbi or amora. He is closely associated in his studies with Abaye. The latter was head of the Academy at Pumbeditha. Raba founded a new school at Maḥuza, which eventually became so long as Raba lived the only academy in Babylonia (Persia). The development of Talmudic Law (or Halakhah) was much indebted to this rabbi, whose influence in all branches of Jewish learning was supreme. His friendship with the King Shapur II. enabled Raba to secure a relaxation of the oppressive laws enacted against the Jews of Persia.

THE twentieth letter in the Phoenician alphabet, the | (1855-1857). While a student at that university he. pubnineteenth in the numerical Greek, the seventeenth in the lished his first work, Die Chronik der Sperlingsgasse (1857), which ordinary Greek and the Latin and (owing to the addition at once attained to great popularity. Raabe next returned to of J) the eighteenth in the English. Its earliest form in Wolfenbüttel, and then lived (1862-1870) at Stuttgart, where the Phoenician alphabet when written from right to left was he devoted himself entirely to authorship and wrote a number A, thus resembling the symbol for D with one side of the of novels and short stories; notably Unseres Herrgotts Kanzlei triangle prolonged. In Aramaic and other Semitic scripts (1862); Der Hunger pastor (1864); Abu Telfan (1867) and Der which were modified by opening the heads of the letters, the Schüdderump (1870). In 1870 Raabe removed to Brunswick symbol in time became very much changed. Greek, however, and published the narratives Horacker (1876)—perhaps his maintained the original form with slight variations from place masterpiece; Das Odfeld (1889); Kloster Lugau (1894) and to place. Not infrequently in the Greek alphabets of Asia Hastenbeck (1899), and numerous other stories. The distinguishMinor and occasionally also in the West, R was written as D, ing characteristic of Raabe's work is a genial humour which thus introducing a confusion with D (q.v.). Elsewhere a short reminds us occasionally of Dickens; but this humour is often tail was added, as occasionally in the island of Melos, in Attica combined with a pessimism that is foreign to the English and in western Greece, but nowhere does this seem to have novelist. been universal. The earliest Latin forms are exactly like the Greek. Thus in the very early inscriptions found in the Forum in 1899 R appears as 9 (from right to left), P and D (from left to right). Later the forms R and R come in; sometimes the back is not quite connected in the middle to the upright, when the form R is produced. The name of the Semitic symbol is Resh; why it was called by the Greeks Rhō (p) is not clear. The h which accompanies in the transliteration of Greek p, indicates that it was breathed, not voiced, in pronunciation. No consonant varies more in pronunciation than r. According to Brockelmann, the original Semitic was probably a trilled r, i.e. an r produced by allowing the tip of the tongue to vibrate behind the teeth while the upper surface of the tongue is pressed against the sockets of the teeth. The ordinary English is also produced against the sockets of the teeth, but without trilling; another 7, also untrilled, which is found in various parts of the south of England, is produced by turning up the tip of the tongue behind the sockets of the teeth till the tongue acquires something of a spoon shape. This, which is also common in the languages of modern India, is called the cerebral or cacuminal r, the former term, which has no meaning in this connexion, being only a bad translation of a Sanscrit term. The common German is produced by vibrations of the uvula at the end of the soft palate, and hence is called the uvular r. There are also many other varieties of this sound. In many languages r is able to form syllables by itself, in the same way that l, m, n may do, as in the English brille (brill), written (ritn). In Europe with this value is most conspicuous in Slavonic languages like Bohemian (Czech) and Croatian; in English r in this function is replaced by a genuine vowel in words like mother (modd). This syllabic is first recorded for Sanscrit, where it is common, but is replaced in the languages descended from Sanscrit by r and a vowel or by a vowel only, according to the position in which it occurs. Most philologists are of opinion that syllabic ▾ existed also in the mother-tongue of the Indo-European languages. (P. Gr.)

Bacher, Agada der Babyl. Amoräer, p. 108, &c. and 114–133. (I. A.) See Graetz, History of the Jews; (Eng. trans., vol. ii. ch. xxi.); RABAH ZOBEIR (d. 1900), the conqueror of Bornu (an ancient sultanate on the western shores of Lake Chad, included since 1890 in British Nigeria), was a half-Arab, halfnegro chieftain. He was originally a slave or follower of Zobeir Pasha (q.v.), and is said to have formed one of the party which served as escort to Miss Tinne (q.v.) in her journeys in the Bahr-el-Ghazal in 1862-64. In 1879, Zobeir being in Egypt, his son Suleiman and Rabah were in command of Zobeir's forces in the Bahr-el-Ghazal. They persisted in slaveraiding, and denied the khedive's authority, and Colonel C. G. Gordon sent against them Romolo Gessi Pasha. Gessi captured Suleiman and routed Rabah, who in July 1879 fled westward with some seven hundred Bazingirs (black slave soldiers). He made himself master of Kreich and Dar Banda, countries to the south and south-west of Wadai. In 1884-85 he was invited by Mahommed Ahmed (the mahdi) to join him at Omdurman, but did not do so. According to one account he learnt that the mahdi intended, had he gone to Omdurman, to put him to death. In 1891 Paul Crampel, a French exRAABE, HEDWIG (1844-1905), German actress, was born plorer, was killed in Dar Banda by a chieftain tributary to in Magdeburg on the 3rd of December 1844, and at the age of Rabah, and Crampel's stores, including 300 rifles, were sent fourteen was playing in the company of the Thalia theatre, to Rabah. With this reinforcement of arms he marched Hamburg. In 1864 she joined the German Court theatre at towards Wadai, but being stoutly opposed by the people of St Petersburg, touring about Germany in the summer with that country he turned west and established himself in Bagsuch success that in 1868 she relinquished her Russian engage-irmi, a state south-east of Lake Chad. In 1893 Rabah overment to devote herself to starring. In 1871 she married Albert threw the sultan of Bornu. In his administration of the country Niemann (b. 1831), the operatic tenor. She excelled in classical he showed considerable ability and a sense of public needs. To rôles like Marianne in Goethe's Geschwister and Franziska the British, represented by the Royal Niger Company, Rabah in Minna von Barnhelm. It was she who first played Ibsen gave comparatively little trouble. During 1894-95 he conin Berlin. She died on the 21st of April 1905. tinually (but unavailingly) asked the company's representatives at Yola and Ibi to supply him with gunpowder. Rabah then tried threats, and in 1896 all communication between him and the company ceased. Early in 1897 he began an advance in the direction of Kano, the most important city in the Fula empire. The news of the crushing defeat by Sir George Goldie of the Fula at Bida, and of the capture of Illorin, induced

RAABE, WILHELM (1831-1910), German novelist, whose early works were published under the pseudonym of Jakob Corvinus, was born at Eschershausen in the duchy of Brunswick on the 8th of September 1831. He served apprenticeship at a bookseller's in Magdeburg for four years (1849-1854); but tiring of the routine of business, studied philosophy at Berlin

Rabah to return to Bornu. He gave the British no further | succeeded in interviewing him (1750). For a time the pertrouble, but turned his attention to the French. Emile Gentil had in this same year (1897) reached Lake Chad, via the Congo and Bagirmi, and had installed a French resident with the sultan of Bagirmi. As soon as Gentil had withdrawn, Rabah again fell upon Bagirmi, and forced sultan and resident to flee. In 1899 the French sent an expedition to reconquer the country, but at first they were unsuccessful. In the summer of 1899 Rabah attacked and routed the French advanced post, held by Naval-Lieutenant Bretonnet, and the latter was killed. In October following another battle was fought, in which the French, under Captain Robillot, completely defeated Rabah, who retreated north-east towards Wadai. Gathering a fresh army, he returned to Bagirmi and joined issue with the French a third time. In a battle fought on the 22nd of April 1900 Rabah was slain and his host defeated. The chieftain's head was cut off and taken to the French camp. In this engagement Major Lamy, the French commandant, also lost his

RABAUT, PAUL (1718-1794), French pastor of "the Church of the Desert" (see HUGUENOTS), was born at Bédarieux, near Montpellier, on the 29th of January 1718. In 1738 he was admitted as a preacher by the synod of Languedoc, and in 1740 he went to Lausanne to complete his studies in the seminary recently founded there by Antoine Court (q.v.). In 1741 Rabaut was placed at the head of the church of Nîmes, and in 1744 he was vice-president of the general synod. During the persecution of 1745-1752 Rabaut himself was RABBAH BAR NAḤMANI (c. 270-c. 330), a Babylonian obliged to hide. When the marquis of Paulmy d'Argenson rabbi or amora (q..). He was for twenty-two years head of was sent to Languedoc to make a military inspection, Rabaut | the Academy at Pumbeditha. His great dialectic skill acquired

for him the epithet uprooter of mountains." The Talmud | rabbon, and also pronounced as ribbon, cf. paßßovvi, Mark x. 51; owes much to this rabbi. He is said to have perished in a | John xx. 16) was prefixed. This title, a higher distinction than jungle into which he had fled from the officers of the Persian king.

See Graetz, History of the Jews (Eng. trans.), vol. ii. ch. xxi.; Bacher, Agada der Babyl. Amoräer, 97-101. (I. A.) RABBAN BAR SAUMA (fl. 1280–1288), Nestorian traveller and diplomatist, was born at Peking about the middle of the 13th century, of Uigur stock. While still young he started on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and travelling by way of Tangut, Khotan, Kashgar, Talas in the Syr Daria valley, Khorasan, Maragha and Mosul, arrived at Ani in Armenia. Warnings of the danger of the routes to southern Syria turned him from his purpose; and his friend and fellow-pilgrim, Rabban Marcos, becoming Nestorian patriarch (as Mar Yaballaha III.) in 1281, suggested Bar Sauma's name to Arghun Khan, sovereign of the Ilkhanate or Mongol-Persian realm, for a European embassy, then contemplated. The purpose of this was to conclude an anti-Moslem alliance, especially against the Mameluke power, with the chief states of Christendom. On this embassy Bar Sauma started in 1287, with Arghun's letters to the Byzantine emperor, the pope and the kings of France and England. In Constantinople he had audience of Andronicus II.; he gives an enthusiastic description of St Sophia. He next travelled to Rome, where he visited St Peter's, and had prolonged negotiations with the cardinals. The papacy being then vacant, a definite reply to his proposals was postponed, and Bar Sauma passed on to Paris, where he had audience of the king of France (Philip the Fair). In Gascony he apparently met the king of England (Edward I.) at a place which seems to be Bordeaux, but of which he speaks as the capital of Alanguitar (i.e. Angleterre). On returning to Rome, he was cordially received by the newly elected pontiff Nicolas IV., who gave him communion on Palm Sunday, 1288, allowed him to celebrate his own Eucharist in the capital of Latin Christendom, commissioned him to visit the Christians of the East, and entrusted to him the tiara which he presented to Mar Yaballaha. His narrative is of unique interest as giving a picture of medieval Europe at the close of the Crusading period, painted by a keenly intelligent, broadminded and statesmanlike observer.

See J. B. Chabot's translation and edition of the Histoire du Patriarche Mar Jabalaha III. et du moine Rabban Cauma (from the Syriac) in Revue de l'Orient latin, 1893, pp. 566-610; 1894, pp. 73-143, 235-300; O. Raynaldus, Annales Ecclesiastici (continuation of Baronius), A.D. 1288, §§ xxxv.-xxxvi. ;1289, §1xi.; L. Wadding, Arnales Minorum, v. 169, 196, 170-173; C. R. Beazley, Dawn of Modern Geography, ii. 15, 352; iii. 12, 189–190, 539-541.

RABBET, in carpentry and masonry, the name for a rectangular groove or slot cut in the edge of a piece of wood or stone, to which another corresponding piece can be fitted (see JOINERY and MASONRY). The word is an adaptation of the O. Fr. rabat or rabbat, from rabattre, i.e. abattre, beat back, abate, to make a recess, and is thus a doublet of "rebate" (q.v.), which is now frequently used instead of "rabbet," the joint being also known as a " rebated joint."

that of rabbi, is in tradition borne only by the descendants of Gamaliel I., the last being Gamaliel III., the son of Jehuda I. (Aboth ii. 2), and by Johanan b. Zaccai, the founder of the school of Jamnia (Jabneh). Otherwise all Tannaites (see TANNA), the scholars of the Mishnah period, were distinguished by the title of "rabbi." The Jehuda I. mentioned above, the redactor of the Mishnah, was honoured as the "Rabbi " kar' ¿oxhy ("par excellence"), and in the tradition of the houses of learning, if it was necessary to speak of him or to cite his opinions and utterances, he was simply referred to as "Rabbi," without the mention of any name. Scholars who were not definitely ordained-and among these were men of high distinction-were simply mentioned by their names without the Rabbi-title. In the post-Talmudic age the Qaraites, who rejected the tradition of the Talmud, designated the Jews who adhered to that tradition as Rabbanites. Similarly the term Rabbins, or Rabbis, is applied to modern Jewish clergy. The plural rabbanim was employed to describe the later Jewish scholars (so, for example, in the historian Abraham Ibn Daud, 12th century). By "rabbinical literature" is understood the post-Talmudic Jewish literature; in particular, so far as its subject is the literature of the tradition and its contents.

(W. BA.)

RAB became a proper name as the standing nomenclature of the celebrated amora, Abba Arika (q.v.). RABBIT, the modern name of the well-known rodent, formerly called (as it still is in English legal phraseology) CONY,1 a member of the family Leporidae (see RODENTIA). Till recently the rabbit has generally been known scientifically as Lepus cuni| culus, but it is now frequently regarded, at least by systematic naturalists, as the representative of a genus by itself, under the

The Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus).

name of Oryctolagus cuniculus. Some zoologists, indeed, include in the same genus the South African thick-tailed hare, but by others this is separated as Pronolagus crassicaudatus. From the hare the wild rabbit is distinguished externally by its smaller size, shorter ears and feet, the absence or reduction of the black patch at the tip of the ears, and its greyer colour. The skull is

RABBI, a Hebrew word meaning "my master," my teacher." It is derived from the adjective rab (in Aramaic, and frequently also in Hebrew, "great"), which acquired in modern Hebrew the signification of "lord," in relation to servants or slaves, and of "teacher," "master," in relation to the disciple. The master was addressed by his pupils with the word rabbi ("my teacher "), or rabbenu (“our teacher"). It became customary to speak of Moses as Moshe rabbenu ("our teacher Moses "). Jesus makes it a reproach against the scribes that they cause themselves to be entitled by the people rabbi (paßßi, Matt. xxiii. 7): and He Himself is saluted by the disciples of John as rabbi (John i. 38, where the word is explained as equivalent to διδάσκαλε). As an honorary title of the scribes, with whose name it was constantly linked, "Rabbi "rabo, tail, rabear, to wag the hind-quarters. The familiar name for only came into use during the last decades of the second Temple. Hillel and Shammai, the contemporaries of Herod, were mentioned without any title. Gamaliel I., the grandson of Hillel, was the first to whose name the appellation Rebban (the same as

1 There are no native names either in Teutonic or Celtic languages; cuniculus, while the Irish, Welsh and Gaelic are adaptations from such words as German Kaninchen or English cony are from the Latin English. Rabbit," which is now the common name in English, was for long confined to the young of the cony, and so the Promptorium Parvulorum, c. 1440, Rabet, yonge conye, cunicellus." The Dictionary takes it to be of northern French origin. There is a ultimate source of "rabbit" is itself unknown. The New English Walloon robelt. Skeat suggests a possible connexion with Spanish

toasted cheese, "Welsh rabbit," is merely a joke, and the alteration to "Welsh rare-bit " is due to a failure to see the joke, such as it is. Parallels may be found in "Prairie oyster," the yolk of an egg with vinegar, pepper, &c. added; or "Scotch woodcock," a savoury of buttered eggs on anchovy toast.

very similar to that of the hare, but is smaller and lighter, with
a slenderer muzzle and a longer and narrower palate. Besides
these characters, the rabbit is separated from the hare by
the fact that it brings forth its young naked, blind, and help- |
less; to compensate for this, it digs a deep burrow in the earth
in which they are born and reared, while the young of the hare
are born fully clothed with fur, and able to take care of them-
selves, in the shallow depression or form in which they
are produced. The weight of the rabbit is from 2 to 3 lb,
although wild individuals have been recorded up to more than
5 lb. Its general habits are too well known to need detailed
description. It breeds from four to eight times a year, bringing
forth each time from three to eight young; its period of gesta-
tion is about thirty days, and it is able to bear when six months
old. It attains to an age of about seven or eight years.

The rabbit is believed to be a native of the western half of the Mediterranean basin, and still abounds in Spain, Sardinia, southern Italy, Sicily, Greece, Tunis and Algeria; and many of the islands adjoining these countries are overrun with these rodents. Thence it has spread, partly by man's agency, northwards throughout temperate western Europe, increasing rapidly wherever it gains a footing; and this extension is still going on, as is shown by the case of Scotland, where early in the 19th century rabbits were little known, while they are now found in all suitable localities up to the extreme north. It has also gained admittance into Ireland, and now abounds there as much as in England. Out of Europe the same extension of range has been going on. In New Zealand and Australia rabbits, introduced either for profit or sport, have increased to such an extent as to form one of the most serious pests that the farmers have to contend against, as the climate and soil suit them perfectly and their natural enemies are too few and too lowly organized to keep them within reasonable bounds. In North America about thirty species and twice as many geographic races (subspecies) are known, and the occurrence of several distinct fossil forms shows that the genus has long been established. The chief variety is the common grey or cottontail (Lepus floridanus). For the "jack-rabbit," see HARE.

its name, but is a variety produced by careful breeding and selection.
Though produced by crossing, it now generally breeds true to colour,
at times throwing back, however, to the silver greys from which it
was derived. The rabbits known as Dutch are small, and valued
for the disposition of the colour and markings. The entire body
behind the shoulder-blades is uniformly coloured, with the excep-
tion of the feet; the anterior part of the body, including the fore
legs, neck, and jaws, is white, the cheeks and ears being coloured.
In some strains the coloured portion extends in front of the fore
legs, leaving only a ring of white round the neck. The more
accurately the coloured portion is defined, the higher is the animal
esteemed. The silver grey is a uniform-coloured breed, the fur of
which is a rich chinchilla grey, varying in depth in the different
strains. From the greater value of the fur, silver greys have been
frequently employed to stock warrens, as they breed true to colour
in the open if the ordinary wild rabbits are excluded. Other
colours known, as silver fawn and silver brown, are closely related.
A blue breed has been recently introduced. The largest and
heaviest of all is the Flemish giant, with iron-grey fur above and
white below. Other breeds include the Japanese, with an orange
coat, broadly banded on the hind-quarters with black; the
pink-eyed and short and thick-furred albino Polish; the Siberian,
probably produced by crossing the Himalayan with the Angora;
and the black-and-tan and blue-and-tan.
See also HARE, SHOOTING, and COURSING. (W. H. F.; R. L.")

RABBLE, a general term for a disorderly crowd, apparently connected with the verb "to rabble," to talk or work in a confused manner, Du. rabbelen, Ger. dialect rabbeln, cf. Gr. paßácou, to howl. In iron and steel manufacture, a puddlingtool, for stirring the molten metal, is called a "rabble." This is a different word, adapted from Fr. râble, for roable, Med. Lat. rotabulum, Lat. rulabulum (ruere, to rake), a fire-shovel or oven rake.

RABBŪLĀ, a distinguished bishop of the Syrian church early in the 5th century. He was a native of Kenneshrin, a town some few miles south of Aleppo and the seat of a bishopric. His father was a heathen priest, and though his mother was a devoted Christian he continued in pagan belief and practice until some time after his marriage. During a journey to his country estates he was converted to Christianity partly through coming in contact with a case of miraculous healing and partly through the teaching and influence of Eusebius, bishop of Kenneshrin, and Acacius, bishop of Aleppo. With The rabbit has been domesticated from an early period. Little all the energy of his fiery nature he threw himself into the doubt exists amongst naturalists that all the varieties of the domestic practice of Christian asceticism, sold all his possessions, and animal are descended from Oryctolagus cuniculus. The variations which have been perpetuated and intensified by artificial selection are, separated from his wife and kinspeople. He resided for some with the exception of those of the dog, greater than have been induced time in a monastery, and then passed to a life of greater hardin any other mammal. For not only has the weight been more than ship as a solitary hermit. On the death of Diogenes, bishop of quadrupled in some of the larger breeds, and the structure of the Edessa, in the year 411-412, Rabbulā was chosen his successor, skull and other parts of the skeleton greatly altered, but the pro- and at once accepted the position offered him, without any of portionate size of the brain has been reduced and the colour and texture of the fur altered in a remarkable manner. The lop the customary show of reluctance. As a bishop he was marked eared breed is the oldest English variety, and has been cultivated by extraordinary energy, by the continued asceticism of his carefully since about 1785, the aim of the breeder being directed personal life, by his magnificent provision for all the poor to the development of the size of the ears, and with such success. that they sometimes measure more than 23 in. from tip to tip and suffering in his diocese, by his care for discipline among and exceed 6 in. in width. This development, which is accom- the clergy and monks who were under his authority, and latterly panied by changes in the structure of the skull, depends on breed-by the fierce determination with which he combated all heresies ing the animals in warm damp hutches, without which the best and especially the growing school of the followers of Nestorius. developed parents fail to produce the desired offspring. In colour lop-eared rabbits vary greatly. The Belgian hare is a large breed On one occasion he visited Constantinople and there preached of a hardy and prolific character, which closely resembles the hare before Theodosius II. (who was then favourable to Nestorius) in colour, and is not unlike it in form. Some years ago these rabbits and a great congregation a sermon in denunciation of Neswere sold as "leporides" or hybrids, produced by the union of the torian doctrine, of which a portion survives in the Syriac hare and the rabbit; but the most careful experimenters have failed to obtain any such hybrid, and the naked immature condition in version. He became the friend of Cyril of Alexandria, with which young rabbits are born as compared with the clothed and whom he corresponded, and whose treatise De recla fide he transhighly developed young hare renders it unlikely that hybrids could lated into Syriac. After a busy episcopal life of twenty-four be produced. Nor does the flesh of the Belgian rabbit resemble years he died in August 435, and was immensely lamented by that of the hare in colour or flavour. A closely allied variety, though of larger size, is known as the Patagonian rabbit, although the people of his diocese. His successor was the Nestorian it has no relation to the country after which it is called. Ibas.

The Angora rabbit is characterized by the extreme elongation and fineness of the fur, which in good specimens reaches 6 or 7 in. in length, requiring great care and frequent combing to prevent it from becoming matted. The Angoras most valued are albinos, with pure white fur and pink eyes; in some parts of the Continent they are kept by the peasants and clipped regularly.

Amongst the breeds which are valued for the distribution of colour on the fur are the Himalayan and the Dutch. The former is white, but the whole of the extremities-viz. the nose, the ears, tail and feet-are black or very dark in colour. This very pretty breed has no connexion with the mountains from which it takes

The literary remains of Rabbūlă are small in bulk, and are mostly to be found in Overbeck. Perhaps his main importance to the historian of Syriac literature lies in the zeal with which he strove to replace the Diatessaron or Gospel Harmony of Tatian by the edition of the separate Gospels, ordering that a copy of the latter should be placed in every church and should 1 Overbeck, op. cit. pp. 239-244-.

The version survives in a British Museum MS.; see Wright's Catalogue p. 719.