constitution of 1861 industrial freedom was introduced, possession of land permitted to strangers, the conditions of settlement greatly modified, and various improvements made in the taxation and duties. At the outbreak of the contest between Prussia and Austria in 1866, Hamburg sided with the former, and in May 1867 it voted 136 to 1 for the constitution of the North German Confederation. It was allowed to remain a free port, but has to pay an aversion to the Zollverein.
See Zeltschrift fur Hamburgische Geschichte, published since 1841 by the local historical society; Lappenberg s Hamburg. Urkundeubuch (vol. L, Hamb , 1842), Hamburg. Chroniken (1861), and Adam Tratziger s Hamburg, Chronik (1802); Ham mrgisches Miinz- unil Medaillen-Vergnugen (Hamburg, 1753); Hess, Ham burg s topogr., polit., und histor. Beschreibung (2d ed., 1810-11); Barmann, Ham burg. Denkicilrdi jkeiten (1817-20), and Hamburg s Chronik (1822); Zimmermann, Neue Chronik von Hamburg (1820); Gallois, Geschichte der Stadl Hamburg (1856-57); Wichmann, Heimathskunde (Hamb. 1863) ; Buck, Die Hamburgische Oberalten (1857), and Hamburgische Alterthumer (1859) ; Hamburgs Neueste Zeit, 1843-60 (anonym., ISfiC) ; Avd Lallemont, Das Werk- und Armenhaus im Hamburg (1863) ; Koppmann, Kleine Beitrdge znr Geschichte Hamburgs (1867-68) ; Elers, Chronologie der Geschichte Hamburgs (1868) ; Mayer, Geschichte des Hamb. Con tingents, 1814-67 (Berlin, 1874) ; Hamburg, die Stadt, die Vororte, etc. (1875) ; Hamburg in Naturhist. und Medic. Beziehung, with excellent maps showing pro file and relief of site, water and sewer systems, and density of population, for the Gesellschaft der deutschen Katurforschcr und Aerzten (Hamb., 1876) ; Dehio, Geschichte des Erzbisthums Hamburg-Bremen (1877, 2 vols.).
HAMELN, the cliief town of a circle in the province of Hanover, Prussia, is situated at the confluence of the Weser and Hamel, and at the junction of four railways, 25 miles S.W. of Hanover. It is surrounded by old walls, and possesses a number of old-fashioned houses with quaint richly-adorned gables. The only public buildings of interest are the minster church, restored in 1872, and the town- house. Hameln is the seat of several courts and public offices, and possesses a gymnasium, a higher city school, a higher female school, a trade school, a poorhouse, two hospitals, and a district prison. The principal industries are the manufacture of woollen and cotton goods and machines, distilling, agriculture, and salmon fishing. By the steamboats on the Weser there is communication with Karlshafen and Minden. In order to avoid the dangerous part of the river near the town a channel was cut in 1734, the repairing and deepening of which, begun in 1868, was completed in 1873. The Weser at Hameln is crossed by an iron suspension bridge 830 feet in length, supported by a pier erected on an island in the middle of the river. Ths population of Hameln in 1875 was 9519.
The older name of Hameln was Hameloa or Hamelowe, and the town owes its origin to an abbey of St Boniface. It existed as a town as early as the 11th century, and in 1259 it was sold by the abbot of Fulda to the bishop of Minden, but this transaction gave offence to the townspeople, and after a battle in which many of them lost their lives, they placed themselves under the protection of the house of Brunswick. During the Thirty Years War Hameln was conquered by the Swedes (1633). In 1757 it capitulated to the French, who, however, vacated it in the following year. Its fortifica tions were strengthened in 1766 by the erection of Fort George, but they were wholly dismantled in 1807. Hameln is famed as the scene of the myth of the piper of Hameln. According to the legend, the town in the year 1284 was so infested by rats as almost to compel the inhabitants to leave it, when one day there appeared upon the scene a piper clad in a fantastic suit, who offered for a certain sum of money to charm all the vermin into the Weser by his piping. His conditions were agreed to, but after he had fulfilled his promise the inhabitants, on the ground that he was a sorcerer, declined to fulfil their part of the bargain, whereupon on the 26th of June he reappeared in the streets of the town, and putting his pipe to his lips began a soft and curious strain, which drew all the children to come trooping after him while he led them out of the town to the Koppelberg hill, in whose side a door suddenly opened, by which he entered and the children after him, all but one who was lame and could not follow fast enough to reach the door before it shut again and remamed fast. Some trace the origin of the legend to the Child Crusade," or to an abduction of children. For a considerable time the town dated its public documents from the event. The story is the subject of a poem by Robert Browning, and also of one by Julius Wolff (3d edition, Berlin, 1876).
See S. Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, 2d ser., ISfiS; Grimm, DeutiCheSagen, Berlin, 186G: and Reitzenstein s edition of Sprenger s Geschichte der Stadt IJame. n, Hameln, 1861.
HAMI, the Chinese name of a town in Central Asia, otherwise called Kamil, Komul, or Kamul, situated on the southern slopes of the Tian-Shan mountains, and on the northern verge of the Great Gobi desert, in 42° 48′ lat. and 93° 28′ E. long., at a height above sea-level of 3150 feet. The town is first mentioned in Chinese history in the 1st century, under the name I-wu-lu, and said to be situated 1000 lis north of the fortress Yü-men-kuan, and to be the key to the western countries. This evidently referred to its advantageous position, lying as it did in a fertile tract, at the point of convergence of two main routes running north and south of the Tian-Shan and connecting China with the west. It was taken by the Chinese in 73 a.d. from the Hiungnu (the ancient inhabitants of Mongolia), and made a military station. It next fell into the hands of the Uigurs or Eastern Turks, who made it one of their chief towns and held it for several centuries, and whose descendants are said to live there now. From the 7th to the 11th century I-wu-lu is said to have borne the name of Igu or I-chu, under the former of which names it is spoken of by the Chinese pilgrim Hwen-Thsang, who passed through it in the 7th century. The name Hami is first met in the Chinese Yüan-shi or “History of the Mongol Dynasty,” but the name more generally used there is Homi-li or Komi-li. Marco Polo, describing it apparently from hearsay, calls it Camul, and speaks of it as a fruitful place inhabited by a Buddhist people of idolatrous and wanton habits. It was visited in 1341 by John de Marignolli, who baptized a number of both sexes there, and by the envoys of Shah Rukh (1420), who found a magnificent mosque and a convent of dervishes, in juxtaposition with a fine Buddhist temple. Hadji Mahomet (Ramusio’s friend) speaks of Kamul as being in his time (circa 1550) the first Mahometan city met with in travelling from China. When Benedict Goes travelled through the country at the beginning of the 17th century, the power of the king Mahomet Khan of Kashgar extended over nearly the whole country at the base of the Tian-Shan to the Chinese frontier, including Kamil. It fell under the sway of the Chinese in 1720, was lost to them in 1865 during the great Mahometan rebellion, and the trade route through it was consequently closed, but was regained in 1873. Owing to its commanding position on the principal route to the west, and its exceptional fertility, it has very frequently changed hands in the wars between China and her western neighbours. As regards the latter quality, it is even now said to yield rice, melons, oranges, and grapes of notable excellence, while, with respect to the former, Baron F. Von Richthofen (probably the highest authority) states that the route from Hsi-ngan-fu past Hami to Kuldja, is by far the best and indeed the only natural line for a railway from China to Europe. The Russian officer Sosnofski, our latest authority respecting Hami, entered it in the autumn of 1875 after eight days’ journey across the Gobi steppe lying to the south. He speaks of it as an important mart, whither wool from Turfan and Turkistan goods are brought to be exchanged for the products of Central China. The Mahometan population consists of immigrants from Jitishahr (or Kashgaria), Bokhara, and Samarcand, and of descendants of the Uigurs.
