Sound, To. To betoken or direct by a sound; as, to sound the retreat; sound the assembly, etc.
Sourabaya, Soerabaya, Soorabaya, or Surabaya. A large seaport town of Java, on the northeast coast. When the French had possession of Java, the French government resolved to make Sourabaya a port of consequence. Gen. Daendels expended large sums in the construction of works for the defense of the harbor, and was proceeding in his plans when the island was taken by the British.
South Carolina. An Atlantic State of the American Union, of a triangular form, with North Carolina and Georgia on its inland sides. It is said to have been discovered by Sebastian Cabot in 1498, or by De Leon in 1512, and to be permanently settled by the English about 1660. The province was divided into North and South in 1729. The Carolinas were slave States. Great excitement prevailed in them in November, 1860, on account of Mr. Abraham Lincoln’s election to the presidency of the United States, he being strongly opposed to slavery. South Carolina began the secession from the United States December 20, 1861. The State was restored to the Union in June, 1868. This State took an active part in the civil war (1861-65), on the Confederate side. See [Charleston], [Columbia], [Morris Island], [Moultrie], [Fort Sumter], etc.
Southern Confederacy. See [Confederate States of America].
Sow. A kind of covered shed, formerly used by besiegers in filling up and passing the ditch of a besieged place, sapping or mining the wall, and the like. It had its name from its being used for rooting up the earth like swine, or because the soldiers therein were like pigs under a sow.
Sowar. A trooper in an Indian cavalry regiment.
Space. A quantity or portion of extension; the interval between any two or more objects; as, the space between ranks.
Spadroon. A sword much lighter than a broadsword, and made both to cut and thrust.
Spahis. Were the cavaliers furnished by the holders of military fiefs to the Turkish army, and formed the élite of its cavalry. The Spahis along with the Janissaries owe their organization primarily to Orchan, the second of the Ottoman sultans, finally to Sultan Amurath I., and when levied en masse could number 140,000, but such a levy was very seldom called for. In the field they were divided into two classes, distinguished by the color (red and yellow) of their standards. One class had pistols and carbines, the other bows and arrows, and both carried a sabre, lance, and jerid, or javelin. They were excellent irregular troops; but when European organization was introduced into the Turkish army, they were replaced (1826) by regular horse. At the present time the French have numerous regiments of Spahis, raised from among the native tribes of Algeria and from France in about equal proportions; the dress, especially of the indigenous soldiers, partakes very much of the Arab character. The natives are allowed to rise to any grade below that of captain; but all the superior officers are of French descent.
Spain. A kingdom of Europe, occupying the larger portion of the great peninsula which forms the southwestern corner of the European continent, reaching farther south than any other European country, and farther west than any except Portugal. Spain, the Spania, Hispania, and Iberia of the Greeks, and known to the Romans by the same names, was inhabited at the period at which it first receives historical mention, by a people deriving their origin from different races. It is supposed to have been originally inhabited by a distinct race called Iberians; upon whom, however, a host of Celts are supposed to have descended from the Pyrenees. In the earliest times of which we have any record, these two races had already coalesced and formed the mixed nation of the Celtiberians. The Phœnicians and Carthaginians successively planted colonies on the coasts of Spain about 360 B.C.; and the Romans conquered the whole country, 206 B.C., which they erected into a Roman province, consisting of two political divisions,—Hispania Citerior (Hither Spain) and Hispania Ulterior (Farther Spain). From the time of the complete supremacy of the Romans till the death of Constantine, the condition of Spain was eminently prosperous. In 409, hordes of barbarians, Alans, Vandals, and Suevi, crossed the Pyrenees, and swept over and desolated the peninsula; about 412, the Visigoths invaded the country, and their king, Athaulf, who acknowledged a nominal dependence on the Roman emperor, established the Gothic monarchy in Catalonia. The battle of Xerxes in 711 gave the Moors almost undisputed mastery of nearly the whole of Spain, as well as of the outlying Gothic province of Septimania (Languedoc) in Franco. The Moors held Spain, for the first few years of their rule, as a dependency of the province of North Africa; but, after the downfall of Muza and his son Abd-el-aziz, who had been the deputy-governor of Spain, the country was governed (1717) by emirs appointed by the caliph of Damascus. The favorite scheme pursued by the Spanish emirs was the extension of their conquests into Gaul, to the neglect of the rising power of the Goths in Asturias; they also took the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, Corsica, and part of Apulia and Calabria; but their northward progress was signally checked on the plain of Tours by Charles Martel. Anarchy and bloodshed were prominent features of the first forty years of Mohammedan rule in Spain. Within this period of forty years, no fewer than twenty emirs had been called to the direction of affairs; but a revolution at Damascus, which unseated the Ommiades, and placed the Abbasides in possession of the caliphate, put an end to this state of misrule in Spain. The Moors at length suffered a great defeat at Tarifa, by Alfonso XI. of Castile in 1340, and nearly the whole Christian dominions of Spain were united in one monarchy in 1479; but the power of the Moors was not finally extirpated until 1492, when Spain was consolidated into one empire from the Pyrenees to the Strait of Gibraltar. But the expulsion of the Moors and Jews was productive of the direst results, and the decline of the splendid Spanish empire may be said to have had its origin in the event which raised the country to the height of its magnificence. In the reign of Charles I., Mexico and Peru were added to the possessions of Spain. Philip II., by his enormous war expenditure and maladministration, laid a sure foundation for the decline of the country; and the reigns of Philip III. and Philip IV. witnessed a fearful acceleration in the decline of Spain by the contests with the Dutch, and with the German Protestants in the Thirty Years’ War, the intermeddling in the affairs of Northern Italy, the rebellion of the Catalans, the wars with France, and the rebellion of Portugal (1640), which had been united to Spain by Philip II. That of Charles II. was still more unfortunate, and the death of the latter was the occasion of the War of the Spanish Succession. (See [Succession Wars].) During the inglorious reign of Charles IV. (1788-1808), a war broke out with Britain, which was productive of nothing but disaster to the Spaniards, and by the pressure of the French another arose in 1804, and was attended with similar ill success. Charles abdicated in favor of his eldest son, the prince of the Asturias, who ascended the throne as Ferdinand VII. Forced by Napoleon to resign all claims to the Spanish throne, Ferdinand became a prisoner of the French in the year of his accession, and in the same year Joseph, the brother of the French emperor, was declared king of Spain. But an armed resistance was organized throughout the whole country, and the supreme junta, that of Seville, declared war against Napoleon and France on June 6, 1808. In July, England, on solicitation, made peace with Spain, recognized Ferdinand VII. as king, and sent an army to aid the Spanish insurrection. This war lasted until the beginning of 1814, when the allied armies of England, Spain, and Portugal were thoroughly victorious. For important events which took place during this war, see appropriate headings in this work. Ferdinand VII. treated the subjects who had shown him devoted loyalty with infamous ingratitude, and subsequently obtained the aid of France to establish despotism. The reign of his daughter Isabella II. was disturbed by the Carlist rebellion in 1834-39, in which the British aided the queen with an army under Sir De Lacy Evans. The next events of importance were the contest between Espartero, the regent, and Queen-dowager Christina, for the supreme power during the minority of the queen; Espartero’s flight before O’Donnell and Narvaez (1843); his restoration in 1847; banishment of Queen Christina (1854); formation of the O’Donnell ministry (1858); war with Morocco and annexation of St. Domingo (1861); war with Peru and Chili (1864-65), and permanent truce in 1871; Prince Amadeus of Savoy declared king in December, 1870; abdication, February, 1873; insurrection of Don Carlos, 1873-76, when Prince Alfonso, son of Queen Isabella, became king. For more specific history of provinces and cities of Spain, see appropriate headings.