MANWARING, ROBERT, English 18th-century furniture designer and cabinet maker. The dates of his birth and death are unknown. He was a contemporary and imitator of Chippendale, and not the least considerable of his rivals. He prided himself upon work which he described as “genteel,” and his speciality was chairs. He manifests the same surprising variations of quality that are noticed in the work of nearly all the English cabinet-makers of the second half of the 18th century, and while his best had an undeniable elegance his worst was exceedingly bad—squat, ill-proportioned and confused. Some of his chairbacks are so nearly identical with Chippendale’s that it is difficult to suppose that the one did not copy from the other, and most of the designs of the greater man enjoyed priority of date. During a portion of his career Manwaring was a devotee of the Chinese taste; he likewise practised in the Gothic manner. He appears to have introduced the small bracket between the front rail of the seat and the top of the chair leg, or at all events to have made such constant use of it that it has come to be regarded as characteristic of his work. Manwaring described certain of his own work as “elegant and superb,” and as possessing “grandeur and magnificence.” He did not confine himself to furniture but produced many designs for rustic gates and railings, often very extravagant. One of his most absurd rural chairs has rock-work with a waterfall in the back.
Among Manwaring’s writings were The Cabinet and Chair Makers’ Real Friend and Companion, or the Whole System of Chairmaking Made Plain and Easy (1765); The Carpenters’ Compleat Guide to Gothic Railing (1765); and The Chair-makers’ Guide (1766).
MANYCH, a river and depression in S. Russia, stretching between the lower river Don and the Caspian Sea, through the Don Cossacks territory and between the government of Astrakhan on the N. and that of Stavropol on the S. During the greater part of the year it is either dry or occupied in part by a string of saline lakes (limans or ilmens); but in spring when the streams swell which empty into it, the water flows in two opposite directions from the highest point (near Shara-Khulusun). The western stream flows westwards, with an inclination northwards, until it reaches the Don, though when the latter river is running high, its water penetrates some 60 miles up the Manych. The eastern stream dies away in the sandy steppe about 25 miles from the Caspian, though it is said sometimes to reach the Kuma through the Huiduk, a tributary of the Kuma. Total length of the depression, 330 m. For its significance as a former (geologic) connexion between the Sea of Azov and the Caspian Sea, see [Caspian Sea]. By some authorities the Manych depression is taken as part of the boundary between Europe and Asia.
MANYEMA (Una-Ma-Nyema, eaters of flesh), a powerful and warlike Bantu-Negroid people in the south-east of the Congo basin. Physically they are of a light colour, with well formed noses and not over-full lips, the women being described as singularly pretty and graceful. Manyemaland was for the greater part of the 19th century an Eldorado of the Arab slave raiders.
MANZANARES, a town of Spain, in the province of Ciudad Real, on the river Azuer, a large sub-tributary of the Záncara, and on the railways from Madrid to Ciudad Real and Lináres. Pop. (1900), 11,229. Manzanares is one of the chief towns of La Mancha, and thus in the centre of the district described by Cervantes in Don Quixote. Its citadel was founded as a Christian fortress after the defeat of the Moors at Las Navas de Tolosa (1212). Bull-fights were formerly held in the main plaza, where galleries to accommodate spectators were built between the buttresses of an ancient parish church. Manzanares has manufactures of soap, bricks and pottery, and an active trade in wheat, wine, spirits, aniseed and saffron.
MANZANILLO, a town and port on the Pacific coast of Mexico, in the state of Colima, 52 m. by rail W.S.W. of the city of that name. It is situated on a large harbour partly formed and sheltered by a long island extending southwards parallel with the coast. Southward also, and in the vicinity of the town, is the large stagnant, shallow lagoon of Cayutlán which renders the town unhealthy. Manzanillo is a commercial town of comparatively recent creation. Its new harbour works, the construction of which was begun in 1899, and its railway connexion with central Mexico, promise to make it one of the chief Pacific ports of the republic. These works include a breakwater 1300 ft. long, with a depth of 12 to 70 ft. and a maximum breadth of 320 ft. at the base and 25 ft. on top, and all the necessary berthing and mechanical facilities for the handling of cargoes. A narrow-gauge railway was built between Colima and Manzanillo toward the end of the nineteenth century, but the traffic was only sufficient for a tri-weekly service up to 1908, when the gauge was widened and the railway became part of the Mexican Central branch, completed in that year from Irapuato through Guadalajara to Colima. The exports include hides and skins, palm leaf hats, Indian corn, coffee, palm oil, fruit, lumber and minerals.