Es´neh, a town of Upper Egypt, on the left bank of the Nile, 28 miles S.S.W. of Thebes, on the site of the ancient Latopolis, now easily reached by railway and river. Among the ruins there is a beautiful portico of twenty-four lofty and massive columns, belonging to a temple of Kneph (the only portion of the temple cleared out), and erected in the Ptolemaic and Roman period, with a zodiac on the ceiling. Esneh has a caravan trade, manufactures cottons and pottery, and is very healthy. There is an irrigation barrage here. Pop. 15,800.
Esoc´idæ, the family of fishes to which the true pike (Esox lucius) belongs, as also the much larger maskinongy (E. nobilior) of America.
Espal´ier, in gardening, a sort of trelliswork on which the branches of fruit trees or bushes are extended horizontally, with the object of securing for the plant a freer circulation of air as well as a full exposure to the sun. Trees thus trained are not subjected to such marked nor so rapid variations of temperature as wall trees.
Espartero (es-pa˙r-tā´rō), Baldomero, Duke of Vittoria, a Spanish statesman, born 1792, died 1879. The son of a wheelwright, he was educated for the priesthood, but joined the army as a volunteer in 1808. He took a leading part in the conflict with the Carlists, and was one of the most prominent men in Spain during several decades of the nineteenth century. He was regent of the kingdom from 1841 to 1843, and again head of the Government from 1854 to 1856. He was exiled to England for several years (1843-7). In 1870 his name was vaguely put forward in the Cortes as a candidate for the throne, but the proposal was not supported with any enthusiasm, and the closing years of his life were spent in retirement.
Espar´to, or Alfa, a plant growing in Spain and North Africa, long applied to the manufacture of cordage and matting, and also extensively used for paper-making. This plant, called by
botanists Stipa or Macrochlōa tenacissima, is a species of grass 2 to 4 feet high, covering large tracts in its native regions, and also cultivated, especially in Spain.
Esperanto, an artificial language for international use invented by Dr. Zamenhof of Warsaw, who first published an account of it in 1887. The language was afterwards taken up for practical purposes in many countries, its use being promoted by special societies and periodicals. Its structure is so simple that the whole grammar can be completely mastered in an hour. There are no exceptions to the rules, perfect regularity being a leading feature of the language. The essential roots number only some 900, including grammatical inflexions, prefixes, and suffixes, and these are chosen from the principal European languages in such a way as to make their mastery easy to any person of ordinary education. The alphabet consists of twenty-eight letters, each with an invariable sound. There are no silent letters. The accent is always on the penultimate syllable. All nouns end in -o in the singular, and all adjectives in -a. The plural of these is formed by adding -j (pronounced y). All derived adverbs end in -e. The only case inflexion is -n for the objective. The verbal endings are: -i for the infinitive; -as, -is, -os for the present, past, and future tenses respectively; -us for the conditional; -u for the imperative; -anta, -inta, -onta for the present, past, and future participles active respectively; -ata, -ita, -ota for the present, past, and future participles passive respectively. The definite article is la in all cases and numbers, and there is no indefinite article. An ingenious system of prefixes and suffixes enables all shades of meaning to be expressed. Thus: bona, good, malbona, evil; patro, father, patrino, mother; gepatroj, parents; kudri, to sew, kudrilo, needle; arbo, tree, arbaro, forest; bela, beautiful, beleco, beauty; morti, to die, mortigi, to kill. The following is the Lord's Prayer in Esperanto: Patro Nia, kiu estas en la cielo, sankta estu Via nomo. Venu regeco Via. Estu farata volo Via, kiel en la cielo, tiel ankaŭ sur la tero. Panon nian ciutagan donu al ni hodiaŭ, kaj pardonu al ni ŝuldojn niajn, kiel ni ankaŭ pardonas al niaj ŝuldantoj. Ne konduku nin en tenton; sed liberigu nin de la malbono: car Via estas la regado, la forto, kaj la gloro eterne. Amen! The British Esperanto Association was founded in the autumn of 1904; its official organ is The British Esperantist. International Esperanto congresses have been held since 1905, the last in 1920 at the Hague.—Bibliography: J. C. O'Connor, Esperanto: the Student's Complete Text-Book (revised by Dr. Zamenhof); Underhill, Esperanto and its Availability for Scientific Writings.
Espionage (from the French word espion, a spy) is the acquirement of information by secret methods and by special agents, as opposed to its acquirement openly by combatants in the ordinary course of military operations. Espionage is recognized by international law under the Hague Convention, Article 24 of the Annexe to which reads as follows: "Ruses of war and the employment of measures necessary for obtaining information about the enemy and the country are considered permissible". The right given by this rule does not, however, extend to the employment of force to extract information from enemy subjects as to their own armies, so that it follows that methods of espionage must be of a persuasive, and, so to speak, peaceful nature.
Espionage is carried on both in peace and war, but the conditions under which secret service agents work differ to a very marked extent according to the state of affairs between the two countries. In peace-time, though many countries maintain secret service agents in other states, yet these same agents can expect no assistance from their Governments in the event of their being detected. In this case it is a diplomatic fiction that nothing is known of them or of the reasons for their activities. The agent, therefore, in consideration of a sufficient allowance, takes the risk of a lengthy term of imprisonment if he is so unfortunate as to be found out.