Melilla

Melilla, a Spanish fortified station and penal settlement on the north coast of Morocco, south of Cape Tres Forcas and 135 m. E.S.E. of Ceuta. Pop. about 9000. The town is built on a huge rock connected with the mainland by a rocky isthmus. There is a harbour, only accessible to small vessels; the roadstead outside is safe and has deep water a mile to the east of the fortress. From the landing-place, where a mole is cut out of the rock, there is a steep ascent to the upper town, characteristically Spanish in appearance. The town is walled, and the isthmus protected by a chain of small forts. A Moorish custom-house is placed on the Spanish border beyond the fort of Santa Isabel, and is the only authorized centre of trade on the Riff coast between Tetuan and the Algerian frontier. It thus forms the entrepot for the commerce of the Riff district and its hinterland. Goat skins, eggs and beeswax are the principal exports, cotton goods, tea, sugar and candles being the chief imports. For the period1900-1905the annual value of the trade was about L200,000. Melilla, the first place captured by Spain on the African mainland, was seized from the Moors in 1490. The Spaniards have had much trouble with the neighbouring tribes - turbulent Ruffians, hardly subject to the sultan of Morocco. The limits of the Spanish territory round the fortress were fixed by treaties with Morocco in 1859, 1860, 1861 and 1894. In 1893 the Ruffians besieged Melilla and 25,000 men had to be despatched against them. In 1908 two companies, under the protection of El Roghi, a chieftain then ruling the Riff region, started mining lead and iron some 15 m. from Melilla and a railway to the mines was begun. In October of that year the Ruffians revolted from the Roghi and raided the mines, which remained closed until June 1909. On the 9th of July the workmen were again attacked and several of them killed. Severe fighting between the Spaniards and the tribesmen followed. The Riffians having submitted, the Spaniards, in 1910, restarted the mines and undertook harbour works at Mar Chica.

See Budgett Meakin, The Land of the Moors (London, 1901), ch. xix., and the authorities there cited; P. Barre, "Melilla et les presides espagnols," Rev. francaise (1908).

Meline, Felix Jules (1838-), French statesman, was born at Remiremont on the 10th of May 1838. Having adopted the law as his profession, he was chosen a deputy in 1872, and in 1879 he was for a short time under-secretary to the minister of the interior. In 1880 he came to the front as the leading spokesman of the party which favoured the protection of French industries, and he had a considerable share in fashioning the protectionist legislation of the years 1890-1902. From 1883 to 1885 Meline was minister for agriculture, and in1888-1889he was president of the Chamber of Deputies. In 1896 he became premier (president du conseil) and minister for agriculture, offices which he vacated in 1898. At one time he edited La Republique francaise, and after his retirement from public life he wrote Le Retour a la terre et la sur production industrielle, tout en faveur de l'agriculture (1905).

Melingue, Etienne Marin (1808-1875), French actor and sculptor, was born in Caen, the son of a volunteer of 1792. He early went to Paris and obtained work as a sculptor on the church of the Madeleine, but his passion for the stage soon led him to join a strolling company of comedians. Finally chance gave him an opportunity to show his talents, and at the Porte Saint Martin he became the popular interpreter of romantic drama of the Alexandre Dumas type. One of his greatest successes was as Benvenuto Cellini, in which he displayed his ability both as an actor and as a sculptor, really modelling before the eyes of the audience a statue of Hebe. He sent a number of statuettes to the various exhibitions, notably one of Gilbert Louis Duprez as William Tell. Melingue's wife, Theodorine Thiesset (1813-1886), was the actress selected by Victor Hugo to create the part of Guanhumara in Burgraves at the Comedie Frangaise, where she remained ten years.

See Dumas, Une Vie d'artiste (1854).