DAMUGGO', a large and populous t. of Upper Guinea, Africa, situated on the left bank of the Niger, in lat. 7° n., long. 7° 50' cast. The houses, built of mud, and sup ported by wooden props, are circular in shape. The town is dirty, and has it miserable appearance. The population, the number•of which has not been ascertained with any degree of accuracy, support themselves by trade and the cultivation of the soil.
DAN, a city, the position of which, at the'northern extremity of Palestine, is deter mined: 1. By its being the northern point on the road to Damascus. at which Abraham overtook the allied forces that had plundered Sodom. 2. By its frequent designation as the northern limit of the land, as in the familiar expression—" from Dan to Beer sheba." 3. By the statement of Josephus, that it stood at the lesser fountain of the Jordan; and that of Jerome, that at it the Jordan took its rise, and, as lie thought front his view of the etymology, obtained its name Jor-Dan, as "the river of Dan." 4. By Dr. Robinson's discovery, in the same locality, of "a mound from the foot of which gushes out one of the largest fountains of the world—the main source of the Jordan," the signification of whose Arabic name, Tell el Kadi, judge's mound," agrees with that of the Hebrew Dan, ." a judge." The manner in which the tribe of Dan acquired possession of this region is narrated in the book of Judges. Their inheritance by lot_ was well situated near the powerful tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim; but the. most fertile part of it was too small for them, and was often overrun by the Amorites and Philistines. In order to enlarge their territory they sent out spies to search for a fertile region which they might obtain by force or craft. These having gone to the north, reported that they had found there a large and good land abounding in supplies for every want, and inhabited by a people careless and secure. So the tribe, having
arrayed itself for war, fell suddenly on the coveted region, putting the inhabitants to death and burning the city. When they rebuilt it they changed its name from Laish to Dan after their father. The subsequent history of the city is peculiar. The Danites stole not only the good land and the city, but also the religion which they established there. On their way north they found in Mt. Ephraim a house in which was a priest of the tribe of .Levi, with an ephod and teraphim, a molten and a graven image. All these they carried away with them and set up the idolatrous worship under a permanent priesthood in their conquered, home. .Four hundred years afterwards Jereboam remod Bled the worship, making Dan the religious center for the northern part of the kingdom which he had usurped. This it continued to be until, about 230 years later, the people were carried captive into Assyria. At the present day the top of the mound is strewed with ruins, including traces of old foundations and heaps of large stones. There are ruins also on the plain below. The fertility of the plain or valley, remarkable in the times of the Sidonians, continues to the present day.
DAN, the fifth son of Jacob and the first by his wife's maid Bilimh. Ile was own brother to Naphtali, and there is a close affinity between his name and that of Dinah, Jacob's only daughter. The tribe of Dau was, next to Judah, the most numerous of the twelve tribes at the numbering in the wilderness; yet he was the last of all to receive his portion of the land, and that portion was the smallest of all. The Bible gives but little of the history of the tribe, which seems to have been easily and often led to copy the idolatry of the surrounding heathen.