with wretched shops, and as wretched inhabitants. I quarry of materials. The principal bath of Acre The port of Acre is one of the best on the coast, is considered as the finest of any in the Turkish being sheltered from the north and north-west dominions. This city also contains two bazaars, winds by the town, which is situated on a pro- or market-places; three khans, or inns, for the montory. It is greatly choked up since the time reception of goods and the accommodation of of Fakr-eddin. The fortifications are unimpor- travellers; and several coffee-houses. The countant; there are only a few low towers near the try about Acre is exceedingly fertile, aboundport, on which cannon are mounted; but so rusty ing in cattle, corn, olives, and linseed. In and bad, that some of them burst every time they the time of Djezzar, a great quantity of cotton are fired. Its defence on the land side is merely was exported thence. In the light sandy soil a garden-wall without a ditch. The possession of which lies near the town, Dr. Clarke observed Acre is, however, of great importance, as it keeps plantations of water-melons, pumpkins, and a the inhabitants of the country in a state of sub- little corn. The air of Acre is superior to that of jection. It is the sole avenue by which the rice, Cyprus; a remark which applies generally to all which is the staple food of the people, can enter; the coast of Syria and Palestine, and is veriso that the ruler of Acre may, if he please, dry up fied by the absence of noxious reptiles, and of the resources of Syria, and cause a famine to ra- venomous insects, such as toads and mosquitoes, vage that whole region. It also commands, en- which always pervade an insalubrious region.* tirely, the great plain of Esdraelon, which is the Accho was considered as heathen land by the richest territory of Syria. It may be called the Jews, and all beyond it, northwards. There was key of the Holy Land. Ships anchor with most a bath of Venus of considerable antiquity here; security in that part of the bay which lies to the and, as the rabbins thought, prior to the reference north of Mount Carmel; but the harbour is ex- of it to the goddess. The town of Acre will long posed to the north-west wind, which rages along be famous for the repulse here given to Buonathe coast. The town was originally surrounded parte and the French army, by the English under by triple walls, and a fosse cut out of the rock, Sir Sidney Smith, in 1799, which terminated from which, at present, it is a mile distant. At the Syrian expedition of the emperor of France. the south and west sides it was washed by the sea; Since the time of its siege, it has been much it had a small bay to the east, which is now almost strengthened, and considerably beautified and filled up; and Pococke is of opinion, that the improved. river Belus was brought through the fosse which ran along the ramparts on the north-thus making the city an island. The houses are built of cut stone; and they are flat-roofed, with terraces. The remains of a considerable edifice are observable on the left of the mosque, towards the north side of the city. In its style of architecture it was Gothic, on which account it was, perhaps, called by Englishmen, "King Richard's palace." Some pointed arches, and a part of the cornice, remained when Dr. Clarke visited the place; but at the time of Mr. Buckingham's visit they were razed to the ground. The rest of the ruins, according to Dr. Clarke, were those of the arsenal, the college of the knights, the palace and chapel of the grand master, and ten or twelve other churches. These, also, says Mr. Buckingham, are altogether gone. Three of the churches were originally dedicated to St. Saba, St. Thomas, and St. Nicholas. In the garden of Djezzar Pacha's palace, there are some pillars of yellow variegated marble, of exquisite beauty, which have been brought from the ruins of Cæsarea. Close to the entrance of the palace is a beautiful fountain of white marble, which, together with almost all the marble used in the decorations of his sumptuous mosque, are constructed from the same rich ACELDAMA, a field south of Jerusalem, which the priests purchased with the thirty pieces of silver that had rewarded the treason of Judas Iscariot, as the price of Jesus Christ's blood, Matt. xxvii. 8; Acts i. 19. Holding it not to be lawful to use this money for sacred purposes, because it was the price of blood, they bought the potter's field with it, to be a burying-place for strangers. The field is very small, and is partly covered with an arched roof. It was formerly reported that bodies deposited in it were consumed in less than three or four days. It is now used as the sepulchre of the Armenians, who have a convent on Mount Zion. ACHAIA, taken in its largest sense, compiehended the whole of Greece or Hellas; but in a more confined sense it was that province in the Morea afterwards called 'Romania alta,' of which Corinth was the capital. Here Paul preached (Acts xviii. 12); and it is worthy of remark, says Mr. Taylor, that Luke, in the passage just referred to, calls Gallio deputy (i. e. proconsul) of Achaia; which, indeed, was the title of the superior officer there at the time he wrote; but which had not * Clarke's Travels, vol. iv., p. 84, 8vo. edit.; Buckingham's Travels, p. 71, 4to. edit.; Ency. Metrop., vol. xvii., p. 93. long been so, and did not long continue so; an accuracy which greatly confirms the general tenor and truth of his narrative. ACHOR, a valley in the territory of Jericho, and in the tribe of Benjamin, where Achan was stoned, Josh. vii. 24, xv. 7. ACHZIB; there were several small towns of this name, but they are of no historical importance. ACKSAPH, a city belonging to the tribe of Asher, the king of which was conquered by Joshua (chap. xii. 20). Some are of opinion that Acksaph is the same as Ecdippa, on the Mediterranean between Tyre and Ptolemais: but others think that Ecdippa is inserted in Joshua (chap. xix. 29) under the name of Achzib. The Arabs call a place three hours north from Ptolemais Zib, which is the spot where Ecdippa formerly stood. It is probable that Acksaph and Ackzib are but different names for the same town. ACRA, one of the mountains on which Jerusalem was built. ACRABATENE. There were two places bearing this name, 1. A district in Judæa, extending between Shechem (now Napolose) and Jericho, east; and being about twelve miles in length. 2. A district, on the frontier of Idumea, towards the southern extremity of the Dead Sea. ADAD-RIMMON, or Hadad-Rimmon, a city in the valley of Jezreel, where the fatal battle between Josiah, king of Judah, and Pharaoh-necho, king of Egypt, was fought (2 Kings xxiii. 29; Zech. xii. 11). It was afterwards called Maximianopolis, in honour of the emperor Maximian; and is seventeen miles distant from Cæsarea, and ten miles from Jezreel. ADARSA, or ADASA, a city of Ephraim, about four miles from Beth-horon, probably between the upper Bethoron and Diospolis; because it is said (1 Macc. vii. 40, 45) the victorious army of Judas pursued the Syrians from Adasa to Gadara, or Gazara, which is one day's journey. It is also called Adazer, and Adaco, or Acedosa, in Josephus. Here Nicanor was overcome by Judas Maccabæus, who was subsequently himself killed in the same place, De Bello, lib. i., cap. 1. ADIABENE, a region of Assyria, whose queen Helena and her son Izates were made converts to Judaism. It is now called Boutan. same name on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea; for Isaiah (xv. ult.), according to the LXX., says, "God will destroy the Moabites, the city of Ar, and the remnant of Adama." ADRAMYTIUM, a maritime town of Mysia, in Asia Minor, opposite to the island of Lesbos (Acts xxvii. 2), and an Athenian colony, now called Adramyti. From some of the medals struck in this town, it appears that it celebrated the worship of Castor and Pollux (Acts xxviii. 11), as also that of Jupiter and Minerva. ADRIA, a city of Italy, on the Tartaro, in the state of Venice, which gave name to the Adriatic Sea, or the Sea of Adria, Acts xxvii. 27. It appears, from the narrative of Paul's voyage, just referred to, that, although the name of Adria belonged in a proper sense only to the sea within the Adriatic gulf, it was given in a loose manner to a larger extent of the ocean, including the Sicilian and Ionian Sea. ADULLUM, a city in the south of Judah, between ten and eleven miles east of Eleutheropolis, the king of which was killed by Joshua, Josh. xii. 15; xv. 35. Rehoboam rebuilt and fortified it (2 Chron. xi. 7, 8), and Judas Maccabæus encamped in the adjacent plain, 2 Macc. xii. 38. The prophet Micah has a kind of play upon the word Adullam, where he says, "He shall come unto Adullam [the ornament], the glory [ornament] of Israel, ch. i. 15. When David withdrew from Achish, king of Gath, he retired to a cave near this spot, 1 Sam. xxii. 1; 2 Sam. xxiii. 13. ADUMMIM, a town and mountain of Benjamin (Josh. xv. 7, xviii. 17), west of Jericho. AFRICA. See page 44, ante. AHAVA, a river of Babylonia, or of Assyria, where Ezra assembled those captives who were returning to Judæa, Ezra viii. 15. It is supposed to have run along the Adiabene, where a river Diava, or Adiava, is mentioned, on which Ptolemy places the city Abane, or Aavane, probably the country called Ava (2 Kings xvii. 24, xviii. 34, xix. 13), whence the kings of Assyria translated the people called Avites into Palestine; and where, in their room, they settled a part of the captive Israelites. The history of Izates, king of the Adiabenians, and his mother Helena, who became converts to Judaism some years after the death of Christ, proves, as Calmet remarks, that there were many Jews remaining in that country. AJALON, a city of Dan (Josh. xix. 42), assigned ADMAH, the most easterly of the five cities of to the Levites of Kohath's family, sometimes the plain, destroyed by fire from heaven, and after-named Elom, or Ailom, and supposed to have wards overwhelmed by the waters of the Dead taken its name, which signifies oaks, from the Sea, Gen. xix. 24. The inhabitants of the country circumstance of its being built in a valley aboundappear subsequently to have built a city of the ing with those trees. Eusebius says, there was a ADIDA, a city of Judah, where Simon Maccabæus encamped to dispute the entrance into the country with Tryphon, who had treacherously seized Jonathan at Ptolemais, 1 Macc. xiii. 13. place called Ajalon three miles east of Bethel; the general of Omar, to his master, "the great but this cannot be the place mentioned by Joshua city of the West. It is impossible for me to (x. 12), for this did not belong to Dan; and enumerate the variety of its riches and beauty: Bethel was too remote from that tribe. Jerome I shall content myself with observing that it connotices another Ajalon, two miles from Shechem, in the way to Jerusalem, and near to Gibeon. In 2 Chron. xxviii. 18, Ajalon is placed between Bethshemesh and Timnah; and there was also a city called Ajalon in the tribe of Zebulun, Judges xii. 12. Thus, says Calmet, there were four cities of this name. (1) Ajalon in Dan, between Timnah and Bethshemesh; probably that spoken of by Joshua. (2) Ajalon in Benjamin, east of Bethel, 2 Chron. xi. 10. (3) Ajalon in Ephraim, not far from Shechem. (4) Ajalon in Zebulun (Judges xii. 12); but its situation is not known. ALEXANDRIA, a celebrated city in Egypt, situated between the Mediterranean Sea and the lake Mareotis, founded by Alexander the Great, and peopled by colonies of Greeks and Jews. It rose rapidly to a state of prosperity, becoming the centre of commercial intercourse between the East and the West; and in process of time, was, both for magnitude and wealth, second only to Rome itself. The ancient city, according to Pliny, was about fifteen miles in circuit, peopled by 300,000 free citizens, and as many slaves. From the gate of the sea ran one magnificent street, 2000 feet broad, through the entire length of the city, to the gate of Canopus, affording a beach, and a view of the shipping in the port, whether north in the Mediterranean, or south in the noble bason of the Mareotic Lake. Another street, of equal width, intersected this at right angles, in a square half a league in circumference; so that the whole city appears to have been divided into two streets intersecting each other. Upon the death of Alexander, his body was deposited in his new city, and Alexandria, became the regal capital of Egypt, under the Ptolemies, and rose to its highest splendour. The most celebrated philosophers from the East, as well as from Greece and Rome, resorted thither for instruction; and eminent men in every department of knowledge were found within its walls. Ptolemy Soter, the first of that line of kings, formed the museum and library, and several other splendid works; and his son, Philadelphus, consummated several of his undertakings. At the death of Cleopatra, ante A. D. 26, Alexandria passed into the hands of the Romans, under whom it became the theatre of several memorable events; and after having enjoyed the highest fame for upwards of a thousand years, it submitted to the arms of the caliph Omar, A. D. 646. Such was its magnificence, that the conquerors themselves were astonished at the extent of their acquisition. "I have taken," said Amrou, tains 4000 palaces, 4000 baths, 400 theatres or ALLUSH, or ALUSH (Numb. xxxiii. 13), is either one of the cities of Idumæa, or the southernmost cape or point of the Red Sea, now Ras Mahommed; it is not certain which. AMANA. There are two mountains bearing this name, in the Old Testament. (1) A mountain mentioned in Cant. iv. 8, and by some supposed to be Mount Amanus in Cilicia. Jerome and the rabbins describe the land of Israel as extending northward to this mountain; and it is known that Solomon's dominion did extend so far. Mount Amanus, with its connexions, separates Syria and Cilicia, and reaches from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates. (2) A mountain beyond Jordan, in the tribe of Manasseh, and three leagues distant from lake Merom. It is three leagues in circumference at its base, where there are fine vineyards; but its top is always covered with snow, whence the Arabians call it "Gibel Sheik ;" the "Old Man's Mountain." AMMON, OF AMMON-No, a city of Egypt, which the prophets describe as being situated among the rivers; as having the waters surrounding it; as having the sea as its rampart; and as being ex- | Phocas retook it, A. D. 966. Cedrenus relates, tremely populous. This description has induced Calmet, and the majority of interpreters, to consider No-Ammon as the same with Diospolis, or the city of Jupiter, in Lower Egypt, the ruin of which was so distinctly foretold by the prophets, and occurred under Esarhaddon, Nebuchadnezzar, and Sennacherib. AMPHIPOLIS, a city between Macedonia and Thrace, being dependent on the former, Acts xvii. 1. It was also called Chrysopolis, or Christopolis; and in the division of Macedonia by Paulus Æmilius, it was made the chief city of the first region of Macedonia, and a metropolis. that, A. D. 970, an army of 100,000 Saracens besieged it, without success; but they afterwards subdued it, added new fortifications to it, and made it almost impregnable. Godfrey of Bulloigne, when engaged in the conquest of the Holy Land, besieged it, A. D. 1097. The siege was long and bloody; but at length the Christians, by their zeal and treachery, obtained possession, A. D 1098. In 1268, it was taken by the sultan of Egypt, who demolished it, destroyed its reputation and magnificence, and placed it under the dominion of the Turk. It is now called Antakia, and till the year 1822, it occupied a remote corner of the ancient inclosure of its walls, its splendid buildings being reduced to hovels, and its population living in Turkish debasement. At that period, it was revisited by its ancient subterranean enemy, and converted into a heap of ruins. Thus "the queen of the East," is brought down, and "sits in the dust," silent and in darkness. She "shall no more be called the lady of kingdoms." AR, AREOPOLIS, ARIEL of MOAB, or RABBATHMOAB, the capital of the Moabites, on the river Arnon, which divided it into two parts; whence it is called the two Ariels (lions) of Moab." Ariel being, as is thought, the idol of these people, Epiphanius says, that a small tract of land, adjoining to Moab, Ituræa, and the country of the Nabathæans, is called Arielitis. Isaiah (xvi. 7, 11) calls it "the city with walls of burnt brick;" in Hebrew, Kirharescheth, or Kirjathhares. Calmet takes Charac-Moba, or Charax-Moab, to be the same with Ar and Areopolis. Burckhardt found a place called Rabba, about 25 miles south of the Arnon, with ruins about a mile and a half in circuit. ARABIA. See page 426, ante. ANTIOCH, a city of Syria, 67 miles west of Aleppo, and which is often mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, and rendered especially memorable as the place at which the disciples of Christ were first called by his name, Acts xi. 26; xv. 22, &c. It was built by Seleucus Nicanor, A. D. 301, who named it after his father. It became the residence of the Macedonian kings of Syria, and afterwards of the Roman governors of that province. The city is said to have been four miles in circumference, and to have been composed of four distinct towns or quarters, whence it had the name of 'Tetrapolis.' It was famous among the Jews for the Jus Civitatis, or right of citizenship, which Seleucus had given to them in common with the Greeks and Macedonians, and which Josephus informs us they retained. These privileges, no doubt, contributed to render Antioch so desirable to the Christians, who were every where considered as a sect of Jews, since here they could perform their worship in their own way, without molestation or interruption. This may also contribute to account for the importance attached by the apostles to the introduction of the gospel into Antioch; and for the interest taken by them in its promotion and extension, in a city so distant from Jerusalem. The emperors Vespasian, Titus, and others, granted considerable privileges to Antioch; but it has also been exposed to great calamities and revolutions. In the years A. D. 115, ARARAT, a mountain in Armenia, on which 340, 394, 396, 458, 526, and 528, it was almost the ark of Noah is said to have rested (Gen. viii. demolished by earthquakes. The emperor Jus-4), is twelve leagues from Erivan, east, and is tinian repaired it, A. D. 529, and called it Theo- situated in a vast plain, in the midst of which it polis; that is, “The city of God." Cosrhoes, king rises. The eastern people call it Ar-dag, or Parmakof Persia, took it, A. D. 540, massacred the in- dagh, the finger mountain. It is, as it were, taken habitants, and burnt it. Justinian ordered it to off from the other mountains of Armenia, which be rebuilt, A. D. 552: Cosrhoes took it a second form a long chain; and from the top to the middle, time, A. D. 574, in the reign of Justin, and de- it is often covered with snow three or four months stroyed its walls. A. D. 588, it suffered a dread- of the year. The Persians call Ararat "mount ful earthquake, in which above 60,000 persons Asis," as if they should say, "the happy or fortuperished. It was again rebuilt, and again was ex-nate mountain" (which, perhaps, is not far from posed to new calamities. The Saracens took it, the etymology of Asia-the happy country), A. D. 633, in the reign of Heraclius: Nicephorus alluding to the choice which God made of it, as ARAM, or SYRIA. There are several countries of this name mentioned in Scripture; as Aram Naharaïm, or Syria of the Two Rivers, that is, of Mesopotamia; Aram of Damascus ; Aram of Soba; Aram of Bethrehob; and Aram of Maachah. See SYRIA, p. 440, ante. a port for Noah. The Armenians maintain, by | tremendous mountain-pyramids, but in vain; their tradition, that, since Noah, no one has been able form, snows, and glaciers are insurmountable obto climb this mountain, because it is perpetually stacles, the distance being so great from the comcovered with snow, which never melts, unless to mencement of the icy regions to the highest points, make room for other snow, newly fallen; that Noah, cold alone would be the destruction of any person when he left the ark, settled at Erivan, twelve who should have the hardihood to persevere. On leagues from Ararat; and that at a league from viewing Mount Ararat from the northern side of this city, in a very happy aspect, that patriarch the plain, its two heads are separated by a wide planted the vine in a place which at present yields cleft, or rather glen, in the body of the mountain. excellent wine. Mr. Morier describes Ararat as The rocky side of the greater head runs almost being most beautiful in shape, and most awful in perpendicularly down to the north-east, while the height; and Sir Robert Ker Porter has furnished lesser head rises from the sloping bottom of the the following graphic picture of this stupendous cleft, in a perfectly conical shape. Both heads are work of nature: "As the vale opened beneath covered with snow. The form of the greater is us, in our descent, my whole attention became similar to the less, only broader and rounder at absorbed in the view before me. A vast plain top, and shows to the north-west a broken and peopled with countless villages; the towers and abrupt front, opening about half way down into spires of the churches of Eitch-mai-adzen arising a stupendous chasm, deep, rocky, and peculiarly from amidst them; the glittering waters of the black. At that part of the mountain, the hollow Araxes flowing through the fresh green of the of the chasm receives an interruption from the vale; and the subordinate range of mountains projection of the minor mountains, which start skirting the base of the awful monument of the from the side of Ararat, like branches from the antediluvian world;-it seemed to stand a stupen- root of a tree, and run along in undulating prodous link in the history of man, uniting the two gression, till lost in the distant vapours of the races of men before and after the flood. But it plain." It has been maintained, however, that was not until we had arrived upon the flat plain that the ark rested upon Mount Caucasus, near ApaI beheld Ararat in all its amplitude of grandeur. mea, in Phrygia. The most formidable argument From the spot on which I stood, it appeared as if that has been urged against the Armenian Ararat the hugest mountains of the world had been piled being that on which the ark rested, is derived upon each other, to form this one sublime im- from Gen. xii. 2, where it is said that the sons of mensity of earth, and rock, and snow. The icy Noah "journeyed from the east to the land of peaks of its double head rose majestically into Shinar;" whereas the Ararat of Armenia is to the the clear and cloudless heavens; the sun blazed west of this region. To meet this difficulty, bright upon them, and the reflection sent forth a Mr. Bryant supposes, that while the other families dazzling radiance equal to other suns. This point of Noah took the routes assigned them, the reof the view united the utmost grandeur of plain bellious sons of Cush went eastward, towards the and height; but the feelings I experienced while Caspian sea, and then passing the extremity of looking on the mountain are hardly to be described. Mount Taurus, by the Pyla Caspiæ, or straits beMy eye, not able to rest for any length of time tween the mountain and the sea, bent southward, on the blinding glory of its summits, wandered and then eastward, into the land of Shinar, then down the apparently interminable sides, till I could pre-occupied by the sons of Shem; from whence no longer trace their vast lines in the mists of the they expelled Assur by violence, and took poshorizon; when an inexpressible impulse, imme- session of the country assigned him in the general diately carrying my eye upwards again, refixed division of the earth. In this way, he is of my gaze on the awful glare of Ararat; and this opinion that it may truly be said, they "journeyed bewildered sensibility of sight, being answered from the east." Mr. Faber, however, after Granby a similar feeling in the mind, for some moments ville Sharpe, has, we think, offered a more satisI was lost in a strange suspension of the powers factory solution of the difficulty, because he makes of thought." Of the two peaks, called Little and the whole family of mankind journey in a direct Great Ararat, which are separated by a chasm route toward Shinar. "The truth of the matter about seven miles in width, Sir Robert Ker Porter is, that Moses does not speak of the route by thus speaks: "These inaccessible summits have which mankind arrived at Babel, but of the time never been trodden by the foot of man, since the when they journeyed there. The Hebrew word, days of Noah, if even then; for my idea is, that ill rendered in our English translation, from the the ark rested in the space between these heads, east, denotes before, in the sense of either time or and not on the top of either. Various attempts place. When used to describe the course of have been made in different ages to ascend these Hiddekel, that that river flowed before Assyria, |