which gives name to the Adriatic sea, and was
formerlv of great note, hut has been much reduced
by frequent inundations. It is seated on the
Tartaro. 25 m. S. S. W. of Venice.

Adrianople, a city of European Turkey, in
Romania, the see of a Greek archbishop, and
formerly the European seat of the Turkish do-
minion. It is eight m. in circumference, situ-
ate in a plain, on the river Marissa, which here
receives two tributary streams. Several of the
mosques are very splendid, and many of the
houses neat, but the streets are narrow and devi-
ous. The seraglio is separated from the city by
die river Arda, and commands an extensive view
of the country, which is fertile, and famous for
excellent vines. The commerce of the city hy
the river is considerable, and celebrated for its
beautiful red dye. The Turks took this city
from the Greeks in 1362. It is 135 m. N. W. of
Constantinople. Long. 22. 30. E. lat. 41. N.

Adriatic Sea. See Venice, Gulf of.

Adventure Bay, at the S. E. end of Van Die-
men’s land, so called from the ship in which Cap-
tain Furneax sailed. Long. 147. 30. E. lat. 43.

23. S.    _v

JEgades or JEgates, three small islands on the
W. side of Sicily, between Marsella and Trapani;
their names are Levenzo, Favignana, and Mare-
tima.

JEtna or Etna, a celebrated burning mountain
of Sicily, now called by the natives Monte Gibel-
lo. It is situated in the Eastern part of the isl-
and, in long. 15. 0. E. lat. 38. 0. N. Pindar, who
lived 435 years before Christ, calls it the Pillar of
Heaven, on account of its great height, which is
generally reckoned to be about 11,000 feet; and
its circumference at the base 70 m. It affords an
epitome of all the differences of climate. The
summit is a league in circumference, and within
formed like a vast amphitheatre, from whence
flames, ashes, and smoke, issue in divers places.
Eruptions of this mountain are mentioned by
Diodorus Siculus, as happening 1,693 years before
Christ; and Thucydides speaks of three erup-
tions, which happened in 734, 477, and 425, B. C.
From this period till 1447, there were about 18
different eruptions, the most destructive of which
were in 1169 and 1329; there have been other
eiuptions since, which have done immense dam-
age, particularly those in 1669,1755, 1780, and
1787. In 1809 eruptions took place in 12 differ-
enA^parts of the mountain, and covered the adja-
cent land with lava to the depth of 40 feet,
and another eruption occurred in 1822.

Afghanistan, a country of Asia, stretching
from the mountains of Tartary to the Arabian
sea, and from the Indus to the confines of Persia.
The inhab. of this wide domain have no written
character, and speak a language peculiar to them-
selves. They are a robust hardy race of men;
and being generally addicted to a state of preda-
tory warfare, their manners partake of a barbar-
ous insolence. They avow a fixed contempt for
the occupations of civil life; and are esteemed
the most negligent of religious observances, of all
the Mahometans. Their common dress consists
of a shirt, which falls over the upper part of
long and narrow trowsers; a woolen vest, fitted
closely to the body, and reaching to the midleg;
and a high turned-up cap of broadcloth or cotton,
usually of one colour, and of a conic form, with
two small parallel slits in the upper edge of its
facing. The principal cities of Afghanistan are
Candahar and Gabul, the former of which was
the capital; but the late and present sultans have
kept their court at Cabul. About the year 1720
an army of Afghans invaded Persia, took Ispahan,
and made the sultan Husseyn prisoner. They
kept possession of Ispahan and the southern prov-
inces for ten years, when they were defeated in
several battles, and driven out of the country by
Nadir Kuli, commonly known in Eurone by the
name of Kouli Khan. After Nadir haa deposed
his sovereign, Shah Thamas, he laid seige to and
took Candahar; but afterward received a consid-
erable body of Afghans into his army, who be-
came his favourite foreign troops. On bis assas-
sination, in 1747, the general of the Afghan
troops, though furiously attacked by the whole
Persian army, effected a safe retreat into his own
country, where he caused himself to be acknowl-
edged sovereign of the Afghan kingdom. In 1808
the English E. India company deputed the Hon.
Mount Stuart Elphinstone on a mission to Cau-
bul, accompanied by a large military retinue.
The mission left Delhi on the 13th Oct. the re-
sult of their observations and enquiries on the
then circumstances and condition of Caubul, (by
which name the Afghan territory is generally
called,) as well as the countries through which
the mission passed, have been since published.

Africa, one of the four great divisions of the
world, forming a peninsula to Asia, to which it
is connected by a neck of land at the N. E. ex-
tremity, about 60 m. across, called the isthmus
of Suez. In its extreme length it extends from
Cape Negro, in lat. 37. 21. N. to False Cape in
lat. 34. 25. S. being about 4,300 m. and in its ex-
treme breadth from Cape Verd in 17. 34. W. to
Cape Guardafui in 51. 32. E. long, being about

4,100 m. It will however in the first place be
well to consider Africa as divided by nature into
two great parts, N. and S., by a chain of moun-
tains, commonly called the Mountains of the
Moon, supposed to extend across the entire con-
tinent between the 7th to the 11th degrees of N.
lat. North Africa will then on its other sides be
bounded, on the E. by the Arabian gulf or Red
sea, on the N. by the Mediterranean, and on the
W. by the Atlantic ocean, approximating in form
to a parallelogram; the mean length of which
from W. to E. is about fifty degrees of long, and
the mean breadth from N. to S. about 27 degrees
of lat. forming an area of about 4,550,000 sq. m.
of which the great deserts of Sahara, Tuarick,
and Lybia constitute about one third of the ex-
tent. N. Africa is subdivided into a great num-
ber of kingdoms, states and territories; the
most prominent of which are, Galla, Abyssinia,
Sennaar, and Nubia on the E. bordering on the
Red sea, Egypt, at the N. E. extremity, Lybia,
Fezzan, and Barbary, (comprising, Tripoli, Tunis,
Algiers, and Fez;) on the N. bordering on the
Mediterranean, and Morocco at the N. W. ex-
tremity, bounded by the Atlantic ocean ; a large
extent of coast S. of Morocco, is called Azanago,
and S. of the river Senegal in lat. 16. N. to Sier-
ra Leone in lat. 8.30. the coast is occupied by sev-
eral Negro tribes, the limits of whose territories
are very imperfectly defined. Inland, S. of the
great desert, are the kingdoms of Tombuctoo,
Houssa, Cassina, and Wangara; and E. of the
desert, are Ashber, Bornou, Begherm, Bergoo,
Darfur, &c. &c. With the exception of the des-
erts and the more mountainous districts, this part
of Africa is well watered, and exceedingly fertile.
The most celebrated river is the Nile, which,
rising from various sources on the N. side of the