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Cessna, a town of Italy, in Romagna, soafo.d on
the Savio, 18 m. S. by E. of Ravenna.
Cesenatico, a sea-port of Italy in Romagna,
in 1800, the inhabitants having arrested a messen-
ger with despatches, the English set fire to the
moles of the harbour, and destroyed 10 vessels.
It is seated on the Gulf of Venice, 16 in. S. E. of
Ravenna, and 8 E. of Cesena.
Cessieaux, a town of France, in the department
of Isere, 27 m. E. S. E. of Lyons.
Cette, a sea-port of France, situate on the tongue
of land, stretching along the coast of the depart-
ment of Herault, on the Gulf of Lions. A con-
siderable quantity of salt is made from the water
of the inlet. It has a manufacture of soap, and
sugar refinery, and exports a considerable quanti-
ty of brandy ; the canal of Languedoc falling
into the inlet, occasions Cette to be the medium
of an extensive intercourse between the eastern
and southern departments of France. Pop. about
8,000. The lighthouse is in lat. 43. 24. N. and 3.
42. W. long, and about 18 m. S. W. of Montpe-
lier.
Ceva, a town of Piedmont, with a fort. It was
taken by the French, in 1796, and retaken by the
Piedmontese peasants in 1799. It stands on the
Tanaro, 8 m. S. E. of Mondova. Pop. about
5.500.
Cerennts. a late territory of France, in the prov-
ince of Languedoc. It is a mountainous country,
and now forms the department of Gard.
t'the ancient AbtAo. a town of Fez. at
the X. W. extremity of Africa, opposite to Gib-
raltar. from which it is distant only 14 m. It
was taken from the Moors, by tne Portuguese in
1409; it fell into the hands of the Spaniards in
1640, and confirmed to them by the treaty of
Lisbon ia 1668, and in whose possession it still
continues. The Moors besieged it in 1694, and
maintained a close blockade before it on the land
side, for nearly 30 years, when they ultimately
retired with great loss. Its fortress, like that of
Gibraltar, to which it is considered a counterpart,
may be regarded as impregnable; and, as such,
bot h are poetically termed the Pillars of Hercules.
It has a tolerably good harbour for vessels not of
very large burthen, in the lat. of 35. 54. N. and 5.
17. WT. long.
Colon, an island of the Indian Ocean, lying
off the s *uth-west coast of the promontory of Hin-
du intm. from which it is separated by the Gulf
of Mmnra and Palk's Strait, about 90 miles in
breadth. The form of Ceylon has not inaptly
been compared to that of a pear, the north part
forming the stem. It is 270 m. in extreme
length frin Point de Galle, in the lat. of 6. 4. to
Point Pedro, in 9. 50. N. and 120 in extreme
breadth between the long, of 80. and 81. 52. E. |
The early history of Ceylon is involved in ob-
scuritv. but supposing it to be the Taprobana ad-
verted to by Strabo. Fomponius, Mela, and Pliny,
it miis: nive ranked high in population and influ-
ence among the nations of Asia, for ages antece-
dent to the Christian era. having sent an embas-
sy over land t > Rome, in the reign of the emperor
Claudius. It app-m? to have been visited by
some Nestorian missionaries, in the ninth cen-
tury. About the middie of the thirteenth century,
it was visited by Mirco Polo, a Venetian, who
travelled over a great part of Asia, and afterwards
published an account of his travel s The informa-
tion, however, which he communicated.being of
a general, rather than of a circumstantial nature,
but little was known of Ceylon, beyond its actual
existence as an island, until after the disco c y
of the passage by the Cape of Good Hope ; and
its being visited by the Portuguese in 1505, who
found it divided into several petty sovereignties
which subsequently merged into one, under the
title of the kingdom of Candy. The Portuguese
held settlements on different parts of the”coast
for upwards of 150 years, when they wrere expel-
led by the Dutch, who possessed themselves of
the entire circuit of the coast for 10 to 20 miles
from the sea, and the whole of the north part ofthe
islands ; confining the dominions of the kino- of
Candy entirely to the interior. The Dutch'pos
sessions of the island all surrendered to the Eng-
lish in 1796, after sustaining a siege of three
weeks: and in 1815 a British force marched into
the interior, took the king of Candy prisoner, de-
posed him, and possessed his territory, thereby
rendering the whole island a part of the British
dominion. The entire revenues yielded by the
island to the British government have been esti-
mated at xc2xa3250,000. The general character of the
surface of the island of Ceylon is mountainous
and woody, with an ample extent of soil; and
sufficiently intersected by streams of water, to
afford the most abundant means of subsistence
and comfort to a population more than tenfold its
present extent. The most lofty range of moun-
tains divide the island nearly into two parts, and
terminates completely the effect of the monsoons,
which set in periodically from opposite sides of
them. The seasons are more regulated by the
monsoons than the course of the sun; for the
coolest season is during the summer solstice,
while the western monsoon prevails. Spring
commences in October, and the hottest season is
from January to the beginning of April. The
climate on the coast, is more temperate than on
the continent of Hindoostan; but in the interior
of the country the heat is many degrees greater,
and the climate often extremely sultrv and un-
healthy. The finest fruits grow in vast plenty,
but there is a poisonous fruit called Adam’s apple,
which in shape resembles the quarter of an apple
cut out, with the two insides a little convex, and
a continued ridge along the outer edges ; and is
of a beautiful orange colour. Pepper, ginger, and
cardamons are produced in Ceylon; with five
kinds of rice which ripen one after another. One
of the most remarkable trees in the island is the
talipot, which grows straight and tall, and is as
big as the mast of a ship ; the leaves are so large
as to cover 15 men; when dried, they are round,
and fold up like a fan. The natives wear a
piece of the leaf on their head when they travel,
to shade them from the sun; and they are so
tough that they are not easily torn. Every sol-
dier carries one, and it serves for his tent: other
trees and shrubs, some valuable for their timber,
and others for their resin, gums, and flowers, are
interspersed over every part of the island; but
the most important of all its vegetable produc
tions is the cinnamon tree, the bark of which
is distributed over every part of the habitable
globe.
Ceylon also abounds with topazes, garnets, ru
bies, and other gems; besides ores of copper,
iron, &c. and veins of black crystal. Common
deer, as wrell as Guinea deer, are numerous; but
the horned cattle are both very small and scarce
six of them weighing altogether only 714 lbs.
and one of these only 70 lbs. Yet the island pro-
duces the largest and best elephants in the world,
which occasionally form an extensive branch of |
