63 



ACHELOUS. 



ACONCAGUA. 



51 



larly after the league comprised within itself so many states ? Did 

 the states send deputies ? Had they, in fact, a representative govern- 

 ment 1 It is difficult to answer this question, though -we are inclined 

 to think there was no strict system of representation. The short 

 time for discussion, the two yearly meetings, the general character of 

 Greek democracy, as well as most passages in which the congress is 

 spoken of, lead us to infer that this deliberative body consisted of 



citizen of the confederate states who chose to attend. That 

 this, however, could only be the case with the wealthier class, and 

 that the poor could not attend to such business so far from home, 



be self-evident. It is also certain that, on extraordinary ocea- 



a much larger number of men assembled than was usual when 

 things were going on in a more regular course. We read of one 

 special instance (Polyb. xxxvii. 4) when the Roman commissioners 

 were kicked out of the congress, then sitting at Corinth, with scorn 

 17); and Polybius adds, by way of explanation, " for there was 

 assembled a number of the working class, and of those who followed 

 mechanical occupations, greater than on any former occasion." As 

 Corinth, however, wan one of the greatest manufacturing towns of 

 Greece, and the working class occupied a higher station there than 

 those in most other places, it is possible that the regular meeting was 

 y a body of intruders. We are, however, inclined to adopt 

 the opinion of there being no representative system in the Achaoan 

 congress. Another passage of Polybius tells us that Eumenea offered 

 the eongn -.-, then sitting at Megalopolis, a large sum of money, that 

 they might, with the interest of it, pay the expenses of those who 

 attended the congress : this would imply that the number was in 

 some way limited, but how we do not undertake to say. The offer of 

 Eumenes was rejected. Other matters relating to the Aclucan league, 

 though curious to the scholar, are too little fixed to be admissible here. 

 (Polybius, book ii. 4, Ac., Hampton's translation; Strabo: Pausa- 



liook vii. ; Schlosser's L'nirerial Hittory ; Hermann, Lehrbuch 



hen Staattalterthiimci'.) 



ACHELOUS, the largest river in Greece, rises in the mountain- 

 range of Pindus, at a village called Khaliki, a name supposed to be a 

 leis, at which place the source of the river is placed 

 'onysius Periegetes, After flowing through a very uneven 



y, it enters the level land of Acarnania, and discharges itself 

 into the Ionian Sea, in ancient times having near its outlet the town 

 of CEniadoc. Its general course is from X. to 8., and its length may 

 '! miles. In the time of Thucydides (B.C. 431) the lower waters 

 of the Achelous were considered as belonging to Acaruania, but at a 

 later period this river formed a boundary between Acarnania and 



-. Th> w:ili.-rn of the Achelous are of a cream colour, in which 

 circumstance the modern name, Aapro-fotamo, or White River, origi- 

 nated. The bed of the river at the point where it enters the plain 

 near the ancient town of Stratus, in three-quarters of a mile wide ; it 

 is generally filled in winter, but in summer the river divides into 



1 rapid streams, only two of which are of any considerable size. 



Stratus, to which place in ancient times the river was navigable, 

 the stream contracts and flows in a most extraordinary scries of 

 windings through the alluvial plain extending to its mouth. 



[ACAIi.VANIA.] 



The AchcloiiK, flowing from a high mountain-range, and in the 

 winter season being loaded with water, carries down an immense 

 quantity of earthy particles, which have funned a number of Band- 

 banks and small islands at its mouth, called in ancient times the 

 Kuhinades : thi phenomenon was remarked by Herodotus, one of the 



I observers of geological facts whose writings have come down 



i'.ho compares the increase of the Egyptian Delta, from the 

 1 'ty of alluvium brought down by the Nile, with the effects pro- 

 duced by the deposits of the Achelous. In the time of Thucydides 

 these islands were increasing so fast, that he predicts (it 102) all of 

 them will he shortly joined to the main-land; some, he says, wire 

 already attached to it. There is still, however, a great number of 



islands near the month of the Aspro-Potamo, but whether some 

 of them have I*- since the time when Thucydide.s wrote 



(which is above 2000 years ago), or are the same islands which the 

 Athenian historian tells us were uninhabited in his time, we do not 

 know. It was n tradition extant in the time of Thucydides, that there 

 were no islands at the mouth of the river about a century before the 

 war of Troy ; yet, in Homer, we find the Echinades mentioned as 



!^- troops to Troy, while the Echiirnles of Thucydides's time 



inall stream of Eli, that runs into the Alphcus ; 



better known for the importance assigned to it in the Greek mythology, 



^ else. In the neighbourhood of this river, says 



Yoserpine, and Hades. Tin- ' 



onc <lf of tho realms below, over which the dead had to 



lie lake Acherusia is mentioned as the " stream which 



"> * '" wosaloo a river culled Acheron (now the Gurla, 



; art of Epirus; this stream rises in 

 its course :i - ! lake, 



""'" ib'lov. I |y enters the sea, 



'"' >>}' Str! < ;iykys Limen),andnow 



HI fresh. There was a third 

 river i itAljr. 



The name Achti-iuia was given to a small kke on the shore of 



Campania, between Gums and Cape Misenum, separated from (he sea 

 only by a bar of sand ; this is now called Lago di Fusaro. The name 

 Acheruaia is said also to have been applied to the Lucrine, and to the 

 lake Avernus. 



It is curious to observe how widely the name of Acheron was 

 diffused by the people of Greek stock, and was always connected with 

 the supposed character of the world below. The origin of this appears 

 to have been soine local peculiarities, which fear, proceeding from 

 ignorance in remote ages, turned into objects of superstitious venera- 

 tion. Even on the coasts of the Euxine, near Heraclea (Erekli), \ve 

 find a peninsula called Acherusia, where Hercules is said to have 

 descended to bring up the dog Cerberus. The Greek historian, 

 Xcnophon, who gravely reports this story, adds, what is more im- 

 portant, that there is there a deep chasm or ravine, extending several 

 hundred yards in length. 



ACHERUSIA. [ACBEROI?.] 



ACHILL, an island off the west Coast of the barony of Burrishoole 

 in the county of Mayo, in Ireland With the adjoining peninsula of 

 Corraun Achill it constitute.? the parish of Achill, and one electoral 

 division of the Poor-Law Union of Newport. It is separated from 

 the main-land by a narrow arm of the sea, called Achill Sound, con- 

 necting Clew Bay with Blacksod Harbour. The length from Achill 

 Beg island at the extremity of the Sound, on the south, to Achill 

 Head, at the Atlantic extremity of the island on the west, is 15} miles ; 

 breadth from Achill Beg on the south to Ridge Point in Blacksod 1'ay 

 on the north, 124 miles. It lies between 58 51' and 54 5' N. lat., 

 and 9 55' and 10 15' W. long. The area is 35,283 acres. The 

 population of Achill Island in 1841 was about 5000; in 1851 about 

 4000. 



The island, the name of which signifies ' Eagle,' is in form nearly a 

 right-angled triangle, of which one side extends from south to north, 

 facing the main-hind, from Achill Beg to Ridge Point ; another from 

 east to west, from Ridge Point to Achill Head, constitutes the 

 southern boundary of Blacksod Harbour ; and the third side, forming 

 a re-entrant irregular coast-line of about 35 miles, and having the Bay 

 of Trarnore about midway, is washed by the Atlantic. The surface, 

 which is excessively wild, barren, and boggy, rises towards the north 

 and west into mountains of 2000 feet and upwards ; and at one point 

 near the western extremity of the Island, Toimcroghaun, the cliff 

 towards Blacksod Bay, descends precipitously from the highest point 

 of the island, forming a shelving face of rock, of the extraordinary 

 height of 2208 feet. Achill Head, at the extreme west, consists of a 

 narrow ridge of rock, of about a mile in length, and from 300 to 400 

 feet in height, the summit of which is in some places but a few yards 

 in width. The coast on the south-western side is also very precipitous : 

 the cliff at Dooega Head, which forms the eastern boundary of Tramore 

 Bay, rises 818 feet over the Atlantic, and is nearly perpendicular. 

 The geological structure of the island is simple ; the whole being a 

 moss of mica slate. 



Of the entire surface of Achill Island and Corrauu Achill, com- 

 prising an area of 51,523 acres, and inhabited, iu!841, by a population 

 of 6392 persons, there were only 554 acres under cultivation in 1848, 

 and in 1851 the population of the parish had fallen to 4950. The 

 hamlets consist of the moat wretched hovels huddled together without 

 the least regularity. In the district between Touacreghaun and 

 Achill Head, at Boley, some of the huts still inhabited are built of 

 drystone in the beehive form. There are three considerable villages; 

 one at Keem, on the south-west, where there is a good boat-harbour ; 

 another at Keel, on the sandy beach of Tramore; and a third at 

 Doogort, at the opposite side 1 on a similar sandy beach in 



Blacksod Bay. About half-a-mile from Doogort, on the eastern slope 

 of the mountain of Sleivemore, stands "the missionary colony of the 

 Rev. Mr. Nangle, a clergyman of the Kstabli.-hed Church. The Achill 

 i c uisists of a row of ecvoral substantial slated houses, standing 

 in the midst of about 40 acres of cultivated land, and comprises a 

 church, dispensary, tuck-mill, corn-mill, schools, and a printing 

 : hmeut. 



7"f frclatid ; Parl. Jtcturns ; Tour in Connaiiyltt.) 



ACHMIN, or ACKMIN, a town in Middle Egypt, in 28 38' N. lat., 

 on the right bank of the Nile, with which it is connected by an ancient 

 canal. Achmin eontr.'iis above 3000 inhabitants, who manufacture some 

 ' otton cloth ; 2000 are Catholic Copts, who have a largo church. 

 This town is the Chtmmit of Herodotus and other Greek writers, the 

 Arabic name, Achmin, being formed by prefixing the letter A, which 

 we find to be the case in many other names. Herodotus mentions a 

 large temple here with colossal statues. At present there arc the ruins 

 of two temples to be seen at Achmin, and on an architrave, at this 

 place, a Greek inscription has been di. covered, which contains a dedi- 

 cation to the god Pan tbu confirming the opinion that the 1'anopolis 

 of the later writers was Mir nld I 'In'inmis of Herodotus, a name which 

 endures to the present day. The hills in the neighbourhood of this 

 town are full of excavations, which perhaps originally served to receive 

 the mummies of Chemmis, and afterwards to shelter the Christians 

 during the cruel persecution of Diocletian. 



('Egyptian Antiquities,' in the Library of Entertain imj Ki^n-lcdge; 

 Ritter' ' ; < .) 



ACIIONHV. [Suoo.] 



ACONCAGUA, a province of Chili, in South America, extends 



