AMPHILA, BAY OF. 



AMSTERDAM. 



318 



of the place, for a very great number of bodies are carried to a 

 distance among the hills and buried there in the usual Chinese 

 fashion. The population of Amoy is estimated at 250,000. 



Little is known of the history of this city. The king of Tywan, on 

 taking Amoy, in 1675, issued a proclamation making the trade of 

 Amoy free for three years. Many vessels in consequence resorted to 

 the port, but the exemption was speedily revoked. In 1681 the town 

 was taken by the Tartars, and Europeans were allowed to trade there 

 until 1734, when the exactions of the Mandarins deterred them from 

 continuing so unprofitable an intercourse. The ship Amherst visited 

 Amoy in 1832 ; but the obstacles raised by the authorities prevented 

 the Chinese from trading. In the late war with China, Amoy was the 

 chief military depot of the province of Fo-kien. It was taken 

 August 26, 1841, by the English, who held the island of Ko-lang-su 

 for some years as a guarantee for the fulfilment of the treaty of 

 Nankin. By this treaty a British consul and British subjects were 

 allowed to reside at Amoy, and the trade was regulated by a sup- 

 plementary treaty in 1843. Since then the trade has been opened 

 to all nations. 



AMPHILA, BAY OF, a bay extending for about 16 miles along the 

 W. coast of the Ked Sea, in 14 30' N. lat., 41 E. long. There are 

 13 islands in the bay, the largest of which, also called Amphila and 

 lying near its south-eastern extremity, is not quite a mile in length. Of 

 these islands one only is a rock of calcareous stone ; the others are all 

 composed of corallines, madrepores, and other marine alluvia, strongly 

 cemented together, and covered with a thin layer of soil. None of them 

 is inhabited. Amphila in probably not a native word, but a corruption 

 of the Greek ' ArTiipiAou AI^TJK, mentioned by Strabo (Casaub. 771). 



(Salt's Abyisinia.) 



AMPHILOCHIA. [ACARNAMA.] 



AMPHI'POLLS, an ancient Greek city of Macedonia, situated on 

 the left bank of the Strymon, just below its egress from the lake 

 KerkinitM (now Takino), and about three miles from the sea. This 

 town was at first called Ennea Uodoi, or ' Nine Ways,' from the 

 number of ways that met in it, and belonged to the Edouiaus, a 

 Thracian people. The first attempt at colonisation here was made by 

 Aristagoras of Miletus, who with his followers were cut off by the 

 Edonians, B.C. 497. The Athenians next made an attempt to settle 

 here 10,000 colonists, B.C. 465, consisting of Athenian citizens and 

 allies, but the Thracians destroyed them all at Drabescus. They sent 

 out another colony, however, under Agnon, son of Nikias, who took 

 Ennea Hodoi in 437 B.C., and enlarged and fortified the town, to which 

 he gave the name of Amphipolis, because the river Strymon flowed 

 round it on the south, west, and north. A long wall pierced by three 

 gates, and extending in a direction from south-south-west to iiorth- 

 nurth-east, was built across the laud on the chord of the horse-shoe 

 curve formed by the river, and thus the town was defended on every 

 side. To the south of the city the Strymon was crossed by a bridge, 

 which formed the principal means of communication between Mace- 

 donia and Thrace, and was connected with the long wall by a palisade. 

 At a short distance east of the town was Mount Pangoms, which had 

 gold mines, and was joined to the city by a ridge ; and at nearly the 

 game distance west of the town, and on the right bank of the river, 

 was Mount Kerdylion. In the neighbourhood of the town there were, 

 and are still, forests of fine timber. During the Peloponnesian war 

 (B.C. 424) the Lacedemonians, under their general Brasidas, took 

 Amphipolia, Thucydides, the historian, who commanded an Athenian 

 fleet ofl' the coast, arrived in time to save Eion, the port of the city, 

 which stood near the mouth of the Strymon. The loss of Amphipous 

 led to the banishment of Thucydides from Athens. Cleon, being sent 

 by the Athenians to retake it, was beaten by Brasidas in a combat 

 under the walls of the town, wherein both generals lost their livi-.s. 

 By the treaty between Athens and Sparta, made in B.C. 421, Amphi- 

 polis waa to be restored to Athens ; but its citizens refused to submit, 

 and continued independent of their former masters. It afterwards 

 formed a close alliance with Olynthus, and was thus enabled to defeat 

 the attempt of the Athenians to reduce it under their subjection in 

 B.C. 360. Philip of Macedon declared Amphipolis a free city in the 

 following year ; but in B.C. 358 he took it by assault, and annexed it 

 to Macedonia, to which it belonged till the conquest of that country 

 by the Romans, B.C. 1 68. The Romans made it a free city and the 

 capital of the first of the four districts into which they divided 

 Macedonia. In the middle ages it wag called Popolia. 



jihipoliH has long been in ruins, and a village of about 100 

 housea, called Neokhorio, in Turkish Jeni-Keui, occupies part of it* 

 former site. Cousine'ry and also Leake found among the ancient 

 remains a curious Greek inscription, being a decree of banishment 

 against two citizens of Amphipolis, Philo and Stratocles. Stratocles 

 is the name of an envoy mentioned by Demosthenes in the first Olyn- 

 thiac, who became obnoxious to Philip for his attachment to Athens. 

 The Via Egnatia ran through Amphipous. 



(Smith's lii' titmary >/ ',,./,- ,111,1 /;,,, an Gcoyrajihy.) 



AMPTHILL, Bedfordshire, a market-town, and the seat of a Poor- 

 Law Union in the parish ofAmpthill and hundred of Hedbornstoke, 

 i iituated in 52" 2' N. lat., 0" 29' W. long., distant 8 miles S. from 

 Bedford, 45 mile* N.W. from London by road, and 67 miles by the 

 Bedford branch of the North-Western railway : the population of 

 the parish in 1851 was 1961. The living is a rectory in the arch- 



deaconry of Bedford and diocese of Ely. Ampthill Poor-Law Union 

 contains 19 parishes, with an area of 42,592 acres, and a population in 

 1851 of 16,542. 



The town is paved, and lighted with gas. There are a large brewery 

 and chemical works ; and many of the inhabitants are employed in lace- 

 making and straw-plaiting. The principal building is the parish church, 

 a handsome structure in the Early English style. The interior of both 

 church and chancel was restored in 1846, at a cost of about 1000J. 

 There are places of worship for Wesleyan Methodists and Quakers ; 

 National and British schools, and a savings bank. An endowment 

 provides for the maintenance of twelve cottages chiefly inhabited by 

 poor widows, who receive 3s. "id. each a week ; and for allowing several 

 out-pensioners about Is. 6d. each weekly. About a mile from Ampthill 

 is an almshouse for a reader, eight poor men, and four poor women, of 

 which the vice-chancellor of Oxford is ex-officio principal. Near the 

 town ia Ampthill House, the property of the Duke of Bedford and the 

 residence of Baron Parke. Ampthill Castle, which stood in the park 

 of Ampthill House, was the residence of Catherine of Aragon, queen 

 of Henry VIII., while the business of her divorce was pending. The 

 site of the castle is marked by a cross erected in 1773 by the Earl of 

 Upper Ossory, who then possessed the domain. With Ampthill Park 

 is united Houghton Park, uow called ' The Little Park,' in which are 

 the remains of Houghton House, built by the Countess of Pembroke, 

 sister of Sir Philip Sydney. A county court is held in the town; 

 divisional or petty sessions are held every alternate Thursday ; the 

 weekly market is on Thursday ; there are fairs for sheep and cattle on 

 May 4th and November 30th, and a statute fair on September 29th. 



(Uommimication from Ampthill.) 



AMPURIAS. [CATALUNA.] 



AMRITSIR, a very ancient town, formerly called Chak, the holy 

 capital of the Seiks or Sikhs, in 31 33' N. lat., 74 48' E. long., is 

 distant 44 miles E. by N. from Lahi/re, and 1312 miles N.W. from 

 Calcutta. Amritsir is without any external walls ; its houses are lofty 

 and built of brick, but the apartments are small ; and the streets are 

 narrow. 



Amritsir has a considerable trade in the shawls and saffron of 

 Cashmere, and is a place of great opulence, owing to the resort of 

 merchants and to its being the residence of some bankers of extensive 

 dealings. Its native manufactures are confined to coarse cloths and 

 inferior silk goods. Runjeet Singh made a canal from Amritsir to the 

 river Ravee the Hydraotes of Arrian. The sacred pool or tank, formed 

 by Gooroo Ramdas in the 16th century, has a temple hi its centre, which 

 is viewed with a high degree of veneration by the inhabitants. 



In a paper communicated to the Asiatic Society, by Professor H. H. 

 Wilson, in January 1850, it is stated that Amritsir is now the most 

 commercial and flourishing town in northern India ; that the sacred 

 tank, by drawing multitudes of pilgrims, is a source of great traffic 

 and commerce; that there are now 650 wells, 19,000 houses, and 

 115,000 inhabitants in the town; and that the shops and trading 

 streets are of a very superior kind. Amritsir was taken by the British 

 under Colonel M'Sheiy in 1848, and has since shared the fate of the 

 Lahore provinces. 



AMSCHITKA. [ALEUTIAN ISLANDS.] 



AMSTERDAM, formerly called Amsteldam and Amstelredamme, 

 ' the dam, dike, or embankment on the Amstel,' is the capital of the 

 province of Holland, in the kingdom of the Netherlands, and stands 

 on the south bank of the Y, an arm of the Zuider-Zee, in 62 22' N. 

 lat., 4 53' E. long., 82 miles N.E. from the Hague, and 107 miles N. 

 from Brussels. The city is of the form of a crescent, the curved side 

 of which is towards the land, while the extremities and the other side 

 rest on the Y. On the land side Amsterdam is surrounded by ram- 

 parts, which are planted with trees and form an agreeable promenade, 

 and on the 26 bastions of which stand as many windmills. The 

 ramparts are begirt by a semicircular canal 80 feet wide ; and parallel 

 to this, within the city, there are three great canals about two miles in 

 length. These canals are lined with handsome houses. The smaller 

 canals which intersect the town in various directions are said to divide 

 it into 95 islands, and to be traversed by 290 stone or wooden bridges. 

 The Amstel divides the town into the eastern or old part, and the 

 western or new part ; it is crossed by a bridge 610 feet in length, 65 

 feet wide, and containing 35 arches, through the 11 central ones of 

 which large ships can pass. Near the bridge is the great sluice 

 (Amstelsluis) by which the waters of the river can be dammed out or 

 allowed to flow through the city. The river enters the town from the 

 south-south-east, cutting the outer canal and the three canals before 

 mentioned at right angles : having crossed these it flows westward to 

 the end of Kalver Straat, and then turning northward it runs past the 

 palace, between which and the Y its outlet is called the Dam Rack. 



r'ronting the mouth of the river, and extending north-east and 

 north-west, lie the docks, which are formed by great dykes constructed 

 in the Y, and are entered and secured by sluices. In the north-eastern 

 quarter is the Nieuw Oostelijk Dok, the National Dockyard, and the 

 island of Kattenburg, in which are the quays and warehouses of the East 

 and West India Companies, the Arsenal, and the Admiralty buildings. 

 South of this quarter is the Plantaadje, or Plantation, which is one of 

 the principal promenades of the citizens.; it is of considerable extent, 

 and has canals all pound it. West of the Dam Rack lies the Haring 

 Packerye, or Herring Packery Tower, ia the neighbourhood of which 



