government colonists. The most abandoned class of exiles are kept to hard labour in the mines; others are put to less laborious, but still compulsory work; and a third portion are settled in specified districts, under surveillance of the police, and allowed to employ themselves as they choose. This last class chiefly employs itself in trapping those animals whose skins and furs form valuable articles of trade. In the north-west are found the Samoieds, and adjoining them the Ostiaks, both of whom live by hunting and fishing alone. In the south are the nomad tribes of the Kirghiz (q. v.) and Kalmucks (q. v.), both cattle-breeding peoples, though the latter have now partially adopted a settled mode of life, and manufacture iron and gunpowder. Next to them, on the borders of Manchuria, are the Buriats, a people of Mongol origin, and the most numerous tribe in S.; to the north of whom are the Yakuts and Tunguses, of Tartar origin, who are spread over the whole of Eastern S., from the town of Irkutsk to the Stanovoi range; and live mostly by hunting. The Tchuktchis, an Esquimaux race, and the Koriaks inhabit the north-east corner, and the Manchus are the population of the Amur territory. Manufactures are unimportant, and are confined to the principal towns; the barter trade in European goods is carried on at Obdorsk, Ostrovnoe, Yakutsk, and Petropavlovsk; and the transit-trade with China through Kiachta (q. v.), the imports from China being tea of the finest quality, sugar, silk, cotton, wool, grain, fruits, &c.; and the exports to that country, cotton and woollen cloths, linen, furs and skins, leather, and articles of gold and silver. The exports to Russia are the natural produce of the country, and are transported westward to the frontier by alternate land and river carriage, to Tobolsk, thence over the Ural Mountains to Perm. Reindeer sledges are the usual means of transport in winter. Fairs are held at stated periods in certain localities, and much of the trade of the country is there transacted. S. seems to have been first made known to the Russians by a merchant named Anika Stroganoff; and soon after, the conquest of Western S. was effected by the Cossack Vassili Yermak, an absconded criminal, at the head of a numerous band of wild followers. After Yermak's death in 1584, the Russians pursued their conquests eastward, founding Tomsk in 1604, and though they often experienced serious reverses, their progress was rapid, the Sea of Okhotsk being reached in 1639, and Irkutsk founded in 1661. Frequent disturbances have occurred between the Russians and the Chinese and Tartars, which have resulted in the extension southward of the Siberian boundary into Manchuria and Turkestan, but that to the north of Mongolia remains much as it was originally. Eastern S. was little known till recently, and several explorations made under the auspices of the Russian government have done much to increase our knowledge of that still comparatively unknown territory. In 1863, a service of steam-packets was established between Irbit, in Perm, and the towns on the Obi and its tributaries; and more recently, a line of telegraph has been constructed between Moscow and Irkutsk, which it was intended to continue to Behring's Strait and San Francisco, but the project has been abandoned.-See Atkinson's Oriental and Western Siberia (London, 1858); and Pumpelly's Across America and Asia (New York, 1870).

SI'BYL (Gr. Sibulla, according to the old derivation from Dios Boule; Doric, Sios Bolla-the 'Will or Counsel of God'), the name anciently given to several prophetic women, whose history, in so far as they have any, has come down to us in a wholly mythical form, if, indeed, such beings ever existed at all! Their number is differently given; some

writers (Ælian, for example) mention only fourthe Erythræan, the Samian, the Egyptian, and the Sardian; but in general ten are reckoned, viz., the Babylonian, the Libyan, the Delphian, the Ćimmerian, the Erythræan, the Samian, the Cumæan, the Trojan or Hellespontian, the Phrygian, and the Tiburtine. Of these, by far the most celebrated is the Cumæan, identified by Aristotle with the Erythræan, and personally known by the names of Herophile, Demo, Phemonoë, Deiphobe, Demophile, and Amalthæa. She figures prominently in the 6th book of Virgil's Eneid, as the conductor of the poet into the realm of the shades. The Roman leger.d concerning her (as recorded by Livy) is, that she came from the east, and appearing before King Tarquin the Proud, offered him nine books for sale. The price demanded appeared to the monarch exorbitant, and he refused to purchase them. She then went away, destroyed three, and returning, asked as much for the remaining six as for the nine. This was again refused, whereupon she destroyed other three, and once more offered to sell him the rest, but without any abatement of the original price. Tarquin was struck by her pertinacity, and bought the books, which were found to contain advices regarding the religion and policy of the Romans. They were preserved in a subterranean chamber of the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline, and were originally intrusted to two officials (duumviri sacrorum), appointed by the senate, who alone had the right to inspect them. The number of keepers was afterwards increased to 10 (decemviri), and finally, by Sulla, to 15 (quindecemviri). In the year 84 B. C., the temple of Jupiter having been consumed by fire, the original Sibylline books or leaves were destroyed, whereupon a special embassy was despatched by the senate to all the cities of Greece, Italy, and Asia Minor, to collect such as were current in these regions. This being done, the new collection was deposited in the temple of Jupiter after it had been rebuilt. Spurious Sibylline prophecies--or what were regarded as such-accumulated greatly in private hands towards the close of the Republic; and Augustus, fearing, perhaps, that they might be turned to political uses, ordered them all to be given up to the city-prætor, and burned them. More than 2000 were destroyed on this occasion. The remainder were kept in the temple of Apollo, on the Palatine, under lock and key; but the whole perished during the burning of Rome in the time of Nero. Other collections were made; and as late as the 6th c., when the city was besieged by the Goths, there were not wanting some who pretended to predict the issue from a consultation of these venerable oracles. It is, however, beyond doubt, that as early, at least, as the 2d c. A. D., when enthusiastic men sprung up in the Christian church, prophesying in a poetic-oracular style (whence they were sometimes called Sibyllists), the Sibylline books were much interpolated and falsified to assist the progress of the new faith. The utterances of these Christian Sibyllists form a special department of early ecclesiastical literature, and are a mixture of Jewish, Pagan, and Christian ingredients. The collections of them also bear the name of 'Sibylline Books.' An edition was published by Gallæus, at Amsterdam, in 1689, and was entitled Oracula Sibyllina; fragments have also been edited by Angelo Mai (Milan, 1817) and Struve (Königsberg, 1818).-Consult Bleek, Ueber die Entstehung und Zusammensetzung der uns in acht Büchern erhaltenen Sammlung Sibyllinischer Orakel (in Schleiermacher's Theologische Zeitschrift, Berl. 1819), and Thorlacius, Libri Sibyllistarum Veteris Ecclesiæ (in his Prolusiones et Opuscula Academica, vols. 4 and 5, Copenh. 1821-1822).

SICILIAN VESPERS, the name given to the massacre of the French in Sicily, on the day after Easter (March 30), 1282, the signal for the commencement of which was to be the first stroke of the vesper-bell. In the articles NAPLES, KONRADIN, MANFRED, &c., it is related how Charles of Anjou, the brother of Louis IX. of France, had deprived the Hohenstaufen dynasty of Naples and Sicily, and parcelled out these kingdoms into domains for his French followers; but his cruelty towards the adherents of the dispossessed race, his tyranny, oppressive taxation, and the brutality of his followers, excited among the vindictive Sicilians the deadliest animosity. The aged Giovanni da Procida, a steady partisan of the Hohenstaufen family, took the lead in directing and systematising a conspiracy against Charles and his followers; and after a visit to Pedro of Aragon (the husband of Constance the cousin of Konradin, and the next heir to Naples and Sicily), whom he found willing to undertake the conquest of Sicily, he returned to his selfimposed duty in the island. On the evening of Easter-Monday, the inhabitants of Palermo, enraged (according to the common story) at a gross outrage which was perpetrated by a French soldier on a young Sicilian bride, precipitated the accomplishment of the scheme by suddenly rising upon their oppressors, putting to the sword every man, woman, and child of them, not sparing even those Italians and Sicilians who had married Frenchmen. This example was followed, after a brief interval, by Messina and the other towns, and the massacre soon became general over the island the French were hunted like wild beasts, and dragged even from the churches, where they vainly thought themselves secure. More than 8000 of them were slain by the Palermitans alone. Only one instance of mercy shewn to a Frenchman is on record, the fortunate subject being a Provençal gentleman, Guillaume des Porcellets, who was much esteemed for his probity and virtue. The governor of Messina also succeeded in passing the strait with his garrison before it was too late.-See Amari, La Guerra del Vespro Siciliano (Palermo, 1841; reprinted at Paris, 1843), and Possien and Chantrel's Les Vêpres Siciliennes (Paris, 1843).

SICILIA'NA, in Music, a name given to a slow, soothing, pastoral description of air, in time; so called because the dance peculiar to the peasantry of Sicily possesses this character.

SICILY, the largest, most fertile, and most populous island in the Mediterranean Sea, lies between lat. 36° 38'-38° 18′ N., and between long. 12° 25'-15° 40′ E., and is separated from the mainland of Italy by the Strait of Messina. Its shape roughly resembles a triangle (whence the early Greek navigators gave it the name of Trinacria, the 'Three-cornered')-the eastern coast, from Capo del Faro in the north to Capo Passaro in the south, forming the base; and the northern and southwestern coasts the sides, which gradually approach each other towards the north-west. The length of the base is 145 miles; of the northern side, 215 miles; and of the south-western, 190 miles: the circumference of the island, including the sinuosities of the coast, is estimated at 624 miles. Area about 10,000 sq. miles. Pop. according to the census of 1862, 2,391,802. Capo Passaro, at the south-eastern extremity, is only 56 miles from Malta; and Capo Boco, near Marsala, at the north-western, only 80 miles from Cape Bon on the African coast.

Physical Geography.-The island of S., like the mainland of Italy, is traversed throughout its entire length by a chain of mountains, which may be Looked upon as a continuation of the Apennines |

There

(q. v.). This chain, beginning at Capo del Faro on the Strait of Messina, runs in a south-south-western direction as far as Taormina, where it turns off to the west, and stretches across the whole island, keeping, however, much nearer to the northern than to the south-western coast. The first part of the chain, from Capo del Faro to Taormina, is called the Peloric range (anc. Neptunius Mons), which in Monte Dinnamare attains the height of 3260 feet; the second and much the longer part is called the Madonian range (anc. Nebrodes Montes), which, in the Pizzo di Palermo, rises to an elevation of 6328 feet. It forms the great watershed of the island. Towards the north-western coast, the chain breaks up into irregular and often detached masses, such as Monte Pellegrino (1963 feet) and Monte San Giuliano (2184 feet). About the centre of the chain, a range branches off through the heart of the island to the south-east; at first wild and rugged, but afterwards smoothing down into table-lands, which in turn slope away tamely to the sea. are innumerable other spurs to the south from the great Madonian chain, of inferior length and elevation, but none of these require special mention. The volcano of Etna, which rises in solitary grandeur on the eastern coast, is separately described. See ETNA. S. is not, on the whole, a well-wooded country, but forests of considerable size are found here and there-as, for example, the royal forests near Caronia and Mezzojuso, the forest-zone of Etna, &c.-In the interior of the island there is not much level land, but on several parts of the coast there are extensive plains, generally of great fertility. The principal of these are the great plain of Catania (anc. Campi Leontini), out of which rises Etna; the plains of Palermo, termed the Conca d'Oro, or Golden Shell,' of Castellamare, of Licata, and Terranova.-Although rivers are numerous, none are navigable. The largest are the Simeto or Giarretta, the Cantara, the Salso, the Platani, and the Belici.

Climate.-The climate of S. is very warm, but salubrious, except in low-lying places, where there is a mephitic atmosphere. The best health is enjoyed in the lower region of Etna, which is very densely peopled, although exposed to eruptions and when the sirocco blows. After the autumnal equinox, violent earthquakes. The heat is intense in summer violent winds are prevalent, torrents of rain fall, and all along the coasts the atmosphere is charged with moisture and fogs. The earthquakes begin about the end of winter, and do great damage. Snow and ice are rarely to be seen except on Etna.

Geology and Mineralogy.-The primary rocks in the mountainous districts are chiefly quartz, granite, and mica. In some parts, these are overlaid by limestone rocks. Most of the lower ranges of hills are of calcareous formation, and are rich in metallic ores. Sulphur forms the chief mineral wealth of Sicily. Immense beds of it are found in the central and northern parts of the island. The English imported 57,000 tons of it in 1867, and the mines are worked by Cornish miners and their descendants.

Soil, Agriculture, &c.—The soil of the island is so fertile that very little labour is required to raise the crops. In many valleys there is rich soil to the depth even of 40 feet. In Catania, decomposed lava is spread over the ground, greatly increasing its fertility. The crops of grain are large, and might be prodigious if agriculture were better understood; the harvests are such that they recall to mind the words of Livy, in speaking of S.: 'Populoque Romano, pace ac bello, fidissimum annonæ subsidium' (lib. xxvii. 5). In the most ancient times, agriculture was sedulously prosecuted, but it began

to decline when the island was deprived of its independence by the Carthaginians. In more recent times, the restrictions on the exportation of grain served not only to keep agriculture from making any progress, but also to put a drag upon the commerce of the country, which, on every attempt made to raise itself, was met by fresh obstacles in the shape of new taxes. The Italian government has greatly alleviated the obstacles to agriculture, and the salutary effects of the change of system are already apparent. The soil produces corn, maize, flax, hemp; excellent cotton near Mazzara and in Catania; sugar, equal to that of the East Indies, along the southern coast; grapes (350,000 acres), olives (125,000 acres, with an annual yield in oil of 15,000 tuns), saffron, oranges, lemons, citrons, pomegranates, figs, pistachios, dates, castoroil, mulberry, sumach, tobacco, and manna. The vine has been cultivated with the greatest care at Marsala since 1789, when an English firm settled there began to export it. Now, upwards of 5,000,000 gallons are annually exported to England, America, and India.-S. possesses the best tunny-fisheries in the Mediterranean. The fisheries for coral at different places on the coast are also industriously carried on, and on an average, about 2100 lbs. are annually obtained.

Manufactures, Commerce, &c.-The manufactures of S. are insignificant. Such manufacturing industry as exists is nearly altogether confined to the preparation of silk, cotton, and leather. The most important articles of export are sulphur, sumach, fruits, and wine; of import, cottons, woollens, silks, linens, earthenware, hardware. Great Britain, France, and the United States are the countries with which the Sicilians chiefly carry on commerce. The total value of the exports in 1862 amounted to £2,830,057; of the imports, to £3,254,903.

Religion, Education, &c.-With the exception of about 58,000 Greeks, and a few thousand Jews, the inhabitants are all Roman Catholics; but though equally ignorant, they are not so superstitious as the Neapolitans; at least their superstition has not destroyed their love of political freedom, as has repeatedly been evinced in their history-most recently in the ardour with which they responded to the summons of Garibaldi to liberate themselves from the tyranny of the Bourbons. There are three universities at Palermo, Catania, and Messina; and also a Collegio de' Nobilé at Palermo.

Political Divisions.-S. is divided into 7 provinces or prefectures-viz., Palermo, Messina, Catania, Noto or Siracusa, Caltanisetta, Girgenti, and Trapani. Each province is subdivided into 3 or 4 districts, and these again into numerous communi, or 'townships.' Over the province is placed an intendente, or, as he is now called, a 'prefect;' over the district, a sub-prefect; and over the commune, a sindaco ('syndic,' or 'mayor'). The prefect presides over every department of the provincial administration, and also over the provincial councila body composed of from 15 to 20 landholders, who meet once a year, and sit for 20 days, examining the accounts of the province, and framing the provincial budget. The two subordinate divisions have also their councils;' and the members of all three are appointed either by the king or by the prefect. Of course, this insular self-government does not supersede the necessity of sending Sicilian deputies to the national parliament.

History.-S. was inhabited, in pre-historic times, by a people who bore the name of Siculi or Sicani, and who-according to a universally received tradition-crossed over into the island from the southern extremity of the mainland. Their names and every fact that we can ascertain about them, lead to the

409

supposition that they were members of the great Latino-Italian family that, entering Italy from the north, gradually pushed its way across the Apennines to the peninsula of Bruttium (see article ROME). Beyond this rational conjecture, however, we cannot proceed, and the actual history of S. only begins to emerge out of utter darkness with the establishment of Greek and Phoenician colonies. The earliest Greek colony, that of Naxos, was founded 735 B. C.; the latest, that of Agrigentum, 580 B. C. During the intervening century and a half, numerous important colonies were established (either directly from Greece or as offshoots from the older Greek settlements in the island); Syracuse (734 B. c.), Leontini and Catana (730 B. C.), Megara Hyblæa (728 B. C.), Gela (690 B. C.), Zancle, later Messana (date of origin uncertain), Acræ (664 B. C.), Himera (648 B. C.), Myla (date of origin uncertain), Casmena (644 B. C.), Selinus (628 B. C.), Camarina (599 B. C.), Agrigentum (580 B. C.). The earlier history of these cities is almost unknown. What is recorded is vague and general. We read that they attained great commercial prosperity, that they subjugated or wrested from the Siculi, Elymi, and other native' tribes, large portions of neighbouring territory; and that their governments (like those of the republics in the mother-country) were at first oligarchical, and latterly democracies or 'tyrannies;' but it is not till the period of the 'despots' that we have detailed accounts. Then the cities of Agrigentum and Gela acquire prominence the former, under the rule of Phalaris (q. v.), becoming, for a short time, probably the most powerful state in Sicily; and the latter, under a succession of able tyrants, Cleander, Hippocrates, and Gelon (q. v.), forcing into subjection most of the other Greek cities. Gelon, however, transferred his government to Syracuse (one of his conquests), which now became the principal Greek city of Sicily--a dignity it ever after retained. Contemporary with Gelon, and possessed of the same high capacity for governing, were Theron, tyrant' of Agrigentum, and Anaxilaus, tyrant of Rhegium, and conquero of Zancle, to which he gave the name of Messana, Meanwhile, the Carthaginians—a people wholly different from the Greeks in language, religion, origin, and civilisation-had obtained possession of the Phoenician settlements in Sicily. The first appearance of the Carthaginians in the island dates from 536 B. C.; but the steady growth of the Greek cities in wealth and power, long confined their rivals to the north-western part, where their principal colo nies were Panormus, Motya, and Soloeis. The first open trial of strength took place in the great battle of Himera, where the Carthaginian army was utterly routed by Gelon, and its leader, Hamilcar, slain. The Gelonian dynasty at Syracuse fell 466 B. C., after experiencing various fortunes. During the next fifty years, the island had peace. In 410 B. C., however, the war between the Carthaginians and Greeks for the possession of the island was renewed. The successes of the former were great and permanent. Selinus, Himera, Agrigentum, Gela, and Camarina, fell into their hands in less than five years; and it was not till Syracuse had got a new 'tyrant,' the famous Dionysius (q. v.) the Elder, that fortune again began to smile on the Greeks. Even he, however, could not wrest from the Carthaginians what they had already won; and after the war of 383 B. C., a peace was concluded, which left Dionysius in possession of the eastern, and the Carthaginians of the western, half of the island. The dissensions and tumults that followed the decease of Dionysius, illustrate forcibly the peculiar dangers to which the Greek republics, either at home or abroad, were prone; but we can

705