ISLANDS BELONGING

ΤΟ

TURKEY IN EUROPE.

THE numerous islands in the Archipelago are by geographers considered as belonging to Europe; except a few which approach the Asiatic shore, as Mytilene, Scio, Samos, Cos, and Rhodes.

The classical islands of ancient Greece have been so repeatedly described, that little more than an enumeration may suffice. The largest is that of Crete, or Candia, which is about 180 British miles in length, by forty at its greatest breadth. A chain of high mountains, called the White Mountains from the snow, pervades a great part of its length. The inhabitants are vigorous, and robust, and fond of archery. This isle bounds with cattle, sheep, swine, poultry, and game, all excellent; and the wine is balmy and luscious. The dogs of Crete are ugly; and seem to be between the wolf and the fox. The siege of Candia by the Turks, in the middle of the seventeenth century, is remarkable in modern history, as having continued for twenty-four years, 1646-1670. This island had before flourished

under the Venetians.

Next is Negropont, about 100 British miles in length by twenty in breadth; a large and important island, which also belonged to the Venetians to a late period.†

The other isles are generally of a diminutive size; and were divided by the ancients into separate groups, of which the Cyclades were the most memorable; while the Sporades approached the Asiatic shore.

* Tournefort, i. 69. &c.

The isles of Corfou, Cefalonia, and Zante, on the other side of Greece, were on the fall of Venice seized by the French; but now constitute an independent republic, under the protection of Russia; a curious experiment on the genius of modern Greece.

Other chief names are Lemnos, Skyro, and Andro. It is unnecessary to give a tedious repetition of the births of illustrious classics, and other trivial particulars concerning these islands; and the grotto of Antiparos is described in the account of natural curiosities. It must not however be omitted, that in the year 1707 a new island arose from the sea, with violent volcanic explosions, near Santorine, and about a mile in diameter. The other islands shall be briefly described under their proper division of Asiatic Turkey.

* The curious reader may find a long detail of this singular event in Payne's Geographical Extracts, p. 252 to 256.

HOLLAND.

CHAPTER I.

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY.

NAMES.-EXTENT.-BOUNDARIES.-ORIGINAL POPULATION.-PROGRESSIVE GEOGRAPHY.-HISTORICAL EPOCHS AND ANTIQUITIES.

NAMES. THE Seven United Provinces were, in ancient times, chiefly possessed by the Batavi, a people highly celebrated by Tacitus : but the boundaries being modern, there is no ancient appellation which particularly denotes this country. It is commonly styled the republic of Holland, from the name of a chief province; so called from the German word Hohl, corresponding with the English word hollow, and implying a concave or very low country. The people are called Dutch from the German Deutsch, or Teutsch; but Deutschland properly signifies the vast extent of Germany itself, though by the English restricted to a small portion using a dialect of the German language.

EXTENT. These provinces extend from the north of Groningen, to the southern boundary along Austrian Flanders and Brabant, about 150 British miles; and in breadth, from what is called the North Sea to the circle of Westphalia, about 100 British miles. The number of square miles is computed at 10,000.

ORIGINAL POPULATION. The original population appears to have been Celtic: but when the Romans conquered this country, the chief inhabitants were the Batavi, the most northern people of Belgic Gaul, and incontestibly a German or Gothic progeny. The Franks

passed the Rhine to the south of the Batavi; who appear to have been secure in their marshes and islands, till the Frisians, the next adjacent people in the north, in the seventh century extended themselves even down to the Scheld. In the eighth century the Frisians were subdued by the Franks under Charles Martel; but the Frisians and Franks may be regarded as mingled in the population with the ancient Batavians.*

PROGRESSIVE GEOGRAPHY. The progressive geography of this region becomes curious and interesting, from the singular phenomenon of the increase of the sea. Upon inspecting the accurate maps of the ancient and middle geography of Gaul by D'Anville, it will be perceived that the Rhine divided itself into two grand branches at Burginasium or Schenk, about five miles north-west of the Colonia Trajana, now an inconsiderable hamlet called Koln near Cleves. The southern branch joined the Meuse at the town of Mosa or Meuvi; while the northern passed by Durstadt, Utrecht, and Leyden, into the ocean. From the northern branch was led the canal of Drusus, which originally joined the Rhine to the Issil, a river that flowed into a considerable inland lake called Flevo, now a southern portion of the Zuyder Zee. This canal of Drusus being neglected, and left to the operations of nature, the Rhine joined the Issil with such force that their conjunct waters increased the lake of Flevo to a great extent and instead of a river of the same name, which ran for near fifty Roman miles from that lake to the sea, there was opened the wide gulf which now forms the entrance. This northern and chief mouth of the Rhine was, at the same time, weakened and almost lost by the division of its waters, and even the canal of Drusus was afterwards almost obliterated by the deposition of mud in a low country, in the same manner as some of the ancient mouths of the Nile have disappeared in the Delta of Egypt.

The southern branch of the Rhine, which flowed into the estuary of the Meuse, as above mentioned, was anciently called Vahalis, a name retained in the modern Waal; the ancient isle of the Batavi being included between the two branches of the Rhine, and thus extending about 100 Roman miles in length by about twenty-two at the greatest breadth. The estuaries of the Meuse and the Scheld have also been opened to great inroads from the ocean; and the latter in particular, which anciently formed a mere delta, with four or five small branches, now presents the islands of Zealand, and the most southern of those of Holland, divided by wide creeks of the sea. This remarkable irruption is supposed to have happened at the time that the Goodwin Sands arose, by the diffusion and consequent shallowness of the water. These great changes may be conceived to have made a slow and gradual progress; and none of them seem so ancient as the time of Charlemagne. Some of them are so recent as the fifteenth century; for in 1421 the estuary of the Meuse, or Maese, suddenly formed a vast lake to the south-east of Dort, overwhelming seventy-two large villages, with 100,000 inhabitants, who perished in the deluge.†

* D'Anville Etats Form. en Europe, p. 26.

Cluver. 96. Guicciardini, 271. Some authors arbitrarily assign there changes to violent tempests, A. D. 860; others to 1170. Guicciardini p. 13.

By a subsequent change the Rhine was again subdivided; and a chief branch fell into the Leck, which joins the estuary of the Meuse between Dort and Rotterdam, and must now be regarded as the northern mouth of that noble river; while the Vahalis or Waal continues to be the southern: both branches being lost in a comparatively small stream, the Meuse. The less important variations in the geography may be traced with some precision in the Francic historians, and other writers of the middle ages.

HISTORICAL EPOCHS.

may be numbered,

Among the chief historical epochs

1. The actions of the Batavi in the Roman period, from the first mention of that nation by Julius Cæsar.

2. The conquest by the Frisians; and afterwards by the Danes, and by the Franks.

3. The countries watered by the Meuse and the Rhine were for a long time divided into small earldoms; but in the year 923 Theoderic or Diedric, brother of Herman duke of Saxony, and of Wickman earl of Ghent, was appointed count of Holland by. Charles the Simple, king of France, and the title became hereditary. Zealand and Frisland were included in the donation. The county of Gelderland on the east was erected by the emperor Henry IV, in 1079; and became a duchy in 1339. Utrecht was subject to its powerful prelates, who had frequent contests with the earls of Holland.

4. Florence III, who succeeded in 1187, carried on numerous wars against the Flemings and Frisians; and died at Antioch, in 1189, on an expedition to the Holy Land. He married Ada, grand daughter of David I, king of Scotland, a country which had early commercial connexions with Holland. In 1213 William I, earl of Holland, formed a league with John, king of England, Ferrand, carl of Flanders, and the Emperor Otho, against France; but William was taken prisoner at the famous battle of Bouvines.

5. William II, earl of Holland, was elected by a party, emperor of Germany, A. D. 1247; but his claim was not crowned with success. John earl of Holland, A. D. 1296, wedded Elizabeth daughter of Edward I, of England. Frequent contests appear between the earls of Holland and those of Flanders, concerning the possession of the islands of Zealand. Philipina, daughter of William III, earl of Holland, is married to the Prince of Wales, afterwards Edward III, of England, a princess worthy of an heroic husband. This king afterwards contested the earldom of Holland with Margaret his sister in law. Jacquelin the heiress of Holland in 1417 wedded John IV, duke of Brabant; but her uncle John of Bavaria, who had resigned the bishoprick of Liege in the hopes of espousing her, contested the succession. A kind of anarchy following, Jacquelin went to England, where she married in 1423, Humphry, duke of Gloucester; and this marriage being annulled by the pope, she wedded in 1432, Borselen, stadtholder of Holland: and

A Zelandic chronicler, quoted by the same author, 346, says that the islands of Zealand were formed by violent tempests in the year 938, a date which seems to deserve the preference.