54 CABRO DI CAPELLO..CACAO TREE..CAIRO.

CABRO

ABRO DI CAPELLO, a serpent that inflicts the most deadly wounds. It is from three to eight feet long, with two large fangs hanging out of the upper jaw. It has a broad neck, and a mark of dark brown on the forehead. The eyes are fierce and full of fire, the head is small, and the nose flat, though covered with very large scales of a yellowish colour; the skin is white, and the large tumor on the back is covered with oblong and smooth scales. The bite of this animal is said to be incurable, the patient dying in about an hour after the wound, the whole frame being dissolved into one mass of corruption.... Goldsmith.

CACAO TREE, the tree that produces the chocolate nut, and is a native of South America. In size and shape, it somewhat resembles a young blackheart cherry. The flower is of a saffron colour, extremely beautiful, and the pods, which in a green state are much like a cucumber, proceed immediately from all parts of the body and larger branches. As they ripen they change their colour, and turn to a fine bluish red, almost purple, with bluish veins. The cacao tree bears two crops a year, yielding at each, from ten to twenty pounds weight, according to the soils and seasons. is a tree of great delicacy: it is obnoxious to blights, and shrinks at the first appearance of drought....Bryan Edwards.

It

CAIRO, or Grand Cairo, the capital of Egypt, and a place of great commerce. Every year a Caravan from Abyssinia arrives at Cairo, on its way to Mecca, and brings from a thousand to twelve hundred black slaves, as also elephant's teeth, gold dust, ostrich feathers, gums, parrots, and monkeys; while another, consisting of not less than three or four thousand camels, with multitudes of pilgrims, stops at Cairo annually, on its way to Mecca, and on its return. The lading of these caravans consists of India stuffs, shawls, gums, pearls, perfumes, and especially the coffee of Yemen. Small caravans arrive also from Damascus, with silk and cotton sffs, oil, and dried fruits. Vessels come

CALABRIA....CALAIS.

55

likewise from Marseilles, Leghorn, and Venice, with cloths, cochineal, Lyons' stuffs and laces, paper, iron, lead, Venetian sequins, and German dollars. All these articles conveyed first by sea to Rosetta, in barks, are first landed there, then re-embarked on the Nile, and sent to Cairo. It is notwithstanding, a filthy city, offensive to the smell, and to the sight.... Volney.

CALABRIA, a district of Naples, in Italy. It is rich in vegetable and mineral productions, but liable to earthquakes. One of the most terrible on record happened here and in Sicily in 1783. Besides the destruction of many towns, villages, and farms, above forty thousand persons perished by this calamity. Mountains were levelled, and vallies formed in an instant; new rivers began to flow, and old streams were sunk into the earth, and destroyed; plantations were removed from their situations, and hills carried to places far distant. At the town of Scilla, a wave which had swept the country for three miles, carried off, on its return, two thousand four hundred and ninety-three of the inhabitants. Some persons were dug out alive after having remained a surprising length of time under the rubbish of their fallen houses. The earth was tremulous for several months, during which there were many shocks; those of the fifth and seventh of February, and of the twentyeighth of March, were the most violent. Before and during the concussions, the clouds gathered, and then hung immoveable and heavy over the earth; and the atmosphere wore a fiery aspect.... Walker, Hamilton.

CALAIS, a strong town of France, in Picardy. This town was besieged by Edward III. of England, in the year 1347; and the besieged having at length consumed all their provisions, and even eaten all their horses, dogs, and cats, the governor, John de Vienne, appeared upon the walls and offered to capitulate. Edward, greatly incensed at their obstinate resistance in maintaining a siege of eleven months, demanded that six of the principal burghesses should suffer the penalty of death; and that these victims should deliver him the keys of the city, with ropes about their necks. In this extremity, when the whole people were drowned in

tears, and uncertain what to do, Eustice de Pierre, one of the richest merchants of the place, stepped forth, and voluntarily offered himself to be one of those six devoted victims; and his noble example was immediately imitated by other five of the most respectable citizens. These patriots, barefooted and bareheaded, with ropes about their necks, were attended to the gates by the whole inhabitants, with tears, blessings, and prayers for their safety. When they were brought into Edward's presence, they laid the keys of the city at his feet, and falling on their knees, implored his mercy in such moving strains, that all the spectators were melted into tears. Edward for some time remained inexorable; when his queen, kneeling before him, earnestly begged and obtained their lives.

CALCUTTA, a city of Bengal, belonging to the English East India Company; situated on a western branch of the Ganges, one hundred miles from its mouth; supposed to contain five hundred thousand inhabitants, consisting of Europeans and Asiatics, whose mixture of language, dress, and manners, afford a most curious and extraordinary sight. The trade of Calcutta is very extensive. It is through this channel the company obtains the saltpetre, and all the muslins which are seen in Europe, while it exports to this port Spanish coins, gold thread, copper, lead, iron in bars and wrought, English manufactures of different sorts for the use of the Europeans there, wine and brandy, seasalt, and marine stores of every kind. Individuals there obtain pepper and arrac from the coast of Malabar; raw silks, nankeens, porcelain, and tea, from China, to which place they send in return the cotton from the Malabar coast. The grain of Bengal they export to every part of India, receive silks from Surat, send muslins and European commodities to Macao, and the Philippine Islands, and give circulation to all these articles in the whole interior of Asia. A commerce which extends to such a variety of branches cannot fail to enrich those who cultivate it; and accordingly Calcutta is the richest town in India. Private merchants, however, are not the most wealthy class of those who reside there: the company's servants are much richer,

and become so much more rapidly. A young man who comes from London in the capacity of writer, without a single rupee in his pocket, finds himself in a very short time swimming in wealth. In the course of a twelvemonth he will be sent into the country, be invested with some office, such as assistant collector of a district; which will enable him, in the usual course of rapine, to acquire speedily an immense fortune. Meanwhile the oppressed natives are frequently scen starving at the gates of their unfeeling oppressors, and their bodies preyed upon, sometimes before they are quite dead, by jackalls, eagles, and vultures !.... Grandpre.

CALENDAR, a table containing the days, months, festivals, &c. happening in the year. The Roman calendar, from which ours is borrowed, was composed by Romulus, who made the year consist of no more than 364 days. Numa Pompilius made it consist of twelve lunar months of thirty and twenty-nine days alternately, which made 354 days: but being fond of an odd number, he added one day more, which made it 355 days; and that the civil year might equal the sun's motion, he added a month every second year. Julius Cæsar, as a farther improvement, made the year consist of 365 days, and left the six hours to form a day, at the end of every fourth year, which was added to the month of February. This calendar was called the Julian, or the old style, in contradistinction of the new style introduced by Gregory. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII. finding perplexity to arise in the computation of time, from some errors in the Julian calendar, thought proper to order the formation and adoption of a new style of reckoning. The astronomers and mathematicians whom he summoned to Rome for that purpose, after spending several years in investigating the subject, and adjusting the principles of another system, produced what has been since called the Gregorian Calendar. In forming this method of computation eleven days were lopped off from the old calendar; leaving out in the future, one bissextile day every hundred years, and making every fourth hundred a leap year. The Gregorian style, thus formed, was soon adopted by all the catholic states; and in most of the protestant countries, before the com

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CALIFORNIA....CALUMET....CAMEL.

mencement of the 18th century. But it was not until the year 1752, when Britain and her dependencies, by an act of parliament, adopted the new style: at the same time, the Ecclesiastical year, which had before commenced on the 25th of March, was made to coincide with the civil year, and ordered, like that, to be computed from the first of January....Fenning, Miller.

CALIFORNIA, a large peninsula of North America lying eastward of New-Mexico, between the gulf of California and the Pacific Ocean; extending in length from the tropic of Cancer to the 28th degree of north latitude, about 300 leagues, and in breadth, from sea to sea, not more than 40 leagues. The Californians draw the bow with inimitable skill; and will bring down the smallest birds with unerring aim. One of these Indians will fix upon his own, the head with the horns of a stag; will walk on all fours; brouze the grass; and by this and other means, so deceive herds of these animals, that they shall without alarm, permit ⚫him to approach near enough to kill them with his arrows....Perouse.

CALUMET, or Indian Pipe, a symbolical instrument of great importance among the natives of America: no affair of consequence is transacted among them without the calumet. Even in the rage of conflict the calumet is sometimes offered; and if accepted, the weapons drop from their hands, and a truce ensues. A stranger, on entering the house of an Indian chief, of the Creek nation, (says Bartram) is first presented with food, the best that the house affords. After which, the chief filling a pipe, whose stem is about four feet long, sheathed in a speckled snake-skin, and adorned with feathers and strings of wampum; he lights it, and smokes a few whiffs, puffing the smoke first towards the sun, and then to the four cardinal points, and lastly over the breast of the stranger; then hands the pipe to him, who takes it and smokes. This done, conversation begins; the chief asks his guest, whence he came, together with such other questions as happen to occur.

CAMEL, a large animal, with two humps on his