AK'YAB (37), the capital of Aracan, in British Burmah, 90 m. SE. of Calcutta.

AL RAKIM, the dog that guarded the SEVEN SLEEPERS (q. v.), and that stood by them all through their long sleep.

ALABA'MA (1,513), one of the United States of N. America, traversed by a river of the name, a little larger than England, highly fertile and a great cotton-growing country, and abounding in iron, coal, and marble, bounded on the W. by the Mississippi, on the N. by Tennessee, and the E.

by Georgia.

ALABAMA, THE, a vessel built in Birkenhead for the Confederates in the late American Civil War, for the devastation done by which, according to the decision of a court of arbitration, the English Government had to pay heavy damages of three millions of money.

ALACOQUE, MARIE, a French nun of a mystic tendency, the founder of the devotion of the Sacred Heart (1647-1690).

ALAD'DIN, one of the chiefs of the a.s.sa.s.sins in the 13th century, better known by the name of the Old Man of the Mountain.

ALADDIN, a character in the "Arabian Nights," who became possessed of a wonderful lamp and a wonderful ring, by rubbing which together he could call two evil genii to do his bidding.

ALADINISTS, free-thinkers among the Mohammedans.

ALAGO'AS (397), a maritime province of Brazil, N. of Pernambuco, with tropical products as well as fine timber and dye-woods.

ALAIN DE L'ISLE, a professor of theology in the University of Paris, surnamed the _Doctor universel_ (1114-1203).

ALAINS. See ALANS.

ALAIS' (18), a town at the foot of the Cevennes, in the centre of a mining district; once the stronghold of French Protestantism.

ALAMAN'NI, LUIGI, an Italian poet and diplomatist, born at Florence (1495-1556).

ALAND ISLES, a group of 300 small islands in the Gulf of Bothnia, of which 80 are inhabited; fortified by Russia.

ALANS, a barbarous horde from the East, who invaded W. Europe in the 4th and 5th centuries, but were partly exterminated and partly ousted by the Visigoths.

ALAR'CON Y MENDO'ZA, JUAN RUIZ DE, a Spanish dramatist born in Mexico, who, though depreciated by his contemporaries, ranks after 200 years of neglect among the foremost dramatic geniuses of Spain, next even to Cervantes and Lope de Vega; he was a humpback, had an offensive air of conceit, and was very unpopular; he wrote at least twenty dramas, some of which have been translated into French; _d_. in 1639.

AL'ARIC I., the king of the Visigoths, a man of n.o.ble birth, who, at the end of the 4th and beginning of the 5th century, ravaged Greece, invaded Italy, and took and pillaged Rome; died at Cosenza, in Calabria, in 412, at the early age of thirty-four.

ALARIC II., king of the Visigoths, whose dominions included all Gaul and most of Spain; defeated by the Franks at Poitiers, and killed by the hand of Clovis, their king, in 567.

ALARIC COTIN, Voltaire's nickname for Frederick the Great, the former in recognition of him as a warrior, the latter as a would-be litterateur, after an indifferent French poet of the name of Cotin.

ALAS'CO, JOHN, the uncle of Sigismund, king of Poland, and a zealous promoter in Poland of the Reformation, the friend of Erasmus and Zwinglius (1499-1560).

ALAS'KA (32), an immense territory belonging to the U.S. by purchase from Russia, extending from British N. America to Behring Strait; it is poor in resources, and the inhabitants, who are chiefly Indians and Eskimos, live by hunting and fishing, and by the export of salmon; seal fishery valuable, however.

ALASNAM, a hero related of in the "Arabian Nights" as having erected eight statues of gold, and in quest of a statue for a ninth unoccupied pedestal, finding what he wanted in the person of a beautiful woman for a wife.

ALAS'TOR, an avenging spirit, given to torment families whose history has been stained by some crime.

A'LAVA (97), the southernmost of the three Basque provinces of Spain, largest, but least populous; rich in minerals, and fertile in soil.

ALAVA, RICARDO DE, a Spanish general, born in Vittoria, joined the national party, and was aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington, and became eventually amba.s.sador to London and Paris (1771-1843).

ALBA LONGA, a city of Latium older than Rome.

ALBACETE (229), a province in Spain, with a capital (30) of same name, 173 m. SE. of Madrid.

ALBAN LAKE, near Alban Mount, 6 m. in circuit, occupying the basin of an extinct volcano, its surface 961 ft. above the sea-level.

ALBAN MOUNT, a small mountain overlooking Alba Longa.

ALBAN, ST., the first martyr in Britain to the Christian faith in 303; represented in art as carrying his head between his hands, having been beheaded.

ALBA'NI, an Italian painter, a disciple of Caracci, born at Bologna; surnamed the Anacreon of painting; his pictures more distinguished for grace than vigour.

ALBA'NI, an ill.u.s.trious Roman family, members of which attained the highest dignities in the Church, one, Clement XI., having been Pope.

ALBANI, MME., _nee_ Emma la Jeunesse, a well-known and highly popular operatic singer of French-Canadian descent; _b_. 1847.