Page:EB1911 - Volume 20.djvu/997

Rh which is volcanic, is bare and rocky throughout; the hills, of which the highest rises to about 800 ft., command magnificent views of the neighbouring sea and islands. The skill of thenatives as seamen is proverbial in the archipelago. The deeply indented coast, here falling in huge cliffs sheer into the sea, there retiring to form a beach and a harbour, is favourable to commerce, as in former times it was to piracy. Of the numerous bays and harbours the chief is that of Scala, which, running far into the land on the eastern side, divides the island into two nearly equal portions — a northern and a southern. A narrow isthmus separates Scala from the bay of Merika on the west coast. On the belt of land between the two bays, at the junction between the northern and southern half of the island, stood the ancient town. On the hill above are still to be seen the massive remains of the citadel, built partly in polygonal style. The modern town stands on a hill top in the southern half of the island. A steep paved road leads to it in about twenty minutes from the port of Scala. The town clusters at the foot of the monastery of St John, which, crowning the hill with its towers and battlements, resembles a fortress rather than a monastery. Of the 600 MSS, once possessed by the library of the monastery only 240 are left. The houses of the town are better built than those of the neighbouring islands, but the streets are narrow and winding. The population is about 4000. The port of Scala contains about 140 houses, besides some old well-built magazines and some potteries. Scattered over the island are about 300 chapels.

Patmos is mentioned first by Thucydides (iii. 33) and afterwards by Strabo and Pliny. From an inscription it has been inferred that the name was originally Patnos. Another ancient inscription seems to show that the Ionians settled there at an early date. The chief, indeed the only, title of the island to fame is that it was the place of banishment of St John the Evangelist, who according to Jerome (De scr. ill. c. 9) and others, was exiled thither under Domitian in 95, and released about eighteen months afterwards under Nerva. Here he is said to have written the Apocalypse; to the left of the road from Scala to the town, about half-way up the hill, a grotto is still shown (100Tri7Xatoj'Tijs'A7roKaXw/'«os) in which the apostle is said to have received the heavenly vision. It is reached through a small chapel dedicated to St Anne. The Acts of St John, attributed to Prochorus, narrates the miracles wrought by the apostle during his stay on the island, but, strangely enough, while describing how the Gospel was revealed to him in Patmos, it does not so much as mention the Apocalypse. During the dark ages Patmos seems to have been entirely deserted, probably on account of the pirates. In 1088 the emperor Alexis Comnenus, by a golden bull, which is still preserved, granted the island to St Christodulus for the purpose of founding a monastery. This was the origin of the monastery of St John, which now owns the greater part of the southern half of Patmos, as well as farms in Crete, Samos and other neighbouring islands. The embalmed body of the saintly founder is to be seen to this day in a side chapel of the church. The number of the monks, which amounted to over a hundred at the beginning of the 18th century, is now much reduced. The abbot (riyovnevos) has the rank of a bishop, and is subject only to the patriarch of Constantinople. There is a school in connexion with the monastery which formerly enjoyed a high reputation in the Levant. The modern town was recruited by refugees from Constantinople in 1453, and from Crete in 1669, when these places fell into the hands of the Turks. The island is subject to Turkey; the governor is the pasha of Rhodes. The population is Greek. The women are chiefly engaged in knitting cotton stockings, which, along with some pottery, form the chief exports of the island.

See Tournefort, Relation d'un voyage du Levant (Lyons, 1717); Walpole, Memoirs (relating to Turkey) (London, 1820); Ross, Reisen auf den griechischen Inseln (Stuttgart and Halle, 1840-1852); Guerin, Description de Vile de Patmos (Paris, 1856); H. F. Tozer, Islands of the Aegean, pp. 178-195.

PATNA, a city, district, and division of British India, in the Behar province of Bengal. The city, which is the most important commercial centre in Bengal after Calcutta, lies on the right bank of the Ganges, a little distance below the confluence of the Sone and the Gogra, and opposite the confluence of the Gandak, with a station on the East Indian railway 332 m. N.W. of Calcutta. Municipal area, 6184 acres. Pop. (1901), 134,785. Including the civil station of Bankipur to the west, the city stretches along the river bank for nearly 9 miles. Still farther west is the military cantonment of Dinapur. A government college was founded in 1862. Other educational institutions include the Behar school of engineering organized in 1897.

Patna city has been identified with Pataliputra (the Palibothra of Megasthenes, who came as ambassador from Seleucus Nicator to Chandragupta about 300 B.C.). Megasthenes describes Palibothra as being the capital of India. He adds that its length was 80 stadia, and breadth 15; that it was surrounded by a ditch 30 cubits deep, and that the walls were adorned with 570 towers and 64 gates. According to this account the circumference of the city would be 190 stadia or 25¼ miles. Asoka built an outer masonry wall and beautified the city with innumerable stone buildings. The greater part of the ancient city still lies buried in the silt of the rivers under Patna and Bankipur at a depth of from 10 to 20 ft. The two events in the modern history of the district are the massacre of Patna (1763) and the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857. The former occurrence, which may be said to have settled the fate of Mahommedan rule in Bengal, was the result of a quarrel between the nawab, Mir Kasim, and the English authorities regarding transit duties, which ultimately led to open hostilities. The company's sepoys, who had occupied Patna city by the orders of the company's factor, were driven out by the nawab's troops and nearly all killed. The remainder afterwards surrendered, and were put into confinement, together with the European officers and the entire staff of the Cossimbazar factory, who had also been arrested on the first outbreak of hostilities. Mir Kasim was defeated in two pitched battles at Gheria and Udhanala (Oodeynullah) in August and September 1763, and in revenge ordered the massacre of all his prisoners, which was carried out with the help of a renegade in his employment named Walter Reinhardt, (afterwards the husband of the famous Begum Samru). About sixty Englishmen were murdered on this occasion, the bodies being thrown into a well belonging to the house in which they were confined. At the outbreak of the mutiny in May 1857 the three sepoy regiments stationed at Dinapur (the military cantonment of Patna, adjoining the city) were allowed to retain their arms till July, when, on an attempt being made to disarm them, they broke into open revolt. Although many who attempted to cross the Ganges in boats were fired into and run down by a pursuing steamer, the majority crossed by the Sone river into Shahabad, where they joined the rebels under Kuar Singh who were then besieging a small European community at Arrah.

has an area of 2075 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 1,624,985. Throughout the greater part of its extent the district is a level plain; but towards the south the ground rises into hills. The soil is for the most part alluvial, and the country along the bank of the Ganges is peculiarly fertile. The general line of drainage is from west to east; and high ground along the south of the Ganges forces back the rivers flowing from Gaya district. The result is that during the rains nearly the whole interior of the district south of a line drawn parallel to the Ganges, and 4 or 5 m. from its bank, is flooded. In the south-east are the Rajgir Hills, consisting of two parallel ridges running south-west, with a narrow valley between, intersected by ravines and passes. These hills, which seldom exceed 1000 ft. in height, are rocky and clothed with thick low jungle, and contain some of the earliest memorials of Indian Buddhism. The chief rivers are the Ganges and the Sone. The only other river of any consequence is the Punpun, which is chiefly remarkable for the number of petty irrigation canals which it supplies. So much of the river is thus diverted that only a small portion of its water ever reaches the Ganges at Fatwa. The chief crops are rice, wheat, barley, maize and pulse; poppy and potatoes