as 7 or 8 miles in breadth, and which extended in a south-easterly direction to the length of about 30 miles. On the W., a desolate tract of sandy downs, diversified with clumps of trees and lagoons, separated them from the sea. On the other side they were hemmed in by the dry slopes of the Volscian Hills. Through the level district thus inclosed the Amasenus (Amaseno), the Ufens (Uffente), and other streams from the neighbouring high lands, took their course, creeping sluggishly along, spreading their ooze and slime over the entire dead flat, changing the ground into one large quaking bog, and sending up disease, pestilence, and death into the overhanging air. This immense stagnant pool continued for many centuries to swamp and swallow up all attempts to reclaim the soil from its dominion. In 312 B.C., the censor Appius Claudius Cæcus, while carrying his famous Via Appia directly through the middle of it, diverted the water into various channels; but in no long time the streams had risen above these, and filled them all up with mud. Many years afterwards, Augustus cleared and repaired the choked-up drains; but the silent sapping of the floods soon destroyed them once more. Equally vain were the successive efforts of several emperors and many popes to convert this scene of noisome desolation into a dry and habitable region. Highwaymen, footpads, and desperadoes were the only persons who ventured to dwell in it. The waters also continued steadily to increase, until the Appian Way, with its arches and bridges, was completely submerged. It was not until the pontificate of Pius VI. that the attempts at draining were in any degree successful. Canals were then dug which effectively carried off the floods, and which have been able, with occasional repairs, to keep the greater part of the plain dry down to the present day. Rich pastures and fertile corn-fields now extend over a large portion of that space which was once covered with soaking and barren mud.a seaport town of British India, in the district of Malabar, presidency of Madras, on the south side of a river of the same name, at its mouth in the Arabian Sea, 34 miles S. by E. of Calicut. It is a straggling place, built on level sandy ground; and it contains no fewer than 40 mosques, being inhabited chiefly by Mohammedans. Some of the houses are well built of stone, two storeys high, but the most of them are mere huts. The inhabitants live by fishing and trade. The latter is chiefly carried on by the patemars or sea-going boats of the natives, in which they sail to Madras, Bombay, and even as far as Arabia or Bengal. The chief exports are pepper, rice, cocoa-nuts, iron, and timber; the imports, wheat, sugar-canes, molasses, spices, salt, &c. Pop. about 10,000.