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Missionary Societies, with the exception of a part of the article upon Rangoon, have been entirely compiled or written by the Editor of this edition. The articles upon these stations constituted the principal part of the matter which Mr. Williams borrowed from Mr. Chapin. It is proper here to say that the British Gazetteer contained between two and three times the amount of matter embodied in Mr. Chapin's work. The latter was distinguished for accuracy, but it was little more than a book of annals. The work of Mr. Williams contains a great variety of anecdote, biography, and other instructive matter. In respect, also, to the efforts of all the European Societies, it is much more full and thorough.

The principal alterations and improvements in this edition are the following.

1. All the matter pertaining to the stations under the care of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the American Baptist Board, the American Methodist and Episcopal Missionary Societies, with the exception mentioned above, has been entirely recompiled and rewritten.

2. Some of the more important articles respecting the stations of the Foreign Societies, such as Abyssinia, Egypt, Greece, Syria, Sierra Leone, Surinam, St. Thomas, Cape Town, Siam, and others, have also been prepared without aid from any preceding Gazetteer. The greater part of the article upon Liberia, was written by the Editor, several years since, and published in a periodical.

3. All the stations, of any importance, (and it is believed every one where an American or European missionary is employed) which have been established since 1828, are described in this volume.

4. The intelligence respecting all the stations is brought down to the present time, so far as materials were at hand to furnish the information. To give room for this additional matter, the delineation of several missions which have been relinquished, is here omitted, as well as some other matters of little interest or value.

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Several errors in geography and topography have been corrected. The Editor has had access, as he supposes, to all the valuable sources of information on this subject, which are to be found in this country.

The work upon which he has depended more than upon any other, is the London Missionary Register, a publication, which is not equalled in the Christian world for fulness and accuracy on the subject of missions. Much use has also been made of the Missionary Herald, the Reports of all the American and of the principal British Societies, a history of the American Methodist Missions published in New York in 1832, Tyerman and Bennet's Journal, Ellis's Polynesian Researches, Malte Brun's Geography, the American Encyclopædia, and the principal reviews and periodicals of the day.

The Editor is, however, far from supposing that the book is entirely accurate, or that it might not be amended in regard to the selection of matter. Still, he commits it with confidence to the Christian public, hoping, that through the Divine blessing, it may advance the cause of that Redeemer to whom all the nations of the earth are given as an inheritance.

Boston, August, 1832.

B. B. EDWards.

MISSIONARY GAZETTEER.

A.A.S.

ABY

AASIRVADA POORAM, or the Gondar, in Amhara, enjoying only Blessed village, a place in the district a nominal sovereignty. The country of Tinnevelly, near the southern ex- is mountainous, but in the vales the tremity of the peninsula of Hindoos- soil is fertile. The rainy season contan. In 1828, it was a wilderness, tinues from April to September. This and called by a name which signifies is succeeded, without interval, by a theDevil's Tank." Now it is a cloudless sky, and a vertical sun; Christian village, consisting of 35 but cold nights constantly follow houses regularly built, with a neat these scorching days. The earth, and large church in front. The notwithstanding these days, is cold church is crowded with attentive to the soles of the feet; partly owing hearers, and at the date of the last intelligence, six persons had been baptized, among whom was one of the head men.

to the six months' rain, when no sun appears, and partly to the perpetual equality of nights and days. No country in the world produces a greatABUROW, OR ABORU, a village er variety of quadrupeds, both wild in the island of Harooka, which the and tame. Birds are also numerous, Rev. Mr. Kam, of the L. M. S. occa and some are of an immense size and sionally visits. Here a native school of great beauty. There is a remarkmaster, Nicholas Kiriwinno, collected able coincidence between the customs together the inhabitants, and, on the in the court of ancient Persia and 18th of January, 1822, persuaded those of Abyssinia. The religion of them to abandon idolatry, and to de- the country is a mixture of Judaism molish their idols. He was equally and the Christianity of the Greek successful at five different villages in church; and the language bears a the same island. The very ashes of great affinity to the Arabic. The objects esteemed sacred were cast in-government is legally a despotism, to the sea. Harooka is one of the but in an unsettled state; for the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, in the power of the emperor, is very weak, Indian Ocean, about S. Lat. 5°. E. and the ras, or prince of the empire, Lon. 128°. and the chiefs of the provinces, are ABYSSINIA, an empire of Africa, generally in enmity with one anoth770 m. long, and 550 broad; bounded er. The people are of a dark olive N. by Sennaar, E. by the Red Sea, W. complexion; their dress is a light and S. partly by Sennaar and Kordo-robe, bound with a sash, and the head fan, and partly by barbarous regions, is covered with a turban. The cusof which the names have scarcely toms of the Abyssinians are exceedreached us. It is divided into three ingly savage. A perpetual state of separate states, Tigré, Amhara, and civil war seems the main cause of Efât. The capitol of Tigré is the their peculiar brutality. Dead bodies ancient Axum. The king, or negus are seen lying in the streets, and serve as he was formerly called, lives at as food for dogs and hyenas. Mar

riage is a very slight connexion, and By request of Sebagadis, a place of conjugal fidelity is but little regard- worship was about to be built in the ed. In the western part of the coun- European style. The people receive try, there is an independent govern- the gospels and other books without ment of Jews. the least prejudice, and in fact with

To Abyssinia, the attention of the great eagerness. The last letters C. M. S. was called some years ago, from the missionaries report, that by the circumstances which occurred there had been a war between the during Mr. Jowett's visits to Egypt. kingdoms of Tigré and the Galla; The B. & F. B. S. has since availed The missionaries had been obliged to itself of all the means at its disposal, suspend their operations. to prepare the Scriptures for Abyssi- ACAPARUMBA, a church of Syrinia, both in the Ethiopic, as the an Christians, on the Malabar coast, in ecclesiastical language of the coun- India. The Romanists are numerous try, and in the Amharic, as the chief in the surrounding region. With the vernacular dialect. By the active aid church, and with one in the neighof its learned coadjutors, nearly all borhood, about 200 houses are conthe New Testament, from the trans- nected, and 1400 persons. About lation of Abu Rumi, procured for the 70 years since the Syrians gave the Society by Mr. Jowett, in Egypt, Romanists a large premium for evacwere speedily printed and forwarded uating the church.

to Abyssinia. The Ethiopic gospels ACCRA, or ACRE, a British Fort are now in circulation. Translations on the coast of Guinea, W. Africa. of other parts of the Bible both Ethi- E. lon. 1° 29', N. lat. 5° 40'. opic and Amharic are in progress. In the early part of 1822, a flourAttempts have been made for several ishing school was patronized here by years, by the C. M. S. to penetrate The African Institution, consisting of into Abyssinia. In 1826, while 52 boys, many of whom had made Messrs. Gobat and Kugler were in considerable progress in writing, Egypt, preparing for a mission to grammar, and arithmetic. The teachAbyssinia, they became acquainted ers performed divine service in the with a young Abyssinian by the hall every Sabbath. The progress of name of Girgis, who had been com- civilization and morality is also very missioned by his sovereign to pro- pleasing.

cure a patriarch from the Armenian ADANJORE, or ADANJOUR, a church. He was a young man of village in Hindoostan, 17 m. from great simplicity and excellence of Tanjore. E. lon. 79°, N. lat. 10°. character and seemed to be a true In 1802 the missionaries at Tanjore, Christian. After remaining some under the Society for Promoting time in Egypt and Syria, he returned Christian Knowledge, had labored in 1828 to Abyssinia. Messrs. Kug- here with success, and stationed a ler and Gobat followed him in the Catechist; nine families had received latter part of 1829. They were re-baptism, and being assisted by several ceived by Sebagadis, the chief of Christian families in the vicinity, Tigre, with the greatest kindness. they erected a house for public worGirgis they found to have been faith- ship.

ful to his profession, and to have AFRICA, is a vast peninsula, formbeen truly a light amidst the deep ing a triangle, with its vertex towards darkness by which he was surround- the south, containing 12,000,000 ed. The missionaries say that their square miles. Its length is 4600 prospects are as good as they could miles, and its greatest breadth 3500. have expected. Mr. Kugler's medi- It is situated between 18° W. and cal knowledge renders him very ac- 51° E. lon. and from 34° S. to 37° 30′ ceptable to the Abyssinians. Mr. N. lat. It has the Mediterranean Gobat has proceeded to Gondar in Sea on the N.; Asia, the Red Sea, order to distribute the Amharic gos- and the Indian Ocean on the E.; the pels. In the mean while, the mis- Southern and Atlantic Ocean on the sionaries were proceeding with the S. and W. It is on the whole more translations of the Scriptures and level than any other portion of the with the preparation of school books. globe, though it has immense chains