A DICTIONARY GEOGRAPHICAL, STATISTICAL, AND HISTORICAL. POONAH PORT ESSINGTON noticed in history early in the 17th century; but it did not become the permanent residence of the Mahratta sovereign till the middle of the 18th century. It came into British possession in 1818. POPAYAN, a city of New Granada, cap. of the gov. of Cauca, on an extensive table-land, nearly 6,000 ft. above the sea, having the Cauca river, about a league distant, on the N., and a mountain named M, from its resemblance to that letter, on the E.; 230 m. SW. Bogota, and 235 m. NE. Quito; lat. 2° 28′ 38′′ N., long. 76° 31′ 30′′ W. Pop. estimated at 25,000. Like most SpanishAmerican cities, it is laid out on a perfectly regular plan, its broad streets being bordered with stone footways. The houses have for the most part only one story, and are usually built of unburnt brick. It has several squares, one of which is spacious and handsome; a cathedral and other churches; numerous conventual buildings, some of which are now converted into barracks, or ap POONAH, a district of British India, presid. Bombay, principally between the 17th and 19th degs. of N. lat., and the 74th and 76th of E. long.; having N. Ahmednuggur, W. the Concan, S. the Sattarah dom., and E. those of the Nizam. Area, 8,281 sq.m. Pop, about 558,000. The face of the country is mountainous and irregular, but interspersed with many fertile and well-watered valleys. The climate is good and invigorating, and more suitable to Europeans than most parts of India. A good deal of the surface consists of the black and red cotton soils common in the S. of India: rice grounds comprise about 1-16th part of the land in cultivation, and gardens about 1-10th. The land is assessed on the village system. Poonah is the only city; but there are several other considerable towns, at which coarse woollen, cotton, and silk fabrics, and metallic ornaments are made. The celebrated cave-temples of Carlee, and several places of Hindoo pilgrimage, are in this district. POONAH, a city of British India, presid. Bom-propriated to other uses, and was formerly the bay, formerly the cap. of the Mahratta dom., but seat of a royal mint and of a tribunal of finance. now the cap. of the above distr.; on the Moolla, Two bridges are thrown across the Molina, a tria tributary of the Beemah, 80 m. ESE. Bombay, butary of the Cauca, which runs rapidly through on the railway from Bombay to Bellary. Pop. the city, and drains it of its filth. Popayan is estimated at about 110,000. It stands in an ex-principally inhabited by negroes and mulattoes, tensive and bare plain, about 2,000 ft. above the sea, at the foot of a small insulated hill, crowned with a pagoda. It is without walls, and can neither lay claim to antiquity nor beauty; is very irregularly built and paved, with mean bazaars, deep ruinous streets, and no large or striking elifices. The principal palace is surrounded by high and thick walls, with four round towers, and is entered through a pointed archway. There are several other palaces, but they are small and insignificant. A little west of the city is the British cantonment, on an elevated site, with wide streets, a spacious church, a good station-library for the soldiers, and another library for the officers, and regimental schools, supported by subscription. This city has a Hindoo college, established in 1821, for 100 students, with classes for Hindoo divinity, medicine, metaphysics, mathematics, and astronomy, law, logic, rhetoric, and grammar. Poonah is the residence of the British collector and judge for the distr., and has a distr. jail, several British schools, and a Rom. Catholic church. East of the city is an excavated temple, apparently dedicated to Siva. Poonah is first VOL. IV. the number of whom, a few years since, was double that of the whites. It was formerly the entrepôt of the trade between Bogota and Quito, and had a large traffic in the precious metals; but the revolution, by turning the trade into other channels, gave a blow to its prosperity, from which it has not hitherto recovered. It has still, however, some trade in woollen stuffs, salt, flour, sugar and cocoa; and its markets are always well supplied with provisions. Popayan was the first city built by Europeans in this part of the New World, having been founded by Benalcazar in 1537. A considerable portion of the city was destroyed by an earthquake in 1827. POPERINGEN, or POPERINGHE, a town of Belgium, prov. W. Flanders, cap. cant., on the Schipvaert canal, near the French frontier, 7 m. W. by N. Ypres. Pop. 11,160 in 1862. The town has several churches, a handsome town-hall and college, and some rather extensive woollen manufactures, with oil-mills. It has also a considerable trade in hops. PORT ESSINGTON, late a British settlement, B 5 on a peninsula on the N. coast of Australia. The bay or port extends inland for 17 m, with a breadth varying from 2 to 6 m.; Victoria, the cap. on its W. side, being in lat. 11° 17′ S., long. 132° 18' E. The latter was founded in 1839; but it would seem that the project for establishing a colony in this locality had been unwarily adopted. The country round the bay is of the most sterile description; and the bay itself, though excellent when entered, is, from the lowness of the shores and the number of reefs, difficult and dangerous to approach. These considerations led to the abandonment of the settlement in 1845. PORT-GLASGOW, a parl. bor. and sea-port town of Scotland, co. Renfrew, on the S. side of the Frith of Clyde, 16 m. WNW. Glasgow, and 2 m. E. Greenock, on the Glasgow-Greenock railway. Pop. 7,214 in 1861. On the W. the town is flanked by a steep range of hills, about 400 ft. in height; and is, in fact, so much overshaded by these hills, that the rays of the sun do not reach it for about 6 weeks in winter. The town is neat and regular; the streets, which are straight, for the most part cross each other at right angles; while the houses, which are generally lofty and substantial, have a pretty uniform appearance. The chief modern buildings are the town-house and par. church. The latter is ornamented in front with a portico, resting on 4 massy fluted pillars, and is surmounted with a handsome spire, rising from the centre. In addition to the par. church there is a quoad sacra chapel belonging to the establishment, and a chapel in connection with the Associate Synod. There are 8 schools, one of which is parochial; and another an endowed seminary, called Beaton's School, from the name of its founder. The most important branches of business are ship-building, and the manufacture of canvas for sail-cloth and coarse linen fabrics, The former gives employment to a large number of men. The building of steam-boats, some of them of the largest class, is extensively carried on. Port-Glasgow was formerly the sea-port or deepwater harbour of the city of Glasgow, and was long regarded as a mere dependency of the latter. It has two capacious harbours, furnished with ample quay and shed room, together with a graving dock, the oldest in Scotland. A large and commodious wet-dock has also been constructed. Formerly the trade of this place was almost entirely carried on in ships belonging to merchants resident in Glasgow. Of late years, however, the people of Port-Glasgow have themselves become ship-owners, and at present the greater part of the shipping belonging to the port is owned by residents in the town. On the 1st of January, 1864. there belonged to the port 31 sailing vessels under 50, and 9 above 50 tons, besides 8 steamers, of an aggregate burthen of 889 tons. Port-Glasgow is the principal port on the Clyde for the importation of N. American timber, the quantity imported having varied during the last 15 years, from 16,000 to 30,000 tons a year. Owing to the great improvements that have been effected in the navigation of the Clyde, the greater part of the trade belonging to Glasgow that formerly centred in this port, has been transferred to the former. The customs' revenue has very materially decreased; a consequence of a large proportion of the goods formerly warehoused here being now carried direct to Glasgow. Thus the customs' revenue which, in 1830, amounted to 243,3497., had sunk, in 1849, to 139,3924, and, in 1860, to 54.6217. It rose, however, to 125,1127, in 1862, and to 140,1747. in 1863. More than half the de of the port is with the British N. American sions; about a fourth with the W. Indies; and the remainder with the E. Indies, the Mediterrancan, and the U. States. There is now little coasting trade between the town and Glasgow; but the numerous steam-boats that navigate the Clyde, except those that ply to comparatively distant ports, touch here in passing and re-passing. The intercourse between Glasgow and its port was in the last century carried on principally by land; but the improvements effected in the Clyde navigation have been such as to make Glasgow all but independent of this or any other port, except its own. The ruins of the castle of Newark, which originally formed the seat of the proprietor of the estate on which Port-Glasgow is built, stands on the shore, immediately contiguous to the town on the E. In 1775 it was created a bor. of barony, and a municipal constitution was conferred on it. The Reform Act united it with Renfrew, Rutherglen, Dunbarton, and Kilmarnock, in sending 1 mem, to the H. of C. Registered voters, 241 in 1865. The corporation revenue amounted to 4,1507, in 1863-4. Market-day, Friday. PORT MAHON, a sca-port of the island of Minorca, which see. PORT-PATRICK, a sea-port town of Scotland, co. Wigtown, on a gentle declivity on the E. coast of the Irish Channel, bounded on the land side by hills which suddenly rise, in a semicircular form, to the height of 200 or 300 ft.; 109 m. SW. Edinburgh, and 21 m. NE. Donaghadee, Ireland, on the terminus of a branch line of the GlasgowCarlisle railway. Pop. 1,206 in 1861. The principal street is in the form of a crescent, parallel to the bay; and there are 3 smaller streets connected with it, stretching at right angles towards the hills. The houses are, in general, well-built, comfortable, and covered with slate. With the exception of the par. church and of a free church, there are no public buildings, nor any other place of public worship, though there are dissenters of all kinds in the town and par. Education is at a low ebb; lower, perhaps, than in any other place of similar size in Scotland. There is a small parish library, and a still smaller one connected with the Sunday school. There are no manufactures, but the cod fishery is carried on to some extent. Government steam-packets, in the service of the post office, used to ply between Portpatrick and Donaghadee. The shortness of the passage from the latter made Portpatrick, previously to the introduction of steam navigation, a principal port of entry, not merely for passengers coming from Ireland to Britain, but also for cattle exported from the former to the latter. But after a direct communication had been established between Ireland and Holyhead, Glasgow, Liverpool, and Bristol, the passage by Portpatrick fell off, though it is still a regular route, served by steamers. Formerly the harbour of Portpatrick was a mere inlet between two ridges of rocks, and was one of the worst and most dangerous on the W. of Scotland. Whenever a vessel approached the harbour, the inhabs. assembled to draw her to the beach, there being no quay or creek to afford shelter from the waves. But a quay and reflecting lighthouse were built about 80 years ago; and it having been determined to make the place a steam-packet station, a new harbour was constructed, protected by two piers, curved to resemble a horseshoe, and furnished with jetties near their extremities, by which the entrance was contracted to 180 ft., the area of the basin thus formed being about 7 acres. In accomplishing this great work, rock to an immense extent required to be excavated, which was effected by means of puddle-dikes and the divingbell. The original estimate was 120,000, but the total expense exceeded 200,000l. After all, |