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ANCRUM MOOB 165 ANDERSEN century, and possessing the oldest cupola in Italy. Ancona is supposed to have been founded about 380 B. c. by Syracusans, who had fled from the tyranny of Di- onysius the Elder. It was destroyed by the Goths, rebuilt by Narses, and again destroyed by the Saracens in the 10th century. It afterward became a republic; but in 1532 Pope Clement VII. annexed it to the states of the Church. In 1797 it was taken by the French; but in 1799 • General Meunier was obliged to surrender it to the Russians and Austrians, after a long and gallant defense. In 1832 a French force took possession of the town and kept it in their hands till 1838, when both French and Austrians retired from the Papal states. In 1849 a revolutionary garrison in Ancona capitulated after en- during a siege by the Austrians of 25 days. In 1861 the flag of the kingdom of Italy waved over the ancient city. "The March of Ancona" was the name applied to the territory Ijdng between the Adri- atic and the Apennines, from Tronto N. W. of San Marino. Erected into an in- dependent marquisate under the Longo- bards, the district was a papal depend- ency from the 13th century, but passed into the hands of Victor Emmanuel in 1860. ANCRUM MOOR, Roxburghshire, 5^ miles N. W. of Jedburgh, was in 1544 the scene of the defeat of 5,000 English, under Sir Ralph Evers and Sir Brian Latoun, by a Scottish force under the Earl of Angus and Scott of Buccleuch. ANDALUSIA, a large and fertile region occupying the S. of Spain. Its shores are washed both by the Mediter- ranean and the Atlantic, The name is a form of Vandalitia or Vandalusia, from the Vandals, who overran it in the 5th century. When it was a Phoenician trade emporium, it was called Tartessus; the Romans named it Baetica, from the river Baetis, the modern Guadalquivir. In the 8th century, the Moors founded here a splendid monarchy, which quickly attained a high degree of civilization. The four great Moorish capitals were Seville, Cordova, Jaen, and Granada. During the darkness of the Middle Ages, Cordova was "the Athens of the West, the seat of arts and sciences." The Moorish kingdoms were finally con- quered by the Castilians in 1235-1248. Christian intolerance seriously and per- manently impoverished the country; but later, under the Spaniards, painting here arose in a new form in the schools of Velasquez and Murillo. Andalusia mainly consists of the great basin of the Guadalquivir, and the mountainous dis- tricts which bound it. In the S., the Sierra Nevada attains a height of 11,657 feet. Cotton and sugar-cane flourish in the open air, and the cactus and aloe form impenetrable hedges. Wine and oil abound; but some tracts are very barren. On the whole, however, Andalusia is still one of the most fertile districts of Spain. Its breeds of horses and mules have long been celebrated. The mountains yield silver, copper, lead, iron, and coal; and some ores are extensively worked. The Andalusians speak a dialect of Spanish, manifestly tinctured with traces of Arabic. Andalusia is divided into the provinces of Almeria, Jaen, Malaga, Cadiz, Huelva, Seville, Cordova, and Granada. The chief towns are Seville, Cordova, Jaen, and Cadiz. Area, 33,340 square miles. Pop. about 4,000,000. ANDAMANS, a group of thickly wooded islands toward the E. side of the Bay of Bengal, about 680 miles S. of the Hooghly mouth of the Ganges, be- tween 10° and 14° of N. latitude, and 92° and 94° of E. longitude. They con- sist of the Great and Little Andaman groups, surrounded by many smaller is- lands. The Great Andaman group is more than 200 miles long and 20 miles broad, and comprises four islands, the North, Middle, and South Andaman, and Rutland Island. The Little Anda- man, which lies about 30 miles S. of the larger group, is 28 miles long by 17 miles broad. The total area is 2,508 square miles. The native inhabitants stand in the lowest stage of civilization, and be- long to the same family as the original small-statured races in southern India; their number in the entire group is steadily decreasing and now is only about 1,300. The total population of the islands is about 18,000. Those that have come into contact with the convicts here have deteriorated morally. Their height seldom reaches five feet; their com- plexion is very dark, the hair crisp and woolly. The men go naked; the women wear round the loins a girdle of leaves. They have no settled dwellings, but go freely from island to island, and sub- sist on the fruit and beasts of the wood, and upon fish. A British settlement was made on North Andaman in 1789, but abandoned in 1796 for Penang. The capital of the present settlement is at Port Blair, on South Andaman, the largest island of the group. The harbor here is one of the finest in the world. Since 1858 the Andamans have been a penal settlement for Sepoy mutineers and other life convicts, ANDERSEN, HANS CHRISTIAN (an'der-sen), a Danish poet and story writer, born at Odense, April 2, 1805.