in leather and cotton. A number of the traders are Armenians and Greeks. In history it is remarkable for the conference held here, in 1791, between the Turks and Austrians. Inhabitants 20,000. Twenty-five miles east of Nicopoli.

SISTRUM, or CISTRUM, an ancient musical instrument used by the priests of Isis and Osiris. It is described by Spon as of an oval form, in manner of a racket, with three sticks traversing it breadthwise; which playing freely, by the agitation of the whole instrument, yielded a kind of sound which to them seemed melodious. Mr. Malcolm takes it to be no better than a kind of rattle. Oiselius observes that the sistrum is found represented on several medals, and on talismans.

SISYMBRIUM, water cresses, in botany, a genus of plants belonging to the class of tetradynamia, and to the order of siliquosa; and in the natural system ranged under the thirty-ninth order, siliquosæ. The siliqua, or pod, opens with valves somewhat straight. The calyx and corolla are expanded. There are twenty-nine species, of which eight are natives of Britain: viz. 1. S. amphibium, water radish. The stem is firm, erect, and two or three feet high; the leaves are pinnatifid and serrated; the flowers are yellow and in spikes; the pods are somewhat oval and short. It grows in water.'

2. S. irio, broad leaved rocket or hedge-mustard; the stem is smooth, and about two feet high; the leaves are broad, naked, pinnated, and halberd shaped at the end; the flowers are yellow and the pods erect. It grows on waste ground.

3. S. monense, yellow rocket. The stem is smooth, and about six or eight inches high; the leaves are pinnatifid; the pinnæ remote, generally seven pair; the flower is yellow; the petals entire; the calyx is closed. It grows in the Isle of Man.

4. S. murale, or wall rocket. The stems are rough, and about eight inches high; the leaves grow on foot-stalks, lance-shaped, smooth, sinuated, and serrated; the flowers are yellow; the pods a little compressed, and slightly carinated. It grows on sandy ground in the North, Angle

sey, &c.

5. S. nasturium, common water cress, grows on the brinks of rivulets and water-ditches. The leaves have from six to eight pair of smooth, succulent, and sessile pinna; the flowers are small and white, and grow in short spikes or tufts. The leaves have a moderately pungent taste, emit a quick penetrating smell, like that of mustard seed, but much weaker. Their pungent matter is taken up both by watery and spirituous menstrua, and accompanies the aqueous juice, which issues copiously upon expression. It is very volatile, so as to arise in great part in distillation with rectified spirit, as well as with water, and almost totally to exhale in drying the leaves, or inspissating by the gentlest heat to the consistence of an extract, either the expressed juice, or the watery or spirituous tinctures. Both the inspissated juice, and the watery extract, discover to the taste a saline impregnation, and, in keeping, throw up crystalline efflorescences to the surface. On distilling considerable quanti

ties of the herb with water, a small proportion of a subtile, volatile, very pungent oil is obtained. Water cresses obtain a place in the materia medica for their antiscorbutic qualities, which have been long very generally acknowledged by physicians. They are also supposed to purify the blood and humors, and to open visceral obstructions. They are nearly allied to scurvy grass, but are more mild and pleasant, and for this reason are frequently eaten as salad. In the pharmacopoeias the juice of this plant is directed with that of scurvy-grass and Seville oranges; and Dr. Cullen has remarked that the addition of acids renders the juices of the plantæ siliquosæ more certainly effectual, by determining them more powerfully to an acescent fermentation.

6. S. silvestre, water-rocket. The stem is weak, branched, and above a foot high. The leaves are pinnated; the pinnæ lance-shaped and serrated; the flowers small and yellow; and grow frequently in shallow water.

7. S. sophia, flixweed. The stem is firm, branched, and two or three feet high; the leaves are multifid; the segments are narrow; the flowers are yellow; the petals much less than the calyx; the pods are long, stiff, curved, without style, and erect; the seeds are minute and yellow. It grows on walls, waste ground, &c.

8. S. terrestre, land rocket, or annual water radish. The leaves are pinnatifid; the pods are filled with seed; the root is annual, and white; the stem is angular, red-green, and smooth.

SISYPHUS, in fabulous history, the son of Æolus and Enarete, and brother of Athamas and Salmoneus. He married Merope, one of the Pleiades, who bore him Glaucus. He built Ephyra in Peloponnesus, called afterwards Corinth, and was a very crafty man. Others say that he was a Trojan secretary, who was punished for discovering secrets of state; and others again that he was a notorious robber, killed by Theseus. He debauched his niece Tyro, who killed the two sons she had by him. All the poets agree that he was punished in Tartarus for his crimes, by rolling a great stone to the top of a hill, which constantly recoiled, and rolling down incessantly, renewed his labor, without end.

SISYRINCHIUM; in botany, a genus of plants belonging to the class of gynandria, and order of triandria; natural order sixth, ensatæ. The spatha is diphyllous; there are six plane petals: CAPS. trilocular and inferior. There are two species: 1. S. Bermudiana, a native of Bermuda; and 2. S. palmifolium, with leaves resembling those of the palm tree. SIT, v. n. & v.a. Pret. I sat. Sax. sittan; SITTER, n. s. Swed. setta; Goth. sita, siSITTING. tan. To rest on the buttocks; be in any state of rest or quiet; rest as a weight; brood; settle; abide; be adjusted; ordered; settled; convened; placed at table; be in any solemn assembly as a member; taking down, out, and up, after it: as a verb active, to keep a seat upon; place on a seat: the noun substantives corresponding.

Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here? Numbers.

As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not, so he that getteth riches not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days. Jer. xvii. 11. The judgment shall sit, and take away his domi

•Daniel.

nion.
He that was dead sat up, and began to speak.

Luke vii. Whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth. Id. xxii. 27. Three hundred and twenty men sat in council daily. 1 Mac. From besides Tanais, the Goths, Huns, and Getes sat down. Spenser.

This new and gorgeous garment, majesty,
Sits not so easy on me as you think. Shakspeare.
Heaven knows

By what by-paths and indirect crooked ways
I met this crown; and I myself know well
How troublesome it sate upon my head;
To thee it shall descend with better quiet.
I should be still

Id.

Plucking the grass to know where sits the wind: Peering in maps for ports. Id. Merchant of Venice. Your brother's death sits at your heart.

Shakspeare.

The happiest youth viewing his progress through What perils past, what crosses to ensue, Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.

Down to the golden Chersonese, or where The Persian in Ecbatan sate.

IJ.

Id.

Why sit we here each other viewing idly?
Thus fenced,

But not at rest or ease of mind,
They sat them down to weep.

Id.

The toss and fling, and to be restless, only galls our sores, and makes the burden that is upon us sit more uneasy. Tillotson.

Aloft, in awful state,

The godlike hero sat

On his imperial throne. Dryden. When Thetis blushed in purple not her own, And from her face the breathing winds were blown ; A sudden silence sate upon the sea,

And sweeping oars with struggling urged their way.

One is under no more obligation to extol every thing he finds in the author he translates, than a painter is to make every face that sits to him hand

some.

Garth.

She mistakes a piece of chalk for an egg, and sits upon it in the same manner. Addison. One council sits upon life and death, the other is for taxes, and a third for the distributions of justice.

Id.

The court was sat before Sir Roger came, but the justices made room for the old knight at the head of

them.

Id.

Whilst the hen is covering her eggs, the male bird takes his stand upon a neighbouring bough, and amuses her with his songs during the whole time of her sitting.

Id.

Hardly the muse can sit the head-strong horse, Nor would she, if she could, check his impetuous force. Prior. Here we cannot sit down, but still proceed in our search, and look higher for a support.

Rogers. Suppose all the church-lands were thrown up to the laity; would the tenants sit easier in their rents than now? Swift. A. Philips. SITA, in Hindoo mythology, is a celebrated incarnation of the goddess Lakshmi, consort of Vishnu, in his avatara, or descent in the form of Rama. In the language of the fable, she was his sakti, or energy; and numberless poems have been written in honor of her beauty and merits. She is one of the most popular goddesses of the Hindoo Pantheon, and is indeed one of the most virtuous and interesting characters in their legends. Her history and that of her lord forms the subject of the RAMAYANA, an epic poem, grounded, like the Iliad, on a rape. As noticed in that article, and RAVENA, the carrying off, by the treachery of the tyrant of that uaine, the virtuous spouse of Rama, roused that hero to the mighty deeds necessary for her rescue from the

The ships are ready and the wind sits fair.

hands of her powerful persecutor, and celebrated in the fine poem of Valmiki; and, as noticed above, in numberless others of secondary and minor fame. The outline of Sita's history is: the childless rajah Janaka, having duly propitiated the gods, was led to the benevolent adoption of a female child about five years old, found enclosed in a box by a Brahmin in a field. She was called Sita, from sit or set, meaning a furrow or field; and Janeki, after her adoptive father. Sita, however, means also fair, and may be thence derived, and is in this sense, of denoting beauty, given also to Parvati and Saraswati, consorts of the other two divine persons of the Hindoo triad. She proved to be an incarnation of Lakshmi, as before noticed and on attaining maturity was won by Rama, in a contest of archery with many sovereigns, ambitious of obtaining a prize of such incomparable beauty. This story, as it is related in the Ramayana, reminds us of the unyielding bow of Ulysses; as none but Rama had power to accomplish the required and ordained feat; which was piercing the eye of a fish whirling on a pin fixed on a high pole; and not looking at the mark, but at its reflection in a vessel of oil placed on the ground. The ten-headed twentyhanded tyrant Ravena had previously failed. Burning with the rage of disappointed desire, the tyrant carried her off; and, having been in his power, her purity might be possibly suspected; she therefore plunged into the flames, where, defended by Pavaka, the regent of fire, her incombustibility attested her innocency. She was of course triumphantly restored to her overjoyed husband. In the Ramayana she is described as endued with youth, beauty, goodness, sweetness, and prudence; an inseparable attendant on her lord, as the light on the moon : the beloved spouse of Rama, dear as his own soul; formed by divine illusion, amiable, and adorned with every charm;' and always held forth as an example of conjugal faith and affection.

While confined on the island of Lanka, or Ceylon, and persecuted by the addresses of its tyrannical sovereign, the anguish and lamentation of Sita are copious subjects of hyperbole for Hindoo poets. Travellers are still shown a lake or pool, called Sita-koonda, said to have originated in the floods of tears shed by the captive beauty. This extravaganza was not lost on our early missionaries and travellers. Ceylon being with them the garden of Eden, they find Adam's Peak, Adam's Bridge, &c., called Rama's by the natives. Eve personates Sita in respect to this pool. Sir John Mandeville notices it in his quaint way. Describing Ceylon, he has fair scope for his poetical exuberance. In that isle is a gret mountayne, and in mydd place of the mount is a gret lake in a full fayre pleyne, and there is gret plentie of watre. And thei of the contrie seyn that Adam and Eve wepten upon that mount 100 zeer, when thei weren dryven out of Paradys. And that watre thei seyn is of here teres; for so much watre they wepten that made the foresede lake.' Sir John died in 1372. A beautiful tree, called asoka by Sanscrit botanists, bears a mythological reference to Sita. She was confined in a grove of those trees, whose

name is derived from grief, or lamentation. It is hence, perhaps, also sacred to the god of tears, or the avenging Siva. Asoka, indeed, rather from its privative initial, denotes the absence of grief, equivalent to grief-dispeller; thus named possibly from its beauty, so greatly admired by a poetical and tasteful people. A numerous sect of Hindoos adore Sita as Lakshmi herself. It is a branch of the sect of Ramanuj. She is said to have borne Rama two sons, Kushi and Lava, who were great orators and minstrels; but they are seldom heard of, except in legends immediately relating to their families.

SITANG, a large river of the Birman empire, in Pegu. It rises in mountains about 20° N. lat., passes the ancient city of Pegu, and falls into the gulf of Martaban: on account of shoals, and very strong tides, it is excessively unsafe.

SITANTA, a fabulous mountain, in which is described the terrestrial abode of the god Indra, the Hindoo regent of the firmament. In the Hindoo Pantheon, the wonderful mountain Meru is described from the Puranas. On one of its three peaks is Kailasa, the Olympus of Siva; and on another is the Swerga, or paradise of Indra. But his terrestrial abode is on Sitanta, a part probably of Meru; and it may be amusing to see in what the delights of Hindoo gods are supposed, by their sacred writers, to consist. Sitanta is skirted by a most delightful country, well watered, and enlivened by the harmonious noise of the black bee and frogs. There, among immense caves, is the Kridavana, or place of dalliance of Mahendra; where knowledge and the completion of our wishes are fully acknowledged. There is the great forest of the Pariyateka tree of the king of the gods, known through the three worlds; and the whole world sings his praise from the Veda. Such is the place of dalliance of him with a thousand eyes, or Indra. In this charming grove of Sakra, or Indra, the gods, the danavas, the snakes, yakshas, rakshas, guhyas or kuveras, gandharvas, live happy; as well as numerous tribes of Upsara, fond of sport.'P. 270.

SITE, n. s. Lat. situs. Situation; local position; posture.

Manifold streams of goodly navigable rivers, as so many chains environed the same site and temple.

The city self he strongly fortifies, Three sides by site it well defenced has.

Bacon.

Fairfax.

The foolish man thereat woxe wondrous blith, And humbly thanked him a thousand sithe.

Spenser. This over-running and wasting of the realm was the beginning of all the other evils which sithence have afflicted that land. Id. State of Ireland.

I thank you for this profit, and from hence I'll love no friend, sith love breeds such offence. Shakspeare.

vered with bristles reflected over them; tongue short, horny at the end, and jagged; toes placed three forward and one backward: the middle toe joined closely at the base to both the outmost: back toe as large as the middle one.There are eleven species, viz.-1. S. Cafra; 2. Canadensis; 3. Carolinensis; 4. Chloris; 5. Europea; 6. Jamaicensis; 7. Longirostra; 8. Major; 9. Nævia; 10. Pusilla; 11. Surinamensis. Of these the following are the most remarkable :

SITHE, n. s. Sax. ride. This word, says Dr. Johnson, is very variously written; I have chosen the orthography which is at once most simple and most agreeable to etymology. The instrument of mowing; a crooked blade joined at right angles to a long pole.

Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives, Live registered upon our brazen tombs ; And then grace us in the disgrace of death: When, spite of cormorant devouring time, The endeavour of this present breath may buy That honour which shall 'bate his scythe's keen edge, And make us heirs of all eternity. Shakspeare. Time is commonly drawn upon tombs, in gardens, and other places, an old man, bald, winged, with a sithe and an hour-glass. Peacham on Drawing.

There rude impetuous rage does storm and fret; And there, as master of this murdering brood, Swinging a huge sithe, stands impartial death, With endless business almost out of breath.

While the milk-maid singeth blithe, And the mower whets his scithe.

Crashaw.

Milton.

The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more; But useless lances into sythes shall bend, And the broad faulchion in a ploughshare end.

Pope.

But, Stella, say what evil tongue
Reports you are no longer young?
That Time sits with his sythe to mow
Where erst sat Cupid with his bow?

I drew my scythe in sic a fury,
I near-hand cowpit wi' my hurry,
But yet the bauld Apothecary

Withstood the shock;

I might as well hae tried a quarry

Swift.

O' hard whin rock. Burns. The glass that bids man mark the fleeting hour, And Death's own sithe would better speak his power. Cowper.

What should be, and what was an hourglass once, Becomes a dicebox, and a billiard mace Well does the work of his destructive sithe. Id. SITONES, an ancient people of Germany, or as others say of Norway. Tacit. de Germ. 45. SITOPHYLAX [Gr. Eiropuλaž, from otrog, corn, and puλaž, keeper], in antiquity, an Athenian magistrate, who had the superintendance of the corn, and was to take care that nobody bought more than was necessary for the provision of his family. By the Attic laws, particular persons were prohibited from buying more than fifty measures of wheat a man; and, that such persons might not purchase more, the sitophylax was appointed to see the laws properly executed. It was a capital crime to prevaricate in it. There were fifteen of these sitophylaces, ten for the city, and five for the Pireaus.

SITTA, the nuthatch, in ornithology, a genus belonging to the class of aves, and order of picæ. It is thus characterised by Dr. Latham. The bill is for the most part straight; on the lower mandible there is a small angle; nostrils small, co

length nearly five inches and three-quarters, in 1. S. Europæa, the European nuthatch, is in breadth nine; the bill is strong and straight, about three-fourths of an inch long; the upper mandible black, the lower white; the irides are hazel; the crown of the head, back, and coverts of wings, of a fine bluish gray; a black stroke passes over the eye from the mouth: the cheeks and chin are white; the breast and belly of a dull orange color; the quill-feathers dusky; the wings underneath are marked with two spots, one white at the root of the exterior quills, the other black at the joint of the bastard wing; the tail consists of twelve feathers; the two middle are gray, the two exterior feathers tipt with gray; then succeeds a transverse white spot; beneath that the rest is black: the legs are of a pale yellow; the back toe very strong, and the claws large. The female is like the male, but less in size, and weighs commonly five, or at most six drachms. The eggs are six or seven, of a dirty white, dotted with rufous; these are deposited in some hole of a tree, frequently one which has been deserted by a woodpecker, on the rotten wood mixed with a little moss, &c. If the entrance be too large, the bird nicely stops up part of it with clay, leaving only a small hole for itself to pass in and out by. While the hen is sitting, if any one puts a bit of stick into the hole, she hisses like a snake, and is so attached to her eggs that she will sooner suffer any one to pluck off her feathers than fly away. During the time of incubation, the male supplies her with sustenance, with all the tenderness of an affectionate mate. These birds run up and down the bodies of trees, like the woodpecker tribe; and feed not only on insects, but nuts, of which they lay up a considerable provision in the hollows of trees. It is a pretty sight,' says Mr. Willoughby, to see her fetch a nut out of her hoard, place it fast in a chink, and then, standing above it with its head downwards, striking it with all its force, break the shell, and catch up the kernel. It is supposed not to sleep perched on a twig like other birds; for, when confined in a cage, it prefers sleeping in a hole or corner. When at rest it keeps the head down. In autumn it begins to make a chattering noise, being silent for the greatest part of the year.' Dr. Plott tells us that this bird, by putting its bill into a crack in the bough of a tree, can make such a violent sound as if it was rending asunder, so that the noise may be heard at least 240 yards.

·

2. S. longirostra, the great hook-billed nuthatch, is the largest of the known nuthatches: its bill, though pretty straight, is inflated at the middle, and a little hooked at the end; the nos trils are round; the quills of the tail and of the