ACCABISH ((j'011t). This word occurs Job • viii. 14 and Is. lix. 5, in both which places it is translated spider in the A. V. That this is the cor rect rendering cannot be doubted ; all the ancient versions support it, and the context in both places fully accords with it. Gesenius supposes the word to be a compound of 1712, Arab. agile, swift, and to weave (as a spider), q. d. swift weaver. Bochart proposes to derive it, by reversing the radicals, from the verb 12D or opL9 to interweave (Hieroz. ii. p. 6o3).—W. L. A.
ACCHO 17y ; (Sept. "Atcxcii), a town and haven within the nominal territory of the tribe of Asher, which however never acquired possession of it (Judg. i. 31). The Greek and Roman writers call it 'Aril, ACE (Strab. xvi. 877 ; Diod. Sic. xix. 93; C. Nep. xiv. 5); but it was eventually better known as PTOLEMAIS (Plin. Hist. Nat. v. 59), which name it received from the first Ptolemy, king of Egypt, by whom it was much improved. By this name it is mentioned in the Apocrypha (1 Macc. x. 56 ; xi. 22, 24 ; xii. 45i 4S; 2 Macc. xiii. 24), in the New Testament (Acts xxi. 7), and by Josephus xiii. I2, 2, seq.) It was also called Colonia Claudii Cason's, in consequence of its receiving the privileges of a Roman city from the emperor Claudius (Plin. v. 17; xxxvi. 65). But the names thus imposed or altered by foreigners never took with the natives, and the place is still known in the country by the name of t,(c. AREA. It continued to be called Ptolemais by the Greeks of the Lower empire, as well as by Latin authors, while the Orientals adhered to the original designation. This has occasioned some speculation. Vitriacus, who was bishop of the Place, produces the opinion (Hist. Orient. c. 25) that the town was founded by twin-brothers Ptolemmus and Aeon. Vinisauf imagines that the old town retained the name of Accho, while that of Ptolemais was confined to the more modern additions northward, towards the hill of Turon (G. Vinisauf, i. 2, p. 248), but the truth undoubtedly is that the natives never adopted the foreign names of this or any other town. The word Accho, or Akka [which is traced by Gesenius to the root "p121, is, Sir W. Drummond alleges (Origines, b.v.c.3), clearly of Arabian origin, and derived from LL,(...s ak, which signifies sultry. The neighbourhood was famous for the sands which the Sidonians employed in making glass (Plin. Hirt. Nat. v. 19; Strabo, xvi. 877) ; and the Arabians denote a sandy shore heated by the sun by the word akeh, or aka', for (with the nunnation) aketon. During the Crusades the place was usually known to Europeans by the name of ACON : after wards, from the occupation of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, as St. JEAN D'ACRE or simply ACRE.
This famous city and haven is situated in N. lat. 55', and E. long. 35° 5', and occupies the north-western point of a commodious bay, called the Bay of Acre, the opposite or south-western point of which is formed by the promontory of Mount Carmel. The city lies on the plain to which it gives its name. Its western side is washed by the waves of the Mediterranean, and on the south lies the bay, beyond which may be seen the town of Caipha, on the site of the ancient Calamos, and, rising high above both, the shrubby heights of Carmel. The mountains belonging to the chain of Anti-Libanus are seen at the distance of about four leagues to the north, while to the east the view is bounded by the fruitful hills of the Lower Galilee. The bay, from the town of Acre to the promontory of Mount Carmel, is three leagues wide and two in depth. The port, on account of its shallowness, can only be entered by vessels of small burden ; but there is excellent anchorage on the other side of the bay, before Caipha, which is in fact the roadstead of Acre (Turner, ii. III ; G. Robinson, i. 198). In the time of Strabo Accho was a great city (11roXeptats Ian ,u.eydX71 71-6Xis i)v 'Atop thv6p.a.0v 7p6repov, xvi. p. 877), and it has continued to be a place of importance down to the present time. But after the Turks gained possession of it, Acre so rapidly declined, that the travellers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries concur in describing it as much fallen from its former glory, of which, however, traces still remained. The missionary Eugene Roger (La Terre Saincte, 1645, pp. 44-46), remarks that the whole place had such a sacked and desolated appearance, that little remained worthy of note except the palace of the grand master of the Knights Hospitallers, and the church of St. Andrew ; all the rest was a sad and
deplorable ruin, pervaded by a pestiferous air, which soon threw strangers into dangerous maladies. This account is confirmed by other travellers, who add little or nothing to it (Doubdan, Cotovicus, Zuallart, Morison, Nau, D'Arvieux, and others). Morison, however, dwells more on the ancient remains, which consisted of portions of old walls of extraordinary height and thickness, and of frag ments of buildings, sacred and secular, which still afforded manifest tokens of the original magnifi cence of the place. He (ii. 8) affirms that the metropolitan church of St. Andrew was equal to the finest of those he had seen in France and Italy, and that the church of St. John was of the same perfect beauty, as might be seen by the pillars and vaulted roof, half of which still remained. An excellent and satisfactory account of the place is given by Nan (liv. v. ch. 19), who takes particular notice of the old and strong vaults on which the houses are built; and the present writer, having observed the same practice in Baghdad, has no doubt that Nau is right in the conjecture that they were designed to afford cool underground retreats to the inhabitants during the heat of the day in summer, when the climate of the plain is intensely hot. This provision might not be necessary in the interior and cooler parts of the country. Maundrell gives no further information, save that he mentions that the town appears to have been encompassed on the land side by a double wall, defended with towers at small distances ; and that without the walls were ditches, ramparts, and a kind of bastions faced with hewn stones (tourney, p. 72). Pococke speaks chiefly of the ruins. After the impulse given to the prosperity of the place by the measures of Sheikh Daher, and afterwards of Djezzar Pasha, the descriptions differ. Much of the old ruins had disappeared from the natural progress of decay, and from their materials having been taken for new works. It is, however, mentioned by Buckingham, that, in sinking the ditch in front of the then (t St6) new outer wall, the foundations of small buildings were exposed, twenty feet below the present level of the soil, which must have belonged to the earliest ages, and probably formed part of the original Accho. He also thought that traces of Ptolemais might be detected in the shafts of grey and red granite and marble pillars, which lie about or have been converted into thresholds for large doorways, of the Saracenic period ; some partial remains might be traced in the inner walls ; and he is disposed to refer to that time the now old khan, which, as stated above, was really built by the Emir Fakred-din. All the Christian ruins mentioned by the travellers already quoted had dis appeared. In actual importance, however, the town had much increased. The of in 1819, was computed at fo,000, of whom 3000 were Turks, the rest Christians of various denomi nations (Connor, in Jowett, i. 423). Approached from Tyre the city presented a beautiful appearance, from the trees in the inside, which rise above the wall, and from the ground immediately around it on the outside being planted with orange, lemon, and palm trees. Inside, the streets had the usual narrowness and filth of Turkish towns ; the houses solidly built with stone, with flat roofs ; the bazaars mean, but tolerably well supplied (Turner, ii. I3). The principal objects were the mosque, the pasha's seraglio, the granary, and the arsenal (Irby and Mangles, p. 195). Of the mosque, which was built by Djezzar Pasha, there is a description by Pliny Fisk p. 337; also G. Robinson, i. 200). The trade was not considerable ; the exports con sisted chiefly of grain and cotton, the produce of the neighbouring plain ; and the imports chiefly of rice, coffee, and sugar from Damietta (Turner, ii. 112). As thus described, the city was all but demolished in 1832 by the hands of Ibrahim Pasha ; and although considerable pains were taken to restore it, yet, as lately as 1837, it still exhibited a most wretched appearance, with ruined houses and broken arches in every direction (Lord Lindsay, Letters, ii. Si).—J. K.