PORT ADELAIDE, South Australia. See vol. i. p. 151.

PORT AU PRINCE (originally L’Hôpital, and for brief periods Port Henri and Port Républicain), the capital of the republic of Hayti (western portion of the island of Hayti, q.v. y ), lies in 18° 34' N. lat. and 72° 20' W. long, at-the apex of the vast triangular bay which strikes inland for about 100 miles between the two great peninsulas of the west coast, and has its upper recesses protected by the beautiful island of Gonaives (30 miles long by 2 broad). The city (an archbishopric since the concordat of 1860) is admirably situated on ground that soon begins to rise rapidly towards the hills; and it was originally laid out by the French on a regular plan with streets of good width running north and south and intersected by others at right angles. Everything has been allowed to fall into disorder and disrepair, and to this its public buildings—a state-house, a national bank, a hospital, a lyceum, a custom-house, &c.—form no exception. The national palace remains as the flames of revolution left it in 1869, and the president lives in an ordinary house. The principal church is an “overgrown wooden shed.” Every few years whole quarters of the town are burned down, but the people go on building the same slight wooden houses, with only here and there a more substantial warehouse in brick. The state of the streets is deplorable in the extreme; and, in spite of the old French aqueduct, the water-supply is defective; while the harbour is rapidly being filled by fetid deposits. From June to September the heat is excessive, reaching 95° to 99° in the shade. According to Ad. Ackerman, the average rainfall for the four years 1864-67 was 61 - 35 inches, distributed over an average of 152 days. The population, mostly Negroes and mulattoes, is estimated at 20,000. Port ...

PORT ELIZABETH, a seaport town of Cape Colony, at the head of an electoral division of the south-eastern province, lies in 33° 55' S. lat. on Algoa Bay, about 7 miles south of the mouth of the Zwartkop river. Built along the base and up the rocky slopes of the hills that rise for a height of 200 feet above the bay, it has rather a bare appearance as seen from the water, but on landing the stranger finds himself in the midst of a prosperous European town with substantial buildings and fine streets. A small and somewhat muddy stream, Baker’s River, divides it into two parts, that to the east being mainly occupied by Malay fishermen. The whole length of the place is about 2 miles, and its breadth varies from a quarter to 1 mile. The main street runs up from the harbour, with its large wool and other warehouses, to the market-place, which is adorned with a handsome granite obelisk. Port Elizabeth owes its prosperity to the fact that it has become the great emporium for the whole interior of the country to the south of the Zambesi, being the terminus of the Eastern and Midland Railways which run inland to Graaff Reinet, Cradock (182 miles, since 1880), and Grahamstown (since 1879). The two great hindrances to development have been want of drinking-water and want of protection and convenient landing-places in the harbour. The former has been fully met by an aqueduct (28 miles) from Van Staanden’s River (1878; see J. G. Gamble’s Report to Inst. Civ. Eng., 1883), and the harbour was improved in 1881 by extending the old landing-pier to a total length of 900 feet and constructing a similar pier 800 feet long. The value of the imports has increased from £376,638 in 1855 to £4,001,658 in 1881 and £2,364,891 in 1883; that of the exports from £584,447 in 1855 to ...

PORT GLASGOW, a seaport, market-town, burgh of barony, and parliamentary burgh of Renfrewshire, Scot land, is situated on the south side of the Clyde, 2 j miles east of Greenock and 20 west of Glasgow. The elevated ridges to the back of the town are clothed with trees, their lower slopes being occupied with villas. The streets are wide, regular, and well-paved. The principal buildings are the court-house in the Grecian style, the town-hall, and the custom-house. On the adjoining slopes to the east are the picturesque ruins of Newark Castle, the ancient seat of the Maxwells. There are large and commodious harbours, a wet dock, and a graving dock. The port carries on an extensive trade with British North America, the United States, the Indies, and the Levant, the principal exports being iron, steel, machinery, and textile manufactures. The trade, though checked for a time by the rapid progress of Greenock, has been for some years on the increase. The shipbuilding-yards give employment to a large number of persons both in the town and the neighbouring burgh of Greenock. Connected with the shipbuilding industry there are manufactures of sail-cloth, ropes, anchors, and chain cables, also engineering and riveting works, and iron and brass foundries. The population of the police burgh in 1851 was 6986, which in 1871 had increased to 10,823, and in 1881 to 13,224. The population of the parliamentary burgh in 1881 was 10,802....

PORT HOPE, a town and port of entry of Canada, in Durham county, Ontario, on the north shore of Lake Ontario, lies 63 miles north-east of Toronto by the Grand Trunk Railway (which is there met by the midland branch of the Grand Trunk Railway), and is connected with Charlotte, the port of Rochester, New York, by a daily steamboat service. The town is picturesquely situated on the side and at the foot of hills overlooking the lake; and Smith’s Creek, by which it is traversed, supplies abundant water-power. Flour, plaster, woollen goods, leather, beer, carriages, agricultural implements, and steam-engines and boilers are among the objects of the local industries, and trade is carried on in lumber, grain, and flour. The value of the exports was $1,326,706 in the year ending 30th June 1884, and that of the imports $221,830. The population in 1881 was 5585.

PORT HURON, a city and port of entry of the United States, county seat of St Clair county, Michigan, lies 58 miles by rail north-east of Detroit, at the southern extremity of Lake Huron and on the west bank of the St Clair river, which is there joined by the Black river. Port Huron is a point of great importance in the railway system, being the terminus of the Chicago and Grand Trunk and the Port Huron and North-Western Railways (lines to East Saginaw, Sand Beach, Almont, and Port Austin), and connected by ferry to Samia with the Great Western of Canada and the Grand Trunk Railways. It is also the terminus and a stopping-place of several lines of lake steamers. It has a large lumber trade, ship-yards, dry docks, saw-mills, flour-mills, planing-mills. The population was 5973 in 1870, 8883 in 1880, and 10,396 in 1884. Commenced in 1819, Port Huron was incorporated as a village in 1835, and as a city in 1857.

PORT JERVIS, a large village of the United States, in Deerpark township, Orange county, New York, situated at the intersection of the boundaries of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, at the junction of the Neversink with the Delaware. It is the terminus of the eastern division of the New York, Lake Erie, and Western Railroad, and of the Port Jervis and Monticello Railroad, and it has extensive repair-shops. The beauty of the surrounding scenery attracts summer visitors. Port Jervis was named after John B. Jervis, engineer of the Delaware and Hudson Canal, which connects the Pennsylvanian coal-fields with the tidal waters of the Hudson. In 1875 the Erie Railway bridge, the Barrett bridge, and many buildings were carried away by an icegorge. The population of the village was 6377 in 1870, and 8678 in 1880 (township 11,420).

PORT LOUIS. See Mauritius, vol. xv. p. 640.

PORT LYTTELTON, a municipal borough of New Zealand, formerly called Port Cooper and Port Victoria, lies on the north-west side of Banks Peninsula, on the east coast of South Island. The town, situated in 43° 36' S. lat. and 172° 44' E. long., stands on the north shore of a small bay 4 miles south-west from the heads. A fixed white light, visible 30 miles in clear weather, is placed on Godley Head on the north-west side of the entrance to the bay. Harbour works, costing over £300,000, have made Port Lyttelton a first-rate commercial port. Protecting breakwaters have created a fine, accessible wet dock of about 110 acres in extent and contiguous to the town; there is ample wharf accommodation for large vessels and every appliance for loading, discharging, and storing cargo. A graving-dock, closed by a caisson, is 450 feet long, 82 feet broad between the copings and 46 feet on the floor, and has a depth of 23 feet of water on the sill. The shipping, excluding coasters, entered inwards at Port Lyttelton during 1883 amounted to 124 vessels of 83,117 tons, and 140 of 120,328 tons cleared outwards. Imports have increased in value from £629,457 during 1872 to £1,400,106 during 1883, and exports from £829,260 to £1,944,035. Port Lyttelton is surrounded by steep hills, and is connected by rail with Christchurch, 7 miles inland. There is steam communication twice a week with the chief ports of New Zealand, and weekly with Melbourne. The population in the census of 1881 was 4127. The town, which is supplied with water and gas, and with electric light lamps on the wharves and the railway bridge, has post and telegraph offices, a time observatory, a jail for long-service prisoners, a state school, a sailors’ home, and an orphanage.

PORT MAHON, or Mahon, a city and seaport in the Mediterranean, on the east coast of the Spanish island of Minorca (see Balearic Islands), lies on a height near the head of an inlet of the sea 3∣ miles long by from 400 to 1200 yards wide, which, though of less importance than formerly, is still an admirable harbour of refuge. The city presents a fine appearance from the sea, and is solidly built of excellent stone, but contains few features of interest. Many of the houses bear the stamp of the English occupation, which has also left curious traces in the life of the people. Shoemaking is the principal trade, and shoes and the building stone already mentioned are the only important exports. The population was 21,976 in 1860, and 15,842 in 1877. At Cala Figuera (a cove to the southeast of the town) is a cotton - factory; the King’s Island (I. del Rey, so called as the landing-place of Alphonso III. of Aragon in 1287) contains a hospital built by the admiral of the English squadron in 1722; farther southeast on the shore lies the village of Villa Carlos or George Town (1746 inhabitants in 1877), with ruins of extensive English barracks; and at the mouth of the port, on the same side, are the remains of Fort San Felipe, which was originally erected by Charles V. and twice became the scene of the capitulation of British troops. Opposite San Felipe is the easily-defended peninsula of La Mola (256 feet high), which is occupied by extensive Spanish fortifications now in course of completion. Mahon is one of the principal quarantine stations of Spain; the hospital, erected between 1798 and 1803, stands on a long tongue of land, separated from La Mola by Cala Taulera....

PORT OF SPAIN. See Trinidad.

PORT ROYAL, a town and naval station of Jamaica, occupies the outer end of a narrow strip of land called the “Palisades,” which, projecting westward for about 9 miles, forms the natural breakwater of the noble bay on which Kingston, the present capital of the island, is built. As a town Port Royal (though in the 17 th century it was reputed the finest in the West Indies) is now a wretched place of 1205 inhabitants (1881), with narrow and extremely dirty streets, and contains no buildings of note except a hospital (200 patients) and the spacious admiralty house, which is surrounded by beautiful gardens; but as a naval station it is still of very considerable importance, has well-equipped machine-shops, and is defended by a number of forts and batteries partly of quite modern erection.

The first great blow struck at the prosperity of Port Royal was the earthquake of 1692, which swallowed up whole streets and forts and sunk a considerable part of the site into the sea, where remains of buildings are still visible under water in clear weather. In 1703 the whole town, except the royal forts and magazines, was reduced to ashes; on 22d August 1722 most of the houses were swept into the sea by a hurricane; in 1815 another conflagration proved nearly as destructive as the first; and in 1880 another hurricane did grievous damage....

PORT SAID, a town and seaport of Lower Egypt, which owes its existence to the Suez Canal (1859-69), and was named after Sa'id Pasha, patron of the enterprise. It lies on the west side of the canal, on the low narrow, treeless, and desolate strip of land which separates the Mediterranean from Lake Menzaleh (see plate XXXVI., vol. iv.); the supply of fresh water brought from the sweet-water canal at Ismailia by a conduit is barely sufficient for the wants of the town, which is regularly laid out and has some streets of substantial houses. The population rose from 12,332 in 1880 to 16,560 in 1882. Nearly half of this number reside in a miserable native suburb about 500 yards to the west of the town proper. The British subjects (405) are nearly all Maltese. Port Said, having no direct means of communication with the interior, is essentially a coaling station for steamers, and is entirely dependent on the canal trade. The steamers from Alexandria to the Syrian ports call here, and there is a daily steamboat to Ismailia. The outer harbour is formed by the terminal piers of the canal, and the inner harbour comprises three sheltered basins,—the commercial dock, the arsenal dock, and the Sherif dock. The third is flanked by buildings originally erected by Prince Henry of the Netherlands as a depot for Dutch trade. Besides a Catholic and a Greek church, the town contains a hospital and five schools, one of which is maintained by the Capuchin friars, and another by the freemasons.

PORT ST MARY. See Puerto de Santa Maria.