as to the authorship of the other works, which are lost.
ACHILLINI, ALESSANDRO (1463-1512), Italian philosopher, born
on the 29th of October 1463 at Bologna, was celebrated as a
lecturer both in medicine and in philosophy at Bologna and
Padua, and was styled the second Aristotle. His philosophical
works were printed in one volume folio, at Venice, in 1508,
and reprinted with considerable additions in 1545, 1551
and 1568. He was also distinguished as an anatomist (see
ANATOMY), among his writhigs being Corporis humani Anatomia
(Venice, 1516-1524), and Anatomicae Annotationes (Bologna,
1520). He died at Bologna on the 2nd of August 1512.
His brother, GIOVANNI FILOTEO ACHILLINI (1466--1533),
was the author of Il Viridario and other writings, verse
and prose, and his grand-nephew, CLAUDIO ACHILLINI
(1574--1640), was a lawyer who achieved some notoriety
as a versifier of the school of the Secentisti.
ACHIMENES (perhaps from the Gr. achaimienis, an Indian
plant used in magic), a genus of plants, natural order
Gesneraceae (to which belong also Gloxinia and Streptocarpus),
natives of tropical America, and well known in cultivation
as stove or warm greenhouse plants. They are herbaceous
perennials, generally with hairy serrated leaves and handsome
flowers. The corolla is tubular with a spreading limb, and
varies widely in colour, being white, yellow, orange, crimson,
scarlet, blue or purple. A large number of hybrids exist in
cultivation. The plants are grown in the stove till the
flowering period, when they may be removed to the greenhouse.
They are propagated by cuttings, or from the leaves, which are
cut off and pricked in well-drained pots of sandy soil, or by
the scales from the underground tubes, which are rubbed off
and sown like seeds, or by the seeds, which are very small.
ACHIN (Dutch Atjeh), a Dutch government forming the
northern extremity of the island of Sumatra, having an
estimated area of 20,544 sq. m. The government is divided
into three assistant-residencien--the east coast, the west
coast and Great Achin. The physical geography (see SUMATRA)
is imperfectly understood. Ranges of mountains, roughly
parallel to the long axis of the island, and characteristic
of the whole of it, appear to occupy the interior, and reach
an extreme height of about 12,000 ft. in the south-west
of the government. The coasts are low and the rivers
insignificant, rising in the coast ranges and flowing through
the coast states (the chief of which are Pedir, Gighen and
Samalanga on the N.; Edi, Perlak and Langsar on the E.;
Kluwah, Rigas and Melabuh on the W.). The chief ports are
Olehleh, the port of Kotaraja or Achin (formerly Kraton,
now the seat of the Dutch government), Segli on the N., Edi
on the E., and Analabu or Melabuh on the W. Kotaraja lies
near the northern extremity of the island, and consists
of detached houses of timber and thatch, clustered ill
enclosed groups called kampongs, and buried in a forest of
fruit-trees. It is situated nearly 3 m. from the sea, in
the valley of the Achin 1iver, which in its upper part, near
Sehmun, is 3 m. broad, the river having a breadth of 99 ft.
and a depth of 1 1/2 ft.; but in its lower course, north of
its junction with the Krung Darn, the valley broadens to 12 1/2
m. The marshy soil is covered by rice-fields, and on
higher ground by kampongs full of trees. The river at
its mouth is 327 ft. broad and 20-33 ft. deep, but before
it lies a sandbank covered at low water by a depth of only 4
ft. The Dutch garrison in Kotaraja occupies the old Achinese
citadel. The town is connected by rail with Olehleh, and
the line also extends up the valley. The construction
of another railway has been undertaken along the east
coast. The following industries are of some importance
--gold-working, weapon-making, silk-weaving, the making of
pottery, fishing and coasting trade. The annual value of the
exports (chiefly pepper) is about L. 58,000; of the imports,
from L. 165,000 to L. 250,000. The population of Achin in
1898 was estimated at 535,432, of whom 328 were Europeans,
3933 Chinese, 30 Arabs, and 372 other foreign Asiatics.
The Achinese, a people of Malayan stock but darker,
somewhat taller and not so pleasant-featured as the true
Malays, regard themselves as distinct from the other
Sumatrans. Their nobles claim Arab descent. They were at
one time Hinduized, as is evident from their traditions,
the many Sanskrit words in their language, and their
general appearance, which suggests Hindu as well as Arab
blood. They are Mahommedans, and although Arab influence has
declined, their nobles still wear the Moslem flowing robe and
turban (though the women go unveiled), and they use Arabic
script. The chief characteristic is their love of fighting;
every man is a soldier and every village has its army. They
are industrious and skilful agriculturists, metal-workers and
weavers. They build excellent ships. Their chief amusements
are gambling and opium-smoking. Their social organization is
communal. They live in kampongs, which combine to form
mukims, districts or hundreds (to use the nearest English
term), which again combine to form sagis, of which there are
three. Achin literature, unlike the language, is entirely
Malay; it includes poetry, a good deal of theology and several
chronicles. Northern Sumatra was visited by several European
travellers in the middle ages, such as Marco Polo, Friar
Odorico and Nicolo Conti. Some of these as well as Asiatic
writers mention Lambri, a state which must have nearly
occupied the position of Achin. But the first voyager to visit
Achin, by that name, was Alvaro Tellez, a captain of Tristan
d'Acunha's fleet, in 1506. It was then a mere dependency of
the adjoining state of Pedir; and the latter, with Pasei,
formed the only states on the coast whose chiefs claimed the
title of sultan. Yet before twenty years had passed Achin
had not only gained independence, but had swallowed up all
other states of northern Sumatra. It attained its climax of
power in the time of Sultan Iskandar Muda (1607--1636), under
whom the subject coast extended from Aru opposite Malacca
round by the north to Benkulen on the west coast, a sea-board
of not less than 1100 miles; and besides this, the king's
supremacy was owned by the large island of Nias, and by the
continental Malay states of Johor, Pahang, Kedah and Perak.
The chief attraction of Achin to traders in the 17th century
must have been gold. No place in the East, unless Japan,
was so abundantly supplied with gold. The great repute
of Achin as a place of trade is shown by the fact that to
this port the first Dutch (1599) and first English (1602)
commercial ventures to the Indies were directed. Sir James
Lancaster, the English commodore, carried letters from Queen
Elizabeth to the king of Achin, and was well received by the
prince then reigning, Alauddin Shah. Another exchange of
letters took place between King James I. and Iskandar Muda in
1613. But native caprice and jealousy of the growing force
of the European nations in these seas, and the rivalries
between those nations themselves, were destructive of sound
trade; and the English factory, though several times set up,
was never long maintained. The French made one great effort
(1621) to establish relations with Achin, but nothing came of
it. Still the foreign trade of Achin, though subject to
interruptions, was important. William Dampier (c. 1688)
and others speak of the number of foreign merchants settled
there--English, Dutch, Danes, Portuguese, Chinese, &c. Dampier
says the anchorage was rarely without ten or fifteen sail of
different nations, bringing vast quantities of rice, as well
as silks, chintzes, muslins and opium. Besides the Chinese
merchants settled at Achin, others used to come annually with
the junks, ten or twelve in number, which arrived in June.
A regular fair was then established, which lasted two months,
and was known as the China camp, a great resort of foreigners.
Hostilities with the Portuguese began from the time of
the first independent king of Achin; and they had little
remission till the power of Portugal fell with the loss of
Malacca (1641). Not less than ten times before that event
were armaments despatched from Achin to reduce Malacca, and
more than once its garrison was hard pressed. One of these
armadas, equipped by Iskandar Muda in 1615, gives an idea of
the king's resources. It consisted of 500 sail, of which 250
were galleys, and among these a hundred were greater than
any then used in Europe. Sixty thousand men were embarked.
On the death of Iskandar's successor in 1641, the widow
was placed on the throne; and as a female reign favoured
the oligarchical tendencies of the Malay chiefs, three
more queens were allowed to reign successively. In
1699 the Arab or fanatical party suppressed female
government, and put a chief of Arab blood on the throne.
The remaining history of Achin was one of rapid decay.
After the restoration of Java to the Netherlands in 1816, a
good deal of weight was attached by the neighbouring British
colonies to the maintenance of influence in Achin; and in
1819 a treaty of friendship was concluded with the Calcutta
government which excluded other European nationalities from
fixed residence in Achin. When the British government, in
1824, made a treaty with the Netherlands, surrendering the
remaining British settlements in Sumatra in exchange for
certain possessions on the continent of Asia, no reference
was made in the articles to the Indian treaty of 1819; but an
understanding was exchanged that it should be modified, while no
proceedings hostile to Achin should be attempted by the Dutch.
This reservation was formally abandoned by the British government
in a convention signed at the Hague on the 2nd of November 1871;
and in March 1873 the government of Batavia declared war upon
Achin. Doubtless there was provocation, for the sultan
of Achin had not kept to the understanding that he was to
guarantee immunity from piracy to foreign traders; but the
necessity for war was greatly doubted, even in Holland. A
Dutch force landed at Achin in April 1873, and attacked the
palace. It was defeated with considerable loss, including
that of the general (Kohler).The approach of the south-west
monsoon precluded the immediate renewal of the attempt; but
hostilities were resumed, and Achin fell in January 1874.
The natives, however, maintained themselves in the interior,
inaccessible to the Dutch troops, and carried on a guerilla
warfare. General van der Hoyden appeared to have subdued
them in 1878-81, but they broke out again in 1896 under
the traitor Taku Umar, who had been in alliance with the
Dutch. He died shortly afterwards, but the trouble was not
ended. General van Hentsz carried on a successful campaign in
1898 seq., but in 1901, the principal Achinese chiefs on the
north coast having surrendered, the pretender-sultan fled to
the Gajoes, a neighbouring inland people. Several expeditions
involving heavy fighting were necessary against these in 1901-4,
and a certain amount of success was achieved, but the pretender
escaped, revolt still smouldered and hostilities were continued.
See P. J. Vein, Atchini en zijne betrekkingen tot Nederland
(Leyden, 1873); J. A. Kruijt, Atjeh en de Atjehers (Leyden,
1877); Kielstra, Beschrijving van dcn Atjeh-oorlog (The
Hague, 1883); Van Langen, Atjeh's Wesskust, Tijdschrift
Aardrjjko, Genotktsch. (Amsterdam, 1888), p. 226;
Renaud, Jaarboek van het Mynwezen (1882); J. Jacobs,
