SIDON

[s. 696] : A town and seaport mentioned in the Bible as a port of Phoenicia, Saida in the local languages. and now called It is situated on the coast of Syria, Asiatic Turkey, about 30 miles S. of Beirut, standing in a plain encircled by mountains. The population is about 11,000. Station of the PN (1851), with (1903) 4 mi ionaries, one of them with his wife; 2 women mi ionaries, 52 native workers, 27 outstations, 16 places of worship, 20 Sunday schools, 26 day schools, 2 boarding schools, 1 industrial school, 1 orphanage, and 805 profe ed Christians. SIENG-IU, or SIENG lU. See Hsibn-yu-hsibn. SIERRA LEONE A colony and protectorate of Great Britain, on the west coast of Africa, lying between French Guinea on the north and Liberia on the south and east. The area of the colony proper, which extends from the coast inwards from 7 to 20 miles, is about 4,000 square: with a population of 76,665, of whom 40,790 were reported as Protestants (1901). The protectorate has an area of about 30,000 square miles, and a population estimated at miles, 1,000,000. The peninsula of Sierra Leone, which is completely surrounded by water in the rainy season by the junction of Waterloo and Calmont creeks, covers an area of about 290 square miles. It is mostly occupied by a range of gently rounded hills rising in places to a height of 3,000 feet. The rainfall in the whole territory is heavy; copious streams, rising in the Niger watershed, flow south and west. The climate is equable, ranging from 78° to 86°. The rainy season commences in April or May and declines in October, November, and December. January, February, and March are almost rainle . The mean annual rainfall is 134 inches. The marshy exhalations during the rainy season render the climate insalubrious. The death rate is high. Vegetation is luxuriant. Free town, on Cape Sierra Leone, is the capital. The dominant race is the Timne (about 200,000), on the plains between the Rokelle and Little Sarcie rivers. Their language is wide-spread. Several books, religious and educational, have been translated. The people are very superstitious and suspicious. The Los Islands and adjacent coasts north of the Mallecory River are occupied by the Bagas and the courteous Su-Sus, whose speech, a Man ding an dialect, is the dominant one in the whole region, and po e es the Bible and several other translations. The Church Mi ionary Society undertook its mi ion in Sierra Leone in 1804, and has enjoyed encouraging succe . The Wesley an Methodist Mi ionary Society comes next, with nearly equal statistics; the United Methodist Free Churches, the United Brethren of Ohio (American), the Wesley an Methodists of America, the CA, and the Roman Catholics also pursue mi ionary work there. The Christian schools are 679 denominational, conducted by the mi ionary There are also Mohammedan schools subsidized by the Government. societies. A Short History of Sierra Leone, Dublin, 1901; Ingham, Sierra Leone after a Hundred Years, London, 1894 Pierson, Seven Years in Sierra Leone, London, 1897 Poole, Life, Scenery and Customs in Sierra Leone and the Gambia, London, 1850; Sibthorp, History of Sierra Leone ana Geography of Sierra Leone, London, 1881. Crooks,; SI-GAN. See Hsi-ngan-fu. SIGOMPULAN. See Nahoruop. 697