AVATAR AVELLANEDA 159 Elbe to the Black sea, and to whom the By- zantine emperors paid tribute. The Avars seized Dalmatia, and made inroads into Italy and into the heart of Germany. In 640 the Slavs revolted, and the dominion of the Avars over them came to an end ; but they still main- tained themselves in Pannonia. They%allied themselves with Thassilo, duke of Bavaria, against Charlemagne ; but that monarch finally broke their power (791 and 796). One of the Avar khans, Tudun, joined Charlemagne, and was baptized at Aix-la-Chapelle, but subse- quently abandoned the emperor and fought against him until he was taken prisoner and be- headed. About 827 the Avars disappear wholly from history. They have been confounded with their forerunners the Huns, and with their suc- cessors the Magyars. The modern Avars of Lesghistan in the Caucasus have also been erroneously considered their kindred. Re- mains of the long-walled camps of the medise- val Avars are still to be seen near the Danube in Hungary. AVATAR, a Sanskrit word, signifying " a de- scending," usually applied in a religious sense, and in reference to the incarnation of the Hin- doo deities. Whence the doctrine of the ava- tar is derived is a point that has received no satisfactory solution. The most important ava- tars of Vishnu, one of the persons of the Hin- doo trinity, are: 1, that of the fish, in which he preserved Manu, the first man, during a deluge ; 2, the tortoise, when Vishnu supported the earth while the gods and the Asuras ex- tracted the immortal drink (amrita) from the sea; 3, the boar, in which he slew the chief of the Asuras, the opponents of the gods ; 4, the lion-man, in which he killed the deceased Asura chief's brother; 5, the dwarf, in which form he played a trick on King Bali, of whom he asked as much ground as he could measure in three strides, and the king having granted the request, the god, at once manifesting him- self, strode over earth, air, and heaven ; 6, the man Parasurama, the son of Jamadagni and Renuka, when he rescued the Brahmans from the tyranny of the Kshatriyas; 7, Rama, the son of King Dasaratha, when he destroyed va- rious demons by exploits described in the San- skrit epic of Ramayana ; 8, Krishna, the great- est of the avatars, when he assisted the family of the Pandavas against the Kooroos, and con- quered the wicked of the earth the subject of the Mahabharata ; 9, Buddha,- in which he persuaded the Asuras, the ancient enemies of the gods, to abandon their faith in the Vedas ; 10, Kalki, the name of the avatar of Vishnu when he shall come again to restore peace and purity on earth. AVATCHA, Mount (Russ. AvatcUnskaya Sop- lea), a volcano in Kamtchatka, near the S. E. coast, in lat. 53 15' N. and Ion. 158 50' E., rising to an elevation of nearly 9,000 ft. It has a crater at its summit several hundred yards in circumference, and another on its side at an elevation of 5,000 ft. Among the last 63 VOL. n. 11 recorded eruptions are those of 1837 and 1855, when it discharged with great violence vast quantities of lava, stones, and water. S. of the mountain is the bay of Avatcha, on which lies the town of Petropavlovsk. AVEBtJRY, a village in .Wiltshire, England, 5 m. W. of Marlborough, notable as the site of the remains of the largest Druidical temple in Europe. In an open plain, free from trees, 650 blocks of stone, varying from 5 to 20 ft. above the ground, and 3 to 12 in breadth and thickness, were brought together. One hun- dred of these were set on end around an area 1,400 ft. in diameter ; and these were enclosed by a ditch and mound with two breaks for openings. The area within the bank is over 28 acres. From the arrangements it has been conjectured that there were within this great circle two smaller circular temples, besides two avenues of great stones leading to the entrances from a distance of more than a mile. The re- mains have been almost entirely destroyed of late years, all that was capable of removal having been gradually carried away. AVEIRO, a seaport town of Portugal, in the province of Beira, S. of the mouth of the Vouga, on a bay called the Barra de Aveiro, 37 m. S. of Oporto ; pop. in 1863, 6,557. It is an episcopal see, and has an extensive trade in sea salt. In the 16th century it was a com- mercial place of great importance. AVELLANEDA, Alonso Fernando de, the real or assumed name of the author of the spurious Segunda parte del ingenioso Hidalgo D. Qui- xote (Tarragona, 1614; French translation by Le Sage, Paris, l704-'6). Though Avellaneda seems to have been known in an obscure man- ner to his contemporaries and to Cervantes himself, the authorship of the book, which appeared under his name many years in ad- vance of the real second part of " Don Quix- ote," has been assigned, but without conclusive authority, to Luis de Aliaga, the king's con- fessor, and also to Juan Blanco de Paz, a Dominican friar. Cervantes refrained from noticing the publication until the 59th chapter of his own second part. Mr. Ticknor, in his "History of Spanish Literature," says of Ave- llaneda's book that, " if not without merit in some respects, it is generally low and dull, and would now be forgotten if it were not con- nected with the fame of Don Quixote." AVELLANEDA, Gertrndis Gomes de, a Spanish poetess and novelist, born at Puerto Principe, Cuba, in 1816, died in Seville in June, 1864. Her father was a Spanish naval officer, after whose death she went to Spain, where her first drama, Leoncia, was favorably received at Ma- drid in 1840. In 1845 she was crowned with laurel in the presence of the court and received a prize for a poem exalting the clemency of the queen. In 1846 she married Pedro Saba- dor, a young Spanish politician, who died in the same year. She afterward led a secluded life at Madrid and Seville. Her 2 vols. of lyrical poetry (2d ed., Mexico, 1852), her 16 dramas,
