then under Swedish rule. A dissertation read at Leipzig in 1687 brought him the offer of a professorial chair in the university, which he refused. Returning to Sweden he executed commissions in land-surveying directed by King Charles XI., and in 1699 he became head of the whole department. In 1702 he was ennobled under the name of Dahlstjerna. He wandered over the whole of the coast of the Baltic, Livonia, Rügen and Pomerania, preparing maps which still exist in the office of public land-surveying in Stockholm. His death, which took place in Pomerania on his forty-eighth birthday, 7th of September 1709, is said to have been hastened by the disastrous news of the battle of Poltava. Dahlstjerna’s patriotism was touching in its pathos and intensity, and during his long periods of professional exile he comforted himself by the composition of songs to his beloved Sweden. His genius was most irregular, but at his best he easily surpasses all the Swedish poets of his time. His best-known original work is Kungaskald (Stettin, 1697), an elegy on the death of Charles XI. It is written in alexandrines, arranged in ottava rima. The poem is pompous and allegorical, but there are passages full of melody and high thoughts. Dahlstjerna was a reformer in language, and it has been well said by Atterbom that in this poem “he treats the Swedish speech just as dictatorially as Charles XI. and Charles XII. treated the Swedish nation.” In 1690 was printed at Stettin his paraphrase of the Pastor Fido of Guarini. His most popular work is his Götha kämpavisa om Konungen och Herr Peder (The Goth’s Battle Song, concerning the King and Master Peter; Stockholm, 1701). The King is Charles XII. and Master Peter is the tsar of Russia. This spirited ballad lived almost until our own days on the lips of the people as a folk-song.
The works of Dahlstjerna have been collected by P. Hanselli, in the Samlade Vitterhetsarbeten af svenska Författare från Stjernhjelm till Dalin (Upsala, 1856, &c.).
DAHN, JULIUS SOPHUS FELIX (1834– ), German historian, jurist and poet, was born on the 9th of February 1834 in Hamburg, where his father, Friedrich Dahn (1811–1889), was a leading actor at the city theatre. His mother, Constance Dahn, née Le Gay, was a noted actress. In 1834 the family moved to Munich, where the parents took leading rôles in the classical German drama, until they retired from the stage: the mother in 1865 and the father in 1878. Felix Dahn studied law and philosophy in Munich and Berlin from 1849 to 1853. His first works were in jurisprudence, Über die Wirkung der Klagverjährung bei Obligationen (Munich, 1855), and Studien zur Geschichte der germanischen Gottesurteile (Munich, 1857). In 1857 he became docent in German law at Munich university, and in 1862 professor-extraordinary, but in 1863 was called to Würzburg to a full professorship. In 1872 he removed to the university of Königsberg, and in 1888 settled at Breslau, becoming rector of the university in 1895. Meanwhile in addition to many legal works of high standing, he had begun the publication of that long series of histories and historical romances which has made his name a household word in Germany. The great history of the German migrations, Die Könige der Germanen, Bände i.-vi. (Munich and Würzburg, 1861–1870), Bände vii.-xi. (Leipzig, 1894–1908), was a masterly study in constitutional history as well as a literary work of high merit, which carries the narrative down to the dissolution of the Carolingian empire. In his Urgeschichte der germanischen und romanischen Völker (Berlin, 1881–1890), Dahn went a step farther back still, but here as in his Geschichte der deutschen Urzeit (Gotha, 1883–1888), a wealth of picturesque detail has been worked over and resolved into history with such imaginative insight and critical skill as to make real and present the indistinct beginnings of German society. Together with these larger works Dahn wrote many monographs and studies upon primitive German society. Many of his essays were collected in a series of six volumes entitled Bausteine (Berlin, 1879–1884). Not less important than his histories are the historical romances, the best-known of which, Ein Kampf um Rom, in four volumes (Leipzig, 1876), which has gone through many later editions, was also the first of the series. Others are Odhins Trost (Leipzig, 1880); Die Kreuzfahrer (Leipzig, 1884); Odhins Rache (Leipzig, 1891); Julian der Abtrünnige (Leipzig, 1894), and one of the most popular, Bis zum Tode getreu (Leipzig, 1887). The list is too long to be given in full, yet almost all are well-known. Parallel with this great production of learned and imaginative works, Dahn published some twenty small volumes of poetry. The most notable of these are the epics of the early German period. His wife Therese, née Freiin von Droste-Hülshoff, was joint-author with him of Walhall, Germanische Götter und Heldensagen (Leipzig, 1898).
A collected edition of his works of fiction, both in prose and verse, has reached twenty-one volumes (Leipzig, 1898), and a new edition was published in 1901. Dahn also published four volumes of memoirs, Erinnerungen (Leipzig, 1890–1895).
DAHOMEY (Fr. Dahomé), a country of West Africa, formerly an independent kingdom, now a French colony. Dahomey is bounded S. by the Gulf of Guinea, E. by Nigeria (British), N. and N.W. by the French possessions on the middle Niger, and W. by the German colony of Togoland. The French colony extends far north of the limits of the ancient kingdom of the same name. With a coast-line of only 75 m. (1° 38′ E. to 2° 46′ 55″ E.), the area of the colony is about 40,000 sq. m., and the population over 1,000,000. As far as 9° N. the width of the colony is no greater than the coast-line. From this point, the colony broadens out both eastward and westward, attaining a maximum width of 200 m. It includes the western part of Borgu (q.v.), and reaches the Niger at a spot a little above Illo. Its greatest length N. to S. is 430 m.
Physical Features.—The littoral, part of the old Slave Coast (see Guinea), is very low, sandy and obstructed by a bar. Behind the seashore is a line of lagoons, where small steamers can ply; east to west they are those of Porto Novo (or Lake Nokue), Whydah and Grand Popo. The Weme (300 m. long), known in its upper course as the Ofe, the most important river running south, drains the colony from the Bariba country to Porto Novo, entering the lagoon so named. The Zu is a western affluent of the Weme. Farther west is the Kuffu (150 m. long), which, before entering the Whydah lagoon, broadens out into a lake or lagoon called Ahémé, 20 m. long by 5 m. broad. The Makru and Kergigoto, each of which has various affluents, flow north-east to the Niger, which in the part of its course forming the north-east frontier of the colony is only navigable for small vessels and that with great difficulty (see Niger).
For some 50 m. inland the country is flat, and, after the first mile or two of sandy waste is passed, covered with dense vegetation. At this distance (50 m.) from the coast is a great swamp known as the Lama Marsh. It extends east to west some 25 m. and north to south 6 to 9 m. North of the swamp the land rises by regular stages to about 1650 ft., the high plateau falling again to the basin of the Niger. In the north-west a range of hills known as the Atacora forms a watershed between the basins of the Weme, the Niger and the Volta. A large part of the interior consists of undulating country, rather barren, with occasional patches of forest. The forests contain the baobab, the coco-nut palm and the oil palm. The fauna resembles that of other parts of the West Coast, but the larger wild animals, such as the elephant and hippopotamus, are rare. The lion is found in the regions bordering the Niger. Some kinds of antelopes are common; the buffalo has disappeared.
Climate.—The climate of the coast regions is very hot and moist. Four seasons are well marked: the harmattan or long dry season, from the 1st December to the 15th March; the season of the great rains, from the 15th March to the 15th July; the short dry season, from the 15th July to the 15th September; and the “little rains,” from the 15th September to the 1st December. Near the sea the average temperature is about 80° F. The harmattan prevails for several days in succession, and alternates with winds from the south and south-west. During its continuance the thermometer falls about 10°, there is not the slightest moisture in the atmosphere, vegetation dries up or droops, the skin parches and peels, and all woodwork is liable to warp and crack with a loud report. Tornadoes occur occasionally. During nine months of the year the climate is tempered by a sea-breeze, which is felt as far inland as Abomey
