See Edgar La Selve (professor in the Port au Prince lyceum), in Tour du Monde, 1879, and Spenser St John, Hayti, or the Black Republic, 1884.
PORT ELIZABETH, a seaport town of Cape Colony, at the head of an electoral division of the south-eastern pro vince, 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 Euro pean 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 Eliza beth 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 2,583,737 in 1881 and 2,341,123 in 1883. The exports are mainly wool (1,508,280 in 1881), ostrich feathers (131,279), and Angora goat s hair (257,596), as well as ivory, hides, diamonds. The population, which was not much above 4000 in 1855, reached 13,049 in 1875. The town dates from 1820.
PORTER, Jane (1776–1850), a novelist whose life and reputation are closely linked with those of her sister Anna Maria Porter (1780–1832) and her brother Sir Robert Ker Porter (1775–1842). Their father, an officer in the English army, having died shortly after the birth in 1776 of the younger sister, the mother removed from Durham, their birthplace, to Edinburgh, where the inherited passion for the romance of war which gave character to the works of each appears to have been stimu lated by their association with Flora Macdonald and the young Walter Scott. To develop the artistic ability dis played by the brother, the family moved in 1790 to London, and the sisters subsequently resided at Thames Ditton and at Esher with their mother until her death in 1831. The ability of Anna Maria Porter was the first to manifest itself in the premature publication of her Artless Tales (1793-95), these being followed by a long series of works, of which the more noteworthy are Walsh Colville (1797), Octavia (1798), The Lake of Killarney (1804), A Sailor s Friendship and a Soldier s Love (1805), The Hungarian Brothers (1807), Don Sebastian (1809), Ballads, Romances, and other Poems (1811), The Recluse of Norway (1814), The Knight of St John (1817), The Fast of St Magdalen (1818), The Village of Mariendorpt (1821), Roche Blanche (1822), Honor IIara (1826), and Barony (1830). Jane Porter, whose intellectual power, though slower in deve lopment and in expression, was of a stronger nature than that of her sister, had in the meantime gained an immediate and wide popularity by her first work, Thaddeus of Warsaw (1803), which was translated into several languages and procured her election as canoness of the Teutonic order of St Joachim. Seven years later her Scottish Chiefs anti cipated in some measure the works of Sir Walter Scott in the field of national romance, though it is wanting in the higher qualities of the historic novel. Her chief subse quent works were The Pastor s Fireside (1815), Duke Christian of Liineburg (1824), Coming Out (1828), and The Field of Forty Footsteps (1828). In conjunction with her sister she published in 1826 the Tales round a Winter Hearth, and the intervals between her larger works were filled up with frequent contributions to current periodical literature. Sir Edward Seaivard s Diary (1831) a work displaying considerable skill in the realistic reproduction of the style and mode of thought of an earlier period has been persistently, though erroneously, attributed to her. The claim of her eldest brother, Dr William Ogilvie Porter, to its authorship has been fully established, her share in its publication having been solely that of editor. In 1832 Anna Maria died, and for the next ten years Jane became " a wanderer " amongst her relations and friends. While his sisters had been winning esteem in literature, Robert Ker Porter had in his own way been scarcely less successful. After two years of study at the Royal Academy he had gained reputation as a painter of altar-pieces and battle-scenes of imposing magnitude. He went to Russia as historical painter to the emperor in 1804, accompanied Sir John Moore s expedition in 1808, married the princess Mary de Sherbatoff in 1811, was created knight commander of the order of Hanover in 1832, and became British consul at Venezuela. Accounts of his wanderings are to be found in his Travelling Sketches in Russia and Sweden (1808), Letters from Portugal and Spain (1809), Narrative of the, late Campaign in Russia (1813), and Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, Ancient Babylonia, &c., during the years 1817-20 (1821-22). After leaving Venezuela he again visited St Petersburg, but died there suddenly on 4th May 1842. Jane Porter, who had joined him in Russia, then returned to England and took up her residence with her eldest brother at Bristol, where she died, 24th May 1850.
