forms Vancouver Island, and it again rises above the level of the sea farther north, forming the Queen Charlotte Islands. The coast-line is generally precipitous. The west coast is much broken by bays and inlets—the transverse valleys of the sunken range—which penetrate far inland. Among these may be mentioned the Alberni Canal, which is 20 m. long with a fine harbour at its head, the width of the inlet varying from a half to .one mile; Nootka Sound, 6 m. wide, and sending three arms inland which are from 40 to 160 fathoms deep, as well as Clayoquot, Esperanza, Kyuquot and Quatsino Sounds, which also penetrate deeply into the island. The general height of the mountain-range on Vancouver Island is from 2000 to 3000 ft.; some peaks are 6000 ft.; and Victoria Peak is 7484 ft. high. The island is composed largely of crystalline and metamorphic rocks, but contains some cretaceous areas which hold extensiveibeds of coal, especially on the east coast. These are mined at Nanaimo, Ladysmith and other points. The island is covered everywhere with an exceedingly dense forest, which makes its interior very difficult to traverse, so that there are still portions of the island which have not been thoroughly explored. These forests yield immense supplies of magnificent timber, which together with the coal-field and fisheries constitute the chief resources of the island. There are some level tracts on the south-east coast, as well as in the narrow, well-watered valleys of the interior, which afford excellent agricultural land on which cereals of all kinds, as well as all the fruits of the temperate zone, flourish, and which are also suitable for raising sheep and cattle; The climate of Vancouver Island, especially in the south, is wonderfully mild for the latitude—as mild as that of Great Britain, with dryer summers. The mean temperature of December at Victoria in the south of the island is about 41° Fahr., while that of July is about 60°. In the north and west the rainfall is greater than on the south and east coasts. (F. D. A.)
VANDALS (Lat. Vandili or Vandilii), a term used by early writers only as a collective designation for a group of Teutonic tribes including, according to Pliny, the Burgundians and the Goths. As a tribal name Vandali occurs first in connexion with the Marcomannic War. The people to whom the name is there applied seem to be identical with those formerly known as Lugti. Another tribe called Silingae by Ptolemy likewise appears among the Vandals at a later time. Both these tribes appear to have inhabited the upper part of the basin of the Oder, and the name of the Silingae is preserved in Silesia. The Vandals figure in the earliest legends both of the Goths and the Lombards, both of whom they are said to have encountered unsuccessfully. They first came into contact with the Romans during the Marcomannic War. In the time of Aurelian they invaded Pannonia, and during the reign of Probus we find them fighting in Dacia. In the time of Constantine I., according to Jordanes, they suffered a great defeat at the hands of Geberich, king of the Goths, their own king Visimar being killed, and the survivors were allowed by the Romans to settle in Pannonia. Here they seem to have remained in subjection to the Romans for about sixty years. In the year 406 they moved westward, according to some writers at the instigation of Stilicho, who is himself said to have been of Vandal origin, and crossing the Rhine at Mainz proceeded towards Gaul. A portion of the nation is, however, said to have remained behind, and Procopius tells a story that these remnants sent an embassy to Gaiseric, asking that their kinsfolk in Africa should renounce their claims to the lands which their forefathers had held in the old homes of the race.
In Gaul the Vandals fought a great battle with the Franks, in which they were defeated with the loss of 2000 men, and their king Godegisel was slain. In 409 his son Gunderic led them across the Pyrenees. They appear to have settled in Spain in two detachments. One, the Asdingian Vandals, occupied Galicia, the other, the Silingian, Andalusia. Twenty years of bloody and purposeless warfare with the armies of the empire and with their fellow-barbarians, the Goths and the Suevi, followed. The Silingian Vandals were well-nigh exterminated, but their Asdingian brethren (with whom were now associated the remains of a Turanian people, the Alani, who had been utterly defeated by the Goths) marched across Spain and took possession of Andalusia.
In 428 or 429 the whole nation set sail for Africa, upon an invitation received by their king from Bonifacius, count of Africa, who had fallen into disgrace with the court of Ravenna. Gunderic was now dead, and supreme power was in the hands of his bastard brother, Who is generally known in history as Genseric, though the more correct form of his name is Gaiseric. This man, short of stature and with limping gait, but with a great natural capacity for war and dominion, reckless of human life and unrestrained by conscience or pity, was for fifty years the hero of the Vandal race and the terror of Constantinople and Rome. Probably in the month of May 428 he assembled all his people on the shore of Andalusia, and numbering the males among them from the greybeard down to the newborn infant found them to amount to 80,000 souls. The passage was effected in the ships of Bonifacius, who, however, soon returning to his old loyalty, besought his new allies to depart from Africa. They, of course, refused, and Bonifacius turned against them, too late, however, to repair the mischief which he had caused. Notwithstanding his opposition, the progress of the Vandals was rapid, and by May 430 only three cities of Roman Africa—Carthage, Hippo and Cirta—remained untaken. The long siege of Hippo (May 430 to July 431), memorable for the last illness and death of St Augustine, which occurred during its progress, ended unsuccessfully for the Vandals. At length (30th January 435) peace was made between the emperor Valentinian III. and Gaiseric. The emperor was to retain Carthage and the small but rich proconsular province in which it was situated, while Hippo and the other six provinces of Africa were abandoned to the Vandal. Gaiseric observed this treaty no longer than suited his purpose. On the 19th of October 439, without any declaration of war, he suddenly attacked Carthage and took it. The Vandal occupation of this great city, the third among the cities of the Roman empire, lasted for ninety -four years. Gaiseric seems to have counted the years of his sovereignty from the date of its capture. Though most of the remaining years of Gaiseric's life were passed in war, plunder rather than territorial conquest seems to have been the object of his expeditions. He made, in fact, of Carthage a pirate's stronghold, whence he issued forth, like the Barbary pirates of a later day, to attack, as he himself said, "the dwellings of the men with whom God is angry," leaving the question who those men might be to the decision of the elements. Almost alone among the Teutonic invaders of the empire he set himself to form a powerful fleet, and was probably for thirty years the leading maritime power in the Mediterranean. Gaiseric's celebrated expedition against Rome (455), undertaken in response to the call of Eudoxia, widow of Valentinian, was only the greatest of his marauding exploits. He took the city without difficulty, and for fourteen days, in a calm and business-like manner, emptied it of all its movable wealth. The sacred vessels of the Jewish temple, brought to Rome by Titus, are said to have been among the spoils carried to Carthage by the conqueror. Eudoxia and her two daughters were also carried into captivity. One of the princesses, Eudocia, was married to Hunneric, eldest son of Gaiseric; her mother and sister, after long and tedious negotiations, were sent to Constantinople.
There does not seem to be in the story of the capture of Rome by the Vandals any justification for the charge of wilful and objectless destruction of public buildings which is implied in the word "vandalism." It is probable that this charge grew out of the fierce persecution which was carried on by Gaiseric and his son against the Catholic Christians, and which is the darkest stain on their characters. This persecution is described with great vividness, and no doubt with some exaggeration, by the nearly contemporary Victor Vitensis. Churches were burned; bishops and priests were forced by cruel and revolting tortures to reveal the hiding-places of the sacred vessels; the rich provincials who were employed about the court, and who still adhered to the Catholic faith, were racked and beaten, and put to death. The
