1The wordtelescope, fromτῆλε, far,σκοπεῖν, to view, was invented by Demiscianus, an eminent Greek scholar, at the request of Prince Cesi, president of the Lyncean Academy. It was used by Galileo as early as 1612, but was not introduced into England until much later. In 1655 the wordtelescopewas inserted and explained in Bagwell’sMysteries of Astronomy,trunkorcylinderbeing the terms until then ordinarily employed.2Leonardo da Vinci, more than a hundred years earlier, had come to the same conclusion.3The passage is sufficiently remarkable to deserve quotation in the original:—“Le parti della Terra hanno tal propensione al centro di essa, che quando ella cangiasse luogo, le dette parti, benchè lontane dal globo nel tempo delle mutazioni di esso, lo seguirebbero per tutto; esempio di ciò sia il seguito perpetuo delle Medicee, ancorchè separate continuamente da Giove. L’istesso si deve dire della Luna, obbligata a seguir la Terra.”—Dialogo dei massimi sistemi, Giornata terza, p. 351 of Albèri’s edition.
1The wordtelescope, fromτῆλε, far,σκοπεῖν, to view, was invented by Demiscianus, an eminent Greek scholar, at the request of Prince Cesi, president of the Lyncean Academy. It was used by Galileo as early as 1612, but was not introduced into England until much later. In 1655 the wordtelescopewas inserted and explained in Bagwell’sMysteries of Astronomy,trunkorcylinderbeing the terms until then ordinarily employed.
2Leonardo da Vinci, more than a hundred years earlier, had come to the same conclusion.
3The passage is sufficiently remarkable to deserve quotation in the original:—“Le parti della Terra hanno tal propensione al centro di essa, che quando ella cangiasse luogo, le dette parti, benchè lontane dal globo nel tempo delle mutazioni di esso, lo seguirebbero per tutto; esempio di ciò sia il seguito perpetuo delle Medicee, ancorchè separate continuamente da Giove. L’istesso si deve dire della Luna, obbligata a seguir la Terra.”—Dialogo dei massimi sistemi, Giornata terza, p. 351 of Albèri’s edition.
GALION,a city of Crawford County, Ohio, U.S.A., about 75 m. S.W. of Cleveland. Pop. (1890) 6326; (1900) 7282 (703 foreign-born); (1910) 7214. It is served by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, and the Erie railways, and by an interurban electric railway. The city is about 1165 ft. above sea level, and has extensive railway shops (of the Erie railway) and manufactories of brick and tile machinery, carriages and wagons, and grain and seed cleaners. The municipality owns and operates its electric-lighting plant. Galion was laid out as a town in 1831, was incorporated as a borough in 1840, and was chartered as a city in 1878.
GALL, FRANZ JOSEPH(1758-1828), anatomist, physiologist, and founder of phrenology (q.v.), was born at Tiefenbrunn near Pforzheim, Baden, on the 9th of March 1758. After completing the usual literary course at Baden and Bruchsal, he began the study of medicine under J. Hermann (1738-1800) at Strassburg, whence, attracted by the names of Gerhard van Swieten (1700-1772) and Maximilian Stoll (1742-1788), he removed to Vienna in 1781. Having received his diploma, he began to practise as a physician there in 1785; but his energies were mainly devoted to the scientific investigation of problems which had occupied his attention from boyhood. At a comparatively early period he formed the generalization that in the human subject at least a powerful memory is invariably associated with prominent eyes; and further observation enabled him, as he thought, also to define the external characteristics indicative of special talents for painting, music and the mechanical arts. Following out these researches, he gradually reached the strong conviction, not only that the talents and dispositions of men are dependent upon the functions of the brain, but also that they may be inferred with perfect exactitude and precision from the external appearances of the skull. Gall’s first appearance as an author was made in 1791, when he published the first two chapters of a (never completed) work entitledPhilosophisch-medicinische Untersuchungen über Natur u. Kunst im kranken u. gesunden Zustande des Menschen. The first public notice of his inquiries in cranioscopy, however, was in the form of a letter addressed to a friend, which appeared in C.M. Wieland’sDeutscher Mercurin 1798; but two years previously he had begun to give private courses of phrenological lectures in Vienna, where his doctrines soon attracted general attention, and met with increasing success until, in 1802, they were interdicted by the government as being dangerous to religion. This step on the part of the authorities had the effect of greatly stimulating public curiosity and increasing Gall’s celebrity.
In March 1805 he finally left Vienna in company with his friend and associate J.C. Spurzheim, and made a tour through Germany, in the course of which he lectured in Berlin, Dresden, Magdeburg and several of the university towns. His expositions, which he knew how to make popular and attractive, were muchresorted to by the public, and excited considerable controversy in the scientific world. He had almost reached the zenith of his fame when, in 1807, he repaired to Paris and established himself there as a medical practitioner, at the same time continuing his activity as a lecturer and writer. In 1808 appeared hisIntroduction au cours de physiologie du cerveau, which was followed in 1809 by theRecherches sur le système nerveux en général, et sur celui du cerveau en particulier(originally laid before the Institute of France in March 1808), and in 1810 by the first instalment of theAnatomie et physiologie du système nerveux en général, et du cerveau en particulier, avec des observations sur la possibilité de reconnaître plusieurs dispositions intellectuelles et morales de l’homme et des animaux par la configuration de leurs têtes.TheRecherchesand the first two volumes of theAnatomiebear the conjoint names of Gall and Spurzheim. The latter work was completed in 1819, and appeared in a second edition of six volumes in 1822-1825. In 1811 he replied to a charge of Spinozism or atheism, which had been strongly urged against him, by a treatise entitledDes dispositions innées de l’âme et de l’esprit, which he afterwards incorporated with his greater work. In 1819 he became a naturalized French subject, but his efforts two years afterwards to obtain admission to the Academy of Sciences, although supported by E. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, were unsuccessful. In 1823 he visited London with the intention of giving a series of phrenological lectures, but his reception was not what he had anticipated, and he speedily abandoned his plans. He continued to lecture and practise in Paris until the beginning of 1828, when he was disabled by an apoplectic seizure. His death took place at Montrouge near Paris, on the 22nd of August 1828.
GALL(a word common to many Teutonic languages, cf. Dutchgal, and Ger.Galle; the Indo-European root appears in Gr.χολήand Lat.fel; possibly connected with “yellow,” with reference to the colour of bile), the secretion of the liver known as “bile,” the term being also used of the pear-shapeddiverticulumof the bile-duct, which forms a reservoir for the bile, more generally known as the “gall-bladder” (seeLiver). From the extreme bitterness of the secretion, “gall,” like the Lat.fel, is used for anything extremely bitter, whether actually or metaphorically. From the idea that the gall-bladder was the dominating organ of a bitter, sharp temperament, “gall” was formerly used in English for such a spirit, and also for one very ready to resent injuries. It thus survives in American slang, with the meaning “impudence” or “assurance.”
“Gall,” meaning a sore or painful swelling, especially on a horse, may be the same word, derived from an early use of the word as meaning “poison.” On the other hand, in Romanic languages, the Fr.galle, Sp.agalla, a wind-gall or puffy distension of the synovial bursa on the fetlock joint of a horse, is derived from the Lat.galla, oak-apple, from which comes the English “gall,” meaning an excrescence on trees caused by certain insects. (SeeGalls.)
GALLABAT,orGalabat, called by the Abyssinians Matemma (Metemma), a town of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, in 13° N. 36° 12′ E. It is built, at the foot of a steep slope, on the left bank of a tributary of the Atbara called the Khor Abnaheir, which forms here the Sudan-Abyssinian frontier. Gallabat lies 90 m. W. by N. of Gondar, the capital of Amhara, and being on the main route from Sennar to Abyssinia, is a trade centre of some importance. Pop. about 3000. The majority of the buildings are grasstukls. Slaves, beeswax, coffee, cotton and hides were formerly the chief articles of commerce. The slave market was closed about 1874. Being on the frontier line, the possession of the town was for long a matter of dispute between the Sudanese, and later the Egyptians, on the one hand and the Abyssinians on the other. About 1870 the Egyptians garrisoned the town, which in 1886 was attacked by the dervishes and sacked. From Gallabat a dervish raiding party penetrated to Gondar, which they looted. In revenge an Abyssinian army under King John attacked the dervishes close to Gallabat in March 1889. The dervishes suffered very severely, but King John being killed by a stray bullet, the Abyssinians retired (seeEgypt:Military Operations, 1885-1896). In December 1898 an Anglo-Egyptian force entered Gallabat. The Abyssinians then held the fort, but as the result of frontier arrangement the town was definitely included in the Sudan, though Abyssinia takes half the customs revenue. Since 1899 the trade of the place has revived, coffee and live stock being the most important items.
The town and district form a small ethnographical island, having been peopled in the 18th century by a colony of Takruri from Darfur, who, finding the spot a convenient resting-place for their fellow-pilgrims on their way to Mecca and back, obtained permission from the negus of Abyssinia to make a permanent settlement. They are an industrious agricultural race, and cultivate cotton with considerable success. They also collect honey in large quantities. The Takruri possess jagged throwing knives, which are said to have been brought from their original home in the Upper Congo regions.
GALLAIT, LOUIS(1810-1887), Belgian painter, was born at Tournay, in Hainaut, Belgium, on the 9th of May 1810. He first studied in his native town under Hennequin. In 1832 his first picture, “Tribute to Caesar,” won a prize at the exhibition at Ghent. He then went to Antwerp to prosecute his studies under Mathieu Ignace Van Brée, and in the following year exhibited at the Brussels Salon “Christ Healing the Blind.” This picture was purchased by subscription and placed in the cathedral at Tournay. Gallait next went to Paris, whence he sent to the Belgian Salons “Job on the Dunghill,” “Montaigne Visiting Tasso in Prison”; and, in 1841, “The Abdication of Charles V.,” in the Brussels Gallery. This was hailed as a triumph, and gained for the painter a European reputation. Official invitations then caused him to settle at Brussels, where he died on the 20th of November 1887. Among his greater works may be named: “The Last Honours paid to Counts Egmont and Horn by the Corporations of the Town of Brussels,” now at Tournay; “The Death of Egmont,” in the Berlin gallery; the “Coronation of Baudouin, Emperor of Constantinople,” painted for Versailles; “The Temptation of St Anthony,” in the palace at Brussels; “The Siege of Antioch,” “Art and Liberty,” a “Portrait of M.B. Dumortier” and “The Plague at Tournay,” all in the Brussels gallery. “A Gipsy Woman and her Children” was painted in 1852. “M. Gallait has all the gifts that may be acquired by work, taste, judgment and determination,” wrote Théophile Gautier; his art is that of a man of tact, a skilled painter, happy in his dramatic treatment but superficial. No doubt, this Walloon artist, following the example of the Flemings of the Renaissance and the treatment of Belgian classical painters and the French Romantic school, sincerely aimed at truth; unfortunately, misled by contemporary taste, he could not conceive of it excepting as dressed in sentimentality. As an artist employed by the State he exercised considerable influence, and for a long period he was the leader of public taste in Brussels.
See Teichlin,Louis Gallait und die Malerei in Deutschland(1853); J. Dujardin,L’Art flamand(1899); C. Lemonnier,Histoire des beaux-arts en Belgique(1881).
See Teichlin,Louis Gallait und die Malerei in Deutschland(1853); J. Dujardin,L’Art flamand(1899); C. Lemonnier,Histoire des beaux-arts en Belgique(1881).
GALLAND, ANTOINE(1646-1715), French Orientalist and archaeologist, the first European translator of theArabian Nights, was born on the 4th of April 1646 at Rollot, in the department of Somme. The completion of his school education at Noyon was followed by a brief apprenticeship to a trade, from which, however, he soon escaped, to pursue his linguistic studies at Paris. After having been employed for some time in making a catalogue of the Oriental manuscripts at the Sorbonne, he was, in 1670, attached to the French embassy at Constantinople; and in 1673 he travelled in Syria and the Levant, where he copied a great number of inscriptions, and sketched, and in some cases removed historical monuments. After a brief visit to France, where his collection of ancient coins attracted some attention, Galland returned to the Levant in 1676; and in 1679 he undertook a third voyage, being commissioned by the French East India Company to collect for the cabinet of Colbert; on the expiration of this commission he was instructed by the government to continue his researches, and had the title of“antiquary to the king” conferred upon him. During his prolonged residences abroad he acquired a thorough knowledge of the Arabic, Turkish and Persian languages and literatures, which, on his final return to France, enabled him to render valuable assistance to Thevenot, the keeper of the royal library, and to Barthélemy d’Herbelot. After their deaths he lived for some time at Caen under the roof of Nicolas Foucault (1643-1721), the intendant of Caen, himself no mean archaeologist; and there he began the publication (12 vols., 1704-1717) ofLes mille et une nuits, which excited immense interest during the time of its appearance, and is still the standard French translation. It had no pretensions to verbal accuracy, and the coarseness of the language was modified to suit European taste, but the narrative was adequately rendered. In 1701 Galland had been admitted into the Academy of Inscriptions, and in 1709 he was appointed to the chair of Arabic in the Collège de France. He continued to discharge the duties of this post until his death, which took place on the 17th of February 1715.
Besides a number of archaeological works, especially in the department of numismatics, he published a compilation from the Arabic, Persian and Turkish, entitledParoles remarquables, bons mots et maximes des orientaux(1694), and a translation from an Arabic manuscript,De l’origine et du progrès du café(1699). The former of these works appeared in an English translation in 1795. HisContes et fables indiennes de Bidpaï et de Lokmanwas published (1724) after his death. Among his numerous unpublished manuscripts are a translation of the Koran and aHistoire générale des empereurs turcs. HisJournalwas published by M. Charles Schefer in 1881.
Besides a number of archaeological works, especially in the department of numismatics, he published a compilation from the Arabic, Persian and Turkish, entitledParoles remarquables, bons mots et maximes des orientaux(1694), and a translation from an Arabic manuscript,De l’origine et du progrès du café(1699). The former of these works appeared in an English translation in 1795. HisContes et fables indiennes de Bidpaï et de Lokmanwas published (1724) after his death. Among his numerous unpublished manuscripts are a translation of the Koran and aHistoire générale des empereurs turcs. HisJournalwas published by M. Charles Schefer in 1881.
GALLARATE,a town of Lombardy, Italy, in the province of Milan, from which it is 25 m. N.W. by rail. Pop. (1901) 12,002. The town is of medieval origin. It is remarkable mainly for its textile factories. It is the junction of railways to Varese, Laveno and Arona (for the Simplon). Six miles to the W. are the electric works of Vizzola, the largest in Europe, where 23,000 h.p. are derived from the river Ticino.
GALLARS[in Lat.Gallasius],NICOLAS DES(c.1520-c.1580), Calvinistic divine, first appears as author of aDefensioof William Farel, published at Geneva in 1545, followed (1545-1549) by translations into French of three tracts by Calvin. In 1551 he was admitted burgess of Geneva, and in 1553 made pastor of a country church in the neighbourhood. In 1557 he was sent to minister to the Protestants at Paris; his conductor, Nicolas du Rousseau, having prohibited books in his possession, was executed at Dijon; des Gallars, having nothing suspicious about him, continued his journey. On the revival of the Strangers’ church in London (1560), he, being then minister at Geneva, came to London to organize the French branch; and in 1561 he publishedLa Forme de police ecclésiastique instituée à Londres en l’Église des François. In the same year he assisted Beza at the colloquy of Poissy. He became minister to the Protestants at Orleans in 1564; presided at the synod of Paris in 1565; was driven out of Orleans with other Protestants in 1568; and in 1571 was chaplain to Jeanne d’Albret, queen of Navarre. Calvin held him in high esteem, employing him as amanuensis, and as editor as well as translator of several of his exegetical and polemical works. He himself wrote a commentary on Exodus (1560); edited an annotated French Bible (1562) and New Testament (1562); and published tracts against Arians (1565-1566). His main work was his edition of Irenaeus (1570) with prefatory letter to Grindal, then bishop of London, and giving, for the first time, some fragments of the Greek text. His collaboration with Beza in theHistoire des Églises Réformées du royaume de France(1580) is doubted by Bayle.
See Bayle,Dictionnaire hist. et crit.; Jean Senebier,Hist. littéraire de Genève(1786);Nouvelle Biog. gén.(1857).
See Bayle,Dictionnaire hist. et crit.; Jean Senebier,Hist. littéraire de Genève(1786);Nouvelle Biog. gén.(1857).
(A. Go.*)
GALLAS, MATTHIAS,Count of Campo,Duke of Lucera(1584-1647), Austrian soldier, first saw service in Flanders, and in Savoy with the Spaniards, and subsequently joined the forces of the Catholic League as captain. On the general outbreak of hostilities in Germany, Gallas, as colonel of an infantry regiment, distinguished himself, especially at the battle of Stadtlohn (1623). In 1630 he was serving asGeneral-Feldwachtmeisterunder Collalto in Italy, and was mainly instrumental in the capture of Mantua. Made count of the Empire for this service, he returned to Germany for the campaign against Gustavus Adolphus. In command of a corps of Wallenstein’s army, he covered Bohemia against the Swedes in 1631-1632, and served at the Alte Veste near Nuremberg, and at Lützen. Further good service against Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar commended General Gallas to the notice of the emperor, who made him lieutenant-general in his own army. He was one of the chief conspirators against Wallenstein, and after the tragedy of Eger was appointed to the command of the army which Wallenstein had formed and led. At the great battle of Nördlingen (23rd of August 1634) in which the army of Sweden was almost annihilated, Gallas commanded the victorious Imperialists. His next command was in Lorraine, but even the Moselle valley had suffered so much from the ravages of war that his army perished of want. Still more was this the case in northern Germany, where Gallas commanded against the Swedish general Banér in 1637 and 1638. At first driving the Swedes before him, in the end he made a complete failure of the campaign, lost his command, and was subject to much ridicule. It was, however, rather the indiscipline of his men (the baneful legacy of Wallenstein’s methods) than his own faults which brought about his disastrous retreat across North Germany, and at a moment of crisis he was recalled to endeavour to stop Torstenson’s victorious advance, only to be shut up in Magdeburg, whence he escaped with the barest remnant of his forces. Once more relieved of his command, he was again recalled to make head against the Swedes in 1645 (after their victory at Jankow). Before long, old and warworn, he resigned his command, and died in 1647 at Vienna. His army had earned for itself the reputation of being the most cruel and rapacious force even in the Thirty Years’ War, and hisMerode Brüderhave survived in the wordmarauder. Like many other generals of that period, he had acquired much wealth and great territorial possessions (the latter mostly his share of Wallenstein’s estates). He was the founder of the Austrian family of Clam-Gallas, which furnished many distinguished soldiers to the Imperial army.
GALLAS,or more correctlyGalla, a powerful Hamitic people of eastern Africa, scattered over the wide region which extends for about 1000 m. from the central parts of Abyssinia to the neighbourhood of the river Sabaki in British East Africa. The name “Galla” or “Gala” appears to be an Abyssinian nickname, unknown to the people, who call themselvesIlm’ Orma, “sons of men” or “sons of Orma,” an eponymous hero. In Shoa (Abyssinia) the word is connected with the river Gála in Guragie, on the banks of which a great battle is said to have been fought between the Galla and the Abyssinians. Arnaud d’Abbadie says that the Abyssinian Moslems recount that, when summoned by the Prophet’s messenger to adopt Islam, the chief of the Galla said “No,”—in Arabickāl(orgāl)la,—and the Prophet on hearing this said, “Then let their very name imply their denial of the Faith.” Of all Hamitic peoples the Galla are the most numerous. Dr J. Ludwig Krapf estimated them (c.1860) at from six to eight millions; later authorities put them at not much over three millions. Individual tribes are said to be able to bring 20,000 to 30,000 horsemen into the field.
Hardly anything is definitely known as to the origin and early home of the race, but it appears to have occupied the southern part of its present territory since the 16th century. According to Hiob Ludolf and James Bruce, the Galla invaders first crossed the Abyssinian frontiers in the year 1537. The Galla of Gojam (a district along the northern side of the river Abai) tell how their savage forefathers came from the south-east from a country on the other side of a bahr (lake or river), and the Yejju and Raia Galla also point towards the east and commemorate the passage of a bahr. Among the southern Galla tradition appears to be mainly concerned with the expulsion of the race from the country now occupied by the Somali. Their original home was possibly in the district east of Victoria Nyanza, for the tribes near Mount Kenya are stated to go on periodical pilgrimages to the mountain, making offerings to it as if to their mother. A theory has been advanced that the great exodus which it seems certain took place among the peoples throughout eastern Africa during the 15th century was caused by some great eruption of Kenyaand other volcanoes of equatorial Africa. As a geographical term Galla-land is now used mainly to denote the south-central regions of the Abyssinian empire, the country in which the Galla are numerically strongest. There is no sharp dividing line between the territory occupied respectively by the Galla and by the Somali.
In any case the Galla must be regarded as members of that vast eastern Hamitic family which includes their neighbours, the Somali, the Afars (Danakil) and the Abyssinians. As in all the eastern Hamites, there is a perceptible strain of Negro blood in the Galla, who are, however, described by Sir Frederick Lugard as “a wonderfully handsome race, with high foreheads, brown skins, and soft wavy hair quite different from the wool of the Bantus.” As a rule their features are quite European. Their colour is dark brown, but many of the northern Galla are of a coffee and milk tint. The finest men are to be found among the Limmu and Gudru on the river Abai.
The Galla are for the most part still in the nomadic and pastoral stage, though in Abyssinia they have some agricultural settlements. Their dwellings, circles of rough stones roofed with grasses, are generally built under trees. Their wealth consists chiefly in cattle and horses. Among the southern tribes it is said that about seven or eight head of cattle are kept for every man, woman and child; and among the northern tribes, as neither man nor woman ever thinks of going any distance on foot, the number of horses is very large. The ordinary food consists of flesh, blood, milk, butter and honey, the last being considered of so much importance by the southern Galla that a rude system of bee-keeping is in vogue, and the husband who fails to furnish his wife with a sufficient supply of honey may be excluded from all conjugal rights. In the south monogamy is the rule, but in the north the number of a man’s wives is limited only by his wishes and his wealth. Marriage-forms are numerous, that of bride-capture being common. Each tribe has its own chief, who enjoys the strange privilege of being the only merchant for his people, but in all public concerns must take the advice of the fathers of families assembled in council. The greater proportion of the tribes are still pagan, worshipping a supreme god Waka, and the subordinate god and goddess Oglieh and Atetieh, whose favour is secured by sacrifices of oxen and sheep. With a strange liberality of sentiment, they say that at a certain time of the year Waka leaves them and goes to attend to the wants of their enemies the Somali, whom also he has created. Some tribes, and notably the Wollo Galla, have been converted to Mahommedanism and are very bigoted adherents of the Prophet. In the north, where the Galla are under Abyssinian rule, a kind of superficial Christianization has taken place, to the extent at least that the people are familiar with the names of Maremma or Mary, Balawold or Jesus, Girgis or St George, &c.; but to all practical intents paganism is still in force. The serpent is a special object of worship, the northern Galla believing that he is the author of the human race. There is a belief in were-wolves (buda), and the northern Galla have sorcerers who terrorize the people. Though cruel in war, all Galla respect their pledged word. They are armed with a lance, a two-edged knife, and a shield of buffalo or rhinoceros hide. A considerable number find employment in the Abyssinian armies.Among the more important tribes in the south (the name in each instance being compounded with Galla) are the Ramatta, the Kukatta, the Baōle, the Aurova, the Wadjole, the Ilani, the Arrar and the Kanigo Galla; the Borani, a very powerful tribe, may be considered to mark the division between north and south; and in the north we find the Amoro, the Jarso, the Toolama, the Wollo, the Ambassil, the Aijjo, and the Azobo Galla.See C.T. Beke, “On the Origin of the Gallas,” inTrans. of Brit. Assoc.(1847); J. Ludwig Krapf,Travels in Eastern Africa(1860); andVocabulary of the Galla Language(London, 1842); Arnaud d’Abbadie,Douze Ans dans la Haute-Éthiopie(1868); Ph. Paulitschke,Ethnographie Nord-Ost-Afrikas;Die geistige Kultur der Dan’akil, Galla u. Somâl(Berlin, 1896); P.M. de Salviac,Les Galla(Paris, 1901).
The Galla are for the most part still in the nomadic and pastoral stage, though in Abyssinia they have some agricultural settlements. Their dwellings, circles of rough stones roofed with grasses, are generally built under trees. Their wealth consists chiefly in cattle and horses. Among the southern tribes it is said that about seven or eight head of cattle are kept for every man, woman and child; and among the northern tribes, as neither man nor woman ever thinks of going any distance on foot, the number of horses is very large. The ordinary food consists of flesh, blood, milk, butter and honey, the last being considered of so much importance by the southern Galla that a rude system of bee-keeping is in vogue, and the husband who fails to furnish his wife with a sufficient supply of honey may be excluded from all conjugal rights. In the south monogamy is the rule, but in the north the number of a man’s wives is limited only by his wishes and his wealth. Marriage-forms are numerous, that of bride-capture being common. Each tribe has its own chief, who enjoys the strange privilege of being the only merchant for his people, but in all public concerns must take the advice of the fathers of families assembled in council. The greater proportion of the tribes are still pagan, worshipping a supreme god Waka, and the subordinate god and goddess Oglieh and Atetieh, whose favour is secured by sacrifices of oxen and sheep. With a strange liberality of sentiment, they say that at a certain time of the year Waka leaves them and goes to attend to the wants of their enemies the Somali, whom also he has created. Some tribes, and notably the Wollo Galla, have been converted to Mahommedanism and are very bigoted adherents of the Prophet. In the north, where the Galla are under Abyssinian rule, a kind of superficial Christianization has taken place, to the extent at least that the people are familiar with the names of Maremma or Mary, Balawold or Jesus, Girgis or St George, &c.; but to all practical intents paganism is still in force. The serpent is a special object of worship, the northern Galla believing that he is the author of the human race. There is a belief in were-wolves (buda), and the northern Galla have sorcerers who terrorize the people. Though cruel in war, all Galla respect their pledged word. They are armed with a lance, a two-edged knife, and a shield of buffalo or rhinoceros hide. A considerable number find employment in the Abyssinian armies.
Among the more important tribes in the south (the name in each instance being compounded with Galla) are the Ramatta, the Kukatta, the Baōle, the Aurova, the Wadjole, the Ilani, the Arrar and the Kanigo Galla; the Borani, a very powerful tribe, may be considered to mark the division between north and south; and in the north we find the Amoro, the Jarso, the Toolama, the Wollo, the Ambassil, the Aijjo, and the Azobo Galla.
See C.T. Beke, “On the Origin of the Gallas,” inTrans. of Brit. Assoc.(1847); J. Ludwig Krapf,Travels in Eastern Africa(1860); andVocabulary of the Galla Language(London, 1842); Arnaud d’Abbadie,Douze Ans dans la Haute-Éthiopie(1868); Ph. Paulitschke,Ethnographie Nord-Ost-Afrikas;Die geistige Kultur der Dan’akil, Galla u. Somâl(Berlin, 1896); P.M. de Salviac,Les Galla(Paris, 1901).
GALLATIN, ALBERT(1761-1849), American statesman, was born in Geneva (Switzerland) on the 29th of January 1761. The Gallatins were both an old and a noble family. They are first heard of in Savoy in the year 1258, and more than two centuries later they went to Geneva (1510), united with Calvin in his opposition to Rome, and associated their fortunes with those of the little Swiss city. Here they remained, and with one or two other great families governed Geneva, and sent forth many representatives to seek their fortune and win distinction in the service of foreign princes, both as soldiers and ministers. On the eve of the French Revolution the Gallatins were still in Geneva, occupying the same position which they had held for two hundred years. Albert Gallatin’s father died in 1765, his mother five years later, and his only sister in 1777. Although left an orphan at nine, he was by no means lonely or unprotected. His grandparents, a large circle of near relatives and Mlle Catherine Pictet (d. 1795), an intimate friend of his mother, cared for him during his boyhood. He was thoroughly educated at the schools of Geneva, and graduated with honour from the college or academy there in 1779. His grandmother then wished him to enter the army of the landgrave of Hesse, but he declined to serve “a tyrant,” and a year later slipped away from Geneva and embarked for the United States. A competent fortune, good prospects, social position, and a strong family connexion were all thrown aside in order to tempt fate in the New World. His relatives very properly opposed his course, but they nevertheless did all in their power to smooth his way, and continued to treat him kindly. In after life he himself admitted the justice of their opinions. The temper of the times, a vague discontent with the established order of things, and some political enthusiasm imbibed from the writings of Rousseau, are the best reasons which can now be assigned for Gallatin’s desertion of home and friends.
In July 1780 Gallatin and his friend Henri Serre (d. 1784) landed in Massachusetts. They brought with them youth, hope and courage, as well as a little money, and at once entered into business. The times, however, were unfavourable. The great convulsion of the Revolution was drawing to a close, and everything was in an unsettled condition. The young Genevans failed in business, passed a severe winter in the wilds of Maine, and returned to Boston penniless. Gallatin tried to earn a living by teaching French in Harvard College, apparently not without success, but the cold and rigid civilization of New England repelled him, and he made his way to the South. In the backwoods of Pennsylvania and Virginia there seemed to be better chances for a young adventurer. Gallatin engaged in land speculations, and tried to lay the foundation of his fortune in a frontier farm. In 1789 he married Sophie Allègre, and every prospect seemed to be brightening. But clouds soon gathered again. After only a few months of wedlock his wife died, and Gallatin was once more alone. The solitary and desolate frontier life became now more dreary than ever; he flung himself into politics, the only outside resource open to him, and his long, and eventful public career began.
The constitution of 1787 was then before the public, and Gallatin, with his dislike of strong government still upon him, threw himself into opposition and became one of the founders of the Anti-Federalist, or, as it was afterwards called, the Republican party. He was a member of the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention of 1789-1790, and of the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1790, 1791, and 1792, and rose with surprising rapidity, despite his foreign birth and his inability to speak English with correctness or fluency. He was helped of course by his sound education; but the true cause of his success lay in his strong sense, untiring industry, courage, clear-sightedness and great intellectual force. In 1793 he was chosen United States senator from Pennsylvania by the votes of both political parties. No higher tribute was ever paid to character and ability than that conveyed by this election. But the staunch Federalists of the senate, who had begun to draw the party lines rather sharply, found the presence of the young Genevan highly distasteful. They disliked his French origin, and suspected him to be a man of levelling principles. His seat was contested on account of a technical flaw in regard to the duration of his citizenship, and in February 1794, almost three months after the beginning of the session, the senate annulled the election and sent him back to Pennsylvania with all the glory of political martyrdom.
The leading part which Gallatin had taken in the “Whisky Insurrection” in Western Pennsylvania had, without doubt, been an efficient cause in his rejection by the senate. He intended fully to restrain within legal bounds the opposition which the excise on domestic spirits had provoked, but he made the serious mistake of not allowing sufficiently for the character of the backwoods population. When legal resistance developed into insurrection, Gallatin did his best to retrieve his error andprevent open war. At Redstone Old Fort (Brownsville) on the 29th of August 1794, before the “Committee of Sixty” who were appointed to represent the disaffected people, he opposed with vigorous eloquence the use of force against the government, and refused to be intimidated by an excited band of riflemen who happened to be in the vicinity and represented the radical element. He effectively checked the excitement, and when a month later an overwhelming Federal force began moving upon the western counties, the insurrection collapsed without bloodshed. Of all the men who took part in the opposition to the excise, Gallatin alone came out with credit. He was at once elected to the national house of representatives, and took his seat in December 1795. There, by sheer force of ability and industry, he wrested from all competitors the leadership of the Republicans, and became the most dangerous opponent whom the Federalists had ever encountered in congress. Inflamed with a hatred of France just then rising to the dignity of a party principle, they found in Gallatin an enemy who was both by origin and opinion peculiarly obnoxious to them. They attacked him unsparingly, but in vain. His perfect command of temper, his moderation of speech and action, in a bitterly personal age, never failed, and were his most effective weapons; but he made his power felt in other ways. His clear mind and industrious habits drew him to questions of finance. He became the financier of his party, preached unceasingly his cardinal doctrines of simplicity and economy, and was an effective critic of the measures of government. Cool and temperate, Gallatin, when following his own theories, was usually in the right, although accused by his followers of trimming. Thus, in regard to the Jay treaty, he defended the constitutional right of the house to consider the treaty, but he did not urge rejection in this specific case. On the other hand, when following a purely party policy he generally erred. He resisted the navy, the mainspring of Washington’s foreign policy; he opposed commercial treaties and diplomatic intercourse in a similar fashion. On these points he was grievously wrong, and on all he changed his views after a good deal of bitter experience.
The greatest period of Gallatin’s career in congress was in 1798, after the publication of the famous X.Y.Z. despatches. The insults of Talleyrand, and his shameless attempts to extort bribes from the American commissioners, roused the deep anger of the people against France. The Federalists swept all before them, and the members of the opposition either retired from Philadelphia or went over to the government. Alone and single-handed, Gallatin carried on the fight in congress. The Federalists bore down on him unmercifully, and even attempted (1798) a constitutional amendment in regard to citizenship, partly, it appears, in order to drive him from office. Still he held on, making a national struggle in the national legislature, and relying very little upon the rights of States so eagerly grasped by Jefferson and Madison. But even then the tide was turning. The strong measures of the Federalists shocked the country; the leaders of the dominant party quarrelled fiercely among themselves; and the Republicans carried the elections of 1800. In the exciting contest for the presidency in the house of representatives between Jefferson and Burr, it was Gallatin who led the Republicans.
When, after this contest, Jefferson became president (1801), there were two men whose commanding abilities marked them for the first places in the cabinet. James Madison became secretary of state, and Albert Gallatin secretary of the treasury. Wise, prudent and conservative, Gallatin made few changes in Hamilton’s arrangements, and for twelve years administered the national finances with the greatest skill. He and Jefferson were both imbued with the idea that government could be carried on upon a priori principles resting on the assumed perfectness of human nature, and the chief burden of carrying out this theory fell upon Gallatin. His guiding principles were still simplicity of administration and speedy extinction of all debt, and everything bent to these objects. Fighting or bribing the Barbary pirates was a mere question of expense. It was cheaper to seize Louisiana than to await the settlement of doubtful points. Commercial warfare was to be avoided because of the cost. All wars were bad, but if they could not be evaded it was less extravagant to be ready than to rush to arms unprepared. Amid many difficulties, and thwarted even by Jefferson himself in the matter of the navy, Gallatin pushed on; and after six years the public debt was decreased (in spite of the Louisiana purchase) by $14,260,000, a large surplus was on hand, a comprehensive and beneficent scheme of internal improvements was ready for execution, and the promised land seemed in sight. Then came the stress of war in Europe, a wretched neutrality at home, fierce outbreaks of human passions, and the fair structure of government by a priori theories based on the goodness of unoppressed humanity came to the ground. Gallatin was thrown helplessly back upon the rejected Federalist doctrine of government according to circumstances. He uttered no vain regrets, but the position was a trying one. The sworn foe of strong government, he was compelled, in pursuance of Jefferson’s policy, to put into execution the Embargo and other radical and stringent measures. He did his best, but all was in vain. Commercial warfare failed, the Embargo was repealed, and Jefferson, having entangled foreign relations and brought the country to the verge of civil war, retired to private life, leaving to his successor Madison, and to Gallatin, the task of extricating the nation from its difficulties. From 1809 the new administration, drifting steadily towards war, struggled on from one abortive and exasperating negotiation to another. It was a period of sore trial to Gallatin. The peace policy had failed, and nothing else replaced it. He had lost his hold upon Pennsylvania and his support in the house, while a cabal in the senate, bitterly and personally hostile to the treasury, crippled the administration and reduced every government measure to mere inanity. At last, however, in June 1812, congress on Madison’s recommendation declared war against England.
Gallatin never wasted time in futile complaints. His cherished schemes were shattered. War and extravagant expenditure had come, and he believed both to be fatal to the prosperity and progress of America. He therefore put the finances in the best order he could, and set himself to mitigate the evil effects of the war by obtaining an early peace. With this end in view he grasped eagerly at the proffered mediation of Russia, and without resigning the treasury sailed for Europe in May 1813.
Russian mediation proved barren, but Gallatin persevered, catching at every opportunity for negotiation. In the midst of his labours came the news that the senate had refused to confirm his appointment as peace commissioner. He still toiled on unofficially until, the objection of the senate having been met by the appointment of a new secretary of the treasury, his second nomination was approved, and he was able to proceed with direct negotiations. The English and American commissioners finally met at Ghent, and in the tedious and irritating discussions which ensued Gallatin took the leading part. His great difficulty lay in managing his colleagues, who were, especially Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams, able men of strong wills and jarring tempers. He succeeded in preserving harmony, and thus established his own reputation as an able diplomatist. Peace was his reward; on the 24th of December 1814 the treaty was signed; and after visiting Geneva for the first time since his boyhood, and assisting in negotiating a commercial convention (1815) with England by which all discriminating duties were abolished, Gallatin in July 1815 returned to America.
While still in Europe he had been asked by Madison to become minister to France; this appointment he accepted in January 1816, and adhered to his acceptance in spite of his being asked in April 1816 to serve once more as secretary of the treasury. He remained in France for the next seven years. He passed his time in thoroughly congenial society, seeing everybody of note or merit in Europe. He did not neglect the duties of his official position, but strove assiduously and with his wonted patience to settle the commercial relations of his adopted country with the nations of Europe, and in 1818 assisted Richard Rush, then United States minister in London, in negotiating a commercial convention with Great Britain to take the place of that negotiated in 1815.
In June 1823 he returned to the United States, where he found himself plunged at once into the bitter struggle then in progress for the presidency. His favourite candidate was his personal friend William H. Crawford, whom he regarded as the true heir and representative of the old Jeffersonian principles. With these feelings he consented in May 1824 to stand for the vice-presidency on the Crawford ticket. But Gallatin had come home to new scenes and new actors, and he did not fully appreciate the situation. The contest was bitter, personal, factious and full of intrigue. Martin Van Buren, then in the Crawford interest, came to the conclusion that the candidate for the second place, by his foreign origin, weakened the ticket, and in October Gallatin retired from the contest. The election, undecided by the popular vote, was thrown into the house, and resulted in the choice of John Quincy Adams, who in 1826 drew Gallatin from his retirement and sent him as minister to England to conduct another complicated and arduous negotiation. Gallatin worked at his new task with his usual industry, tact and patience, but the results were meagre, although an open breach on the delicate question of the north-east boundary of the United States was avoided by referring it to the arbitration of the king of the Netherlands. In November 1827 he once more returned to the United States and bade farewell to public life.
Taking up his residence in New York, he was in 1832-1839 president of the National Bank (afterwards the Gallatin Bank) of New York, but his duties were light, and he devoted himself chiefly to the congenial pursuits of science and literature. In both fields he displayed much talent, and by writing hisSynopsis of the Indian Tribes within the United States East of the Rocky Mountains and in the British and Russian Possessions in North America(1836), and by founding the American Ethnological Society of New York in 1842, he earned the title of “Father of American Ethnology.” He continued, of course, to interest himself in public affairs, although no longer an active participant, and in all financial questions, especially in regard to the bank charter, the resumption of specie payments, and the panic of 1837, he exerted a powerful influence. The rise of the slavery question touched him nearly. Gallatin had always been a consistent opponent of slavery; he felt keenly, therefore, the attempts of the South to extend the slave power and confirm its existence, and the remnant of his strength was devoted in his last days to writing and distributing two able pamphlets against the war with Mexico. Almost his last public act was a speech, on the 24th of April 1844, in New York City, against the annexation of Texas; and in his eighty-fourth year he confronted a howling New York mob with the same cool, unflinching courage which he had displayed half a century before when he faced the armed frontiersmen of Redstone Old Fort. During the winter of 1848-1849 his health failed, and on the 12th of August 1849, at the home of his daughter in Astoria, Long Island, he passed peacefully away.
Gallatin was twice married. His second wife, whom he married in November 1793, was Miss Hannah Nicholson, of New York, the daughter of Com. James Nicholson (1737-1804), an American naval officer, commander-in-chief of the navy from 1777 until August 1781, when with his ship the “Virginia,” he was taken by the British “Iris” and “General Monk.” By her he had three children, two sons and a daughter, who all survived him. In personal appearance he was above middle height, with strongly-marked features, indicating great strength of intellect and character. He was reserved and very reticent, cold in manner and not sympathetic. There was, too, a certain Calvinistic austerity about him. But he was much beloved by his family. He was never a popular man, nor did he ever have a strong personal following or many attached friends. He stood, with Jefferson and Madison, at the head of his party, and won his place by force of character, courage, application and intellectual power. His eminent and manifold services to his adopted country, his great abilities and upright character, assure him a high position in the history of the United States.
The Writings of Albert Gallatin, edited by Henry Adams, were published at Philadelphia, in three volumes, in 1879. With these volumes was published an excellent biography,The Life of Albert Gallatin, also by Henry Adams; another good biography is John Austin Stevens’sAlbert Gallatin(Boston, 1884) in the “American Statesmen” series.
The Writings of Albert Gallatin, edited by Henry Adams, were published at Philadelphia, in three volumes, in 1879. With these volumes was published an excellent biography,The Life of Albert Gallatin, also by Henry Adams; another good biography is John Austin Stevens’sAlbert Gallatin(Boston, 1884) in the “American Statesmen” series.
(H. C. L.)
GALLAUDET, THOMAS HOPKINS(1787-1851), American educator of the deaf and dumb, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, of French Huguenot ancestry, on the 10th of December 1787. He graduated at Yale in 1805, where he was a tutor from 1808 to 1810. Subsequently he studied theology at Andover, and was licensed to preach in 1814, but having determined to abandon the ministry and devote his life to the education of deaf mutes, he visited Europe in 1815-1816, and studied the methods of the abbé Sicard in Paris, and of Thomas Braidwood (1715-1806) and his successor Joseph Watson (1765-1829) in Great Britain. Returning to the United States in 1816, he established at Hartford, Connecticut, with the aid of Laurent Clerc (1785-1869), a deaf mute assistant of the abbé Sicard, a school for deaf mutes, in support of which Congress, largely through the influence of Henry Clay, made a land grant, and which Gallaudet presided over with great success until ill-health compelled him to retire in 1830. It was the first institution of the sort in the United States, and served as a model for institutions which were subsequently established. He died at Hartford, Connecticut, on the 5th of September 1851.
There are three accounts of his life, one by Henry Barnard,Life, Character and Services of the Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet(Hartford, 1852); another by Herman Humphrey (Hartford, 1858), and a third (and the best one) by his son Edward Miner Gallaudet (1888).
There are three accounts of his life, one by Henry Barnard,Life, Character and Services of the Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet(Hartford, 1852); another by Herman Humphrey (Hartford, 1858), and a third (and the best one) by his son Edward Miner Gallaudet (1888).
His son,Thomas Gallaudet(1822-1902), after graduating at Trinity College in 1842, entered the Protestant Episcopal ministry, settled in New York City, and there in 1852 organized St Anne’s Episcopal church, where he conducted services for deaf mutes. In 1872 he organized and became general manager of the Church mission to deaf mutes, and in 1885 founded the Gallaudet home for deaf mutes, particularly the aged, at Wappingers Falls, near Poughkeepsie, New York.
Another son,Edward Miner Gallaudet(b. 1837), was born at Hartford, Connecticut, on the 3rd of February 1837, and graduated at Trinity College in 1856. After teaching for a year in the institution for deaf mutes founded by his father at Hartford, he removed with his mother, Sophia Fowler Gallaudet (1798-1877), to Washington, D.C., where at the request of Amos Kendall (1789-1869), its founder, he organized and took charge of the Columbia Institution for the deaf and dumb, which received support from the government, and of which he became president. This institution was the first to furnish actual collegiate education for deaf mutes (in 1864 it acquired the right to grant degrees), and was successful from the start. The Gallaudet College (founded in 1864 as the National Deaf Mute College and renamed in 1893 in honour of Thomas H. Gallaudet) and the Kendall School are separate departments of this institution, under independent faculties (each headed by Gallaudet), but under the management of one board of directors.
GALLE,orPoint de Galle, a town and port of Ceylon on the south-west coast. It was made a municipality in 1865, and divided into the five districts of the Fort, Callowelle, Galopiadde, Hirimbure and Cumbalwalla. The fort, which is more than a mile in circumference, overlooks the whole harbour, but is commanded by a range of hills. Within its enclosure are not only several government buildings, but an old church erected by the Dutch East India Company, a mosque, a Wesleyan chapel, a hospital, and a considerable number of houses occupied by Europeans. The old Dutch building known as the queen’s house, or governor’s residence, which dated from 1687, was in such a dilapidated state that it was sold by the governor, Sir William Gregory, in 1873. Elsewhere there are few buildings of individual note, but the general style of domestic architecture is pleasant and comfortable, though not pretentious. One of the most delightful features of the place is the profusion of trees, even within the town, and along the edge of the shore—suriyas, palms, coco-nut trees and bread-fruit trees. The ramparts towards the sea furnish fine promenades. In the harbour deep water is found close to the shore, and the outer roads are spacious; but the south-westmonsoon renders entrance difficult, and not unfrequently drives vessels from their moorings.
The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, and the construction of a breakwater at Colombo, leading to the transfer of the mail and most of the commercial steamers to the capital of the island, seriously diminished the prosperity of Galle. Although a few steamers still call to coal and take in some cargo, yet the loss of the Peninsular and Oriental and other steamer agencies reduced the port to a subordinate position; nor has the extension of the railway from Colombo, and beyond Galle to Matara, very much improved matters. The tea-planting industry has, however, spread to the neighbourhood, and a great deal is done in digging plumbago and in growing grass for the distillation of citronella oil. The export trade is chiefly represented by coco-nut oil, plumbago, coir yarn, fibre, rope and tea. In the import trade cotton goods are the chief item. Both the export and import trade for the district, however, now chiefly passes through Colombo. Pop. (1901) 37,165.