526 



HAM 



HAMBURG 



Guernon de Ranville from 1831 to 1836 ; of Louis 

 Napoleon from 1840 till 1846 ; and after the coup 

 d'etat, of the republican generals Cavaignac, 

 Lamoriciere, Changarnier, &c. Pop. 2837. See 

 Gomard, Ham, son Chdteau, &c. (1864). 



Ham* WEST, a suburb of East London, and a 

 parliamentary and county borough of Essex, on the 

 north bank of tlie Thames, opposite Greenwich. 

 In fifty years its population grew from 10,000 to 

 204,903 (1891), principally owing to the Victoria 

 and Albert docks and the gas-works. It is a busy 

 industrial parish, and has silk-printing, shipbuild- 

 ing, distilling, and chemical manufactures. In 

 1885 it was made a parliamentary borough, return- 

 ing two members to the House of Commons. Here 

 is Mrs Elizabeth Fry's house, ' The Cedars.' EAST 

 HAM, situated in the south-west of the same 

 county, 1 J miles SW. of Barking, has a population 

 of 9713. See Katharine Fry, History of the ^Parishes 

 of East and West Ham ( 1888). 



Ham, according to the writer of Genesis, was 

 the second son of Noah, and the brother of Shem 

 and Japheth. The name, however, as generally 

 used, is geographical rather than ethnographical. 

 The word Ham in Hebrew signifies 'to be hot,' 

 and the descendants of this son of Noah are re- 

 presented as peopling the southern regions of the 

 earth, so far as known at that time viz. Arabia, 

 the Persian Gulf, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, &c. 

 Ham has also been identified with Kemi ( ' black 

 land ' ), an ancient name of Egypt ; but for this 

 identification there exists no satisfactory philo- 

 logical evidence. Philologists and ethnologists 

 recognise as a distinct family of peoples and tongues 

 a group which they call ' Hamitic,' classifying it 

 as co-ordinate with the Aryan and the Semitic. 

 See AFRICA, Vol. I. pp. 85, 86. 



Hamadan, a town of Persia, in the province of 

 Irak Ajemi, is situated at the northern base of 

 Mount Elwend, 160 miles WSW. of Teheran. It 

 contains some notable tombs e.g. Avicenna's 

 (q.v. ) and others affirmed to be those of Mordecai 

 and Esther. Being the centre of converging routes 

 from Bagdad, Erivan, Teheran, and Ispahan, it is the 

 seat of a large transit trade ; and it carries on exten- 

 sive manufactures of leather, and in a less degree 

 of coarse carpets and woollen and cotton fabrics. 

 Pop. 30,000. Hamadan is generally believed to 

 occupy the site of the Median Ecbatana (q.v.). 



Hamadryads. See NYMPHS. The name 

 Hamadryas is given to a kind of Baboon ( q. v. ) ; 

 and the Hamadryas or Ophiophagus elaps is the 

 largest poisonous snake of the Olid World, larger 

 and more dangerous than any of the cobras, with 

 which it has almost the same geographical range. 



Hamah (Gr. Epiphania), the HAMATH of the 

 Bible, a very ancient city of Syria, on the Orontes, 

 110 miles N. by E. of Damascus. The town stands 

 in the midst of gardens, though the streets are 

 narrow and irregular, and the houses are built of 

 sun-dried bricks and wood. The inhabitants, about 

 45,000, manufacture coarse woollen mantles and 

 yarn, and carry on considerable trade with the 

 Bedouins. Hamath seems to have come very early 

 in conflict with the Assyrians, having been taken 

 by them in 854 B.C. and again in 743, whilst two 

 revolts of the people were crushed by the Assyrians 

 in 740 and 720 B.C. After the Graeco- Macedonian 

 conquest of Syria, Hamah became known as Epi- 

 phania. In 639 it fell into Moslem hands, and, 

 though it was held by Tancred from 1108 to 1115, 

 it was again taken possession of by the Moslems. 

 Abulfeda, the Arab geographer, was prince of 

 Hamah in the 14th century. Four stones were 

 discovered there in 1812 by Burckhardt, bearing 

 inscriptions in an unknown language, now believed 

 to be Hittite (q.v.). 



Hamamelideze. See WITCH HAZEL. 



Hamaim, JOHANN GEORG, a German writer, 

 born at Konigsberg in Prussia, 27th August 1730. 

 The incompleteness and aimlessness which charac- 

 terised his education clung to him all his days : he 

 made numerous starts in life, but followed no one 

 calling for long ; in turn, student of philosophy, of 

 theology, of law, private tutor, merchant, tutor 

 again, commercial traveller, student of literature 

 ^aud the ancient languages, and clerk, he at length 

 settled down in Konigsberg in 1767 as an official in 

 the excise. Nevertheless he lived but meanly until 

 the present by a patron, in 1784, of a sum of money 

 raised him above want. He died at Miinster, 21st 

 June 1788. His writings are, like his life, desultory 

 and without system ; but even as such they exer- 

 cised a perceptible influence upon Jacobi, Herder, 

 Goethe, and Jean Paul. For in spite of their 

 symbolical and oracular style, qualities which led 

 to their author being designated the ' Magus of the 

 North,' they contain the results of thoughtful and 

 extensive reading, are rich in suggestive thought, 

 encrusted with paradox and sarcasm, and thoroughly 

 bristle with literary allusions. Hamann's independ- 

 ence and love of honest truth made him, however, 

 unpopular with his contemporaries, except the 

 more thoughtful few. Compare Roth's edition of 

 his Sdmmtliche Schriften (8 vols. 1821-45) or 

 Gildemeister's (6 vols., including biography, 1857- 

 73). See Lives by Poel (1874-76) and Claasen 

 (1885). 



Hambato, or AMBATO, capital of Tunguragua 

 province, Ecuador, in a sheltered amphitheatre on 

 the northern slope of Chimborazo, 8860 feet above 

 the sea. It was twice destroyed by an eruption of 

 Cotopaxi in 1698, and by an earthquake in 1796, 

 but was speedily rebuilt. Pop. 12,000. 



Hamburg, a constituent state of the German 

 empire, includes the free city of Hamburg, the 

 towns Bergedorf and Cuxhaven, and several 

 suburbs and communes, with a total area of 158 sq. 

 m. The free Hanseatic city of Hamburg is situated 

 on the Elbe, about 75 miles from the German Ocean, 

 112 N. of Hanover, and 177 NW. of Berlin. Ham- 

 burg was founded by Charlemagne in 808, and for 

 three centuries had to struggle hard to maintain 

 itself against the marauding Danes and Slavs. It 

 was made a bishopric in 831, and three years later 

 an archbishopric. This last dignity was trans- 

 ferred to Bremen in 1223. The commercial history 

 of Hamburg began in 1189-90, when the emperor 

 granted it various privileges, amongst others a 

 separate judicial system and exemption from cus- 

 toms dues. In 1241 it joined with Liibeck in laying 

 the foundation of the Hanseatic League (q.v.), and 

 from 1259 associated itself closely with Bremen also. 

 From that time it increased rapidly in wealth and 

 commercial importance, augmenting its territory by 

 the purchase of the township of Ritzebiittel, at the 

 mouth of the Elbe ( where the harbour of Cuxhaven 

 is now situated ), and of several villages and islands 

 in the vicinity of the town. Under the protection 

 of the German emperors Hamburg soon became 

 powerful enough to defend itself and its commerce 

 both by sea and land, and carried on war for a con- 

 siderable period against sea-rovers and the Danes. 

 In 1510 it was made an imperial town by Maxi- 

 milian I. It early embraced the doctrines of the 

 Reformation. During the stormy period of the 

 Thirty Years' War it never had an enemy within 

 its walls. All through the years from 1410 to 1712 

 there were repeated risings of the populace against 

 the governing classes. The disputes with Denmark 

 finally ceased in 1768, that power renouncing all 

 claim to Hamburg territory. The rapid commercial 

 success and steadily increasing prosperity of the 

 city were only momentarily checked by a severe 



