362 



GANTLOPE GARDEN. 



though their flesh is strong and fishy. In St Kilda, 

 they form the principal food of the inhabitants; 

 Martin states that no less thnn 22,000 are consumed 

 annually. The taking of these birds is attended 

 with great danger. The persons employed in it are 

 let down by a rope from the top of the precipices, 

 and thus hang suspended at very great heights. 

 They are in peril, not only from the insecure footing 

 of those who hold the rope, but also from the dis- 

 iodgment of the loose stones. When the person thus 

 suspended has beaten down all the birds within his 

 reach, he is raised and lowered as occasion requires ; 

 and when he has completely destroyed all in one 

 quarter, he is removed to another. Both the eggs 

 and birds are preserved in small pyramidal stone 

 buildings, covered with ashes, to protect them from 

 moisture. 



GANTLOPE, or GAUNTLOPE (vulgarly pro- 

 nounced gantlet); a race which a criminal is sen- 

 tenced to run in a vessel of war, for felony, or some 

 other heinous offence. It is executed in the follow- 

 ing manner : The whole ship's crew is disposed in 

 two rows, standing face to face on both sides of the 

 deck, so as to form a line whereby to go forward on 

 one side, and aft on the other, each person being 

 furnished with a small twisted cord, called a knittle, 

 having two or three knots upon it ; the delinquent is 

 then stripped naked above the waist, and ordered to 

 pass forward between the two rows of men on one 

 side, and aft on the other side, a certain number of 

 times, rarely exceeding three, during which every 

 person gives him stripes as he runs along ; in his 

 passage, he is sometimes tripped up, and severely 

 handled while incapable of proceeding. This pun- 

 ishment, which is called running the gantlet, is sel- 

 dom inflicted, except for such crimes as naturally 

 excite general antipathy amongst the seamen. 



GANYMEDE, in fabulous history, great grandson 

 of Dardanus, who founded the city of Troy, son of 

 Tros and of Callirrhoe, a daughter of the Scamander. 

 Jupiter, in the shape of an eagle, carried him off 

 from mount Ida to the seat of the gods, where he 

 discharged the office of cup-bearer to the immortals, 

 Hebe having rendered herself unworthy of this of- 

 fice. This fiction lias afforded, both to poets and 

 artists, an inexhaustible supply of subjects. Nume- 

 rous paintings, statues, cameos, and intaglios, mas- 

 terworks of ancient art, have descended to us, upon 

 which this youth, scarcely passed the years of boy- 

 hood, is represented as of great beauty. The repre- 

 sentations of Ganymede are to be recognised by the 

 Phrygian cap, and the eagle, which is either stand- 

 ing beside him, or carrying him in its talons to 

 Olympus. 



GAOL. See Jail. 



GAR is a root common to the Teutonic, Sclavonic, 

 and Persian languages, meaning a fortified place, and 

 appearing in many geographical names, as Kashgar, 

 place of the mountains, Star gar d (a German place), 

 old city. The Russian gorod, the end of many geo- 

 graphical names, is of the same origin. So are hrad 

 and grad. 



GARCIA, MADAME. See Malibran. 



GARCILASO DE LA VEGA (properly Garcias 

 Laso de la Vega), called the prince of Spanish poets, 

 was born at Toledo, in the year 1503. His father 

 was comandador mayor of Leon, of the order of 

 Santiago, counsellor of state in the reign of Ferdi- 

 nand the Catholic, and ambassador at the court of 

 Leo X. ; his mother was donna Sancha Guzman. 

 Both families are very ancient. According to an 

 account given in the Historia de las Guerras civiles, 

 the Garcilasos received their surname from their 

 combats with Moorish heroes, in the great valley 

 of Granada, called la J'ega. Gifted by nature with 



all the qualities of a poet, Garcilaso soon found his 

 proper sphere. His genius was kindled by the study 

 of the ancients, particularly of the Romans. Boscan 

 had already begun to transplant the versification of 

 the Italians into Spanish poetry. Garcilaso fol- 

 lowed his example, and, destroying his earlier 

 attempts, imitated the Italians only. He succeeded 

 so well, that he is still ranked among the best Span- 

 ish poets. Most of the events of his life may be 

 learned from his own works. He lived for a long 

 time in Italy, and afterwards travelled through part of 

 Germany, in the service of Charles V. In 1529, he 

 was engaged in the expedition against Soliinan, 

 and, in 1535, in that against Tunis. In the latter, 

 he received a wound in his arm, after which he 

 remained some time in Naples. In 1536, he com- 

 manded thirty companies of infantry, and accompa- 

 nied the imperial army against Marseilles. Upon 

 its retreat, the army was detained by a tower garri- 

 soned by Moors, said to be the tower of Muy near 

 Frejus. The emperor gave him orders to take it. 

 Garcilaso, amidst a shower of stones, pressed for- 

 ward with a halberd in his hand ; but scarcely had 

 he placed his foot upon the ladder, when he fell to 

 the ground, dangerously wounded in his head. He 

 was carried to Nice, where he died at the age of 

 thirty-three years. His body was brought to Toledo, 

 in 1538, and placed in the tomb of his family. 

 When we consider his early death, and his active and 

 troubled life, we are astonished at the perfection of 

 his poems. Spanish poetry is highly indebted to 

 him ; for without his aid, Boscan, a foreigner, would 

 never have succeeded in his innovations, more par- 

 ticularly as he had a formidable adversary in Chris- 

 toval de Castillejo. Boscan was so grateful for the 

 assistance, that he collected the works of his friend 

 with the greatest care. They consist of eclogues, 

 epistles, odes, songs, sonnets (in which he imitated 

 Petrarch), and some smaller poems. An edition of 

 his works, with notes, appeared at Madrid, in 1765, 

 and Herrera's commentary (Seville, 1580), with notes 

 by Azara (Madrid, 1765, 4to). We must not con- 

 found with him the Inca, Garcilaso de la Vega, of 

 Cusco in America (born in 1540, died in 1620), the 

 author of the Historia de las Antiguedades y Con- 

 quista del Peril, (Lisbon, 1609, fol., and Madrid 

 1722, 2 vols. fol.), and La Florida (Lisbon, 1605, 

 4to, and Madrid, 1723, fol.) 



CARD ; a department of France. See Depart- 

 ment. 



GARD, PONT DU ; a Roman aqueduct, in Gard, 

 ten miles from Nismes, joining two mountains, and 

 passing over the Gardon. It consists of three tiers 

 of arches ; is 157 feet high, 530 long at the bottom, 

 and 872 at the top. The grandeur and simplicity 

 of this monument excite the admiration of every 

 traveller. See an elevation of this, Plate IV. 



GARDEN, ALEXANDER, an eminent botanist and 

 zoologist, was born in Scotland in 1730, and educated 

 at the university of Edinburgh. He went to Ame- 

 rica, and settled as a physician at Charleston in 

 South Carolina, in 1752. Here he engaged in 

 botanical researches, and, becoming dissatisfied with 

 the system of Tournefort, then followed by most 

 naturalists, he opened a correspondence with the 

 celebrated Linnaeus, in 1755. Soon after, he ob- 

 tained the PhHosophia Botanica, the Systema Natures, 

 and some other works of the Swedish botanist, which 

 greatly assisted him in his inquiries. His labours 

 were directed to the discovery and verification of 

 new species among the animal and vegetable tribes 

 of North America, in which he was very successful. 

 To his exertions Linnaeus was indebted, particularly, 

 for a knowledge of the insects and fishes of Carolina ; 

 among which is the Siren lacertina, a most curious 



