a: 
ad 
GHI 
“whole forests of oak, boxwood, mulberry, and walnut 
trees; and honey-suckles, flowers, sweet-briars, and 
roses, cover the vallies. The soil, which is excellent, 
affords hemp, hops, olives, rice, wheat, tobacco, and va- 
rious kinds of fruit, such as lemons, oranges, peaches, 
and pomegranates. Grapes, though not of a good qua- 
ai are very plentiful ; and, as m Georgia, the vines 
which grow wild on the mountains support themselves 
on the trunks and branches of trees.. 
The manufactures and silk of Ghilan have been rec- 
koned the best in Persia. The cultivation of silk is the 
principal employment of the inhabitants, and consti- 
tutes the chief trade of the province. It is annually 
exported in great quantities to Astracan from Resht and 
Lankeroon. ‘The finest kind is usually white, and is 
either sold to the Turks, or sent into the interior of 
Persia. The inferior kind, which is yellow, is exported 
_ to Russia. 
The principal river in Ghilan is the Kizilozien, or 
Golden Stream. Itis the Gozan of Scripture, and rises 
eight or nine miles to the north-west of Sennah in Kur- 
distan. After ing along the north-west frontier of 
Trak, and passing under the Kufulan Koh, or Mountain 
of Bigess, it is joined a little to the east of Meanna, by 
the Karanku, ‘which has its origin inthe mountains of 
Sahund to the west of Meanna. Their united streams 
force a passage through the t range of Caucasan, 
and receives in their course Shahrood. These col- 
lected currents traverse the province of Ghilan,; under 
the name of the Sifud Rood, or white river, and throw 
theniselves into the ian. The road from Hamadan 
to Resht is upon the of the deep chasm through 
which the river flows, and: is described by Captain 
Sutherland as one of the grandest and most terrific 
Scenes. 
The ong town of Ghilan is Resht; onthe Cas- 
ian. In rough’weather, its harbour is! less safe than 
t of Lankeroon in the district’ of Talish. 
The inhabitants of Ghilan are said to have a Jan e 
of their own, different from the Persian and Turki 
Ghilan was ceded by Persia to Russia in 1724, taken by 
Catherine in 1780, and restored to Persia in 1797. The 
nett revenue of the province is 149,490 tomarins, and 
9058 dinars. See Kinneir’s Geographical Memoir, p. 
159, 160; and Morier’s Travels in Persia, p- 288. 
GHILJIE Country, is the name of a district of Af- 
ganistan, inhabited by the Ghiljie tribes. It forms a 
parallelogram about 180 miles long, and 85 broad. The 
climate is in general severer than that of England, and 
the summer not much hotter. The Ghiljies were for- 
merly the most celebrated of the Afghans. About the 
“commencement of the last century, they conquered ali 
Persia, and defeated the Ottoman armies: A full ac- 
count of these wars, and of the tribe itself, will be 
found in Hanway’s Travels ; Jones’s Histoire de Nadir 
— and Elphinstone’s Account of Cabul, p. 433, 
Ce 
GHIZNEE, Guizwe, or Guiznt, was formerly the 
capital of an extensive ire, extending from the Ti- 
empire. 
gris to the Ganges, and from the Taxartes to the Per- 
sian Gulf. It is situated on a heig ht, washed by a 
pretty large stream, and is with stone walls. 
eside several dark and narrow streets, the town con- 
tains three bazars, with high houses» on each side, and 
a covered chaursoo. Among the féw remains of the 
ancient grandeur of this city, are two minarets, at 
_ ‘some distance from Be ts os acon a Are i 
‘above 100 feethigh. “The tomb of the great Sultan 
Mahmood,” says Ste Elphinstone, whose excellent ac- 
259 
count of Cabul contains all the information we have Ghiznee, 
on this saliee., «is also. standing about three milesfrom Giant 
GIA 
the city. It is a spacious but not a magnificent build- 
ing, covered with a cupola. The doors, which are very 
large, are of sandal wood, and are said to have been 
brought by the Sultan as a trophy from the famous tem- 
ple of Somnaut in Guzerat, which he sacked in his last 
expedition to India, The tombstone is of white mar- 
ble, on which are sculptured Arabic verses from the 
Koran, and at its head lies the plain but weighty mace, 
which is said to have been wielded by the monarch 
himself. It is of wood, with a head of metal so heavy 
that few men can use it. There are also some thrones 
or chairs, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, in the tomb, which 
are said to have belonged to Mahmood. The tombstone 
is under a canopy, and some Moollahs are still maintain- 
ed, who incessantly read the Koran aloud over the 
grave. There are some other ruins of less note, among 
which are the tombs of Behlole Dauna, or Behlole the 
Wise, and that of Hukeem Saunauee, a poet still great~ 
ly esteemed in Persia; but nothing remains to shew the 
magnificence of the es of the Gaznavide kings, or 
of the mosques, baths, and caravanseras, which once 
adorned the capital of the East. Of all the antiquities 
of Ghiznee, the most useful is an embankment across a 
stream, which was built by Mahmood, and which, though 
damaged by the fury of the Ghoreé kings at the cap- 
ture of Ghiznee, still supplies water to the fields and 
gardens round the town. The immediate environs of 
the city are inhabited by Taujiks and Hazaurehs.” 
Ghiznee contains only about 1500 houses, besides the 
suburbs without the walls. East Long. 68° 58’, and 
North Lat. 33° 10’.. See Elphinstone’s Account of Ca- 
bul, p. 432. Lond. 1815. 
GIANTS, is the name given to men. whose stature 
greatly exceeds the ordinary size of the human race. 
On surveying the field of nature, we sometimes dis- 
. cover aberrations from her usual course. Animals are 
seen of dimensions infinitely surpassing those which 
commonly belong to their kind ; and vegetables of a bulk 
so remarkable, as to excite astonishment in the behold- 
er. We are thence led to enquire, What secret principle 
is it that limits the expansion of animal and vegetable 
matter? How is it confined within definite boundaries, 
those which at once mark. the identity of species by the 
most prominent analogies? We should find it difficult 
to solve these questions, and perhaps our knowledge of 
the vital and material economy of the two great king- 
doms now alluded to, is still too imperfect for us to ha« 
zard conjectural explanations. 
In most of the ancient histories of the world, we read 
of giants. They also find a place in many of those of 
modern date ; andthe name is so universally employed 
by s and'romancers, that nothing can be more fa~ 
miliar to our ears, Not only are individual giants re- 
peatedly referred to, but the existence of whole nations 
of those who have viewed their fellow-men as a pigmy 
race, has been admitted as a fact not to be called into 
dispute. During a’ retrospect of many centuries, like- 
wise}, successive degredinion in the stature’ and strength 
of mankind is: maintained to have taken place, which, 
were it true, would scarcely allow our contemporaries to 
reach the knees of their ancestors,,and bestow no more 
power upon them, than the others possessed in their fin- 
rs. Those, however, who are accustomed to reason from 
‘acts, who disregard conjecture, and are enabled to se- 
parate truth from fiction, feel-:inclined to question whe- 
ther there ever was a race of giants, as generally under- 
stood by that name; and whether the race of mankind 
