618 H Y D 
even fame that are compofed of men only ; but the people 
of the court never have recourle to any but the prince’s 
company. 
“At eleven o’clock, or about midnight, every one 
retires but thofe that l'up with the nabob; who, except 
on grand feftiyals, are always his friends and relations. 
This mode of life purfued by Hyder, is, as may eafily be 
imagined, interrupted in the army. It is likewife occa- 
fionally interrupted by hunting-parties, by excurfions on 
foot or horfeback, or by his attending to aflift at the 
exerciles and evolutions made by confiderable bodies of 
his troops. When he is obliged to remain a month in 
camp, or in any town, he ufually goes to the chace twice 
a-week. He hunts the flag, the roebuck, the antelope, 
and fometimes the tiger. When notice arrives that this 
laft animal has been obferved to quit the forefts, and 
appear in the plain, he mounts his horfe, followed by all 
his Abyffiniajis, his fpear-men on foot, and almoft all the 
nobility armed with fpears and bucklers. The traces of 
the bead being found, the hunters furround his hiding- 
place, and contraft the circle by degrees. As foon as 
the creature, who is ufually hid in fome rice-ground, 
perceives his enemies, he roars and looks every where to 
find a place of efcape; and when he prepares to fpring 
on fome one to force a paffage, he is attacked by Hyder 
himfelf, to whom the honour of giving the firft ftroke is 
yielded, and in which he feldom fails. Thus the plea- 
fures of the fovereign are varied to infinity.” 
Towards the end of the year 1782, tidings of Hyder’s 
demife reached Seringapatam. His fon Tippoo Saib 
took undiflurbed poffeflion of all his father’s territories, 
and the command of vad armies, at a time when many 
difaffefted individuals filled both the camp and the city. 
Tippoo was with his army, at a confiderable didance 
from Hyder, when he died ; but, when the information 
reached him, he haded to his father’s camp, and made 
fuch difpofitions and arrangements as he judged prudent 
and necelfary, without relaxing in any degree the vigour 
with which he carried on the war againlt the Englifh. 
The cudomary mournings were obferved at Seringapatam, 
but Hyder’s remains were not brought to the capital till 
three months after his death, and interred in the part of 
the ifknd which is called the Lollbaug garden. The 
ufual obfequies of eadern monarchs were profufely be¬ 
llowed on this occafion, which confided chiefly in cha¬ 
rities to the indigent, and magnificent erections to the 
deceafed. 
HYDERABAD', a province of Hindoodan, now called 
Golconda. See Golconda, vol. viii. p. 661. 
HYDERABAD', a city of Hindoodan, capital of the 
province to which it gives name, and now called Golconda, 
and at this time the capital of the Deccan, fituated in a 
plain. It is very large, furrounded with walls, and de¬ 
fended with towers, and is fuppofed to contain upwards 
of 100,000 inhabitants:- 690 miles fouth of Delhi, and 
270 north-north-wed of Madras. Lat. 17. 17. N. Ion. 78. 
52. E. Greenwich. 
HY'DESPARK, a townfhip of the-American States, 
in Orleans county, Vermont, containing forty-three in¬ 
habitants. It is twenty-five miles fouth of the Canada 
line, and twenty-fix north by ead of Bennington. 
HYDNO'RA,/! in botany. See Adhyteia. 
HYD'NUM, f. [or^W, tuber, in Theophradus, from 
tuS'sw, tumeo.'] In botany, a genus of the clafs cryptoga- 
mia, order fungi. The generic characters are—Fungus 
•horizontal, echinated beneath with awl-fliaped fibres. 
Thefe awl-fliaped gills, which Linnaeus compares to the 
prickles of a hedge-hog, are foft,. folid, conical, or cylin¬ 
drical, fubdances, emitting feeds from every part of their 
l'ubdance. 
Linnaeus (Syfl. Veget. ed. 14. 978.) has fix fpecies of 
this fungus, five with items, and one fiemlefs. Of thtfe 
Hudl'on has three, all having a ftem. Dr. Withering has 
five with a lb.m, and fix without. Swartz has added three 
irom Jamaica; and Albertini has recently added two 
more very minute ipecies. They chiefly grow on decay- 
H Y D 
ed wood. The mod elegant fpecies, Hydnum repandum, 
we have delineated in the annexed Engraving, fig. 1, where 
a exhibits a feftion of the pileus inverted, to fliow the 
echinated gills, or leed-veffels. 
HY'DRA, a celebrated monfler in fabulous hiftory,, 
which infeded the neighbourhood of the lake Lerna in 
Peloponnefus. It was the fruit of Echidna’s union with 
Typhon. It had a hundred heads, according to Diodo¬ 
rus; fifty, according to Simonides; and nine, according 
to the more received opinion of Apollodorus, Hyginus, 
See. As foon as one of thefe heads was cut off, two im¬ 
mediately grew up if the wound was not (topped by fire. 
It was one of the labours of Hercules to deflroy this dread¬ 
ful monfler; and this he eafily effeCted with the afliftance 
of Iolaus, who applied a burning, iron to the wound as 
foon as one head was cut off. While Hercules was de- 
ftroying the hydra, Juno, jealous of his glory, lent a fea- 
crab to bite his foot. This new enemy w'as foon dif- 
patched ; and Juno, unable to fucceed in her attempts to 
ieflen the fame of Hercules, placed the crab among the 
conftellations, where it is now called Cancer. The con¬ 
queror dipped his arrows in the gall of the hydra, and, 
from that circumftance, all the wounds which he gave 
proved incurable and mortal. 
Dr. Mitchell, in a letter to Dr. Prieftley, endeavours to 
account for this fable of the ancients in the following 
manner : In Peloponnefus, between Mycenre and Argos, 
there was a fen or marfh of fome extent, called Lerna. 
This muddy and ffagnating pool was inhabited by hydra,., 
a horrible and devouring monfler with feveral heads ; fome 
fay (even, others nine, and others fifty. The malignity 
of her poifon was fuch that a wound from an arrow"dip¬ 
ped into it was inftantly mortal. She made dreadful ha¬ 
voc among the people of the furrounding country, and' 
devoured a great number of their fheep and other cattle. 
In obedience to the orders of the tyrant Euryflheus, Her¬ 
cules went to fight this deffru&ive and formidable crea¬ 
ture. On his approach, a crab came forth to the aflifi¬ 
ance of hydra; but Hercules crufhed the crab, and after¬ 
wards flew hydra. Now, it appears to me, that this is an* 
allegory expreffive of the peftilential vapours emitted by 
the bog of Lerna, and of the means found by experience 
ufeful to drain off its ftagnant water, and to clear the ad¬ 
joining and furrounding moraffes. 
The word hydra is derived from v$aip water. This 
.fluid then, detained upon the marfli of Lerna, favoured 
occafionally the produftion of unwholefome exhalations. 
Such vapours, being at once invifible and injurious, were 
aferibed to fome preternatural enemy or deftructive mon¬ 
fler ; and being diffufed, or wafted around the country, and 
oftentimes cutting off both man and beaft, were fancied 
to be the effetfl of the fuppofed monfter’s poifon. Accord¬ 
ing to their extent and virulence, was (he reported to 
have fewer or more heads for preparing and inflifting this 
poifon. The mere draining off the water, and leaving the 
mud and llime bare, was termed cutting off a head ; and 
the incronfe of deleterious gafes, in confequence of expofing 
fuch a naked furface, was aptly expreffed by the fprout- 
ing forth of two in its place. By cauterifing, or fearing,, 
was underflood either the' folar heat in drying the ground 
after the water was drained away, or the burning up of 
the trees, fhrubs, and obftacles to free ventilation, by or¬ 
dinary combuftiou, or perhaps both. The crab, who was 
hydra’s ally, perhaps does not refer to the fun’s place in 
the conftellation Cancer, fo much as to (how the frequent 
recurrence of the difficulties, and the luperior ftrength. 
and (kill requifite to overcome them. In the whole alle¬ 
gory “Hercules” may be underflood to mean “infupera- 
ble courage and induftry.”. This interpretation is con¬ 
firmed by another confideration, that the ancients had 
not only their hydra, who lived in the water, but their 
cherfydra, who remained after the marfli or fen was dried 
up. Cherfydra ; being derived from the two words, 
land not. fit for the plough.-, and vfyx, the monjler of the fens ; 
will thus mean the venomous and fickiy condition of the 
neighbouring atmolphere after the water was exhaled, and 
