OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Adoration

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​ADORATION (Lat. ad, to, and os, mouth; i.e. “carrying to one’s mouth”), primarily an act of homage or worship, which, among the Romans, was performed by raising the hand to the mouth, kissing it and then waving it in the direction of the adored object. The devotee had his head covered, and after the act turned himself round from left to right. Sometimes he kissed the feet or knees of the images of the gods themselves, and Saturn and Hercules were adored with the head bare. By a natural transition the homage, at first paid to divine beings alone, came to be paid to monarchs. Thus the Greek and Roman emperors were adored by bowing or kneeling, laying hold of the imperial robe, and presently withdrawing the hand and pressing it to the lips, or by putting the royal robe itself to the lips. In Eastern countries adoration has ever been performed in an attitude still more lowly. The Persian method, introduced by Cyrus, was to bend the knee and fall on the face at the prince’s feet, striking the earth with the forehead and kissing the ground. This striking of the earth with the forehead, usually a fixed number of times, is the form of adoration usually paid to Eastern potentates to-day. The Jews kissed in homage. Thus in 1 Kings xix. 18, God is made to say, “Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.” And in Psalms ii. 12, “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way.” (See also Hosea xiii. 2.) In England the ceremony of kissing the sovereign’s hand, and some other acts which are performed kneeling, may be described as forms of adoration. Adoration is applied in the Roman Church to the ceremony of kissing the pope’s foot, a custom which is said to have been introduced by the popes following the example of the emperor Diocletian. The toe of the famous statue of the apostle in St Peter’s, Rome, shows marked wear caused by the kisses of pilgrims. In the Roman Church a distinction is made between Latria, a worship due to God alone, and Dulia or Hyperdulia, the adoration paid to the Virgin, saints, martyrs, crucifixes, &c. (See further Homage.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Adorf

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​ADORF, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, 3 m. from the Bohemian frontier, at an elevation of 1400 ft. above the sea, on the Plauen–Eger and Aue–Adorf lines of railway. Pop. 5000. It has lace, dyeing and tanning industries, and manufactures of toys and musical instruments; and there is a convalescent home for the poor of the city of Leipzig.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Adour

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​ADOUR (anc. Aturrus or Adurus, from Celtic dour, water), a river of south-west France, rising in the department of Hautes Pyrénées, and flowing in a wide curve to the Bay of Biscay. It is formed of several streams having their origin in the massifs of the Pic d’Arbizon and the Pic du Midi de Bigorre, but during the first half of its course remains an inconsiderable river. In traversing the beautiful valley of Campan it is artificially augmented in summer by the waters of the Lac Bleu, which are drawn off by means of a siphon, and flow down the valley of Lesponne. After passing Bagneres de Bigorre the Adour enters the plain of Tarbes, and for the remainder of its course in the department of Hautes Pyrénées is of much less importance as a waterway than as a means of feeding the numerous irrigation canals which cover the plains on each side. Of these the oldest and most important is the Canal d’Alaric, which follows the right bank for 36 m. Entering the department of Gers, the Adour receives the Arros on the right bank and begins to describe the large westward curve which takes it through the department of Landes to the sea. In the last-named department it soon becomes navigable, namely, at St Sever, after passing which it is joined on the left by the Larcis, Gabas, Louts and Luy, and on the right by the Midouze, which is formed by the union of the Douze and the Midour, and is navigable for 27 m.; now taking a south-westerly course it receives on the left the Gave de Pau, which is a more voluminous river than the Adour itself, and flowing past Bayonne enters the sea through a dangerous estuary, in which sandbars are formed, after a total course of 208 m., of which 82 are navigable. The mouth of the Adour has repeatedly shifted, its old bed being represented by the series of étangs and lagoons extending northward as far as the village of Vieux Boucau, 221/2 m. north of Bayonne, where it found a new entrance into the sea at the end of the 14th century. Its previous mouth had been 10 m. south of Vieux Boucau. The present channel was constructed by the engineer Louis de Foix in 1579. There is a depth over the bar at the entrance of 101/2 to 16 ft. at high tide. The area of the basin of the Adour is 6565 sq. m.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Adowa

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​ADOWA (properly Adua), the capital of Tigré, northern Abyssinia, 145 m. N.E. of Gondar and 17 m. E. by N. of Axum, the ancient capital of Abyssinia. Adowa is built on the slope of a hill at an elevation of 6500 ft., in the midst of a rich agricultural district. Being on the high road from Massawa to central Abyssinia, it is a meeting-place of merchants from Arabia and the Sudan for the exchange of foreign merchandise with the products of the country. During the wars between the Italians and Abyssinia (1887–96) Adowa was on three or four occasions looted and burnt; but the churches escaped destruction. The church of the Holy Trinity, one of the largest in Abyssinia, contains numerous wall-paintings of native art. On a hill about 21/2 m. north-west of Adowa are the ruins of Fremona, the headquarters of the Portuguese Jesuits who lived in Abyssinia during the 16th and 17th centuries. On the 1st of March 1896, in the hills north of the town, was fought the battle of Adowa, in which the Abyssinians inflicted a crushing defeat on the Italian forces (see Italy, History, and Abyssinia, History).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Adra

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​ADRA (anc. Abdera), a seaport of southern Spain, in the province of Almeria; at the mouth of the Rio Grande de Adra, and on the Mediterranean Sea. Pop. (1900) 11,188. Adra is the port of shipment for the lead obtained near Berja, 10 m; north-east; but its commercial development is retarded by the lack of a railway. Besides lead, the exports include grapes, ​sugar and esparto. Fuel is imported, chiefly from the United Kingdom.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Aytoun, Sir Robert

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​AYTOUN, or Ayton, SIR ROBERT (1570–1638), Scottish poet, son of Andrew Aytoun of Kinaldie, Fifeshire, was born in 1570. He was educated at the university of St Andrews, where he was incorporated as a student of St Leonard’s College in 1584 and graduated M.A. in 1588. He lived for some years in France, and on the accession of James VI. to the English throne he wrote in Paris a Latin panegyric, which brought him into immediate favour at court. He was knighted in 1612. He held various lucrative offices, and was private secretary to the queens of James I. and Charles I. He died in London and was buried in Westminster Abbey on the 28th of February 1638. His reputation with his contemporaries was high, both personally and as a writer, though he had no ambition to be known as the latter.
Aytoun’s remains are in Latin and English. In respect of the latter he is one of the earliest Scots to use the southern standard as a literary medium. The Latin poems include the panegyric already referred to, an Epicedium in obitum Thoma Rhodi; Basia, sive Strena ad Jacobum Hayum; Lessus in funere Raphaelis Thorei; Carina Caro; and minor pieces, occasional and epitaphic. His first English poem was Diophantus and Charidora (to which he refers in his Latin panegyric to James). He has left a number of pieces on amatory subjects, including songs and sonnets.
Aytoun’s Latin poems are printed in Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum (Amsterdam, 1637), i. pp. 40-75. His English poems are preserved in a MS. in the British Museum (Add. MSS. 10,308), which was prepared by his nephew, Sir John Aytoun. Both were collected by Charles Rogers in The Poems of Sir Robert Aytoun (London, privately printed, 1871). This edition is unsatisfactory, though it is better than the first issue by the same editor in 1844. Additional poems are included which cannot be ascribed to Aytoun, and which in some cases have been identified as the work of others. The poem “I do confess thou'rt smooth and fair” may be suspected, and the old version of “Auld Lang Syne” and “Sweet Empress” are certainly not Aytoun’s. Some of the English poems are printed in Watson’s Collection (1706–1711) and in the Bannatyne Miscellany, i. p. 299 (1827). There is a memoir of Aytoun in Rogers’s edition, and another by Grosart in the Dict. of Nat. Biog. Particulars of his public career will be found in the printed Calendars of State Papers and Register of the Privy Council of the period.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ayscue, Sir George

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​AYSCUE (erroneously Askew or Ayscough), SIR GEORGE (d. 1671), British admiral, came of an old Lincolnshire family. Beyond the fact that he was knighted by Charles I., nothing is known of his career until in 1646 he received a naval command. Through the latter years of the first civil war, Ayscue seems to have acted as one of the senior officers of the fleet. In 1648, when Sir William Batten went over to Holland with a portion of his squadron, Ayscue’s influence kept a large part of the fleet loyal to the Parliament, and in reward for this service he was appointed the following year admiral of the Irish Seas. For his conduct at the relief of Dublin he received the thanks of Parliament, and in 1651 he was employed under Blake in the operations for the reduction of Scilly. He was next sent to the West Indies in charge of a squadron destined for the Conquest of Barbadoes and the other islands still under royalist control. This task successfully accomplished, he returned to take part in the first Dutch War. In this he played a prominent part, but the indecisive battle off Plymouth (August 16th, 1652) cost him his command, though an annuity was assigned him. For some years Sir George Ayscue lived in retirement, but the later years of the Commonwealth he spent in Sweden, Cromwell having despatched him thither as naval adviser. At the Restoration he returned, and became one of the commissioners of the navy, but on the outbreak of the second Dutch War in 1664 he once more hoisted his flag as rear-admiral of the Blue, and took part in the battle of Lowestoft (June 3rd, 1665). In the great Four Days’ Battle (June 11th–14th, 1666) he served with Monck as admiral of the White. His flagship, the “Prince Royal,” was taken on the third day, and he himself remained a prisoner in Holland till the peace. It seems doubtful whether he ever again flew his flag at sea, and the date of his death is supposed to be 1671. Lely’s portrait of Sir George Ayscue is in the Painted Hall at Greenwich.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ayub Khan

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​AYUB KHAN (1855–), Afghan prince, son of Shere Ali (formerly amir of Afghanistan), and cousin of the amir Abdur Rahman, was born about 1855. During his father’s reign little is recorded of him, but after Shere Ali’s expulsion from Kabul by the English, and his death in January 1879, Ayub took possession of Herat, and maintained himself there until June 1881, when he invaded Afghanistan with the view of asserting his claims to the sovereignty, and in particular of gaining possession of Kandahar, still in the occupation of the British. He encountered the British force commanded by General Burrows at Maiwand on the 27th of July, and was able to gain one of the very few pitched battles that have been won by Asiatic leaders over an army under European direction. His triumph, however, was short-lived; while he hesitated to assault Kandahar he was attacked by Sir Frederick (afterwards Lord) Roberts, at the close of the latter’s memorable march from Kabul, and utterly discomfited, ​20th of September 1880. He made his way back to Herat, where he remained for some time unmolested. In the summer of 1881 he again invaded Afghanistan, and on the anniversary of the battle of Maiwand obtained a signal victory over Abdur Rahman’s lieutenants, mainly through the defection of a Durani regiment. Kandahar fell into his hands, but Abdur Rahman now took the field in person, totally defeated Ayub, and expelled him from Herat. He took refuge in Persia, and for some time lived quietly in receipt of an allowance from the Persian government. In 1887 internal troubles in Afghanistan tempted him to make another endeavour to seize the throne. Defeated and driven into exile, he wandered for some time about Persia, and in November gave himself up to the British agent at Meshed. He was sent to India to live as a state prisoner.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ayuthia

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​AYUTHIA, a city of Siam, now known to the Siamese as Krung Kao or “the Old Capital,” situated in 100° 32′ E., 14° 21′ N. Pop. about 10,000. The river Me Nam, broken up into a network of creeks, here surrounds a large island upon which stand the ruins of the famous city which was for more than four centuries the capital of Siam. The bulk of the inhabitants live in the floating houses characteristic of lower Siam, using as thoroughfares the creeks to the edges of which the houses are moored. The ruins of the old city are of great archaeological interest, as are the relics, of which a large collection is housed in the local museum. Outside the town is an ancient masonry enclosure for the capture of elephants, which is still periodically used. Ayuthia is on the northern main line of the state railways, 42 m. from Bangkok. Great quantities of paddi are annually sent by river and rail to Bangkok, in return for which cloth and other goods are imported to supply the wants of the agriculturist peasantry. There is no other trade. Ayuthia is the chief town of one of the richest agricultural provincial divisions of Siam and is the headquarters of a high commissioner. The government offices occupy spacious buildings, once a royal summer retreat; the government is that of an ordinary provincial division (Monton).
Historically Ayuthia is the most interesting spot in Siam. Among the innumerable ruins may be seen those of palaces, pagodas, churches and fortifications, the departed glories of which are recorded in the writings of the early European travellers who first brought Siam within the knowledge of the West, and laid the foundations of the present foreign intercourse and trade. The town was twice destroyed by the Burmese, once in 1555 and again in 1767, and from the date of the second destruction it ceased to be the capital of the country.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Azara, Don Jose Nicholas de

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​AZARA, DON JOSE NICHOLAS DE (1731–1804), Spanish diplomatist, was born in 1731 at Barbunales, Aragon, and was appointed in 1765 Spanish agent and procurator-general, and in 1785 ambassador at Rome. During his long residence there he distinguished himself as a collector of Italian antiquities and as a patron of art. He was also an able and active diplomatist, took a leading share in the difficult and hazardous task of the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain, and was instrumental in securing the election of Pius VI. He withdrew to Florence when the French took possession of Rome in 1798, but acted on behalf of the pope during his exile and after his death at Valence in 1799. He was afterwards Spanish ambassador in Paris. In that post it was his misfortune to be forced by his government to conduct the negotiations which led to the treaty of San Ildefonso, by which Spain was wholly subjected to Napoleon. Azara was friendly to a French alliance, but his experience showed him that his country was being sacrificed to Napoleon. The First Consul liked him personally, and found him easy to influence. Azara died, worn out, in Paris in 1804. His end was undoubtedly embittered by his discovery of the ills which the French alliance must produce for Spain.
Several sympathetic notices of Azara will be found in Thiers, Consulat et Empire. See also Reinado de Carlos IV, by Gen. J. Gomez de Arteche, in the Historia General de España, published by the R. Acad. de la Historia, Madrid, 1892, &c. There is a Notice historique sur le Chevalier d’Azara by Bourgoing (1804).
His younger brother, Don Felix de Azara (1746–1811), spent twenty years in South America as a commissioner for delimiting the boundary between the Spanish and Portuguese territories. He made many observations on the natural history of the country, which, together with an account of the discovery and history of Paraguay and Rio de la Plata, were incorporated in his principal work, Voyage dans l’Amérique méridionale depuis 1781 jusqu’en 1801, published at Paris in 1809 in French from his MS. by C. A. Walckenaer.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ayscough, Samuel

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​AYSCOUGH, SAMUEL (1745–1804), English librarian and index-maker, was born at Nottingham in 1745. His father, a printer and stationer, having ruined himself by speculation, Samuel Ayscough left Nottingham for London, where he obtained an engagement in the cataloguing department of the British Museum. In 1782 he published a two-volume catalogue of the then undescribed manuscripts in the museum. About 1785 he was appointed assistant librarian at the museum, and soon afterwards took holy orders. In 1786 he published an index to the first seventy volumes of the Monthly Review, and in 1796 indexed the remaining volumes. Both this index and his catalogue of the undescribed manuscripts in the museum were private ventures. His first official work was a third share in the British Museum catalogue of 1787, and he subsequently catalogued the ancient rolls and charters, 16,000 in all. In 1789 he produced the first two volumes of the index to the Gentleman’s Magazine, and in 1790 the first index-concordance to Shakespeare. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and has been called ​“The Prince of Indexers.” He died at the British Museum on the 30th of October 1804.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Azalea

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​AZALEA, a genus of popular hardy or greenhouse plants, belonging to the heath order (Ericaceae), and scarcely separable botanically from Rhododendron. The beautiful varieties now in cultivation have been bred from a few originals, natives of the hilly regions of China and Japan, Asia Minor, and the United States. They are perhaps unequalled as indoor decorative plants. They are usually increased by grafting the half-ripened shoots on the stronger-growing kinds, the shoots of the stock and the grafts being in a similarly half-ripened condition, and the plants being placed in a moist heat of 65°. Large plants of inferior kinds, if healthy, may be grafted all over with the choicer sorts, so as to obtain a large specimen in a short time. They require a rich and fibrous peat soil, with a mixture of sand to prevent its getting water-logged. The best time to pot azaleas is three or four weeks after the blooming is over. The soil should be made quite solid to prevent its retaining too much water. To produce handsome plants, they must while young be stopped as required. Specimens that have got leggy may be cut back just before growth commences. The lowest temperature for them during the winter is about 35°, and during their season of growth from 55° to 65° at night, and 75° by day, the atmosphere being at the same time well charged with moisture. They are liable to the attacks of thrips and red spider, which do great mischief if not promptly destroyed.
The following are some well-known species:—A. arborescens (Pennsylvania), a deciduous shrub 10–20 ft. high; A. calendulacea (Carolina to Pennsylvania), a beautiful deciduous shrub 2–6 ft. high, with yellow, red, orange and copper-coloured flowers; A. hispida, a North American shrub, 10–15 ft. high, flowers white edged with red; A. indica (China), the so-called Indian azalea, a shrub 3–6 ft. or more high, the original of numerous single and double varieties, many of the more vigorous of which are hardy in southern England and Ireland; A. nudiflora, a North American shrub, 3–4 ft. high, which hybridizes freely with A. calendulacea, A. pontica and others, to produce single and ​double forms of a great variety of shades; A. pontica (Levant, Caucasus, &c.), 4–6 ft. high, with numerous varieties differing in the colour of the flowers and the tint of the leaves; A. sinensis (China and Japan), a beautiful shrub, 3–4 ft. high, with orange-red or yellow bell-shaped flowers, hardy in the southern half of England, large numbers of varieties being in cultivation under the name of Japanese azaleas.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ayuntamiento

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​AYUNTAMIENTO, the Spanish name for the district over which a town council has administrative authority; it is used also for a town council, and for the town-hall. The word is derived from the Latin adjungere, and originally meant “meeting.” In some parts of Spain and in Spanish America the town council was called the cabildo or chapter, from the Latin capitulum. The ayuntamiento consisted of the official members, and of regidores or regulators, who were chosen in varying proportions from the “hidalgos” or nobles (hijos de algo, sons of somebody) and the “pecheros,” or commoners, who paid the pecho, or personal tax; pecho (Lat. pectus) is in Spanish the breast, and then by extension the person. The regidores of the ayuntamientos, or lay cabildos, were checked by the royal judge or corregidor, who was in fact the permanent chairman or president. The distinction between hidalgo and pechero has been abolished in modern Spain, but the powers and the constitution of ayuntamientos have been subject to many modifications.