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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kerala

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​KERALA, or Chera, the name of one of the three ancient Dravidian kingdoms of the Tamil country of southern India, the other two being the Chola and the Pandya. Its original territory comprised the country now contained in the Malabar district, with Travancore and Cochin, and later the country included in the Coimbatore district and a part of Salem. The boundaries, however, naturally varied much from time to time. The earliest references to this kingdom appear in the edicts of Asoka, where it is called Keralaputra (i.e. son of Kerala), a name which in a slightly corrupt form is known to Pliny and the author of the Periplus. There is evidence of a lively trade carried on by sea with the Roman empire in the early centuries of the Christian era, but of the political history of the Kerala kingdom nothing is known beyond a list of rajas compiled from inscriptions, until in the 10th century the struggle began with the Cholas, by whom it was conquered and held till their overthrow by the Mahommedans in 1310. These in their turn were driven out by a Hindu confederation headed by the chiefs of Vijayanagar, and Kerala was absorbed in the Vijayanagar empire until its destruction by the Mahommedans in 1565. For about 80 years it seems to have preserved a precarious independence under the naiks of Madura, but in 1640 was conquered by the Adil Shah dynasty of Bijapur and in 1652 seized by the king of Mysore.
See V. A. Smith, Early Hist. of India, chap. xvi. (2nd ed., Oxford, 1908).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kerkuk

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​KERKUK, or Qerqūq, the chief town of a sanjak in the Mosul vilayet of Asiatic Turkey, situated among the foot hills of the Kurdistan Mountains at an elevation of about 1100 ft. on both banks of the Khassa Chai, a tributary of the Tigris, known in its lower course as Adhem. Pop. estimated at 12,000 to 15,000, chiefly Mahommedan Kurds. Owing to its position at the junction of several routes, Kerkuk has a brisk transit trade in hides, Persian silks and cottons, colouring materials, fruit and timber; but it owes its principal importance to its petroleum and naphtha springs. There are also natural warm springs at Kerkuk, used to supply baths and reputed to have valuable medical properties. In the neighbourhood of the city is a burning mountain, locally famous for many centuries. Kerkuk is evidently an ancient site, the citadel standing upon an artificial mound 130 ft. high. It was a metropolitan see of the Chaldean Christians. There is a Jewish quarter beneath the citadel, and the reputed sarcophagi of Daniel and the Hebrew children are shown in one of the mosques. (J. P. Pe.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gordon, Patrick

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​GORDON, PATRICK (1635–1699), Russian general, was descended from a Scottish family of Aberdeenshire, who possessed the small estate of Auchleuchries, and were connected with the house of Haddo. He was born in 1635, and after completing his education at the parish schools of Cruden and Ellon, entered, in his fifteenth year, the Jesuit college at Braunsberg, Prussia; but, as “his humour could not endure such a still and strict way of living,” he soon resolved to return home. He changed his mind, however, before re-embarking, and after journeying on foot in several parts of Germany, ultimately, in 1655, enlisted at Hamburg in the Swedish service. In the course of the next five years he served alternately with the Poles and Swedes as he was taken prisoner by either. In 1661, after further experience as a soldier of fortune, he took service in the Russian army under Alexis I., and in 1665 he was sent on a special mission to England. After his return he distinguished himself in several wars against the Turks and Tatars in southern Russia, and in recognition of his services he in 1678 was made major-general, in 1679 was appointed to the chief command at Kiev, and in 1683 was made lieutenant-general. He visited England in 1686, and in 1687 and 1689 took part as quartermaster-general in expeditions against the Crim Tatars in the Crimea, being made full general for his services, in spite of the denunciations of the Greek Church to which, as a heretic, he was exposed. On the breaking out of the revolution in Moscow in 1689, Gordon with the troops he commanded virtually decided events in favour of the tsar Peter I., and against the tsaritsa Sophia. He was therefore during the remainder of his life in high favour with the tsar, who confided to him the command of his capital during his absence from Russia, employed him in organizing his army according to the European system, and latterly raised him to the rank of general-in-chief. He died on the 29th of November 1699. The tsar, who had visited him frequently during his illness, was with him when he died, and with his own hands closed his eyes.
General Gordon left behind him a diary of his life, written in English. This is preserved in MS. in the archives of the Russian foreign office. A complete German translation, edited by Dr Maurice Possalt (Tagebuch des Generals Patrick Gordon) was published, the first volume at Moscow in 1849, the second at St Petersburg in 1851, and the third at St Petersburg in 1853; and Passages from the Diary of General Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries (1635–1699), was printed, under the editorship of Joseph Robertson, for the Spalding Club, Aberdeen, 1859.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gore, Catherine Grace Frances

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​GORE, CATHERINE GRACE FRANCES (1799–1861), English novelist and dramatist, the daughter of Charles Moody, a wine-merchant, was born in 1799 at East Retford, Nottinghamshire. In 1823 she was married to Captain Charles Gore; and, in the next year, she published her first work, Theresa Marchmont, or the Maid of Honour. Then followed, among others, the Lettre de Cachet (1827), The Reign of Terror (1827), Hungarian Tales (1829), Manners of the Day (1830), Mothers and Daughters (1831), and The Fair of May Fair (1832), Mrs Armytage (1836). Every succeeding year saw several volumes from her pen: The Cabinet Minister and The Courtier of the Days of Charles II., in 1839; Preferment in 1840. In 1841 Cecil, or the Adventures of a Coxcomb, attracted considerable attention. Greville, or a Season in Paris appeared in the same year; then Ormington, or Cecil a Peer, Fascination, The Ambassador’s Wife; and in 1843 The Banker’s Wife. Mrs Gore continued to write, with unfailing fertility of invention, till her death on the 29th of January 1861. She also wrote some dramas of which the most successful was the School for Coquettes, produced at the Haymarket (1831). She was a woman of versatile talent, and set to music Burns’s “And ye shall walk in silk attire,” one of the most popular songs of her day. Her extraordinary literary industry is proved by the existence of more than seventy distinct works. Her best novels are Cecil, or the Adventures of a Coxcomb, and The Banker’s Wife. Cecil gives extremely vivid sketches of London fashionable life, and is full of happy epigrammatic touches. For the knowledge of London clubs displayed in it Mrs Gore was indebted to William Beckford, the author of Vathek. The Banker’s Wife is distinguished by some clever studies of character, especially in the persons of Mr Hamlyn, the cold calculating money-maker, and his warm-hearted country neighbour, Colonel Hamilton.
Mrs Gore’s novels had an immense temporary popularity; they were parodied by Thackeray in Punch, in his “Lords and Liveries by the author of Dukes and Déjeuners”; but, tedious as they are to present-day readers, they presented on the whole faithful pictures of the contemporary life and pursuits of the English upper classes.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gorge

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​GORGE, strictly the French word for the throat considered externally. Hence it is applied in falconry to a hawk’s crop, ​and thus, with the sense of something greedy or ravenous, to food given to a hawk and to the contents of a hawk’s crop or stomach. It is from this sense that the expression of a person’s “gorge rising at” anything in the sense of loathing or disgust is derived. “Gorge,” from analogy with “throat,” is used with the meaning of a narrow opening as of a ravine or valley between hills; in fortification, of the neck of an outwork or bastion; and in architecture, of the narrow part of a Roman Doric column, between the echinus and the astragal. From “gorge” also comes a diminutive “gorget,” a portion of a woman’s costume in the middle ages, being a close form of wimple covering the neck and upper part of the breast, and also that part of the body armour covering the neck and collarbone (see Gorget). The word “gorgeous,” of splendid or magnificent appearance, comes from the O. Fr. gorgias, with the same meaning, and has very doubtfully been connected with gorge, a ruffle or neck-covering, of a supposed elaborate kind.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gordon-Cumming, Roualeyn George

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​GORDON-CUMMING, ROUALEYN GEORGE (1820–1866), Scottish traveller and sportsman, known as the “lion hunter,” was born on the 15th of March 1820. He was the second son of Sir William G. Gordon-Cumming, 2nd baronet of Altyre and Gordonstown, Elginshire. From his early years he was distinguished by his passion for sport. He was educated at Eton, and at eighteen joined the East India Co.’s service as a cornet in the Madras Light Cavalry. The climate of India not suiting him, after two years’ experience he retired from the service and returned to Scotland. During his stay in the East he had laid the foundation of his collection of hunting trophies and specimens of natural history. In 1843 he joined the Cape Mounted Rifles, but for the sake of absolute freedom sold out at the end of the year and with an ox wagon and a few native followers set out for the interior. He hunted chiefly in Bechuanaland and the Limpopo valley, regions then swarming with big game. In 1848 he returned to England. The story of his remarkable exploits is vividly told in his book, Five Years of a Hunter’s Life in the Far Interior of South Africa (London, 1850, 3rd ed. 1851). Of this volume, received at first with incredulity by stay-at-home critics, David Livingstone, who furnished Gordon-Cumming with most of his native guides, wrote: “I have no hesitation in saying that Mr Cumming’s book conveys a truthful idea of South African hunting” (Missionary Travels, chap. vii.). His collection of hunting trophies was exhibited in London in 1851 at the Great Exhibition, and was illustrated by a lecture delivered by Gordon-Cumming. The collection, known as “The South Africa Museum,” was afterwards exhibited in various parts of the country. In 1858 Gordon-Cumming went to live at Fort Augustus on the Caledonian Canal, where the exhibition of his trophies attracted many visitors. He died there on the 24th of March 1866.
An abridgment of his book was published in 1856 under the title of The Lion Hunter of South Africa, and in this form was frequently reprinted, a new edition appearing in 1904.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Goree

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​GOREE, an island off the west coast of Africa, forming part of the French colony of Senegal. It lies at the entrance of the large natural harbour formed by the peninsula of Cape Verde. The island, some 900 yds. long by 330 broad, and 3 m. distant from the nearest point of the mainland, is mostly barren rock. The greater part of its surface is occupied by a town, formerly a thriving commercial entrepôt and a strong military post. Until 1906 it was a free port. With the rise of Dakar (q.v.), c. 1860, on the adjacent coast, Goree lost its trade and its inhabitants, mostly Jolofs, had dwindled in 1905 to about 1500. Its healthy climate, however, makes it useful as a sanatorium. The streets are narrow, and the houses, mainly built of dark-red stone, are flat-roofed. The castle of St Michael, the governor’s residence, the hospital and barracks, testify to the former importance of the town. Within the castle is an artesian well, the only water-supply, save that collected in rain tanks, on the island. Goree was first occupied by the Dutch, who took possession of it early in the 17th century and called it Goeree or Goedereede, in memory of the island on their own coast now united with Overflakkee. Its native name is Bir, i.e. a belly, in allusion to its shape. It was captured by the English under Commodore (afterwards Admiral Sir Robert) Holmes in 1663, but retaken in the following year by de Ruyter. The Dutch were finally expelled in 1677 by the French under Admiral d’Estrées. Goree subsequently fell again into the hands of the English, but was definitely occupied by France in 1817 (see Senegal: History).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gorges, Sir Ferdinando

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​GORGES, SIR FERDINANDO (c. 1566–1647), English colonial pioneer in America and the founder of Maine, was born in Somersetshire, England, probably in 1566. From youth both a soldier and a sailor, he was a prisoner in Spain at the age of twenty-one, having been captured by a ship of the Spanish Armada. In 1589 he was in command of a small body of troops fighting for Henry IV. of France, and after distinguishing himself at the siege of Rouen was knighted there in 1591. In 1596 he was commissioned captain and keeper of the castle and fort at Plymouth and captain of St Nicholas Isle; in 1597 he accompanied Essex on the expedition to the Azores; in 1599 assisted him in the attempt to suppress the Tyrone rebellion in Ireland, and in 1600 was implicated in Essex’s own attempt at rebellion in London. In 1603, on the accession of James I., he was suspended from his post at Plymouth, but was restored in the same year and continued to serve as “governor of the forts and island of Plymouth” until 1629, when, his garrison having been without pay for three and a half years, his fort a ruin, and all his applications for aid having been ignored, he resigned. About 1605 he began to be greatly interested in the New World; in 1606 he became a member of the Plymouth Company, and he laboured zealously for the founding of the Popham colony at the mouth of the Sagadahoc (now the Kennebec) river in 1607. For several years following the failure of that enterprise in 1608 he continued to fit out ships for fishing, trading and exploring, with colonization as the chief end in view. He was largely instrumental in procuring the new charter of 1620 for the Plymouth Company, and was at all times of its existence perhaps the most influential member of that body. He was the recipient, either solely or jointly, of several grants of territory from it, for one of which he received in 1639 the royal charter of Maine (see Maine). In 1635 he sought to be appointed governor-general of all New England, but the English Civil War—in which he espoused the royal cause—prevented him from ever actually holding that office. A short time before his death at Long Ashton in 1647 he wrote his Briefe Narration of the Originall Undertakings of the Advancement of Plantations into the Parts of America. He was an advocate, especially late in life, of the feudal type of colony.
See J. P. Baxter (ed.), Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his Province of Maine (3 vols., Boston, 1890; in the Prince Society Publications), the first volume of which is a memoir of Gorges, and the other volumes contain a reprint of the Briefe Narration, Gorges’s letters, and other documentary material.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gore

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​GORE. (1) (O. Eng. gor, dung or filth), a word formerly used in the sense of dirt, but now confined to blood that has thickened after being shed. (2) (O. Eng. gára, probably connected with gare, an old word for “spear”), something of triangular shape, resembling therefore a spear-head. The word is used for a tapering strip of land, in the “common or open field” system of agriculture, where from the shape of the land the acre or half-acre strips could not be portioned out in straight divisions. Similarly “gore” is used in the United States, especially in Maine and Vermont, for a strip of land left out in surveying when divisions are made and boundaries marked. The triangular sections of material used in forming the covering of a balloon or an umbrella are also called “gores,” and in dressmaking the term is used for a triangular piece of material inserted in a dress to adjust the difference in widths. To gore, i.e. to stab or pierce with any sharp instrument, but more particularly used of piercing with the horns of a bull, is probably directly connected with gare, a spear.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Margaret, Maid of Norway

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​MARGARET (1283–1290), titular queen of Scotland, and generally known as the “maid of Norway,” was the daughter of Eric II. king of Norway, and Margaret, daughter of Alexander III. king of Scotland. Her mother died soon after Margaret’s birth, and in 1284 the estates of Scotland decided that if Alexander died childless the crown should pass to his granddaughter. In March 1286 Alexander was killed and Margaret became queen. The English king Edward I. was closely watching affairs in Scotland, and in 1289 a marriage was arranged between the infant queen and Edward’s son, afterwards Edward II. Margaret sailed from Norway and reached the Orkneys, where she died about the end of September 1290. The news of this occurrence ​was first made known in a letter dated the 7th of October 1290. Some mystery, however, surrounded her death, and about 1300 a woman from Leipzig declared she was Queen Margaret. The impostor, if she were such, was burned as a witch at Bergen.
See A. Lang, History of Scotland, vol. i. (Edinburgh, 1904).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Maremma

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​MAREMMA (a corruption of Marittima, “situated on the sea”), a marshy region of Tuscany, Italy, extending from the mouth of the Cecina to Orbetello and varying in breadth from 15 to 20 m. In Etruscan and Roman times the Maremma was a ​populous and fertile coast plain, with considerable towns situated on the hills—Populonia, Russellae, Cosa, &c., and was drained by a complete system of subterranean canals which were brought to light by the excavations made in connexion with the railways passing through the district. But the decline of agriculture at the end of the Republic led to a conversion of the land to pasture, and later the unsettled state of affairs consequent on the fall of the Roman Empire resulted in neglect of the watercourses. Leopold II. of Tuscany (1822–1844) made the first successful efforts to counteract the malaria which has affected the district, by drainage, the filling up of swamps, and the establishment of new farms, and since his time continuous efforts have been made with considerable success.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mareotis

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​MAREOTIS (Arabic Mariut), the most westerly of the lakes in the Delta of Egypt. On the narrow strip of land separating the lake from the Mediterranean the city of Alexandria is built. (See Egypt; and Alexandria.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Margaret

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​MARGARET (Fr. Marguerite, It. Margherita, Ger. Margareta, and Margarete, with dim. Grete, Gretchen, Meta, fr. Lat. margarita, Gr. μαργαρίτης, a pearl), a female proper name, which became very popular in all Christian countries as that of the saint noticed below. Biographies of some who have borne it are arranged below in the following order: saints, queens of Scotland, queens of other countries, princesses and duchesses.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mare

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​MARE, the English term for the female of any animal of the family Equidae, of the ass, or zebra, but particularly of the horse. It is also used of the camel. To find a “mare’s nest” is an old proverbial saying for a purely imaginary discovery. In “night-mare,” an oppressive or terrifying dream, the termination is a word appearing as mar, maer and mara in various Teutonic languages for a goblin, supposed to sit on a sleeper’s chest and cause these dreams: cf. elf. This Teutonic word also appears in the French cauchemar, the first part being from caucher, to tread or trample upon, Lat. calcare.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mare's-Tail

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​MARE’S-TAIL, in botany, the popular name for an aquatic herb known botanically as Hippuris vulgaris (natural order Haloragaceae). It grows on margins of lakes, ponds and similar localities, and has a submerged stout creeping rootstock from which spring many-jointed cylindrical stems bearing numerous narrow leaves close-set in whorls. The minute greenish flowers are borne in the leaf-axils. Like many freshwater plants it has a wide distribution, occurring in arctic and temperate regions in the northern hemisphere and reappearing in antarctic South America.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mare Clausum and Mare Liberum

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​MARE CLAUSUM and MARE LIBERUM (Lat. for “closed sea” and “free sea”), in international law, terms associated with the historic controversy which arose out of demands on the part of different states to assert exclusive dominion over areas of the open or high sea. Thus Spain laid claim to exclusive dominion over whole oceans, Great Britain to all her environing narrow seas and so on. These claims gave rise to vigorous opposition by other powers and led to the publication of Grotius’s work (1609) called Mare liberum. In Mare clausum (1635) John Selden endeavoured to prove that the sea was practically as capable of appropriation as territory. Owing to the conflict of claims which grew out of the controversy, maritime states had to moderate their demands and base their pretensions to maritime dominion on the principle that it extended seawards from land.
A formula was found by Bynkershoek in his De dominio maris (1702) for the restriction of dominion over the sea to the actual distance to which cannon range could protect it. This became universally adopted and developed into the three-mile belt (see Territorial Waters). In recent times controversies have arisen in connexion with the Baltic, the Black Sea and more especially the Bering Sea. In the latter case the United States, after the purchase of Alaska, vainly attempted to assert dominion beyond the three-mile limit. Still more recently the hardship of treating the greater part of Moray Firth as open sea to the exclusion of British and to the advantage of foreign fishermen has been raised (see North Sea Fisheries Convention; Territorial Waters).
Conventions for the suppression of the slave trade, including the Brussels General Act of 1885, and the North Sea Fisheries Convention, have placed restrictions on the freedom of the high sea, and possibly, in the general interest, other agreements will bring it further under control, on the principle that what is the property of all nations must be used without detriment to its use by others (see High Seas). (T. Ba.)