The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 250

HYDERABAD (370), the capital of the Nizam's dominions in the Deccan, is 6 m. in circ.u.mference, strongly protected all round by a belt of rocky desert, and a centre of Mohammedanism in India. Also the capital of Sind (58), near the apex of the delta of the Indus; manufactures silks, pottery, and lacquered ware, and is strongly fortified.

HYDRA, THE LERNEAN, a monstrous reptile inhabiting a marsh, with a number of heads, that grew on again as often as they were chopped off, and the destruction of which was one of the twelve labours of Hercules, an act which symbolises the toil expended in draining the fens of the world for man's habitation.

HYGEIA, in the Greek mythology the G.o.ddess of Health, and daughter of aesculapius; is represented as a virgin in a long robe, with a cup in her hand and a serpent drinking out of it.

HYMEN, in the Greek mythology the G.o.d of Marriage, son of Apollo, and one of the Muses, represented as a boy with wings; originally a nuptial song sung at the departure of the bride from her parental home.

HYMER, a frost Jotun, whose cows are icebergs; splits rocks with the glance of his eye.

HYMETTUS, a mountain in Attica, famous for its honey and marble.

HYPATIA, a far-famed lady teacher of Greek philosophy in Alexandria, distinguished for her beauty and purity of life, who, one day in 415, on her return home from her lecture-room, was ma.s.sacred in the streets of the city, at the instance, of both Jews and Christians, as a propagator of paganism.

HYPERBOREANS, a people blooming in youth and health, fabled by the Greeks to dwell in the extreme northern parts of the world under favour of Apollo.

HYPERMNESTRA, the only one of the DANAIDES (q. v.) who spared the life of her husband in spite of her father's orders.

HYPNOTISM, the process of inducing sleep by wearying out the optic nerve of the eyes, by making the patient fix them upon a certain spot for a time, generally situated where it is a little wearisome for the eyes to find it. The fatigue thus induced spreads from the ocular muscles to the system, causing deep sleep.

HYRCANIA, an ancient province of Persia, on the E. and SE. of the Caspian Sea, celebrated for the savage animals that inhabited its forests, as well as the savagery of its inhabitants.

HYRCa.n.u.s, JOHN, the son of Simon Maccabeus, king of Judea, as well as High-Priest of the Jews from 135 to 105 B.C.; achieved the independence of his country from the Syrian yoke, extended the borders of it, and compelled the Edomites to accept the Jewish faith at the point of the sword; in the strife then rampant between the SADDUCEES (q. v.) and the PHARISEES (q. v.) he sided with the former.

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IACHIMO, an arch-villain in Shakespeare's "Cymbeline," who attempts to violate the chast.i.ty of Imogen.

IACHUS, the son of Zeus and Demeter, and the solemn name of Bacchus in the Eleusinian Mysteries.

IAGO, a cool, selfish, malignant, subtle, evil-scheming knave in "Oth.e.l.lo," his "ancient" or ensign, who poisoned his mind against Desdemona.

IAMBLICHUS, a Neo-Platonic philosopher of the 4th century, in the time of Constantine, struggled, as it proved, in vain for the revival of Greek philosophy, in the hope of thereby stemming the advance of Christianity.

IAMBUS, a metrical foot, consisting of two syllables, of which the first is short and the second long, or in which the stress is on the second.

IAPETOS, in the Greek mythology a t.i.tan, father of Atlas, Prometheus, and Epimetheus, as the Greeks fabled the ancestor of the human race.

IBERIA, the ancient and still poetic name of Spain; anciently also a territory inhabited by an agricultural population between the Black Sea and the Caspian, now called Georgia.

IBIS, the Nile bird, regarded as an avatar of deity, and held sacred by the Egyptians; it did not breed in Egypt, and was supposed to be of mystic origin; it arrives in Egypt when the Nile begins to rise.

IBRAHIM BEY, chief of the Mamelukes of Egypt at the time of Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt in 1798 (1789-1816).

IBRAHIM PASHA, viceroy of Egypt, son and successor of Mehemet-Ali; appointed generalissimo of the Egyptian army, remodelled it after the French fashion; was leader of the Turks against the Greeks; gained several victories over them in 1828, but was obliged to retire; overran and conquered Syria from the Sultan, but was forced by the Powers to surrender his conquest and restore it; he was Viceroy of Egypt only for a single year, and died at Cairo (1789-1848).

IBSEN, HENRIK, Norwegian dramatist and poet, born at Skein, in Norway; bred to medicine; is author of a succession of plays of a new type, commencing with "Catalina," a poor attempt, followed by "Doll's House," "Ghosts," "Pillars of Society," and "Brand," deemed his masterpiece, besides others; his characters are vividly drawn as if from life; he is a psychologist, and his productions have all more or less a social bearing; _b_. 1828.

IBYCUS, a Greek lyric poet, who was murdered by robbers, and who appealed to a flock of cranes that flew past before he died to avenge his death, and that proved the means of the discovery of the murderers.

ICARUS, son of DaeDALUS (q. v.), who, flying with his father from Crete on wax-fastened wings, soared so high that the sun melted the wax and he dropped into the sea, giving name to that part of it.

ICE BLINK, the name given to a white light seen on the horizon, due to reflection from a field of ice immediately beyond.

ICELAND (71), a volcanic island larger by a third than Scotland, lying just S. of the polar circle, between Greenland and Norway, distant 250 m. from the former and 500 from the latter; consists of a plateau 2000 ft. high, sometimes sloping to the sea, sometimes ending in sheer precipices, from which rise numerous snow-clad volcanoes, some, like Hecla, still active. "A wild land of barrenness and lava," Carlyle characterises it, "swallowed up many months of the year in black tempests, yet with a wild gleaming beauty in summer time, towering up there stern and grim, with its snow jokuls and roaring geysers, and horrid volcanic chasms, like the waste chaotic battlefield of frost and fire." The interior comprises lava and sand tracts, and ice-fields, but outside these are river valleys and lake districts affording pasturage, and arable land capable of producing root crops. The climate is changeable, mild for the lat.i.tude, but somewhat colder than Scotland.

There are few trees, and these small; cranberries grow among the heather, and Iceland moss is a plentiful article of food. The island exports sheep and ponies; the fisheries are important, including cod, seals, and whales; sulphur and coal are found; the hot springs are famous, especially the Great Geyser, near Hecla. Discovered by Irishmen and colonised by Norwegians in the 9th century, Iceland pa.s.sed over to the Danes in 1388, who granted it home rule in 1893. The religion has been Protestant since 1550; its elementary education is excellent. Reykjavik (3) is the capital; two towns have 500 inhabitants each; the rest of the population is scattered in isolated farms; stock-raising and fishing are the princ.i.p.al industries, and the manufacture of homespun for their own use.

ICH DIEN (I serve), the motto of the Black Prince, adopted from John of Bohemia, and since then that of the English Prince of Wales.

ICHNEUMON, an animal of the weasel tribe, worshipped in Egypt from its destroying the eggs of noxious reptiles, and of the crocodile in particular.

ICHOR, an ethereal fluid presumed to supply the place of blood in the veins of the Greek G.o.ds.

ICHTHYOSAURUS (lit. a fish-reptile), an extinct marine reptile in the shape of a fish, its limbs paddles, and with a long lizard-like tail.