Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/27

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1em  GALABAT,, or, a town in the frontier district of Egypt and Abyssinia., near one of the western sub-tributaries of the Atbara, about 100 miles V. of Gondar, in 13° N. lat. and 36° E. long. Most of the houses are built in the Abyssinian style, with conical roofs of grass, and the place would be of little importance if it were 11ot the staple market for the exportation of Abyssinian produce across the Egyptian frontier. Beeswax, coffee, cotton, and hides are the principal articles of legitimate trade ,'.but as recently at least as 1873 the traffic in slaves was quite as important a department of its commerce. The town and district form a small ethnographical island, being peopled by a colony of Tokrooris from Darfur, who, finding the spot a convenient resting—place for their fellow—pilgrims on their way to "Mecca and back, obtained permission from the king of Abyssinia to make a permanent settlement. They are an industrious race, and grow a considerable quantity of cotton. When Sir Samuel Baker was at Galabat in 1862, the sheikh refused to recognize the authority of the viceroy of Egypt; but when Dc Cosson passed through in 1873, the Egyptians had a camp, with a strong stone wall, on the top of a hill commanding the town, and acted as masters of the place. The population of the town and district, which have an area of about 40 square miles, is estimated at 20,000. Galabat is the proper name, and Metemme is really the native word for a capital.  GALANGAL, formerly written “galingale,” and some- times “ garingal,” 2'/u'zom.a _r/ctlcmf/re (Arabian, If/eolinjan, German, Gal;/rc12tzvzn':el 5 French, Ifacine de Galmzga), is an aromatic stimulant drug. Lesser galangal root, radix _r/«(l(mgr_'(3 miuoris, t.hc ordinary galangal of commerce, is the dried rhizome of .»'l/pinia 0__f]z'cin.a.rmn, Hance, a plant of the natural order Zingiberacece, growing in the Chinese island of Hainan, where it is cultivated, and probably also in the woods of the southern provinces of China. The plant is regarded by Dr Hance as closely allied to, but as perfectly distinct from, the Alpim'a. calcarata of Roscoe, the rhizome of which is sold in the bazaars of some parts of India as a sort of galangal. Its stems attain a length of about 4 feet, and its leaves are slender, lanceolate, and light green, and have a hot taste; the ﬂowers are ebracteate, white with red veins, and in simple racemes ; the roots form dense masses, sometimes more than a foot in diameter ; and the rhizomes grow horizontally, and are % inch or less in thickness. The drug occurs in short, cylindrical, or some- what tuberous, often forked pieces, which have a ﬁbrous structure, and externally are reddish-brown and marked with ﬁne longitudinal striations, and with transverse rings showing the points of attachment of scales or leaves, and internally are of a light—brown, becoming darker at the centre. It has a warm, aromatic taste, resembling that of mingled ginger and pepper. On analysis it yields, among other constituents, much starch, an essential oil of the composition C,0H,6,H2O (Vogel), and a crystalline body, 7.-c't'2n1gf'erz'cl (Brandes). Greater or Java. galangal, raclzlv galangce mrt_jo7'is (French, Galzmga de l’Inde), the rhizome of Alpim'a Gal‘an_.r/a, Willd., is a drug rarely now imported into Europe. It is mentioned by Marco Polo (ed. Yule, ii. p. 217) and Garcias da Horta as a product of Java, and the latter distinguishes it from the Chinese or lesser galangal, from which it is known by its larger size, orange-brown exterior, and feebler and less aromatic odour. The seed- capsules of .Alpim'a G'alcm_r/a are believed to be what are termed “galanga cardamoms,” which have the properties — of cardamoms and ginger combined, and in China are used for various medicinal purposes. (See Hanbnry, Science I’ape7'.s', pp. 107-9, and 252, 253, 1876 ; and F. P. Smith, op. cit.) Galangal seems to have been unknown to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and to have been first intro- duced into Europe by Arabian physicians. It is mentioned in the writings of Ibn Khurdadbali, an Arabian geographer who ﬂourished in the latter half of the 9th century, and “ gallengar ” (galingale or galangal) is one of the ingredients in an Anglo-Saxon receipt for a “ wen salve” (see 0. Cockayne, Saxon Leechdoms, vol. iii. p. 13). In the Middle Ages, as at present in Livonia, Esthonia, and central Russia, galangal was in esteem in Europe both as a medi- cine and a spice, and in China it is still employed as a therapeutic agent. Its chief consumption is in Russia, where it is used as a cattle-medicine, and as a _ﬂavouring for liqueurs. By the Tartars it is taken with tea (see Hanbnry, op. cit, p. 374). The exports of galangal from Shanghai, in China, amounted in 1869 to 370,000 lb, value £3046, 16s. 9d. Chinese or lesser galangal was in past times commonly known as “Cypcrns Babylonicus,” from its resemblance to the tubers of plants of the genus 6'3/pe-ms, which apparently served as a substitute for it (qf. Fuchs, Op. Diclactica, pars ii. p. 28, 1604, fol.; and Avicenna, ed. Plempii, lib. ii. p. 297, 1658, fol.). Gerarde (T/L6 Ilerball, p. 28, 1597) terms the species (*3/perus longus “English galingale.” - “--

1em  GALAPAGOS ISLANDS, an archipelago of ﬁve larger and ten smaller islands, situated in the Paciﬁc Ocean exactly under the equator, about 500 or 600 miles W. of Ecuador. They were discovered about the beginning of the 16th century by the Spaniards, who gave them their present name from the numerous galdpago or giant tortoises they found there. The larger members of the group, several of them attaining a11 elevation of 3000 to 4000 feet, are Albemarle (75 miles long and 15 broad), Narborough, Indefatigable, Chatham, and James Islands. The total area is estimated at 2250 square miles. The extraordinary number of craters, a few of them still active, “in size from mere spiracles to huge caldrons several miles in circumference,” to be found throughout the islands, gives evidence that the archipelago has been the result of volcanic action. It stands in very deep Water, and Mr Darwin thinks that it has never been nearer to the mainland than it is now, nor have its members been at any time closer together. None of the islands are inhabited, with the exception of Charles, Chatham, and Albemarle, which, since 1829, have been used by the Government of Ecuador