Folklore and ancient custom are much concerned with the girdle. Bankrupts at one time put it off in open court; French law refused courtesans the right to wear it; Saint Guthlac casts out devils by buckling his girdle round a possessed man; an earl is “a belted earl” since the days when the putting on of a girdle was part of the ceremony of his creation; and fairy tales of half the nations deal with girdles which give invisibility to the wearer. (O. Ba.)
GIRGA, or Girgeh, a town of Upper Egypt on the W. bank
of the Nile, 313 m. S.S.E. of Cairo by rail and about 10 m. N.N.E.
of the ruins of Abydos. Pop. (1907) 19,893, of whom about
one-third are Copts. The town presents a picturesque appearance
from the Nile, which at this point makes a sharp bend. A
ruined mosque with a tall minaret stands by the river-brink.
Many of the houses are of brick decorated with glazed tiles.
The town is noted for the excellence of its pottery. Girga is
the seat of a Coptic bishop. It also possesses a Roman Catholic
monastery, considered the most ancient in the country. As
lately as the middle of the 18th century the town stood a quarter
of a mile from the river, but is now on the bank, the intervening
space having been washed away, together with a large part of
the town, by the stream continually encroaching on its left bank.
GIRGENTI (anc. Agrigentum, q.v.), a town of Sicily, capital
of the province which bears its name, and an episcopal see, on
the south coast, 58 m. S. by E. of Palermo direct and 8412 m. by
rail. Population (1901) 25,024. The town is built on the
western summit of the ridge which formed the northern portion
of the ancient site; the main street runs from E. to W. on
the level, but the side streets are steep and narrow. The cathedral
occupies the highest point in the town; it was not founded till
the 13th century, taking the place of the so-called temple of
Concord. The campanile still preserves portions of its original
architecture, but the interior has been modernized. In the
chapter-house a famous sarcophagus, with scenes illustrating
the myth of Hippolytus, is preserved. There are other scattered
remains of 13th-century architecture in the town, while, in the
centre of the ancient city, close to the so-called oratory of
Phalaris, is the Norman church of S. Nicolo. A small museum
in the town contains vases, terra-cottas, a few sculptures, &c.
The port of Girgenti, 512 m. S.W. by rail, now known as Porto
Empedocle (population in 1901, 11,529), as the principal place
of shipment for sulphur, the mining district beginning immediately
north of Girgenti. (T. As.)
GIRISHK, a village and fort of Afghanistan. It stands on the right bank of the Helmund 78 m. W. of Kandahar on the road to Herat; 3641 ft. above the sea. The fort, which is garrisoned from Kandahar and is the residence of the governor of the district (Pusht-i-Rud), has little military value. It commands the fords of the Helmund and the road to Seistan, from which it is about 190 m. distant; and it is the centre of a rich agricultural district. Girishk was occupied by the British during the first Afghan War; and a small garrison of sepoys, under a native officer, successfully withstood a siege of nine months by an overwhelming Afghan force. The Dasht-i-Bakwa stretches beyond Girishk towards Farah, a level plain of considerable width, which tradition assigns as the field of the final contest for supremacy between Russia and England.
GIRNAR, a sacred hill in Western India, in the peninsula of Kathiawar, 10 m. E. of Junagarh town. It consists of five peaks, rising about 3500 ft. above the sea, on which are numerous old Jain temples, much frequented by pilgrims. At the foot of the hill is a rock, with an inscription of Asoka (2nd century B.C.), and also two other inscriptions (dated 150 and 455 A.D.) of great historical importance.
GIRODET DE ROUSSY, ANNE LOUIS (1767–1824), French painter, better known as Girodet-Trioson, was born at Montargis on the 5th of January 1767. He lost his parents in early youth, and the care of his fortune and education fell to the lot of his guardian, M. Trioson, “médecin de mesdames,” by whom he was in later life adopted. After some preliminary studies under a painter named Luquin, Girodet entered the school of David,
and at the age of twenty-two he successfully competed for the Prix de Rome. At Rome he executed his “Hippocrate refusant les présents d’Artaxerxès” and “Endymion dormant” (Louvre), a work which was hailed with acclamation at the Salon of 1792. The peculiarities which mark Girodet’s position as the herald of the romantic movement are already evident in his “Endymion.” The firm-set forms, the grey cold colour, the hardness of the execution are proper to one trained in the school of David, but these characteristics harmonize ill with the literary, sentimental and picturesque suggestions which the painter has sought to render. The same incongruity marks Girodet’s “Danaë” and his “Quatre Saisons,” executed for the king of Spain (repeated for Compiègne), and shows itself to a ludicrous extent in his “Fingal” (St Petersburg, Leuchtenberg collection), executed for Napoleon I. in 1802. This work unites the defects of the classic and romantic schools, for Girodet’s imagination ardently and exclusively pursued the ideas excited by varied reading both of classic and of modern literature, and the impressions which he received from the external world afforded him little stimulus or check; he consequently retained the mannerisms of his master’s practice whilst rejecting all restraint on choice of subject. The credit lost by “Fingal” Girodet regained in 1806, when he exhibited “Scène de Déluge” (Louvre), to which (in competition with the “Sabines” of David) was awarded the decennial prize. This success was followed up in 1808 by the production of the “Reddition de Vienne” and “Atala au Tombeau”—a work which went far to deserve its immense popularity, by a happy choice of subject, and remarkable freedom from the theatricality of Girodet’s usual manner, which, however, soon came to the front again in his “Révolte de Caire” (1810). His powers now began to fail, and his habit of working at night and other excesses told upon his constitution; in the Salon of 1812 he exhibited only a “Tête de Vierge”; in 1819 “Pygmalion et Galatée” showed a still further decline of strength; and in 1824—the year in which he produced his portraits of Cathelineau and Bonchamps—Girodet died on the 9th of December.
He executed a vast quantity of illustrations, amongst which may be cited those to the Didot Virgil (1798) and to the Louvre Racine (1801–1805). Fifty-four of his designs for Anacreon were engraved by M. Chatillon. Girodet wasted much time on literary composition, his poem Le Peintre (a string of commonplaces), together with poor imitations of classical poets, and essays on Le Génie and La Grâce, were published after his death (1829), with a biographical notice by his friend M. Coupin de la Couperie; and M. Delécluze, in his Louis David et son temps, has also a brief life of Girodet.
GIRONDE, a maritime department of south-western France,
formed from four divisions of the old province of Guyenne, viz.
Bordelais, Bazadais, and parts of Périgord and Agenais. Area,
4140 sq. m. Pop. (1906) 823,925. It is bounded N. by the
department of Charente-Inférieure, E. by those of Dordogne
and Lot-et-Garonne, S. by that of Landes, and W. by the Bay
of Biscay. It takes its name from the river or estuary of the
Gironde formed by the union of the Garonne and Dordogne.
The department divides itself naturally into a western and an
eastern portion. The former, which is termed the Landes (q.v.),
occupies more than a third of the department, and consists
chiefly of morass or sandy plain, thickly planted with pines and
divided from the sea by a long line of dunes. These dunes are
planted with pines, which, by binding the sand together with
their roots, prevent it from drifting inland and afford a barrier
against the sea. On the east the dunes are fringed for some
distance by two extensive lakes, Carcans and Lacanau, communicating
with each other and with the Bay of Arcachon, near the
southern extremity of the department. The Bay of Arcachon
contains numerous islands, and on the land side forms a vast
shallow lagoon, a considerable portion of which, however, has
been drained and converted into arable land. The eastern
portion of the department consists chiefly of a succession of hill
and dale, and, especially in the valley of the Gironde, is very
fertile. The estuary of the Gironde is about 45 m. in length,
and varies in breadth from 2 to 6 m. It presents a succession of
islands and mud banks which divide it into two channels and
render navigation somewhat difficult. It is, however, well
