Island of the Moon, our Madagascar—“from each of these lands one can fetch the coast of Calicut.” With this information Joseph returned to Portugal, while Covilham, with Abraham of Beja, again visited Aden and Ormuz. At the latter he left the rabbi; and himself came back to Jidda, the port of the Arabian holy land, and penetrated (as he told Alvarez many years later) even to Mecca and Medina. Finally, by Mount Sinai, Tor and the Red Sea, he reached Zeila, whence he struck inland to the court of Prester John (i.e. Abyssinia). Here he was honourably received; lands and lordships were bestowed upon him; but he was not permitted to leave. When the Portuguese embassy under Rodrigo de Lima, including Father Francisco Alvarez, entered Abyssinia in 1520, Covilham wept with joy at the sight of his fellow-countrymen. It was then forty years since he had left Portugal, and over thirty since he had been a prisoner of state in “Ethiopia.” Alvarez, who professed to know him well, and to have heard the story of his life, both “in confession and out of it,” praises his power of vivid description “as if things were present before him,” and his extraordinary knowledge of “all spoken languages of Christians, Moors and Gentiles.” His services as an interpreter were valuable to Rodrigo de Lima’s embassy; but he never succeeded in escaping from Abyssinia.
See Francisco Alvarez, Verdadera Informaçam das terras do Preste Joam, esp. chs. 73, 89, 98, 102-103, 105 (pp. 177, 224, 254, 264, 265-270, 275, of the Hakluyt Society’s English edition, The Portuguese Embassy to Abyssinia . . . 1520–1727, London, 1881); an abstract of this, with some inaccuracies, is given in Major’s Prince Henry the Navigator (London, 1868), pp. 339-340.
COVIN (from the Fr. covine, or couvine, from Lat. convenire, to come together), an association of persons, so used in the Statute of Labourers of 1360, which, inter alia, declared void “all alliances and covins of masons and carpenters.” The more common use of the term in English law was for a secret agreement between persons to cheat and defraud, but the word is now obsolete, and has been superseded by “collusion” or “conspiracy to cheat and defraud.”
COVINGTON, a city and one of the two county-seats of Kenton county, Kentucky, U.S.A., on the Ohio river opposite Cincinnati, with which it is connected by bridges; and at the mouth of the Licking river (also spanned by bridges), opposite Newport, Ky. Pop. (1890) 37,371; (1900) 42,938, of whom 5223 were foreign-born and 2478 were negroes; (1910) 53,270. In 1900 it ranked second in population among the cities of Kentucky. The city is served by the Chesapeake & Ohio, and the Louisville & Nashville railways, by interurban electric railways, and by steamboat lines to the Ohio river ports. It is built on a plain commanding good views and partly shut in by neighbouring hills. Its streets, mostly named from eminent Kentuckians, are paved chiefly with asphalt, macadam and brick. There are numerous fine residences and several attractive public buildings, including that of the United States government—modern Gothic in style—the court-house and city hall combined, and the public library. Covington is the seat of a Roman Catholic bishopric, and its cathedral, in the flamboyant Gothic style, is one of the finest church buildings in the state. In the city are the Academy of Notre Dame and St Joseph’s high school for boys, both Roman Catholic. The principal charitable institutions are the hospital of Saint Elizabeth, a German orphan asylum, a Protestant children’s home, a home for aged women and a Wayfarers’ Rest. Covington is the trade centre of an extensive district engaged in agriculture and stock raising, and as a manufacturing centre it ranked second in the state in 1905 (value of factory products $6,099,715), its products including tobacco, cotton goods, structural iron and steel, foundry and machine shop products, liquors and cordage. A settlement was established here in 1812, and three years later a town was laid out and named in honour of Gen. Leonard Covington (1768–1813), who was mortally wounded at Chrystler’s Field during the War of 1812. In 1834 Covington was chartered as a city; and in 1908 it annexed Central Covington (pop. in 1900, 2155).
COWARD, a term of contempt for one who, before danger, pain or trouble, shows fear, whether physical or moral. The derivation of the word has been obscured by a connexion in sense with the verb “cow,” to instil fear into, which is derived from old Norse kuga, a word of similar meaning, and with the verb “cower,” to crouch, which is also Scandinavian in origin.[1] The true derivation is from the French coe, an old form of queue, a tail, from Lat. cauda, hence couart or couard. The reference to “tail” is either to the expression “turn tail” in flight, or to the habit of animals dropping the tail between the legs when frightened; in heraldry, a lion in this position is a “lion coward.” In the fable of Reynard the Fox the name of the hare is Coart, Kywart, Cuwaert or other variants.
COWBRIDGE, a market town and a municipal and contributory parliamentary borough of Glamorganshire, Wales, with a station on the Taff Vale railway branch from Llantrisant to Aberthaw on the coast, distant by rail 16212 m. from London, 12 m. W. of Cardiff, 7 m. S.E. of Bridgend, and 6 m. S. of Llantrisant station. The population in 1901 was 1202, a decrease of over 12% since 1891. Less than one-third of the number was Welsh-speaking. The town mainly consists of one long street running east and west, and is in a wide valley through which runs the river Thaw (Welsh, Ddawan), here crossed by a stone bridge.
Cowbridge is probably situated on the Roman road from Cardiff westwards, which seems to have kept nearly the course of the present main road. Roman coins have been discovered here. It has in fact been suggested, mainly on etymological grounds, that the town occupies the site of the Roman Bovium: the modern Welsh name, y Bontfaen (“stone bridge”) is probably a corruption of the medieval, Pont y fôn, the precise equivalent of “Cowbridge,” which is first found in documents of the second half of the 13th century as Covbruge and Cubrigg. Others place Bovium on a vicinal road, at Boverton near Llantwit Major, about 6 m. to the south near the coast, though the most likely site is near Ewenny, 5 m. to the west of Cowbridge. After the Norman conquest of Glamorgan, the town grew up as an appanage of the castle of St Quentin, which occupies a commanding position half a mile south-west of the town. It was walled round before the 13th century. A tower is mentioned in 1487 when it was granted away by the burgesses. Leland in his itinerary (c. 1535) describes the town wall as three-quarters of a mile round and as having three gates. There was even then a considerable suburb on the west bank of the river and outside the walls. The south wall and gateway are still standing.
The town was a borough by prescription until 1682, when it received a charter of incorporation from Charles II. confirming its previous privileges. Under the Unreformed Corporations Act of 1883 the corporation was dissolved, but on the petition of the inhabitants a new charter was granted in March 1887. During the Tudor and Stuart periods Cowbridge was almost if not quite the chief town of Glamorgan, its importance being largely due to its central and accessible position in a rich agricultural district where a large number of the county gentry lived. The great sessions were held here alternately with Cardiff and Swansea from 1542 till their abolition in 1830, and the quarter sessions were held here once a year down to 1850. From 1536 to 1832 it was one of the eight contributory boroughs within the county which returned a member to parliament, but since 1832 it has been contributory with Cardiff and Llantrisant in returning a member. It has a separate commission of the peace. Sir Edward Stradling (1529–1609) established a grammar school here, but died before endowing it; it was refounded in 1685 by Sir Leoline Jenkins, who provided that it should be administered by Jesus College, Oxford, which body erected the present buildings in 1847. It has throughout its existence been one of the leading schools in Wales. An intermediate school for girls was established here by the county in 1896. The church of St Mary (formerly chapelry to Llanblethian) is of early English style and has a fine embattled tower, of the same military
- ↑ A connexion has also been imagined with cow (O. Eng. cu; common in Scandinavian languages, and of similar root to Skr. go, whence also Gr. βοῦς, Lat. bos), the female bovine animal, on account of its timidity.
