“antiquary to the king” conferred upon him. During his prolonged residences abroad he acquired a thorough knowledge of the Arabic, Turkish and Persian languages and literatures, which, on his final return to France, enabled him to render valuable assistance to Thevenot, the keeper of the royal library, and to Barthélemy d’Herbelot. After their deaths he lived for some time at Caen under the roof of Nicolas Foucault (1643–1721), the intendant of Caen, himself no mean archaeologist; and there he began the publication (12 vols., 1704–1717) of Les mille et une nuits, which excited immense interest during the time of its appearance, and is still the standard French translation. It had no pretensions to verbal accuracy, and the coarseness of the language was modified to suit European taste, but the narrative was adequately rendered. In 1701 Galland had been admitted into the Academy of Inscriptions, and in 1709 he was appointed to the chair of Arabic in the Collège de France. He continued to discharge the duties of this post until his death, which took place on the 17th of February 1715.
Besides a number of archaeological works, especially in the department of numismatics, he published a compilation from the Arabic, Persian and Turkish, entitled Paroles remarquables, bons mots et maximes des orientaux (1694), and a translation from an Arabic manuscript, De l’origine et du progrès du café (1699). The former of these works appeared in an English translation in 1795. His Contes et fables indiennes de Bidpaï et de Lokman was published (1724) after his death. Among his numerous unpublished manuscripts are a translation of the Koran and a Histoire générale des empereurs turcs. His Journal was published by M. Charles Schefer in 1881.
GALLARATE, a town of Lombardy, Italy, in the province of
Milan, from which it is 25 m. N.W. by rail. Pop. (1901) 12,002.
The town is of medieval origin. It is remarkable mainly for its
textile factories. It is the junction of railways to Varese,
Laveno and Arona (for the Simplon). Six miles to the W.
are the electric works of Vizzola, the largest in Europe, where
23,000 h.p. are derived from the river Ticino.
GALLARS [in Lat. Gallasius], NICOLAS DES (c. 1520–c. 1580), Calvinistic divine, first appears as author of a Defensio
of William Farel, published at Geneva in 1545, followed (1545–1549)
by translations into French of three tracts by Calvin.
In 1551 he was admitted burgess of Geneva, and in 1553 made
pastor of a country church in the neighbourhood. In 1557 he
was sent to minister to the Protestants at Paris; his conductor,
Nicolas du Rousseau, having prohibited books in his possession,
was executed at Dijon; des Gallars, having nothing suspicious
about him, continued his journey. On the revival of the
Strangers’ church in London (1560), he, being then minister at
Geneva, came to London to organize the French branch; and
in 1561 he published La Forme de police ecclésiastique instituée à
Londres en l’Église des François. In the same year he assisted
Beza at the colloquy of Poissy. He became minister to the Protestants
at Orleans in 1564; presided at the synod of Paris in
1565; was driven out of Orleans with other Protestants in 1568;
and in 1571 was chaplain to Jeanne d’Albret, queen of Navarre.
Calvin held him in high esteem, employing him as amanuensis,
and as editor as well as translator of several of his exegetical
and polemical works. He himself wrote a commentary on
Exodus (1560); edited an annotated French Bible (1562) and
New Testament (1562); and published tracts against Arians
(1565–1566). His main work was his edition of Irenaeus (1570)
with prefatory letter to Grindal, then bishop of London, and
giving, for the first time, some fragments of the Greek text.
His collaboration with Beza in the Histoire des Églises Réformées
du royaume de France (1580) is doubted by Bayle.
See Bayle, Dictionnaire hist. et crit.; Jean Senebier, Hist. littéraire de Genève (1786); Nouvelle Biog. gén. (1857). (A. Go.*)
GALLAS, MATTHIAS, Count of Campo, Duke of Lucera (1584–1647), Austrian soldier, first saw service in Flanders, and
in Savoy with the Spaniards, and subsequently joined the forces
of the Catholic League as captain. On the general outbreak
of hostilities in Germany, Gallas, as colonel of an infantry
regiment, distinguished himself, especially at the battle of Stadtlohn
(1623). In 1630 he was serving as General-Feldwachtmeister
under Collalto in Italy, and was mainly instrumental in the
capture of Mantua. Made count of the Empire for this service,
he returned to Germany for the campaign against Gustavus
Adolphus. In command of a corps of Wallenstein’s army, he
covered Bohemia against the Swedes in 1631–1632, and served
at the Alte Veste near Nuremberg, and at Lützen. Further good
service against Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar commended General
Gallas to the notice of the emperor, who made him lieutenant-general
in his own army. He was one of the chief conspirators
against Wallenstein, and after the tragedy of Eger was appointed
to the command of the army which Wallenstein had formed and
led. At the great battle of Nördlingen (23rd of August 1634)
in which the army of Sweden was almost annihilated, Gallas
commanded the victorious Imperialists. His next command was
in Lorraine, but even the Moselle valley had suffered so much
from the ravages of war that his army perished of want. Still
more was this the case in northern Germany, where Gallas commanded
against the Swedish general Banér in 1637 and 1638.
At first driving the Swedes before him, in the end he made a
complete failure of the campaign, lost his command, and was
subject to much ridicule. It was, however, rather the indiscipline
of his men (the baneful legacy of Wallenstein’s methods) than his
own faults which brought about his disastrous retreat across
North Germany, and at a moment of crisis he was recalled to
endeavour to stop Torstenson’s victorious advance, only to be
shut up in Magdeburg, whence he escaped with the barest remnant
of his forces. Once more relieved of his command, he was again
recalled to make head against the Swedes in 1645 (after their
victory at Jankow). Before long, old and warworn, he resigned
his command, and died in 1647 at Vienna. His army had earned
for itself the reputation of being the most cruel and rapacious
force even in the Thirty Years’ War, and his Merode Brüder have
survived in the word marauder. Like many other generals of
that period, he had acquired much wealth and great territorial
possessions (the latter mostly his share of Wallenstein’s estates).
He was the founder of the Austrian family of Clam-Gallas, which
furnished many distinguished soldiers to the Imperial army.
GALLAS, or more correctly Galla, a powerful Hamitic
people of eastern Africa, scattered over the wide region which
extends for about 1000 m. from the central parts of Abyssinia to
the neighbourhood of the river Sabaki in British East Africa.
The name “Galla” or “Gala” appears to be an Abyssinian
nickname, unknown to the people, who call themselves Ilm’
Orma, “sons of men” or “sons of Orma,” an eponymous hero.
In Shoa (Abyssinia) the word is connected with the river Gála in
Guragie, on the banks of which a great battle is said to have
been fought between the Galla and the Abyssinians. Arnaud
d’Abbadie says that the Abyssinian Moslems recount that,
when summoned by the Prophet’s messenger to adopt Islam, the
chief of the Galla said “No,”—in Arabic kāl (or gāl) la,—and the
Prophet on hearing this said, “Then let their very name imply
their denial of the Faith.” Of all Hamitic peoples the Galla
are the most numerous. Dr J. Ludwig Krapf estimated them
(c. 1860) at from six to eight millions; later authorities put them
at not much over three millions. Individual tribes are said to be
able to bring 20,000 to 30,000 horsemen into the field.
Hardly anything is definitely known as to the origin and early home of the race, but it appears to have occupied the southern part of its present territory since the 16th century. According to Hiob Ludolf and James Bruce, the Galla invaders first crossed the Abyssinian frontiers in the year 1537. The Galla of Gojam (a district along the northern side of the river Abai) tell how their savage forefathers came from the south-east from a country on the other side of a bahr (lake or river), and the Yejju and Raia Galla also point towards the east and commemorate the passage of a bahr. Among the southern Galla tradition appears to be mainly concerned with the expulsion of the race from the country now occupied by the Somali. Their original home was possibly in the district east of Victoria Nyanza, for the tribes near Mount Kenya are stated to go on periodical pilgrimages to the mountain, making offerings to it as if to their mother. A theory has been advanced that the great exodus which it seems certain took place among the peoples throughout eastern Africa during the 15th century was caused by some great eruption of Kenya
