frontier of Navarre, and once against the Turks on the Danube, till 1530. His countrymen made him the hero of many Münchausen-like stories of personal prowess. It was said that he held a bridge single-handed against 200 Frenchmen, that he stopped the wheel of a water-mill, and so forth. In the “Brief Summary” of his life and deeds attributed to him, and printed at the end of the Chronicle of the Great Captain, published in 1584 at Alcalá de Henares, he lays no claim to having done more than was open to a very athletic man. He was killed at Bologna in 1534 by a fall while engaged in a jumping-match with some of the younger officers of the army. His body was carried to his native town Trujillo, and buried in the church of Santa Maria Mayor in 1545.
GARCÍA GUTIÉRREZ, ANTONIO (1812–1884), Spanish
dramatist, was born at Chiclana (Cadiz) on the 5th of July 1812,
and studied medicine in his native town. In 1832 he removed
to Madrid, and earned a scanty living by translating plays of
Scribe and the elder Dumas; despairing of success, he was on the
point of enlisting when he suddenly sprang into fame as the author
of El Trovador, which was played for the first time on the 1st of
March 1836. García Gutiérrez never surpassed this first effort,
which placed him among the leaders of the romantic movement
in Spain, and which became known all over Europe through
Verdi’s music. His next great success was Simón Bocanegra
(1843), but, as his plays were not lucrative, he emigrated to
Spanish America, working as a journalist in Cuba and Mexico till
1850, when he returned to Spain. The best works of his later
period are a zarzuela entitled El Grumete (1853), La Venganza
catalana (1864) and Juan Lorenzo (1865). He became head of
the archaeological museum at Madrid, and died there on the 6th
of August 1884. His Poesías (1840) and another volume of
lyrics, entitled Luz y tinieblas (1842), are unimportant; but the
brilliant versification of his plays, and his power of analysing
feminine emotions, give him a foremost place among the Spanish
dramatists of the 19th century.
GARD, a department in the south of France, consisting of part
of the old province of Languedoc. Pop. (1906) 421,166. Area
2270 sq. m. It is bounded N. by the departments of Lozère and
Ardèche, E. by the Rhone, which separates it from Vaucluse and
Bouches-du-Rhône, S. by the Mediterranean, S.W. by Hérault
and W. by Aveyron. Gard is divided into three sharply-defined
regions. Its north-western districts are occupied by the range of
the Cévennes, which on the frontier of Lozère attain a height of
5120 ft. The whole of this region is celebrated for its fruitful
valleys, its gorges, its beautiful streams, its pastures, and the
chestnut, mulberry and other fruit trees with which the
mountains are often clothed to their summits. The Garrigues,
a dry, hilly region of limestone, which lends itself to the cultivation
of cereals, the vine and olive, stretches from the foot of the
Cévennes over the centre of the department, covering about half
its area. The southern portion, which extends to the sea, and was
probably at one time covered by it, is a low plain with numerous
lakes and marshes. Though unhealthy, it is prosperous, and
comprises the best arable land and vineyards in Gard.
Besides the Rhone, which bounds the department on the E., and the Ardèche, the lower course of which forms part of its boundary on the N., the principal rivers are the Cèze, Gard, Vidourle and Hérault. The most northern of these is the Cèze, which rises in the Cévennes, and after a course of about 50 m. in an E.S.E. direction falls into the Rhone above Roquemaure. The Gard, or Gardon, from which the department takes its name, is also an affluent of the Rhone, and, rising in the Cévennes from several sources, traverses the centre of the department, having a length of about 60 m. In the upper part of its course it flows through a succession of deep mountain gorges, and from the melting of the snows on the Cévennes is subject to inundations, which often cause great damage. Its waters not infrequently rise 18 or 20 ft. in a few hours, and its bed is sometimes increased in width to nearly a mile. Near Remoulins it is crossed by a celebrated Roman aqueduct—the Pont du Gard (see Aqueduct). The Vidourle flows in a S.S.E. direction from its source near Le Vigan, and after a course of about 50 m. falls into the sea. Below Sommières it forms the western boundary of the department. The Hérault has its source and part of its course in the west of Gard. The Canal de Beaucaire extends from the Rhone at Beaucaire to Aigues-Mortes, which communicates with the Mediterranean at Grau-du-Roi by means of the Grand-Roubine canal.
The climate is warm in the south-east, colder in the north-west; it is rather changeable, and rain-storms are common. The cold and violent north-west wind known as the mistral is its worst drawback. Les Fumades (near Allègre) and Euzet have mineral springs. The chief grain crops are wheat and oats. Rye, barley and potatoes are also grown. Gard is famed for its cattle, its breed of small horses, and its sheep, the wool of which is of a very fine quality. In the rearing of silk-worms it ranks first among French departments. The principal fruit trees are the olive, mulberry and chestnut. The vine is extensively cultivated and yields excellent red and white wines. The department is rich in minerals, and the mines of coal, iron, lignite, asphalt, zinc, lead and copper, which are for the most part situated in the neighbourhoods of Alais and La Grand’-Combe, constitute one of the chief sources of its wealth. Great quantities of salt are obtained from the salt marshes along the coast. The quarries of building and other stone employ a considerable number of workmen. The fisheries are productive. The manufactures are extensive, and include those of silk, of which Alais is the chief centre, cotton and woollen fabrics, hosiery, ironware, hats (Anduze), liquorice, gloves, paper, leather, earthenware and glass. There are also breweries and distilleries, and important metallurgical works, the chief of which are those of Bessèges. The exports of Gard include coal, lignite, coke, asphalt, building-stone, iron, steel, silk, hosiery, wine, olives, grapes and truffles.
The department is served by the Paris-Lyon railway. It is divided into the arrondissements of Nîmes, Alais, Uzès and Le Vigan, with 40 cantons and 351 communes. The chief town is Nîmes, which is the seat of a bishopric of the province of Avignon and of a court of appeal. Gard belongs to the 15th military region, which has its headquarters at Marseilles, and to the académie (educational division) of Montpellier. Nîmes, Alais, Uzès, Aigues-Mortes, Beaucaire, Saint-Gilles, Bessèges, La Grand’-Combe and Villeneuve-lès-Avignon are the principal places. Opposite the manufacturing town of Pont-St-Esprit the Rhone is crossed by a fine medieval bridge more than 1000 yds. long built by the Pontiff brethren. Le Vigan, an ancient town with several old houses, carries on silk-spinning.
GARDA, LAKE OF (the Lacus Benacus of the Romans), the
most easterly and the most extensive of the great Lombard
lakes, being only surpassed in the Alpine region by those of
Geneva and Constance. Save the extreme northern extremity
(Riva, which was secured from Venice by Tirol in 1517), the
whole lake is Italian, being divided between the provinces of
Verona and Brescia. Its broad basin orographically represents
the southern portion of the valley of the Adige, though that river
now flows through a narrow trench which is separated from the
lake by the long narrow ridge of the Monte Baldo (7277 ft.).
Nowadays the lake is fed by the Sarca, that flows in at its north
end from the glaciers of the Adamello, while at the southern
extremity of the lake the Mincio flows out, on its way to join the
Po. The area of the lake is about 143 sq. m., its length is 3214 m.,
its greatest breadth is about 10 m., the height of its surface above
sea-level is 216 ft. and the greatest depth yet measured is 1916 ft.
Its upper or northern end is narrow, but between Garda (E.) and
Salò (W.) the lake expands gradually into a nearly circular basin,
which at the southern extremity is divided into two parts by the
long low promontory of Sermione, that projects from the southern
shore between Peschiera and Desenzano. Owing to this conformation
the lake is much exposed to sudden and violent winds,
which Virgil alludes to in his well-known line (Georg. ii. line 160):
fluctibus et fremitu assurgens, Benace, marino. The most
dangerous of these winds is the Borea or Suer, that sweeps down
from the north as through a funnel. In the southern portion of
the lake the Vinessa, an E.S.E. wind, is most dreaded. The Ora
is a regular wind coming from the east which, on reaching the
