been successively rcpctent in Gettingen and teacher in the public schools of Dortmund (Westphalia) and Altdorf (Bavaria), he was, in 1793, appointed second professor of theology in the university of the last-named city, whence he was translated to a chair in Jena in 1804. At Altdorf he published (1791–93) a new edition, with introduction and notes, of Eichhorn’s Urgesr/ric/zte; this,was followed, two years afterwards, by a supplement entitled Nearer l'ersuch fiber the mosaisc/ze Scholy'ungsgeschichte. He was also the author of several original works which were charac- terized by much critical acumen, and which had consider- able influence on the course of German thought on theo- logical and biblical questions. From 1798 to 1811 he was editor of the Theologisches Journal, first conjointly with Il'anlein, Ammon, and Paulus, and afterwards unassisted.
He died at Jena, February 17, 1826.GABLONZ, the chief town of a circle in Bohemia, is situated in a hilly country on the river Neisse, about miles SE. of Reichenberg. It possesses a Catholic and a Protestant church, a city school, a hospital, and a fine new town-house. Its principal industry is the manufacture of glass, the export of which reaches an annual value of over 6 million guilders. It has also net and cloth factories. The population in 1869 was 6752.
GABOON RIVER, or Rio de Gabâo, called Olo' Mpongwe by the Mpongwe natives, and Aboka by the Fan, is, in reality, not a river but an estuary on the west coast of Africa. It lies immediately north of the equator, disem- boguing in 0° 21' 25" N. lat. and 9° 21' 23” \V. long. At the entrance, between Cape J oinville, or Santa Clara, on the N., and Cape Pangara, or Sandy Point, on the 8., it has a width of about 18 English miles. It maintains a breadth of about 7 miles for a distance of 40 miles inland, when it contracts into what is known more correctly as the lie Olambo, which is not more than 2 or 3 miles from bank to bank. Two rivers, the N komo or Como and the Mbokwa or Bokoe, discharge into the upper portion of the Rio Olambo, both taking their rise in the country of the Sierra dal Crystal. The former, which far exceeds the other in the length of its course, has its head waters, according to M. Genoyer (1862), in that part of the range which is known to the natives as Anenguenpala, or the “ “Tater—jug.” Mr Winwood Reade reached the rapids in 1862, and Mr It. B. N. Walker, one of the traders in the Gaboon, has ascended for about 30 miles up the river, which had still 2 fathoms of water. Captain Burton, who in 1870 sailed up the Mbokwa as far as Tippet Town or Mayyan, a little way beyond the confluence of the Londo, found it there “some 50 feet broad,” with a tidal rise of nearly 7 feet. There are a great number of other streams that fall into the Gaboon, but only two are worthy of special mention,—the Remboa, which, rising like the Nkomo and Mbokwa in the Sierra dal Crystal, enters the estuary at its south-east corner, and the Eko or Cohit, which is the largest of the right hand afiluents. Though the whole estuary is studded with islands, reefs, and shoals, none of the islands are of great extent except Coniquet, or King’s Isle, at the mouth of the Cohit, and Embeneh, or Parrot Island, in the middle of the channel.
The four principal tribes in the country of the Gaboon are the Mpongwa, the Fan, the Bakalai, and the Boulons. The first of these tribes, usually called Gabmw or Gabmzcsc by French writers, is distributed along both banks of the “river,” occupying the villages of Kringer, Quabcn, Louis, Libreville, and Glass on the right side, and those of George Town and Denis on the left. According to Captain Burton, they are now one of the most en llized of African tribes, dis laying a keen interest in trade, and great case and urbanity o manner. There are three grades or" quasl-castes among them—1st, those of pure blood, who re- JOIL'C- 1n the title of Ongwa Ntye or “sons of the soil”; 2d, the children of freemen by slaves; and, 3d, the slaves themselves. Marriage is by purchase, and polygamy is the rule, but the women hold a position of considerable social in fluence, and maintain a secret society of their own. The men are excellent makers of canoes, and, within the present generation, they have learned to build boats of considerable size after the European model. From childhood both sexes are habitual smokers of tobacco or hemp—the tobacco being imported from America, although it might be readily cultivated in the country. A baptismal rite, almost identical with the Christian ceremony, is administered to the new-born child. The language of the Mpongwa has been reduced to writing by the American mis- sionaries. As early as 1847 they published a grammar and vocabu- lary at New York; and in 1859 the American Bible Society brought out a Mpongwa translation of the books of Proverbs, Genesis, part of Exodus, and the Acts. The language belongs to the same family as the Sechwana, the Zulu, &c., and is characterized, says Captain Burton, by inllexion, by systematic prefixes, a complex alliteration, and the almost unparalleled flexibility of the verb, which can be modified in several hundred different wa 's. M. Catteloup describes it as “ riche, criard, image, et complique.” It has been adopted by the Pahouins, the Bakalai, and the Boulous as a kind of connncrcial lz'ngszrmzca, and bids fair to become the dominant language of the coast, if it does not give way before English or French, which have both become familiar in a corrupted form to a large number of the maritime population.
The Fan, whose name appears under the various forms of Fanwe, I’anwe, Phaouin, and Paonen, are new comers to the Gaboon district, having, it is said, appeared there for the first time in 1842. They are described as of mean height, chocolate complexion, and remarkably regular features. Their reputation as cannibals is evi- dently well founded; but they seem to partake of human flesh rather as a ceremonial observance than as an ordinary means of nourish- ment, and both Winwood Reade and Captain Burton speak in favourable terms of their general characteristics. They are skilful workers in iron, and manufacture cross-bows which discharge poisoned darts 40 or 50 yards. Tattooing is practised by both sexes, and the women often stain the whole body red or yellow. The tribe has come very little into contact with Europeans, but it is moving towards the coast, and will probably before long be the dominant race in the Gaboon.
The Gaboon was early visited by the Portuguese explorers, and it became one of the chief seats of the slave trade. It was not, how- ever, till well on in the present century that Europeans made any more permanent settlement than was absolutely necessary for the maintenance of their commerce. In 1839 Captain Bouet of the “ Malouine " obtained for France the right of residence on the left bank, and in 1842 he secured better positions at Louis and Quabcn on the right bank. The chief establishment, called Le Plateau, at Libreville, was founded in 1845, and gradually acquired consider- able importance. In 1867 thc troops numbered about 1000, and the civil population about 5000, while the official reports about the same date claimed for the whole colony an area of 8000 square miles, and a population of 186,000. A large building with arcades at Libre- ville served as Government house, and there were pretty extensive warehouses, a hospital, and a small dockyard, as well as gardens, and a nursery for coffee plants and fruit trees. At some little distance off a convent was founded in 1844 by Mgr. Bessieux. In consequence of the war with Germany the colony was practically abandoned in 1871, and the establishment at Libreville is now maintained only as a coaling depot. There are numerous English trading ports along the shores of the estuary, as at Glass Town and Olemi; and even when the French influence was at its glcatest almost the whole commerce of the Gaboon was in English hands. The chief articles of export are ivory and beeswax; to which may be added caoutchouc, ebony, and camwood. Mission stations are maintained by French, English, American, German, and Portuguese societies.
See Bowditch, Mission from Cape Coast Castle zo Ashanlee, &c.. 1819; Boner- Willaumez, Descr. nautiquea des tales de I'Afriquc Occidentale, 184G; Pigeard “Rapport addl'cssé a M. Montagnies dc la Rogue,“ in Ammles maritimes, 1847; J. L. Wilson. ll’eslern Africa, 1856; Winwood Reade. Savage Africa, 1863; Annales des Voyages, 1866; Du Chaillu, Journey to Aslmngolaml. 1867; " Notice (1‘unc Came." in Bull. de la soc. geog. 1869; Cattelonp, in Revue maritime et coloniale, 1874; Burton, Two Trips to Gorilla Land, 1876; Coello'smap in Boletin de (a soc. geogr. de Madrid, 1878.
name of the heavenly messenger (see Angel) who was sent to Daniel to explain the vision of the ram and the he-goat, and to communicate the prediction of the Seventy Weeks (Dan. viii. 16 ; ix. 21). He was also employed to announce the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah, and that of the Messiah to the Virgin Mary (Luke i. 19, 26). Both Jewish and Christian writers generally speak of him as an archangel—a habit which is readily accounted for when Luke i. 19 is compared with Rev. viii. 2, and also w1th Tobit xii. 15. In the apocryphal Book of Enoch (c. ix.) he
is spoken of as one of “ the four great archangels,” Michael,
