between the Gumti and the Gogra, whose confluences with the main stream mark its eastern and western limits respectively. The southern tract is a much smaller strip of country, enclosed between the Karamnasa and the great river itself. There are no hills in the district. A few lakes are scattered here and there, formed where the rivers have deserted their ancient channels. The largest is that of Suraha, once a northern bend of the Ganges, but now an almost isolated sheet of water, 5 m. long by about 4 broad. Ghazipur is said to be one of the hottest and dampest districts in the United Provinces. In 1901 the population was 913,818, showing a decrease of 11% in the decade. Sugar refining is the chief industry, and provides the principal article of export. The main line of the East Indian railway traverses the southern portion of the district, with a branch to the Ganges bank opposite Ghazipur town; the northern portion is served by the Bengal & North-Western system.

GHAZNI, a famous city in Afghanistan, the seat of an extensive empire under two medieval dynasties, and again of prominent interest in the modern history of British India. Ghazni stands on the high tableland of central Afghanistan, in 68° 18′ E. long., 33° 44′ N. lat., at a height of 7280 ft. above the sea, and on the direct road between Kandahar and Kabul, 221 m. by road N.E. from the former, and 92 m. S.W. from the latter. A very considerable trade in fruit, wool, skins, &c., is carried on between Ghazni and India by the Povindah kafilas, which yearly enter India in the late autumn and pass back again to the Afghan highlands in the early spring. The Povindah merchants invariably make use of the Gomal pass which leads to the British frontier at Dera Ismail Khan. The opening up of this pass and the British occupation of Wana, by offering protection to the merchants from Waziri blackmailing, largely increased the traffic.

Ghazni, as it now exists, is a place in decay, and probably does not contain more than 4000 inhabitants. It stands at the base of the terminal spur of a ridge of hills, an offshoot from the Gul-Koh, which forms the watershed between the Arghandáb, and Tarnak rivers. The castle stands at the northern angle of the town next the hills, and is about 150 ft. above the plain. The town walls stand on an elevation, partly artificial, and form an irregular square, close on a mile in circuit (including the castle), the walls being partly of stone or brick laid in mud, and partly of clay built in courses. They are flanked by numerous towers. There are three gates. The town consists of dirty and very irregular streets of houses several stories high, but with two straighter streets of more pretension, crossing near the middle of the town. Of the strategical importance of Ghazni there can hardly be a question. The view to the south is extensive, and the plain in the direction of Kandahar stretches to the horizon. It is bare except in the vicinity of the river, where villages and gardens are tolerably numerous. Abundant crops of wheat and barley are grown, as well as of madder, besides minor products. The climate is notoriously cold,snow lying 2 or 3 ft. deep for about three months, and tradition speaks of the city as having been more than once overwhelmed by snowdrift. Fuel is scarce, consisting chiefly of prickly shrubs. In summer the heat is not like that of Kandahar or Kabul, but the radiation from the bare heights renders the nights oppressive, and constant dust-storms occur. It is evident that the present restricted walls cannot have contained the vaunted city of Mahmud. Probably the existing site formed the citadel only of his city. The remarks of Ibn Batuta (c. 1332) already suggest the present state of things, viz. a small town occupied, a large space of ruin; for a considerable area to the N.E. is covered with ruins, or rather with a vast extent of shapeless mounds, which are pointed out as Old Ghazni. The only remains retaining architectural character are two remarkable towers rising to the height of about 140 ft., and some 400 yds. apart from each other. They are similar, but whether identical, in design, is not clearly recorded. They belong, on a smaller and far less elaborate scale, to the same class as the Kutb Minar at Delhi (q.v.). Arabic inscriptions in Cufic characters show the most northerly to have been the work of Mahmud himself, the

other that of his son Masa'ud. On the Kabul road, a mile beyond the Minaret of Mahmud, is a village called Rauzah (" the Garden," a term often applied to garden-mausoleums). Here, in a poor garden, stands the tomb of the famous conqueror. It is a prism of white marble standing on a plinth of the same, and bearing a Cufic inscription praying the mercy of God on the most noble Amir, the great king, the lord of church and state, Abul Kasim Mahmud, son of Sabuktagin. The tomb stands in a rude chamber, covered with a dome of clay, and hung with old shawls, ostrich eggs, tiger-skins and so forth. The village stands among luxuriant gardens and orchards, watered by a copious aqueduct. Sultan Baber celebrates the excellence of the grapes of Rauzah.

There are many holy shrines about Ghazni surrounded by orchards and vineyards. Baber speaks of them, and tells how he detected and put a stop to the imposture of a pretended miracle at one of them.. These sanctuaries make Ghazni a place of Moslem pilgrimage, and it is said that at Constantinople much respect is paid to those who have worshipped at the tomb of the great Ghazi. To test the genuineness of the boast, professed pilgrims are called on to describe the chief notabilia of the place, and are expected to name all those detailed in certain current Persian verses.

History. The city is not mentioned by any narrator of Alexander's expedition, nor by any ancient author so as to admit of positive recognition. But it is very possibly the Gazaca which Ptolemy places among the Paropamisadae, and this may not be inconsistent with Sir H. Rawlinson's identification of it with Gazos, an Indian city spoken of by two obscure Greek poets as an impregnable place of war. The name is probably connected with the Persian and Sanskrit ganj and ganja, a treasury (whence the Greek and Latin Gaza). We seem to have positive evidence of the existence of the city before the Mahommedan times (644) in the travels of the Chinese pilgrim, Hsuan Tsang, who speaks of Ho-si-na (i.e. probably Ghazni) as one of the capitals of Tsaukuta or Arachosia, a place of great strength. In early Mahommedan times the country adjoining Ghazni was called Zabul. When the Mahommedans first invaded that region Ghazni was a wealthy entrepot of the Indian trade. Of the extent of this trade some idea is given by Ibn Haukal, who states that at Kabul, then a mart of the same trade, there was sold yearly indigo to the value of two million dinars (£1,000,000). The enterprise of Islam underwent several ebbs and flows over this region. The provinces on the Helmund and about Ghazni were invaded as early as the caliphate of Moaiya (662-680). The arms of Yaqub b. Laith swept over Kabul and Arachosia (Al-Rukhaj) about 871, and the people of the latter country were forcibly converted. Though the Hindu dynasty of Kabul held a part of the valley of Kabul river till the time of Mahmud, it is probably to the period just mentioned that we must refer the permanent Mahommedan occupation of Ghazni. Indeed, the building of the fort and city is ascribed by a Mahommedan historian to Amr b. Laith, the brother and successor of Ya'kub (d. 901), though the facts already stated discredit this. In the latter part of the 9th century the family of the Samanid, sprung from Samarkand, reigned in splendour at Bokhara. Alptagin, originally a Turkish slave, and high in the service of the dynasty, about the middle of the 10th century, losing the favour of the court, wrested Ghazni from its chief (who is styled Abu Bakr Lawik, wali of Ghazni), and established himself there. His government was recognized from Bokhara, and held till his death. In 977 another Turk slave, Sabuktagin, who had married the daughter of his master Alptagin, obtained rule in Ghazni. He made himself lord of nearly all the present territory of Afghanistan and of the Punjab. In 997 Mahmud, son of Sabuktagin, succeeded to the government, and with his name Ghazni and the Ghaznevid dynasty have beome perpetually associated. Issuing forth year after year from that capital, Mahmud (q.v.) carried fully seventeen expeditions of devastation through northern India and Gujarat, as well as others to the north and west. From the borders of Kurdistan to Samarkand, from the Caspian to the Ganges, his authority was acknowledged.

Ibn Batuta (c. 1332) says the greater part of the city was in ruins, and only a small part continued to be a town. Timur seems never to have visited Ghazni, but we find him in 1401 bestowing the government of Kabul, Kandahar, and Ghazni on Pir Mahommed, the son of his son Jahangir. In the end of the century it was still in the hands of a descendant of Timur, Ulugh Beg Mirza, who was king of Kabul and Ghazni. The illustrious nephew of this prince, Baber, got peaceful possession of both cities in 1504, and has left notes on both in his own inimitable Memoirs. His account of Ghazni indicates how far it had now fallen. "It is," he says, "but a poor mean place, and I have always wondered how its princes, who possessed also Hindustan and Khorasan, could have chosen such a wretched country for the seat of their government, in preference to Khorasan." He commends the fruit of its gardens, which still contribute largely to the markets of Kabul. Ghazni remained in the hands of Baber's descendants, reigning at Delhi and Agra, till the invasion of Nadir Shah (1738), and became after Nadir's death a part of the new kingdom of the Afghans under Ahmad Shah Durani. We know of but two modern travellers who have recorded visits to the place previous to the war of 1839. George Forster passed as a disguised traveller with a qafila in 1783. "Its slender existence," he says, "is now maintained by some Hindu families, who support a small traffic, and supply the wants of the few Mahommedan residents." Vigne visited it in 1836, having reached it from Multan with a caravan of Lohani merchants, travelling by the Gomal pass. The historical name of Ghazni was brought back from the dead, as it were, by the news of its capture by the British army under Sir John Keane, 23rd July 1839. The siege artillery had been left behind at Kandahar; escalade was judged impracticable; but the project of the commanding engineer, Captain George Thomson, for blowing in the Kabul gate with powder in bags, was adopted, and carried out successfully, at the cost of 182 killed and wounded. Two years and a half later the Afghan outbreak against the British occupation found Ghazni garrisoned by a Bengal regiment of sepoys, but neither repaired nor provisioned. They held out under great hardships from the 16th of December 1841 to the 6th of March 1842, when they surrendered. In the autumn of the same year General Nott, advancing from Kandahar upon Kabul, reoccupied Ghazni, destroyed the defences of the castle and part of the town, and carried away the famous gates of Somnath (q.v.).

The wealth brought back to Ghazni was enormous, and contemporary historians give glowing descriptions of the magnificence of the capital, as well as of the conqueror's munificent support of literature. Mahmud died in 1030, and some fourteen kings of his house came after him; but though there was some revival of importance under Ibrahim (1059–1099), the empire never reached anything like the same splendour and power. It was overshadowed by the Seljuks of Persia, and by the rising rivalry of Ghor (q.v.), the hostility of which it had repeatedly provoked. Bahram Shah (1118-1152) put to death Kutbuddin, one of the princes of Ghor, called king of the Jibal or Hill country, who had withdrawn to Ghazni. This prince's brother, Saifuddin Suri, came to take vengeance, and drove out Bahram. But the latter recapturing the place (1149) paraded Saifuddin and his vizier ignominiously about the city, and then hanged them on the bridge. Ala-uddin of Ghor, younger brother of the two slain princes, then gathered a great host, and came against Bahram, who met him on the Helmund. The Ghori prince, after repeated victories, stormed Ghazni, and gave it over to fire and sword. The dead kings of the house of Mahmud, except the conqueror himself and two others, were torn from their graves and burnt, whilst the bodies of the princes of Ghor were solemnly disinterred and carried to the distant tombs of their ancestors. It seems certain that Ghazni never recovered the splendour that perished then (1152). Ala-uddin, who from this deed became known in history as Jahān-soz (Brûlemonde), returned to Ghor, and Bahram reoccupied Ghazni; he died in 1157. In the time of his son Khusru Shah, Ghazni was taken by the Turkish tribes called Ghuzz (generally believed to have been what are now called Turkomans). The king fled to Lahore, and the dynasty ended with his son. In 1173 the Ghuzz were expelled by Ghiyasuddin sultan of Ghor (nephew of Ala-uddin Jahansoz), who made Ghazni over to his brother Muizuddin. This famous prince, whom the later historians call Mahommed Ghori, shortly afterwards (1174-1175) invaded India, taking Multan and Uchh. This was the first of many successive inroads on western and northern India, in one of which Lahore was wrested from Khusru Malik, the last of Mahmud's house, who died a captive in the hills of Ghor. In 1192 Prithvi Rai or Pithora (as the Moslem writers call him), the Chauhan king of Ajmere, being defeated and slain near Thanewar, the whole country from the Himalaya to Ajmere became subject to the Ghori king of Ghazni. On the death of his brother Ghiyasuddin, with whose power he had been constantly associated, and of whose conquests he had been the chief instrument, Muizuddin became sole sovereign over Ghor and Ghazni, and the latter place was then again for a brief period the seat of an empire nearly as extensive as that of Mahmud the son of Sabuktagin. Muizuddin crossed the Indus once more to put down a rebellion of the Khokhars in the Punjab, and on his way back was murdered by a band of them, or, as some say, by one of the Mulahidah or Assassins. The slave lieutenants of Muizuddin carried on the conquest of India, and as the rapidly succeeding events broke their dependence on any master, they established at Delhi that monarchy of which, after it had endured through many dynasties, and had culminated with the Mogul house of Baber, the shadow perished in 1857. The death of Muizuddin was followed by struggle and anarchy, ending for a time in the annexation of Ghazni to the empire of Khwarizm by Mahommed Shah, who conferred it on his famous son, Jelaluddin, and Ghazni became the headquarters of the latter. After Jenghiz Khan had extinguished the power of his family in Turkestan, Jelaluddin defeated the army sent against him by the Mongol at Parwan, north of Kabul. Jenghiz then advanced and drove Jelaluddin across the Indus, after which he sent Ogdai his son to besiege Ghazni. Henceforward Ghazni is much less prominent in Asiatic history. It continued subject to the Mongols, sometimes to the house of Hulagu in Persia, and sometimes to that of Jagatai in Turkestan. In 1326, after a battle between Amir Hosain, the viceroy of the former house in Khorasan, and Tarmashirin, the reigning khan of Jagatai, the former entered Ghazni and once more subjected it to devastation, and this time the tomb of Mahmud to desecration.

GHEE (Hindostani ghi), a kind of clarified butter made in the East. The best is prepared from butter of the milk of cows, the less esteemed from that of buffaloes. The butter is melted over a slow fire, and set aside to cool; the thick, opaque, whitish, and more fluid portion, or ghee, representing the greater bulk of the butter, is then removed. The less liquid residue, mixed with ground-nut oil, is sold as an inferior kind of ghee. It may be obtained also by boiling butter over a clear fire, skimming it the while, and, when all the water has evaporated, straining it through a cloth. Ghee which is rancid or tainted, as is often that of the Indian bazaars, is said to be rendered sweet by boiling with leaves of the Moringa plerygosperma or horse-radish tree. In India ghee is one of the commonest articles of diet, and indeed enters into the composition of everything eaten by the Brahmans. It is also extensively used in Indian religious ceremonies, being offered as a sacrifice to idols, which are at times bathed in it. Sanskrit treatises on therapeutics describe ghee as cooling, emollient and stomachic, as capable of increasing the mental powers, and of improving the voice and personal appearance, and as useful in eye-diseases, tympanitis, painful dyspepsia, wounds, ulcers and other affections. Old ghee is in special repute among the Hindus as a medicinal agent, and its efficacy as an external application is believed by them to increase with its age. Ghee more than ten years old, the purana ghrita of Sanskrit materia medicas, has a strong odour and the colour of lac. Some specimens which have been much longer preserved→ and "clarified butter a hundred years old is often heard of ”— have an earthy look, and are quite dry and hard, and nearly inodorous. Medicated ghee is made by warming ordinary ghee

to remove contained water, melting, after the addition of a little turmeric juice, in a metal pan at a gentle heat, and then boiling with the prepared drugs till all moisture is expelled, and straining through a cloth.

GHEEL, or GEEL, a town of Belgium, about 30 m. E. of Antwerp and in the same province. Pop. (1904) 14,087. It is remarkable on account of the colony of insane persons which has existed there for many centuries. The legend reads that in the year 600 Dymphna, an Irish princess, was executed here by her father, and in consequence of certain miracles she had effected she was canonized and made the patron saint of the insane. The old Gothic church is dedicated to her, and in the choir is a shrine, enclosing her relics, with fine panel paintings representing incidents in her life by, probably, a contemporary of Memling. The colony of the insane is established in the farms and houses round the little place within a circumference of 30 m. and is said to have existed since the 13th century. This area is divided into four sections, each having a doctor and a superintendent attached to it. The Gheel system is regarded as the most humane method of dealing with the insane who have no homicidal tendencies, as it keeps up as long as possible their interest in life.

GHENT (Flem. Gent, Fr. Gand), the capital of East Flanders, Belgium, at the junction of the Scheldt and the Lys (Ley): Pop. (1880) 131,431, (1904) 162,482. The city is divided by the rivers (including the small streams Lieve and Moere) and by canals, some navigable, into numerous islands connected by over 200 bridges of various sorts. Within the limits of the town, which is 6 m. in circumference, are many gardens, meadows and promenades; and, though its characteristic lanes are gloomy and narrow, there are also broad new streets and fine quays and docks. The most conspicuous building in the city is the cathedral of St Bavon1 (Sint Baafs), the rich interior of which contrasts strongly with its somewhat heavy exterior. Its crypt dates from 941, the choir from 1274-1300, the Late Gothic choir chapels from the 15th century, and the nave and transept from 1533-1554. Among the treasures of the church is the famous Worship of the Lamb" by Hubert and Jan van Eyck. Of the original 12 panels, taken to France during the Revolutionary Wars, only 4 are now here, 6 being in the Berlin museum and two in that of Brussels. Among the other 55 churches may be mentioned that of St Nicholas, an Early Gothic building, the oldest church in date of foundation in Ghent, and that of St Michael, completed in 1480, with an unfinished tower. In the centre of the city stands the unfinished Belfry (Beffroi), a square tower some 300 ft. high, built 1183-1339. It has a cast-iron steeple (restored in 1854), on the top of which is a gold dragon which, according to tradition, was brought from Constantinople either by the Varangians or by the emperor Baldwin after the Latin conquest. Close to it is the former Cloth-hall, a Gothic building of 1325. The hôtel-de-ville consists of two distinct parts. The northern façade, a magnificent example of Flamboyant Gothic, was erected between 1518 and 1533, restored in 1829 and again some fifty years later. The eastern façade overlooking the market-place was built in 1595-1628, in the Renaissance style, with three tiers of columns. It contains a valuable collection of archives, from the 13th century onwards. On the left bank of the Lys is the Oudeburg (s'Gravenstein, Château des Contes), the former castle of the first counts of Flanders, dating from 1180 and now restored. The château of the later counts, in which the emperor Charles V. was born, is commemorated only in the name of a street, the Cours des Princes.

To the north of the Oudeburg, on the other side of the Lys, is the Marché du Vendredi, the principal square of the city. This was the centre of the life of the medieval city, the scene of all great public functions, such as the homage of the burghers to

1 Bavo, or Allowin (c. 589-c. 653), patron saint of Ghent, was a nobleman converted by St Amandus, the apostle of Flanders. He lived first as an anchorite in the forest of Mendonk, and afterwards in the monastery founded with his assistance by Amandus at Ghent.

the counts, and of the auto-da-fés under the Spanish regime. In it stands a bronze statue of Jacob van Artevelde, by DevigneQuyo, erected in 1863. At a corner of the square is a remarkable cannon, known as Dulle Griete (Mad Meg), 19 ft. long and 11 ft. in circumference. It is ornamented with the arms of Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, and must have been cast between 1419 and 1467. On the Scheldt, near the Place Laurent, is the Geerard-duivelsteen (château of Gerard the Devil), a 13th-century tower formerly belonging to one of the patrician families, now restored and used as the office of the provincial records. Of modern buildings may be mentioned the University (1826), the Palais de Justice (1844), and the new theatre (1848), all designed by Roelandt, and the Institut des Sciences (1890) by A. Pauli. In the park on the site of the citadel erected by Charles V. are some ruins of the ancient abbey of St Bavon and of a 12th-century octagonal chapel dedicated to St Macharius. In the park is also situated the Museum of Fine Arts, completed in 1902.

One of the most interesting institutions of Ghent is the great Béguinage (Begynhof) which, originally established in 1234 by the Bruges gate, was transferred in 1874 to the suburb of St Amandsberg. It constitutes a little town of itself, surrounded by walls and a moat, and contains numerous small houses, 18 convents and a church. It is occupied by some 700 Beguines, women devoted to good works (see BEGUINES). Near the station is a second Béguinage with 400 inmates. In addition to these there were in Ghent in 1901 fifty religious houses of various orders. As a manufacturing centre Ghent, though not so conspicuous as it was in the middle ages, is of considerable importance. The main industries are cotton-spinning, flax-spinning, cottonprinting, tanning and sugar refining; in addition to which there are iron and copper foundries, machine-building works, breweries and factories of soap, paper, tobacco, &c. As a trading centre the city is even more important. It has direct communication with the sea by a ship-canal, greatly enlarged and deepened since 1895, which connects the Grand Basin, stretching along the north side of the city, with a spacious harbour excavated at Terneuzen on the Scheldt, 21 m. to the north, thus making Ghent practically a sea-port; while a second canal, from the Lys, connects the city via Bruges with Ostende.

Among the educational establishments is the State University, founded by King William I. of the Netherlands in 1816. With it are connected a school of engineering, a school of arts and industries and the famous library (about 300,000 printed volumes and 2000 MSS.) formerly belonging to the city. In addition there are training schools for teachers, an episcopal seminary, a conservatoire and an art academy with a fine collection of pictures mainly taken from the religious houses of the city on their suppression in 1795. The oldest Belgian newspaper, the Gazet van Gent, was founded here in 1667.

History. The history of the city is closely associated with that of the countship of Flanders (q.v.), of which it was the seat. It is mentioned so early as the 7th century and in 868 Baldwin of the Iron Arm, first count of Flanders, who had been entrusted by Charles the Bald with the defence of the northern marches, built a castle here against the Normans raiding up the Scheldt. This was captured in 949 by the emperor Otto I. and was occupied by an imperial burgrave for some fifty years, after which it was retaken by the counts of Flanders. Under their protection, and favoured by its site, the city rapidly grew in wealth and population, the zenith of its power and prosperity being reached between the 13th and 15th centuries, when it was the emporium of the trade of Germany and the Low Countries, the centre of a great cloth industry, and could put some 20,000 armed citizens into the field. The wealth of the burghers during this period was equalled by their turbulent spirit of independence; feuds were frequent,-against the rival city of Bruges, against the counts, or, within the city itself, between the plebeian crafts and the patrician governing class. Of these risings the most notable was that, in the earlier half of the 14th century, against Louis de Crécy, count of Flanders, under the leadership of Jacob van Artevelde (q.v.).