1895, when he was captured by a Portuguese force and exiled, first to Lisbon and afterwards to Angola, where he died in 1906. With the capture of Gungunyana opposition to Portuguese rule largely ceased.
In flora, fauna and commerce Gazaland resembles the neighbouring regions of Portuguese East Africa. (q.v.).
See G. McCall Theal, History of South Africa since 1795, vol. v. (London, 1908).
GAZEBO (usually explained as a comic Latinism, for “I will
gaze”; the New English Dictionary suggests a possible oriental
origin now lost), a term used in the 18th century for a structure
on the outer wall of a garden, having an upper storey with
windows on each side so as to overlook the road. Similar buildings
are found in Holland on the borders of the canals, which in
some cases form very picturesque features.
GAZETTE, a name given to news-sheets or newspapers having
an abstract of current events (see Newspapers). The London
Gazette is the title of the English official organ for announcements
by the government, and is published every Tuesday and Friday.
It contains all proclamations, orders of council, promotions and
appointments to commissions in the army and navy, all appointments
to offices of state, and such other orders, rules and regulations
as are directed by act of parliament to be published therein.
It also contains notices of proceedings in bankruptcy, dissolutions
of partnership, &c. By the Documentary Evidence Act 1868 the
production of a copy of the Gazette is prima facie evidence of royal
proclamations and government orders and regulations. Similar
gazettes are also published in Edinburgh and Dublin. Most
countries (the United States excepted) have official journals
containing information more or less similar to that of the London
Gazette, as the French Journal officiel, the German Deutscher
Reichs-und Kgl. Preuss. Staats-Anzeiger, &c. The word “gazetteer”
was originally applied to one who wrote for “gazettes,”
but is now only used for a geographical dictionary arranged on an alphabetical plan.
GEAR (connected with “garb,” properly elegance, fashion,
especially of dress, and with “gar,” to cause to do, only found in
Scottish and northern dialects; the root of the word is seen in the
Old Teut. garwjan, to make ready), an outfit, applied to the
wearing apparel of a person, or to the harness and trappings of a
horse or any draft animal, as riding-gear, hunting-gear, &c.;
also to household goods or stuff. The phrase “out of gear,”
though now connected with the mechanical application of the
word, was originally used to signify “out of harness” or condition,
not ready to work, not fit. The word is also used of
apparatus generally, and especially of the parts collectively in a
machine by which motion is transmitted from one part to another
by a series of cog-wheels, continuous bands, &c. It is used in a
special sense in reference to a bicycle, meaning the diameter of an
imaginary wheel, the circumference of which is equal to the
distance accomplished by one revolution of the pedals (see
Bicycle).
GEBER. The name Geber has long been used to designate the
author of a number of Latin treatises on alchemy, entitled Summa
perfectionis magisterii, De investigatione perfectionis, De inventione
veritatis, Liber fornacum, Testamentum Geberi Regis Indiae and
Alchemia Geberi, and these writings were generally regarded as
translations from the Arabic originals of Abu Abdallah Jaber
ben Hayyam (Haiyan) ben Abdallah al-Kufi, who is supposed to
have lived in the 8th or 9th century of the Christian era. About
him, however, there is considerable uncertainty. According to the
Kitāb-al-Fihrist (10th century), which gives his name as above,
the authorities disagree, some asserting him to have been a writer
on philosophy and rhetoric, and others claiming for him the first
place among the adepts of his time in the art of making gold and
silver. The writer of the Kitāb-al-Fihrist says he had been
assured that Jaber only wrote one book and even that he never
existed at all, but these statements he scouts as ridiculous, and
expressing the conviction that Jaber really did exist, and that his
works were numerous and important, goes on to quote the titles
of some 500 treatises attributed to him. He is said to have resided
most frequently at Kufa, where he prepared the “elixir,” but,
according to others, he never spent long in one place, having
reason to keep his whereabouts unknown. His patron or master
is variously given as Ja’far ben Yahya, and as Ja’far es-Sadiq;
in the Arabic Book of Royalty, professedly written by him, he
addresses the last-named as his master. In addition to these
details the Fihrist mentions a tradition that he originally came
from Khorasan. Another story given by d’Herbelot (Bibliothèque
orientale, s.v. “Giaber”) makes him a native of Harran
in Mesopotamia and a Sabaean. Leo Africanus, who in 1526
gave an account of the Alchemists of Fez in Africa (see the
English translation of his Africae descriptio by John Pory, A
Geographical History of Africa, London, 1600, p. 155), states that
their principal authority was Geber, a Greek who had apostatized
to Mahommedanism and lived a century after Mahomet. In
Albertus Magnus the name Geber occurs only once and then with
the epithet “of Seville”; doubtless the reference is to the
Arabian Jabir ben Aflah, who lived in that city in the 11th
century, and wrote an astronomy in 9 books which is of importance
in the history of trigonometry.
The great puzzle connected with the name Geber lies in the character of the writings attributed to him, their style and matter differentiating them strongly from those of even the best authors of the later alchemical period, and making it difficult to account for their existence at all. The researches of M. P. E. Berthelot threw a great deal of light on this question. Taking the six treatises enumerated above he concluded, after critical examination, that the two last may be disregarded as of later date than the others, and that the De investigatione perfectionis, the De inventione and the Liber fornacum are merely extracts from or summaries of the Summa perfectionis with later additions. The Summa he therefore regarded as representative of the work of the Latin Geber, and study of it convinced him that it contains no indication of an Arabic origin, either in its method, which is conspicuous for clearness of reasoning and logical co-ordination of material, or in its facts, or in the words and persons quoted. Without going so far as to deny that some words and phrases may be taken from the writings of the Arabian Jaber, he was disposed to hold that it is the original work of some unknown Latin author, who wrote it in the second half of the 13th century and put it under the patronage of the venerated name of Geber. The MS. of this work in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris dates from about the year 1300. Berthelot further investigated Arabic MSS. existing in the Paris library and in the university of Leiden, and containing works attributed to Jaber, and had translations made of six treatises—two, of which he gives the titles as Livre de la royauté and Petit Livre de la miséricorde,—from Paris, and four—Livre des balances, Livre de la miséricorde, Livre de la concentration and Livre de la mercure orientale—from Leiden. Berthelot was not prepared to assert that these treatises were actually written by Jaber, but he held it certain that they are works written in Arabic between the 9th and 12th centuries, at a period anterior to the relations of the Latins with the Arabs. In style these treatises are entirely different from the Summa of Geber. Their language is vague and allegorical, full of allusions and pious Mussulman invocations; the author continually announces that he is about to speak without mystery or reserve, but all the same never gives any precise details of the secrets he professes to reveal. He holds the doctrine that everything endowed with an apparent quality possesses an opposite occult quality in much the same terms as it is found in Latin writers of the middle ages, but he makes no allusion to the theory of the generation of the metals by sulphur and mercury, a theory generally attributed to Geber, who also added arsenic to the list. Again he fully accepts the influence of the stars on the production of the metals, whereas the Latin Geber disputes it, and in general the chemical knowledge of the two is on a different plane. Here again the inference is that the Latin treatises printed from the 15th century onwards as the work of Geber are not authentic, regarded as translations of the Arabic author Jaber, always supposing that the Arabic MSS. transcribed and translated for Berthelot are really, as they profess to be, the work of Jaber, and as representative of his opinions and attainments.
