of Gladstone’s famous letters to Lord Aberdeen he was obliged to leave Naples. He first settled in Edinburgh, where he married Maria Carmichael, and then in London where he made numerous friends in literary and political circles, and was professor of Italian at Queen’s College from 1853 to 1856. In the latter year he accompanied Lord Minto to Italy, on which occasion he first met Cavour. From 1857 to 1863 he was private secretary (non-political) to Lord Lansdowne, and in 1858 he accompanied Gladstone to the Ionian Islands as secretary, for which services he was made a K.C.M.G. the following year. In 1860 Francis II. of Naples had implored Napoleon III. to send a squadron to prevent Garibaldi from crossing over from Sicily to Calabria; the emperor expressed himself willing to do so provided Great Britain co-operated, and Lord John Russell was at first inclined to agree. At this juncture Cavour, having heard of the scheme, entrusted Lacaita, at the suggestion of Sir James Hudson, the British minister at Turin, with the task of inducing Russell to refuse co-operation. Lacaita, who was an intimate friend both of Russell and his wife, succeeded, with the help of the latter, in winning over the British statesman just as he was about to accept the Franco-Neapolitan proposal, which was in consequence abandoned. He returned to Naples late in 1860 and the following year was elected member of parliament for Bitonto, although he had been naturalized a British subject in 1855. He took little part in parliamentary politics, but in 1876 was created senator. He was actively interested in a number of English companies operating in Italy, and was made one of the directors of the Italian Southern Railway Co. He had a wide circle of friends in many European countries and in America, including a number of the most famous men in politics and literature. He died in 1895 at Posilipo near Naples.
An authority on Dante, he gave many lectures on Italian literature and history while in England; and among his writings may be mentioned a large number of articles on Italian subjects in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1857–1860), and an edition of Benvenuto da Imola’s Latin lectures on Dante delivered in 1375; he co-operated with Lord Vernon in the latter’s great edition of Dante’s Inferno (London, 1858–1865), and he compiled a catalogue in four volumes of the duke of Devonshire’s library at Chatsworth (London, 1879).
LA CALLE, a seaport of Algeria, in the arrondissement of
Bona, department of Constantine, 56 m. by rail E. of Bona and 10
m. W. of the Tunisian frontier. It is the centre of the Algerian
and Tunisian coral fisheries and has an extensive industry in
the curing of sardines; but the harbour is small and exposed
to the N.E. and W. winds. The old fortified town, now almost
abandoned, is built on a rocky peninsula about 400 yds. long,
connected with the mainland by a bank of sand. Since the
occupation of La Calle by the French in 1836 a new town has
grown up along the coast. Pop. (1906) of the town, 2774; of the
commune, 4612.
La Calle from the times of its earliest records in the 10th century has been the residence of coral merchants. In the 16th century exclusive privileges of fishing for coral were granted by the dey of Algiers to the French, who first established themselves on a bay to the westward of La Calle, naming their settlement Bastion de France; many ruins still exist of this town. In 1677 they moved their headquarters to La Calle. The company—Compagnie d’Afrique—who owned the concession for the fishery was suppressed in 1798 on the outbreak of war between France and Algeria. In 1806 the British consul-general at Algiers obtained the right to occupy Bona and La Calle for an annual rent of £11,000; but though the money was paid for several years no practical effect was given to the agreement. The French regained possession in 1817, were expelled during the wars of 1827, when La Calle was burnt, but returned and rebuilt the place in 1836. The boats engaged in the fishery were mainly Italian, but the imposition, during the last quarter of the 19th century, of heavy taxes on all save French boats drove the foreign vessels away. For some years the industry was abandoned, but was restarted on a small scale in 1903.
See Abbé Poiret, Voyage en Barbarie . . . (Paris, 1789); E. Broughton, Six Years’ Residence in Algiers (London, 1839) and Sir R. L. Playfair, Travels in the Footsteps of Bruce (London, 1877).
LA CALPRENÈDE, GAUTHIER DE COSTES, Seigneur de (c. 1610–1663), French novelist and dramatist, was born at the Château of Tolgou, near Sarlat (Dordogne), in 1609 or 1610. After studying at Toulouse, he came to Paris and entered the regiment of the guards, becoming in 1650 gentleman-in-ordinary of the royal household. He died in 1663 in consequence of a kick from his horse. He was the author of several long heroic romances ridiculed by Boileau. They are: Cassandre (10 vols., 1642–1650); Cléopatre (1648); Faramond (1661); and Les Nouvelles, ou les Divertissements de la princesse Alcidiane (1661) published under his wife’s name, but generally attributed to him. His plays lack the spirit and force that occasionally redeem the novels. The best is Le Comte d’Essex, represented in 1638, which supplied some ideas to Thomas Corneille for his tragedy of the same name.
LA CARLOTA, a town of the province of Negros Occidental,
Philippine Islands, on the W. coast of the island and the left
bank of San Enrique river, about 18 m. S. of Bacolod, the
capital of the province. Pop. (1903), after the annexation of
San Enrique, 19,192. There are fifty-four villages or barrios
in the town; the largest had a population in 1903 of 3254 and
two others had each more than 1000 inhabitants. The Panayano
dialect of the Visayan language is spoken by most of the inhabitants.
At La Carlota the Spanish government established a
station for the study of the culture of sugar-cane; by the
American government this has been converted into a general
agricultural experiment station, known as “Government Farm.”
LACCADIVE ISLANDS, a group of coral reefs and islands in
the Indian Ocean, lying between 10° and 12° 20′ N. and 71°
40′ and 74° E. The name Laccadives (laksha dwipa, the “hundred
thousand isles”) is that given by the people of the Malabar
coast, and was probably meant to include the Maldives; they
are called by the natives simply Divi, “islands,” or Amendivi,
from the chief island. There are seventeen separate reefs,
“round each of which the 100-fathom line is continuous”
(J. S. Gardiner). There are, however, only thirteen islands, and
of these only eight are inhabited. They fall into two groups—the
northern, belonging to the collectorate of South Kanara,
and including the inhabited islands of Amini, Kardamat, Kiltan
and Chetlat; and the southern, belonging to the administrative
district of Malabar, and including the inhabited islands of Agatti,
Kavaratti, Androth and Kalpeni. Between the Laccadives
and the Maldives to the south lies the isolated Minikoi, which
physically belongs to neither group, though somewhat nearer
to the Maldives (q.v.). The principal submerged banks lie north
of the northern group of islands; they are Munyal, Coradive
and Sesostris, and are of greater extent than those on which
the islands lie. The general depth over these is from 23 to 28
fathoms, but Sesostris has shallower soundings “indicating
patches growing up, and some traces of a rim” (J. S. Gardiner).
The islands have in nearly all cases emerged from the eastern
and protected side of the reef, the western being completely
exposed to the S.W. monsoon. The islands are small, none
exceeding a mile in breadth, while the total area is only about
80 sq. m. They lie so low that they would be hardly discernible
but for the coco-nut groves with which they are thickly covered.
The soil is light coral sand, beneath which, a few feet down,
lies a stratum of coral stretching over the whole of the islands.
This coral, generally a foot to a foot and a half in thickness,
has been in the principal islands wholly excavated, whereby
the underlying damp sand is rendered available for cereals.
These excavations—a work of vast labour—were made at a
remote period, and according to the native tradition by giants.
In these spaces (totam, “garden”) coarse grain, pulse, bananas
and vegetables are cultivated; coco-nuts grow abundantly
everywhere. For rice the natives depend upon the mainland.
Population and Trade.—The population in 1901 was 10,274. The people are Moplas, i.e. of mixed Hindu and Arab descent, and are Mahommedans. Their manners and customs are similar to those of the coast Moplas; but they maintain their own ancient caste distinctions. The language spoken is Malayalim, but it is written in the Arabic character. Reading and writing
