GONCOURT. 27 GONFALON. ficial, external, and, by preference, morbid. Gcr- miiiie Laci'rteux is to be 'the clinic of love,' and La /ille Elisa pushes to its utmost parado.x the divorce between liction and conventionalilj-. it is not as storj'tellers that the Goncourts interest us, but as stylists. Their ability to reproiluee a series of sensations by a series of images, their 'notation of indescribable sensations,' their skill in startling with the aptness of their epithets, in 'pinning their adjectives,' is 'what most attracts. They chose to live for their art alone and for the choice spirits that could com])rehend them, for whose permanent association and fostering Kd- mond left the larger part of his fortune to endow an Academy of the Goncourts. Consult: Del- aant, Les Goncourts (Paris, 1880); Zola. Les romanciers naturalisies (ib., 1881); Bourget, Nouveauir: esuais (ib., 188.5) ; Bruneti&re. Le re- man naturaliste (ib., ISOfi) ; Wells, A Century of Freitrh Fiction (New York, 1898). GON'DAR. The former capital of Abyssinia, in Amhara. situated aliout "25 miles north of Lake Tsana (Map: Africa, H 3). It lies on an isolated hill in a spur of the Wogara Mountains, at an altitude of over 6000 feet. It is poorl.y built, with crooked, narrow streets, and is divided into sev- eral parts, which are located at some distance from each other. In former times Gondar had a large number of churches. Xear by is the ruined fort of Gip. constructed by the Portuguese. The palace is a fine e.aniple of Abyssinian architec- ture. The town is in a state of decay, the Mo- hammedan quarter being entirely deserted. The inhabitants, once estimated at 50.000. now num- ber about .5000, of whom a considerable number are priests. Gondar is on the route of the partly constructed railway line from Massowah (q.v.). There are many skilled artisans here, who pro- duce gold ornaments and textiles. Gondar is the seat of the Abuna, the head of the Abyssinian Church, and has several ecclesiastical schools. Its decline dates from the reign of Theodore II., ■whose hostile attitude toward the IMohammedans caused a great decrease in the jwpulation. GONDI, or GONDY, goN'de', Jean Francois Paul de. See Retz. GON'DIBERT. A religious epic in elegiac stanzas by Sir William Davenant, begun late in 1649, in Paris, and finished during imprisonment in the London Tower. It was published in 1651, the first edition being in three books of six, eight, and six cantos respectively, although in a letter to Hobbes the author had defined his orig- inal aim as affecting analog^' to dramatic form, "proportioning five books to five acts, and cantos to scenes." GONDOKORO, gon'do-ko'ro. or ISMAILIA, ez'ma-e'lH-a. A small settlement in Central Afri- ca, situated on the Upper Nile, in latitude 4° 55' N. (ilap: Congo Free State. F 2). It was for- merly an important trading centre for ivory and slaves. Its commerce beg.an to decline after its annexation to Egypt in 1871. Gondokoro figures prominently in the history of the explorations of Africa. GON'DOLA (It.). The ordinary passenger boat used in the canals of Venice. It was for- merly the only means of getting about the city, but it is now being displaced in part by small launches operating upon the plan of an omnibus. An ordinary gondola is 30 feet long and 4 or 5 feet Vol. IX.— 3. wide, and is flat-bottomcHl, so tli.at the draught is light. The bottom rises slightly above water at the ends, while at the bow and stem slender ornamental stem and stern pieces reach to about the height of a man's breast. The stem piece is surmounted by the ferro, a bright iron beak of uniform shape, the rosirique tridenlibus of Vergil conunon to old Roman galleys. There is a cov- ered shelter for passengers in the middle of the boat, which is easily remov.able. In accordance with a mediiEval regulation, gondolas are painted black. The gondolier stands erect, with his face toward the bow, and propels the boat with a for- ward stroke, making his way through the narrow and often crowded canals with amazing dexterity. GONDOLIERS, gon'do-lC-rz', The. The title of oni' of the later operas by Gilbert and Sulli- van. Its production was followed by a rupture in the relations of the author and the composer, which was later temporarily healed. GONDS. An important Dravidian people, in- habiting mainly the Central Provinces of India, but found also in other sections of the country, and numbering about 1.500,000. The wilder and uncivilized tribes of the Gonds, who in- habit the forested hills of the Vindhya and Sat- pura ranges, preserve more of the primitive Dravidian physical type, social institutions, re- ligious and mythological beliefs and practices than do those whose culture is more advanced, who have to a considerable extent adopted Hindu- ism, and with whom the higher classes are more or less mixed with Hindu blood. The Gonds are said to have fonnerly offered up human sacrifices to some of their deities, but now they sacrifice in- stead an image of straw. The Gond women have a curious festival, called the Gurturna ('sugar- breaking' ) , in which the men figure to some disadvantage. It often ends in a saturnalia. Among the Gonds the worship of such plagues as sm.allpox, cholera, etc., prevails, and many of them reverence the dog, the horse, and the tiger to an extraordinary degree. The Gonds are to a large extent monogamous, and have many curious marriage and premarital customs. The Gonds are not to be confounded with the Khonds, another Dravidian people to the cast of them. Besides the earlier works of Campbell, Wild. Tribes of Khondistan (London, 1863). and Hislop, Ahorif/inal Tribes of the Central Prov- inces (Nagpur, 1866), reference may be made to Forsvth. Hifihlands of Central India (3d ed., London," 1889).' GONDWANA, giind-wa'na (the land of the Gonds) . A name vaguely applied to a hilly tract in Central India, Iving between latitudes 18° and '24° .30' N. (Map: India. C 4). Most of the region is included in the Central Provinces. GON'ERIL. The more wolfish of the un- natural daughters of King Lear, in Shakespeare's tragedy of that name. She is the wife of the Duke of Albany. GON'FALON (archaic qonfnnon. OF. ffon- fanon. Fr. ponfalon, from IMT^. ponfano. punt- fano, banner, from OHG. (jundfano, battle-flag, from gtind, battle + fano. rnno, Ger. Fahne, flag). The ensign or standard, indic.ative of au- thority, which was carried before, and sometimes by, the chief magistrate (hence called gonfalo- niere) of many of the Italian cities in the latter part of the Middle Ages.
