Sea, and overrunning Lydia in the 7th century B.C. (see Cimmerii, Scythia, Lydia). They do not seem to have made any permanent settlements, unless some such are indicated by the fact that the Armenians called Cappadocia Gamir. It is, however, suggested that this name is borrowed from the Old Testament.[1]
The name Gomer (Gomer bath Diblaim) was also borne by the unfaithful wife of Hosea, whom he pardoned and took back (Hosea i. 3). Hosea uses these incidents as symbolic of the sin, punishment and redemption of Israel, but there is no need to regard Gomer as a purely imaginary person. (W. H. Be.)
GOMERA, an island in the Atlantic Ocean, forming part of
the Spanish archipelago of the Canary Islands (q.v.). Pop.
(1900) 15,358; area 144 sq. m. Gomera lies 20 m. W.S.W. of
Teneriffe. Its greatest length is about 23 m. The coast is
precipitous and the interior mountainous, but Gomera has the
most wood and is the best watered of the group. The inhabitants
are very poor. Dromedaries are bred on Gomera in large
numbers. San Sebastian (3187) is the chief town and a port.
It was visited by Columbus on his first voyage of discovery in
1492.
GOMEZ, DIOGO (Diego) (fl. 1440–1482), Portuguese seaman, explorer and writer. We first trace him as a cavalleiro of the royal household; in 1440 he was appointed receiver of the royal customs—in 1466 judge—at Cintra (juiz das causas e feitorias contadas de Cintra); on the 5th of March 1482 he was confirmed in the last-named office. He wrote, especially for the benefit of Martin Behaim, a Latin chronicle of great value, dealing with the life and discoveries of Prince Henry the Navigator, and divided into three parts: (1) De prima inventione Guineae; (2) De insulis primo inventis in mare (sic) Occidentis; (3) De inventione insularum de Açores. This chronicle contains the only contemporary account of the rediscovery of the Azores by the Portuguese in Prince Henry’s service, and is also noteworthy for its clear ascription to the prince of deliberate scientific and commercial purpose in exploration. For, on the one hand, the infante sent out his caravels to search for new lands (ad quaerendas terras) from his wish to know the more distant parts of the western ocean, and in the hope of finding islands or terra firma beyond the limits laid down by Ptolemy (ultra descriptionem Tolomei); on the other hand, his information as to the native trade from Tunis to Timbuktu and the Gambia helped to inspire his persistent exploration of the West African coast—“to seek those lands by way of the sea.” Chart and quadrant were used on the prince’s vessels, as by Gomez himself on reaching the Cape Verde Islands; Henry, at the time of Diogo’s first voyage, was in correspondence with an Oran merchant who kept him informed upon events even in the Gambia hinterland; and, before the discovery of the Senegal and Cape Verde in 1445, Gomez’ royal patron had already gained reliable information of some route to Timbuktu. In the first part of his chronicle Gomez tells how, no long time after the disastrous expedition
of the Danish nobleman “Vallarte” (Adalbert) in 1448, he was sent out in command of three vessels along the West African coast, accompanied by one Jacob, an Indian interpreter, to be employed in the event of reaching India. After passing the Rio Grande, beyond Cape Verde, strong currents checked his course; his officers and men feared that they were approaching the extremity of the ocean, and he put back to the Gambia. He ascended this river a considerable distance, to the negro town of “Cantor,” whither natives came from “Kukia” and Timbuktu for trade; he gives elaborate descriptions of the negro world he had now penetrated, refers to the Sierra Leone (“Serra Lyoa”) Mountains, sketches the course of this range, and says much of Kukia (in the upper Niger basin?), the centre of the West African gold trade, and the resort of merchants and caravans from Tunis, Fez, Cairo and “all the land of the Saracens.” Mahommedanism was already dominant at the Cambria estuary, but Gomez seems to have won over at least one important chief, with his court, to Christianity and Portuguese allegiance. Another African voyage, apparently made in 1462, two years after Henry the Navigator’s death (though assigned by some to 1460), resulted in a fresh discovery of the Cape Verde Islands, already found by Cadamosto (q.v.). To the island of Santiago Gomez, like his Venetian forerunner, claims to have given its present name. His narrative is a leading authority on the last illness and death of Prince Henry, as well as on the life, achievements and purposes of the latter; here alone is recorded what appears to have been the earliest of the navigator’s exploring ventures, that which under João de Trasto reached Grand Canary in 1415.
Of Gomez’ chronicle there is only one MS., viz. Cod. Hisp. 27, in the Hof- und Staats-Bibliothek, Munich; the original Latin text was printed by Schmeller “Über Valentim Fernandez Alemão” in the Abhandlungen der philosoph.-philolog. Kl. der bayerisch. Akademie der Wissenschaften, vol. iv., part iii. (Munich, 1847); see also Sophus Ruge, “Die Entdeckung der Azoren,” pp. 149-180 (esp. 178-179) in the 27th Jahresbericht des Vereins für Erdkunde (Dresden, 1901); Jules Mees, Histoire de la découverte des îles Açores, pp. 44-45, 125-127 (Ghent, 1901); R. H. Major, Life of Prince Henry the Navigator, pp. xviii., xix., 64-65, 287-299, 303-305 (London, 1868); C. R. Beazley, Prince Henry the Navigator, 289-298, 304-305; and Introduction to Azurara’s Discovery and Conquest of Guinea, ii., iv., xiv., xxv.-xxvii., xcii.-xcvi. (London, 1899). (C. R. B.)
GOMEZ DE AVELLANEDA, GERTRUDIS (1814–1873), Spanish dramatist and poet, was born at Puerto Príncipe (Cuba) on the 23rd of March 1814, and removed to Spain in 1836. Her Poesías líricas (1841), issued with a laudatory preface by Gallego, made a most favourable impression and were republished with additional poems in 1850. In 1846 she married a diplomatist named Pedro Sabater, became a widow within a year, and in 1853 married Colonel Domingo Verdugo. Meanwhile she had published Sab (1839), Guatimozín (1846), and other novels of no great importance. She obtained, however, a series of successes on the stage with Alfonso Munio (1844), a tragedy in the new romantic manner; with Saúl (1849), a biblical drama indirectly suggested by Alfieri; and with Baltasar (1858), a piece which bears some resemblance to Byron’s Sardanapalus. Her commerce with the world had not diminished her natural piety, and, on the death of her second husband, she found so much consolation in religion that she had thoughts of entering a convent. She died at Madrid on the 2nd of February 1873, full of mournful forebodings as to the future of her adopted country. It is impossible to agree with Villemain that “le génie de don Luis de Léon et de sainte Thérèse a reparu sous le voile funèbre de Gomez de Avellaneda,” for she has neither the monk’s mastery of poetic form nor the nun’s sublime simplicity of soul. She has a grandiose tragical vision of life, a vigorous eloquence rooted in pietistic pessimism, a dramatic gift effective in isolated acts or scenes; but she is deficient in constructive power and in intellectual force, and her lyrics, though instinct with melancholy beauty, or the tenderness of resigned devotion, too often lack human passion and sympathy. The edition of her Obras literarias (5 vols., 1869–1871), still incomplete, shows a scrupulous care for minute revision uncommon in Spanish writers; but her emendations are seldom happy. But she is interesting as a link between the classic and romantic schools of poetry, and, whatever her artistic shortcomings, she has no rivals of her own sex in Spain during the 19th century.
GOMM, SIR WILLIAM MAYNARD (1784–1875), British soldier, was gazetted to the 9th Foot at the age of ten, in recognition of the services of his father, Lieut.-Colonel William Gomm, who was killed in the attack on Guadaloupe (1794). He joined his regiment as a lieutenant in 1799, and fought in Holland under the duke of York, and subsequently was with Pulteney’s Ferrol expedition. In 1803 he became Captain, and shortly afterwards qualified as a staff officer at the High Wycombe military college. On the general staff he was with Cathcart at Copenhagen, with Wellington in the Peninsula, and on Moore’s staff at Corunna. He was also on Chatham’s staff in the disastrous Walcheren expedition of 1809. In 1810 he rejoined the Peninsular army as Leith’s staff officer, and took part in all the battles of 1810, 1811 and 1812, winning his majority after Fuentes d’Onor and his lieutenant-colonelcy at Salamanca. His careful reconnaissances and skilful leading were invaluable to Wellington in the Vittoria campaign, and to the end of the war he was one of the
- ↑ A. Jeremias, Das A.T. im Lichte des alten Orients, pp. 145 f.
