The Division has an area of 9534 sq. m. The population in 1901 was 6,333,012, giving an average density of 664 persons per sq. m., being more than one to every acre, and the highest for any large tract in India.
GORAL, the native name of a small Himalayan rough-haired
and cylindrical-horned ruminant classed in the same group as the
chamois. Scientifically this animal is known as Urotragus (or
Cemas) goral; and the native name is now employed as the
designation of all the other members of the same genus. In
addition to certain peculiarities in the form of the skull, gorals
are chiefly distinguished from serows (q.v.) by not possessing a
gland below the eye, nor a corresponding depression in the skull.
Several species are known, ranging from the Himalaya to Burma,
Tibet and North China. Of these, the two Himalayan gorals
(U. goral and U. bedfordi) are usually found in small parties, but
less commonly in pairs. They generally frequent grassy hills, or
rocky ground clothed with forest; in fine weather feeding only
in the mornings and evenings, but when the sky is cloudy grazing
throughout the day.
GORAMY, or Gouramy (Osphromenus olfax), reputed to be one of the best-flavoured freshwater fishes in the East Indian archipelago. Its original home is Java, Sumatra, Borneo and several other East Indian islands, but thence it has been transported to and acclimatized in Penang, Malacca, Mauritius and even Cayenne. Being an almost omnivorous fish and tenacious of life, it seems to recommend itself particularly for acclimatization in other tropical countries; and specimens kept in captivity become as tame as carps. It attains the size of a large turbot. Its shape is flat and short, the body covered with large scales; the dorsal and anal fins are provided with numerous spines, and the ventral fins produced into long filaments. Like Anabas, the climbing perch, it possesses a suprabranchial accessory respiratory organ.
GÖRBERSDORF, a village and climatic health resort of
Germany, in the Prussian province of Silesia, romantically
situated in a deep and well-wooded valley of the Waldenburg
range, 1900 ft. above the sea, 60 m. S.W. of Breslau by the
railway to Friedland and 3 m. from the Austrian frontier. Pop.
700. It has four large sanatoria for consumptives, the earliest of
which was founded in 1854 by Hermann Brehmer (1826–1889).
GORBODUC, a mythical king of Britain. He gave his kingdom
away during his lifetime to his two sons, Ferrex and Porrex.
The two quarrelled and the younger stabbed the elder. Their
mother, loving the latter most, avenged his death by murdering
her son, and the people, horrified at her act, revolted and
murdered both her and King Gorboduc. This legend was the
subject of the earliest regular English tragedy which in 1561
was played before Queen Elizabeth in the Inner Temple hall.
It was written by Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst and
Thomas Norton in collaboration. Under the title of Gorboduc it
was published first very corruptly in 1565, and in better form as
The Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex in 1570.
GORCHAKOV, or Gortchakoff, a noble Russian family, descended from Michael Vsevolodovich, prince of Chernigov, who, in 1246, was assassinated by the Mongols. Prince Andrey Ivanovich (1768–1855), general in the Russian army, took a conspicuous part in the final campaigns against Napoleon. Alexander Ivanovich (1769–1825) served with distinction
under his relative Suvarov in the Turkish Wars, and took part as a general officer in the Italian and Swiss operations of 1799, and in the war against Napoleon in Poland in 1806–1807 (battle of Heilsberg). Petr Dmitrievich (1790–1868) served under Kamenski and Kutusov in the campaign against Turkey, and afterwards against France in 1813–1814. In 1820 he suppressed
an insurrection in the Caucasus, for which service he was raised to the rank of major-general. In 1828–1829 he fought under Wittgenstein against the Turks, won an action at Aidos, and signed the treaty of peace at Adrianople. In 1839 he was made governor of Eastern Siberia, and in 1851 retired into private life. When the Crimean War broke out he offered his services to the emperor Nicholas, by whom he was appointed general of
the VI. army corps in the Crimea. He commanded the corps
in the battles of Alma and Inkerman. He retired in 1855 and died at Moscow, on the 18th of March 1868.
Prince Mikhail Dmitrievich (1795–1861), brother of the last named, entered the Russian army in 1807 and took part in the campaigns against Persia in 1810, and in 1812–1815 against France. During the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829 he was present at the sieges of Silistria and Shumla. After being appointed, in 1830, a general officer, he was present in the campaign in Poland, and was wounded at the battle of Grochow, on the 25th of February 1831. He also distinguished himself at the battle of Ostrolenka and at the taking of Warsaw. For these services he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general. In 1846 he was nominated military governor of Warsaw. In 1849 he commanded the Russian artillery in the war against the Hungarians, and in 1852 he visited London as a representative of the Russian army at the funeral of the duke of Wellington. At this time he was chief of the staff of the Russian army and adjutant-general to the tsar. Upon Russia declaring war against Turkey in 1853, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the troops which occupied Moldavia and Wallachia. In 1854 he crossed the Danube and besieged Silistria, but was superseded in April by Prince Paskevich, who, however, resigned on the 8th of June, when Gorchakov resumed the command. In July the siege of Silistria was raised, and the Russian armies recrossed the Danube; in August they withdrew to Russia. In 1855 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Russian forces in the Crimea in place of Prince Menshikov. Gorchakov’s defence of Sevastopol, and final retreat to the northern part of the town, which he continued to defend till peace was signed in Paris, were conducted with skill and energy. In 1856 he was appointed governor-general of Poland in succession to Prince Paskevich. He died at Warsaw on the 30th of May 1861, and was buried, in accordance with his own wish, at Sevastopol.
Prince Gorchakov, Alexander Mikhailovich (1798–1883), Russian statesman, cousin of Princes Petr and Mikhail Gorchakov, was born on the 16th of July 1798, and was educated at the lyceum of Tsarskoye Selo, where he had the poet Pushkin as a school-fellow. He became a good classical scholar, and learnt to speak and write in French with facility and elegance. Pushkin in one of his poems described young Gorchakov as “Fortune’s favoured son,” and predicted his success. On leaving the lyceum Gorchakov entered the foreign office under Count Nesselrode. His first diplomatic work of importance was the negotiation of a marriage between the grand duchess Olga and the crown prince Charles of Württemberg. He remained at Stuttgart for some years as Russian minister and confidential adviser of the crown princess. He foretold the outbreak of the revolutionary spirit in Germany and Austria, and was credited with counselling the abdication of Ferdinand in favour of Francis Joseph. When the German confederation was re-established in 1850 in place of the parliament of Frankfort, Gorchakov was appointed Russian minister to the diet. It was here that he first met Prince Bismarck, with whom he formed a friendship which was afterwards renewed at St Petersburg. The emperor Nicholas found that his ambassador at Vienna, Baron Meyendorff, was not a sympathetic instrument for carrying out his schemes in the East. He therefore transferred Gorchakov to Vienna, where the latter remained through the critical period of the Crimean War.
