Chapter IX: Front Matter (9)

A disagreement with Peru in 1828 resulted in the invasion of Ecuador and the temporary occupation of Cuenca and Guayaquil by Peruvian forces; but peace was restored in the following year after the Ecuadorian victory at Tarqui. In the early part of 1830 a separation was effected from the Colombian federation, and the country was proclaimed an independent republic. General Juan Jose Flores was the first president, and in spite of many difficulties, both domestic and foreign, he managed to maintain a powerful position in the state for about 15 years. Succeeded in 1835 by Vicente Rocafuerte, he regained the presidency in 1839, and was elected for the third time in 1843; but shortly afterwards he accepted the title of generalissimo and a sum of 20,000 pesos, and left the country to his rivals. One of the most important measures of his second presidency was the establishment of peace and friendship with Spain. Roca, who next attained to power, effected a temporary settlement with Colombia, concluded a convention with England against the slave trade, and made a commercial treaty with Belgium. Diego Noboa, elected in 1850 after a period of great confusion, recalled the Jesuits, produced a rupture with New Granada by receiving conservative refugees, and thus brought about his own deposition and exile. The democratic Urbina now became practically dictator, and as the attempt of Flores to reinstate Noboa proved a total failure, he was quickly succeeded in 1856 by General Francisco Robles, who, among other progressive measures, secured the adoption of the French system of coinage, weights and measures. He abdicated in 1859 and left the country, after refusing to ratify the treaty with Peru, by which the defender of Guayaquil had obtained the raising of the siege. Dr Gabriel Garcia Moreno, professor of chemistry, the recognized leader of the conservative party at Quito, was ultimately elected by the national convention of 1861. Distrust in his policy, however, was excited by the publication of some of his private correspondence, in which he spoke favourably of a French protectorate, and the army which he sent under Flores to resist the encroachments of Mosquera, the president of New Granada, was completely routed. His first resignation in 1864 was refused; but the despotic acts by which he sought to establish a dictatorship only embittered his opponents, and in September 1865 he retired from office. While he had endeavoured to develop the material resources of the country, he had at the same time introduced retrograde measures in regard to religion and education. The principal event in the short presidency of his successor, Geronimo Carrion (May 1865-Nov. 1867), was the alliance with Chile and Peru against Spain, and the banishment of all Spanish subjects. Several important changes were made by congress in the period between his resignation and the election of Xavier Espinosa, January 1868: the power of the president to imprison persons regarded as dangerous to public order was annulled; and the immediate naturalization of Bolivians, Chilians, Peruvians and Colombians was authorized. Espinosa had hardly entered on his office when, in August 1868, the country was visited by an earthquake, in which 30,000 people are said to have perished throughout South America. The public buildings of Quito were laid in ruins; and Ibarra, Otavalo, Cotacachi and several other towns were completely destroyed. Next year a revolution at Quito, under Moreno, brought Espinosa's presidency to a close; and though the national convention appointed Carvajal to the vacant office, Moreno succeeded in securing his own election in 1870 for a term of six years. His policy had undergone no alteration since 1865: the same persistent endeavour was made to establish a religious despotism, in which the supremacy of the president should be subordinate only to the higher supremacy of the clergy.

President Moreno was eventually assassinated at Quito, in August 1875, and Dr Borrero was elected to the presidency, but his tenure of power was short. A revolution headed by General Veintemilla, the Radical leader, then military commandant at Guayaquil, broke out in 1876, and on the 14th of December of that year the government forces under General Aparicio were completely routed at Galte. Veintemilla was proclaimed president, and in 1877 was duly elected by the cortes. He altered the constitution in a more Liberal direction, and struck various blows at the Clerical party, among other things abolishing the concordat with Rome. In 1878 Veintemilla caused himself to be declared elected as president for a term of four years. At the expiration of this period the president assumed dictatorial powers and remained in office as chief of the executive. This action on the part of General Veintemilla led to a union between the Clericals and Moderate Liberals, and resulted in a popular rising throughout the republic, ending in his defeat and overthrow. His power was first restricted to Guayaquil and Esmeraldas, and finally General Rinaldo Flores drove him from Guayaquil, and Veintemilla fled (July 1883) to Peru. Dr Placido Caamano was then called upon to take charge temporarily, and on the 17th of February 1884 was definitely elected for the presidential period terminating in 1888. Several revolutionary outbreaks occurred during the Caamano administration, but were successfully suppressed. In 1888 Dr Antonio Flores succeeded Caamano, the four years following being passed in peaceful conditions. In 1892 Dr Luis Cordero was elected, his administration again plunging the country into an epoch of internal disturbance.

The cause of the troubles under President Cordero was the assistance lent by Ecuador to Chile in the matter of the sale of the cruiser _Esmeralda_ to the Japanese government in 1894, in the middle of the Japanese-Chinese War. The government of Chile arranged the sale of the _Esmeralda_, but wished to be free from all danger of international complications in the affair. To this end the transfer of the vessel was made to Ecuador, and she proceeded to Ecuadorian waters. On arriving at the Galapagos Islands the flag of Ecuador was replaced by that of Japan and the vessel handed over to the representatives of that nation sent for the purpose. When the part played by President Cordero in this transaction became known, an outburst of popular indignation occurred. An insurrection, headed by General Eloy Alfaro, followed; and after desultory skirmishing extending over a period of nearly a year the government forces were finally routed, President Cordero abandoning his office and escaping from the country.

General Alfaro then assumed dictatorial powers as supreme chief of the nation, continuing in this capacity until the 6th of February 1897, on which date he was declared to be elected president of the republic. A series of revolutionary movements against the administration of President Alfaro occurred in the course of the next few years. Many of these risings were due to the intrigues of the Church party, and in view of these circumstances President Alfaro curtailed the influence of the clergy in several directions. On the 31st of August 1901 General Alfaro peacefully handed over the presidency to his elected successor, General Leonidas Plaza.

General Plaza continued the anticlerical policy of his predecessor. Civil marriage and divorce were introduced, and in 1904 all religions were placed on a position of equality in the eye of the law, and the foundation of new monasteries and convents was forbidden. The final year of Plaza's tenure of office was marked by a still stronger measure, all the property of the church being declared to be national property, and let to the highest bidders. In 1905 the Opposition made an effort to effect a change of policy, and were successful in obtaining the election of Lizaro Garcia, a well-to-do merchant and a director of the Banco commercial y Agricola. General Alfaro, however, appealed to arms, ejected Garcia from office, and made himself ruler with practically dictatorial powers.

The more recent history of Ecuador would not be complete without a reference to the work of Mr Archer Harman (b. 1860), an American railway builder and financier whose connexion with the construction of the Guayaquil and Quito railway began in 1897. To his personal energy and enterprise, as manager of the railway company, was largely due the continued prosecution of this difficult engineering undertaking, in connexion with which he was responsible for a thorough reconstruction of Ecuador finance. He thus came to exercise a powerful influence on the internal progress of the country.

See C.E. Akers, _History of South America, 1854-1904_ (London, 1904);
H.W. Bates, _Central and South America_ (London, 1882); Pedro F.
Cevallos, _Resumen de la historia del Ecuador_ (Guayaquil, 1886); Hans
Meyer, _In den Hoch-Anden von Ecuador_ (Berlin 1907); A.H. Keane,
_Stanford's Compendium_, vol. i. (1904); W. Reiss and A. Stubel, _Das
Hochgebirge der Republik Ecuador_ (Berlin, 1892-1898); Edward Whymper,
_Travels amongst the Great Andes of the Equator_ (London, 1892); T.
Wolf, _Geografia y geologia del Ecuador_ (Leipzig, 1892); A. Stubel,
_Skizzen aus Ecuador_ (Berlin, 1886); _Die Vulkanberge von Ecuador_
(Berlin, 1897); _Handbook of Ecuador_ (Bureau of the American
Republics, Washington, 1892); _The World's Work_, vol. ii. pp.
1271-1277; _Engineering News_ (New York), vol. 52, pp. 117-119;
_Bulletin of Internat. Bureau of American Republics_ for July 1900, p.
26, and for August 1908, pp. 280-282; _Thirty-fifth Annual Report of
the Council of Foreign Bondholders_, pp. 115, 117.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] See J. Siemiradzki, "Geologische Reisenotizen aus Ecuador,"
_Neues Jahrb. f. Min._, Beil. Band iv. (1886, pp. 195-227, pl. vii.);
Th. Wolf, _Geografia y geologia del Ecuador, publicada por orden del
Supremo Gobierno de la Republica_ (Leipzig, 1892); W. Reiss and A.
Stubel, _Reisen in Sud-America. Das Hochgebirge der Republik Ecuador_
(Berlin, 1892-1902).

ECZEMA (Gr. [Greek: ekzema], a cutaneous eruption), one of the most common and important of all skin diseases, consisting of a catarrhal inflammation of the skin originating without visible external irritation, and characterized in some stage of its evolution by a serous exudation. This definition excludes all those forms of inflammation of the skin (dermatitis), which though they may be identical in course and manifestation are yet caused by chemical or mechanical irritants. For an attack of eczema two conditions are necessary: a predisposition or special irritability of the skin, and a directly exciting cause. The first of these conditions is usually inherited or depends on some underlying constitutional state. Thus any organic lesion which may produce oedema and malnutrition of the cutis and epidermis as in kidney diseases, any condition of imperfect metabolism as in dyspepsia or malnutrition, or seborrhoea, may be the predisposing cause. Another influence that has received increasing attention from skin specialists is that of any nervous shock or prolonged mental strain. A "chill" is followed in most people by an ordinary cold, but in some by an attack of eczema. Again, it may be caused by reflex nervous irritation from the uterus, stomach, &c. In some women it always accompanies menstruation, and in others pregnancy. It is of common occurrence in infancy, being attributed by some specialists to dentition, but by others to seborrhoea. Also there is an undoubted relationship between eczema and certain forms of functional neurosis, of which perhaps asthma is the most striking illustration, some physicians considering the latter trouble to be eczema of the bronchial tubes. Sufferers from rheumatism and gout are also specially prone to eczema, though the exact relationship is a much disputed point. There are yet other cases that are undoubtedly microbic, but the micro-organism cannot produce the lesion unless the soil is suitable. As a rule it is not contagious, though when complicated by micro-organisms it may be auto-inoculable, or more rarely inoculable from one patient to another. Except between the ages of ten and twenty years when menstruation is becoming established, and again at the menopause, males are more liable to be attacked than females. In old age the sex influence is lost.

An attack of eczema is usually described as acute or chronic, but the only distinction lies in the greater or less intensity of the inflammation at the time of description: it has nothing to do with the length of time that the disease has lasted. The illness usually begins with a feeling of itching and burning at the site of the lesion. The skin becomes covered with an erythematous blush, on which numerous tiny vesicles form. Swelling, heat, redness and tension are all present. The vesicles grow larger, run together, and either burst or are broken by the patient's scratching, a clear fluid exuding which stiffens linen. The discharge does not dry up at once, but continues to exude--hence the name of "weeping eczema" when this is a prominent symptom. In mild cases the symptoms begin to subside in a few days, the exudation growing less and scales and scabs forming, under which new skin is formed. But where the attack is more acute fresh crops of vesicles spring up and the process repeats itself. In some cases papules are the predominant lesions, but in others, especially when the face is attacked, the erythematous condition is more marked. A severe attack of eczema is usually accompanied by some slight constitutional disturbance, but the general health seldom suffers appreciably, unless, as occasionally, the itching is so bad as to make sleep impossible. The irritation and local heat may be out of all proportion to visible changes in the skin, and in neurotic patients the nervous excitement may be extreme. The attack may centre itself on any part of the body, but there are certain places where it more usually begins, such as the bends of the elbows, the backs of the knees and the groins; the groove behind the ears, the scalp, the palms or the soles, and the breasts of women. According to its position the form of the eczema is somewhat modified. On the front of the legs and arms, from the uniform redness it exhibits in these positions, it is known as eczema rubrum. On the scalp it is generally of the seborrhoeic type, and in children, especially when pediculi are present, it will become pustular from microbic infection. On the palms and soles it brings about a thickening of the epidermis which leads to the formation of cracks, and is hence called eczema rimosum.

The disease can best be treated by a combination of internal and external remedies. Internally, when the inflammation is acute, nothing is so good as antimony, since this relieves the arterial tension and thus reduces the local inflammation. But this must never be given when the patient is suffering from depression. In other cases, especially for babies and children, small doses of calomel are very beneficial; strychnine, phosphorus and ergot are all useful at times. When nervous excitement is marked it must be treated with sedatives. Arsenic and iron are both contra-indicated in this disease, since they increase blood formation and hence stimulate the eczematous process. Internal treatment is always best when combined with local treatment, but as a preliminary to this all crusts and scales must first be removed to allow the remedy free access to the disease. Locally the aim is (1) to overcome any source of irritation, (2) to protect the inflamed surface from the air and from microbic infection, and (3) to relieve the itching. The diet should be simple but nourishing, and all hygienic precautions must be taken.

EDAM, a town of Holland in the province of North Holland, close to the Zuider Zee, about 13 m. N.N.E. of Amsterdam by steam tramway. It is connected with the Zuider Zee by a fine canal protected by a large sea-lock (1828), and has regular steam-boat communication in various directions. Pop. (1900) 6444. The many quaint old brick houses form the chief feature of interest in the town. The facades are frequently adorned with carvings and inscriptions, one of which records the legend of the capture of a siren in 1403, who lived for some time among the people of Edam, but escaped again to the sea. The Great Church of St Nicholas, probably founded in the 14th century, was largely rebuilt after a fire in 1602, which, originating in the church, destroyed nearly the whole town. It contains some fine stained glass and carved woodwork of this period. The Little Church (15th century) was demolished in 1883, except for a portion of the nave and the old tower and steeple, from which the bells curiously project. The town hall dates from 1737, and there is a museum founded in 1895. Edam has some trade in timber, while shipbuilding, rope-spinning and salt-boiling are also carried on. It gives its name to the description of "sweet-milk cheese" (_zoetemelks kaas_) made throughout North Holland, which is familiar on account of its round shape and red rind.

Edam took its name and origin from the dam built on the little river Ye which joined the great Purmer lake close by. Free access to the Zuider Zee was obtained by the construction of a new dock in 1357, in which year the town also received civic rights from William V. of Bavaria, count of Holland. Owing to the danger of the extension of the Purmer and Beemster lakes, Philip II. of Spain caused a sluice to be built into the dock in 1567. In the next century Edam was a great shipbuilding centre, and nearly the whole of Admiral de Ruyter's fleet was built here; but in the same century the harbour began to get blocked up, and the importance and industrial activity of the city slowly waned.

EDDA, the title given to two very remarkable collections of old Icelandic literature. Of these only one bears that title from antiquity; the other is called _Edda_ by a comparatively modern misnomer. The word is unknown to any ancient northern language, and is first met with in _Rigspula_, a fragmentary poem at the end of Codex Wormianus, dated about 1200, where it is introduced as the name or title of a great-grandmother. From the 14th to the 17th century, this word--but no one has formed a reasonable conjecture why--was used to signify the technical laws of Icelandic court metre, _Eddu regla_, and "Never to have seen Edda" was a modest apology for ignorance of the highest poetic art. The only work known by this name to the ancients was the miscellaneous group of writings put together by Snorri Sturlason (q.v.; 1178-1241), the greatest name in old Scandinavian literature. It is believed that the _Edda_, as he left it, was completed about 1222. Whether he gave this name to the work is doubtful; the title first occurs in the Upsala Codex, transcribed about fifty years after his death. The collection of Snorri is now known as the _Prose or Younger Edda_, the title of the _Elder Edda_ being given to a book of ancient mythological poems, discovered by the Icelandic bishop of Skalaholt, Brynjulf Sveinsson, in 1643, and erroneously named by him the _Edda of Saemund_.

1. The Prose _Edda_, properly known as _Edda Snorra Sturlusonar_, was arranged and modified by Snorri, but actually composed, as has been conjectured, between the years 1140 and 1160. It is divided into five parts, the Preface or _Formali_, _Gylfaginning_, _Bragaraedur_, _Skaldskaparmal_ and _Hattatal_. The preface bears a very modern character, and simply gives a history of the world from Adam and Eve, in accordance with the Christian tradition. _Gylfaginning_, or the Delusion of Gylfi, on the other hand, is the most precious compendium which we possess of the mythological system of the ancient inhabitants of Scandinavia. Commencing with the adventures of a mythical king Gylfi and the giantess Gefion, and the miraculous formation of the island of Zealand, it tells us that the Aesir, led by Odin, invaded Svithjod or Sweden, the land of Gylfi, and settled there. It is from the _Ynglingasaga_ and from the _Gylfaginning_ that we gain all the information we possess about the conquering deities or heroes who set their stamp upon the religion of the North. Advancing from the Black Sea northwards through Russia, and westward through Esthonia, the Aesir seem to have overrun the south lands of Scandinavia, not as a horde but as an immigrant aristocracy. The Eddaic version, however, of the history of the gods is not so circumstantial as that in the _Ynglingasaga_; it is, on the other hand, distinguished by an exquisite simplicity and archaic force of style, which give an entirely classical character to its mythical legends of Odin and of Loki. The _Gylfaginning_ is written in prose, with brief poetic insertions. The _Bragaraedur_, or sayings of Bragi, are further legends of the deities, attributed to Bragi, the god of poetry, or to a poet of the same name. The _Skaldskaparmal_, or Art of Poetry, commonly called _Skalda_, contains the instructions given by Bragi to Aegir, and consists of the rules and theories of ancient verse, exemplified in copious extracts from Eyvindr Skaldaspillir and other eminent Icelandic poets. The word _Skaldskapr_ refers to the form rather than the substance of verse, and this treatise is almost solely technical in character. It is by far the largest of the sections of the _Edda_ of Snorri, and comprises not only extracts but some long poems, notably the _Thorsdrapa_ of Eilifr Gudrunarson and the _Haustlaung_ of Thjodolfr. The fifth section of the _Edda_, the _Hattatal_, or Number of Metres, is a running technical commentary on the text of Snorri's three poems written in honour of Haakon, king of Norway. Affixed to some MS. of the _Younger Edda_ are a list of poets, and a number of philological treatises and grammatical studies. These belong, however, to a later period than the life of Snorri Sturlason.

The three oldest MSS. of the prose _Edda_ all belong to the beginning
of the 14th century. The Wurm MS. was sent to Ole Wurm in 1628; the
Codex Regius was discovered by the indefatigable bishop Brynjulf
Sveinsson in 1640. The most important, however, of these MSS. is the
Upsala Codex, an octavo volume written probably about the year 1300.
There have been several good editions of the _Edda Snorra
Sturlusonar_, of which perhaps the best is that published by the
Arne-Magnaean Society in Copenhagen in 1848-1852, in two vols., edited
by a group of scholars under the direction of Jon Sigurdsson. There
are English translations by T. Percy, _Northern Antiquities_, from the
French by P.H. Mallet (1770); by G. Webbe Dasent (Stockholm, 1842); by
R.B. Anderson (Chicago, 1880).

2. The Elder _Edda_, Poetic _Edda_ or _Saemundar Edda hins froda_ was entirely unknown until about 1643, when it came into the hands of Brynjulf Sveinsson, who, puzzled to classify it, gave it the title of _Edda Saemundi multiscii_. Saemund Sigfusson, who was thus credited with the collection of these poems, was a scion of the royal house of Norway, and lived from about 1055 to 1132 in Iceland. The poems themselves date in all probability from the 10th and 11th centuries, and are many of them only fragments of longer heroic chants now otherwise entirely lost. They treat of mythical and religious legends of an early Scandinavian civilization, and are composed in the simplest and most archaic forms of Icelandic verse. The author of no one of them is mentioned. It is evident that they were collected from oral tradition; and the fact that the same story is occasionally repeated, in varied form, and that some of the poems themselves bear internal evidence of being more ancient than others, proves that the present collection is only a gathering made early in the middle ages, long after the composition of the pieces, and in no critical spirit. Sophus Bugge, indeed, one of the greatest authorities, absolutely rejects the name of Saemund, and is of opinion that the poetic _Edda_, as we at present hold it, dates from about 1240. There is no doubt that it was collected in Iceland, and by an Icelander.

The most remarkable and the most ancient of the poems in this priceless collection is that with which it commences, the _Voluspa_, or prophecy of the Volva or Sibyl. In this chant we listen to an inspired prophetess, "seated on her high seat, and addressing Odin, while the gods listen to her words."

She sings of the world before the gods were made, of the coming and the meeting of the Aesir, of the origin of the giants, dwarfs and men, of the happy beginning of all things, and the sad ending that shall be in the chaos of Ragnarok. The latter part of the poem is understood to be a kind of necromancy--according to Vigfusson, "the raising of a dead volva"; but the mystical language of the whole, its abrupt transitions and terse condensations, and above all the extinct and mysterious cosmology, an acquaintance with which it presupposes, make the exact interpretation of the _Voluspa_ extremely difficult. The charm and solemn beauty of the style, however, are irresistible, and we are constrained to listen and revere as if we were the auditors of some fugual music devised in honour of a primal and long-buried deity. The melodies of this earliest Icelandic verse, elaborate in their extreme and severe simplicity, are wholly rhythmical and alliterative, and return upon themselves like a solemn incantation. _Havamal_, the Lesson of the High One, or Odin, follows next; this contains proverbs and wise saws, and a series of stories, some of them comical, told by Odin against himself. The _Vafprudnismal_, or Lesson of Vafprudnir, is written in the same mystical vein as _Voluspa_; in it the giant who gives his name to the poem is visited by Odin in disguise, and is questioned by him about the cosmogony and chronology of the Norse religion. _Grimnismal_, or the Sayings of The Hooded One, which is partly in prose, is a story of Odin's imprisonment and torture by King Geirrod. _For Skirnis_, or the Journey of Skirnir, _Harbardsliod_, or the Lay of Hoarbeard, _Hymiskvida_, or the Song of Hymir, and _Aegisdrekka_, or the Brewing of Aegir, are poems, frequently composed as dialogue, containing legends of the gods, some of which are so ludicrous that it has been suggested that they were intentionally burlesque. _Thrymskvida_, or the Song of Thrym, possesses far more poetic interest; it recounts in language of singular force and directness how Thor lost his hammer, stolen by Thrym the giant, how the latter refused to give it up unless the goddess Freyia was given him in marriage, and how Thor, dressed in women's raiment, personated Freyia, and, slaying Thrym, recovered his hammer. _Alvissmal_, or the Wisdom of Allwise, is actually a philological exercise under the semblance of a dialogue between Thor and Alvis the dwarf. In _Vegtamskvida_, or the Song of Vegtam, Odin questions a volva with regard to the meaning of the sinister dreams of Balder. _Rigsmal_, or more properly _Rigspula_, records how the god Heimdall, disguised as a man called Rig, wandered by the sea-shore, where he met the original dwarf pair, Ai and Edda, to whom he gave the power of child-bearing, and thence sprung the whole race of thralls; then he went on and met with Afi and Amma, and made them the parents of the race of churls; then he proceeded until he came to Fadir and Modir, to whom he gave Jarl, the first of free men, whom he himself brought up, teaching him to shoot and snare, and to use the sword and runes. It is much to be lamented that of this most characteristic and picturesque poem we possess only a fragment. In _Hyndluljod_, the Lay of Hyndla, the goddess Freyia rides to question the volva Hyndla with regard to the ancestry of her young paramour Ottar; a very fine quarrel ensues between the prophetess and her visitor. With this poem, the first or wholly mythological portion of the collection closes. What follows is heroic and pseudo-historic. The _Volundarkvida_, or Song of Volundr, is engaged with the adventures of Volundr, the smith-king, during his stay with Nidud, king of Sweden. Volundr, identical with the Anglo-Saxon Weland and the German Wieland (O.H.G. _Wiolant_), is sometimes confused with Odin, the master-smith. This poem contains the beautiful figure of Svanhvit, the swan-maiden, who stays seven winters with Volundr, and then, yearning for her fatherland, flies away home through the dark forest. _Helgakvida, Hiorvards sonar_, the Song of Helgi, the Son of Hiorvard, which is largely in prose, celebrates the wooing by Helgi of Svava, who, like Atalanta, ends by loving the man with whom she has fought in battle. Two Songs of Helgi the Hunding's Bane, _Helgakvida Hundingsbana_, open the long and very important series of lays relating to the two heroic families of the Volsungs and the Niblungs. Including the poems just mentioned, there are about twenty distinct pieces in the poetic _Edda_ which deal more or less directly with this chain of stories. It is hardly necessary to give the titles of these poems here in detail, especially as they are, in their present form, manifestly only fragments of a great poetic saga, possibly the earliest coherent form of the story so universal among the Teutonic peoples. We happily possess a somewhat later prose version of this lost poem in the _Volsungasaga_, where the story is completely worked out. In many places the prose of the _Volsungasaga_ follows the verse of the Eddaic fragments with the greatest precision, often making use of the very same expressions. At the same time there are poems in the _Edda_ which the author of the saga does not seem to have seen. But if we compare the central portions of the myth, namely Sigurd's conversation with Fafnir, the death of Regin, the speech of the birds and the meeting with the Valkyrje, we are struck with the extreme fidelity of the prose romancer to his poetic precursors in the _Sigurdarkvida Fafnisbana_; in passing on to the death of Sigurd, we perceive that the version in the _Volsungasaga_ must be based upon a poem now entirely lost. Of the origin of the myth and its independent development in medieval Germany, this is not the place for discussion (see NIBELUNGENLIED). Suffice to say that in no modernized or Germanized form does the legend attain such an exquisite colouring of heroic poetry as in these earliest fragments of Icelandic song. A very curious poem, in some MSS. attributed directly to Saemund, is the Song of the Sun, _Solarliod_, which forms a kind of appendix to the poetic _Edda_. In this the spirit of a dead father addresses his living son, and exhorts him, with maxims that resemble those of _Havamal_, to righteousness of life. The tone of the poem is strangely confused between Christianity and Paganism, and it has been assumed to be the composition of a writer in the act of transition between the old creed and the new. It may, however, not impossibly, be altogether spurious as a poem of great antiquity, and may merely be the production of some Icelandic monk, anxious to imitate the Eddaic form and spirit. Finally _Forspjallsljod_, or the Preamble, formerly known as the Song of Odin's Raven, is an extremely obscure fragment, of which little is understood, although infinite scholarship has been expended on it. With this the poetic _Edda_ closes.

The principal MS. of this _Edda_ is the Codex Regius in the royal
library at Copenhagen, written continuously, without regard to prose
or verse, on 45 vellum leaves. This is that found by Bishop Brynjulf.
Another valuable fragment exists in the Arne-Magnaean collection in
the University of Copenhagen, consisting of four sheets, 22 leaves in
all. These are the only MSS. older than the 17th century which contain
a collection of the ancient mythico-heroic lays, but fragments occur
in various other works, and especially in the _Edda_ of Snorri. It is
believed to have been written between 1260 and 1280. The poetic _Edda_
was translated into English verse by Amos Cottle in 1797; the poet
Gray produced a version of the _Vegtamskvida_; but the first good
translation of the whole was that published by Benjamin Thorpe in
1866. An excellent edition of the Icelandic text has been prepared by
Th. Mobius, but the standard of the original orthography will be found
in the admirable edition of Sophus Bugge, _Norroen Fornkvaedi_,
published at Christiania in 1867.

The Eddaic poems were rearranged, on a system of their own which
differs entirely from that of the early MSS., by Gudbrand Vigfusson
and F. York Powell, in their _Corpus poeticum boreale_ (Oxford, 1883).
This is a collection, not of _Edda_ only but of all existing fragments
of the vast lyrical literature of ancient Iceland. It supplies a prose
translation. (E. G.)

EDDIUS (AEDDI), a Kentish choirmaster, summoned by Wilfrid (c. 634-709), bishop of York, to help in organizing church services in Northumbria. He wrote the _Life_ of his patron, and this biography of St Wilfrid is the earliest extant historical work compiled by an Anglo-Saxon author. He is a strong partisan and very credulous, but the _Vita Wilfridi_ is nevertheless invaluable for the period it treats. Its date is little after the first decade of the 8th century, and it was used by Bede in compiling his _Historia_.

See Eddius, _Vita Wilfridi_ (Raine, _Historians of Church of York_,
London, 1879-1894), 14; Bede, _Hist. Eccl._ (Plummer, Oxford, 1896),
iii. 2.

EDELINCK, GERARD (1649-1707), Flemish copper-plate engraver, was born at Antwerp. The rudiments of the art, which he was to carry to a higher pitch of excellence than it had previously reached, he acquired in his native town under the engraver Cornelisz Galle. But he was not long in reaching the limits of his master's attainments; and then he went to Paris to improve himself under the teaching of De Poilly. This master likewise had soon done all he could to help him onwards, and Edelinck ultimately took the first rank among line engravers. His excellence was generally acknowledged; and having become known to Louis XIV. he was appointed, on the recommendation of Le Brun, teacher at the academy established at the Gobelins for the training of workers in tapestry. He was also entrusted with the execution of several important works. In 1677 he was admitted member of the Paris Academy of Painting and Sculpture. The work of this great engraver constitutes an epoch in the art. His prints number more than four hundred.

Edelinck stands above and apart from his predecessors and contemporaries in that he excelled, not in some one respect, but in all respects,--that while one engraver attained excellence in correct form, and another in rendering light and shade, and others in giving colour to their prints and the texture of surfaces, he, as supreme master of the burin, possessed and displayed all these separate qualities, in so complete a harmony that the eye is not attracted by any one of them in particular, but rests in the satisfying whole. Edelinck was the first to break through the custom of making prints square, and to execute them in the lozenge shape. Among his most famous works are a "Holy Family," after Raphael; a "Penitent Magdalene," after Charles le Brun; "Alexander at the Tent of Darius," after Le Brun; a "Combat of Four Knights," after Leonardo da Vinci; "Christ surrounded with Angels"; "St Louis praying"; and "St Charles Borromeo before a crucifix,"--the last three after Le Brun. Edelinck was especially good as an engraver of portraits, and executed prints of many of the most eminent persons of his time. Among these are those of Le Brun, Rigaud, Philippe de Champagne (which the engraver thought his best), Santeuil, La Fontaine, Colbert, John Dryden, Descartes, &c. He died at Paris in 1707. His younger brother John, and his son Nicholas, were also engravers, but did not attain to his excellence.

EDELWEISS, known botanically as _Leontopodium alpinum_, a member of the family _Compositae_, a native of the Alps of Central Europe. It is a small herb reaching about 6 in. high, with narrow white woolly leaves, and terminal flower-heads enveloped in woolly bracts. The woolly covering enables the plant to thrive in the exposed situations in which it is found, by protecting it from cold and from drying up through excessive loss of moisture. It is grown in Britain as a rock-plant.

EDEN, SIR ASHLEY (1831-1887), Anglo-Indian official and diplomatist, third son of Robert John Eden, third Lord Auckland and bishop of Bath and Wells, was born on the 13th of November 1831, and was educated at Rugby, Winchester and the East India Company's college at Haileybury, entering the Indian civil service in 1852. In 1855 he gained distinction as assistant to the special commissioner for the suppression of the Santal rising, and in 1860 was appointed secretary to the Bengal government with an _ex officio_ seat on the legislative council, a position he held for eleven years. In 1861 he negotiated, as political agent, a treaty with the raja of Sikkim. His success led to his being sent on a similar mission to Bhutan in 1863; but, being unaccompanied by any armed force, his demands were rejected and he was forced under circumstances of personal insult to come to an arrangement highly favourable to the Bhutias. The result was the repudiation of the treaty by the Indian government and the declaration of war against Bhutan. In 1871 Eden became the first civilian governor of British Burma, which post he held until his appointment in 1877 as lieutenant-governor of Bengal. In 1878 he was made a K.C.S.I., and in 1882 resigned the lieutenant-governorship and returned to England on his appointment to the council of the secretary of state for India, of which he remained a member till his death on the 8th of July 1887. The success of his administration of Bengal was attested by the statue erected in his honour at Calcutta after his retirement.

EDEN, the name of the region in which, according to the Hebrew paradise-tradition in its present form, God planted a garden (or park), wherein he put the man whom he had formed (Gen. ii. 8). Research into primitive beliefs, guided by the comparative method, leads to the view that the "garden" was originally a celestial locality (see PARADISE), and we cannot therefore be surprised if, now that paradise has been brought down to earth, the geographical details given in the Bible are rather difficult to work into a consistent picture. The fantastic geography of the (Indian) _Vishnu Purana_ and the (Iranian) _Bundahish_ will, in this case, be a striking parallel.

Let us now take the details of Eden as they occur. In Gen. ii. 8 we read that the garden lay "in Eden eastward," where "eastward" is generally taken to mean "in the east of the earth." This, however, seems inconsistent with Isa. xiv. 13, where the "mountain of God," which corresponds (see Ezek. xxviii. 13, 14 and the article ADAM) to the "garden in Eden," is said to have been "in the uttermost parts of the north" (so R.V.). The former statement ("eastward") suits Babylonia, where Friedrich Delitzsch[1] places Eden; the latter does not. We are further told (v. 10) that "a river went out from Eden to water the garden," and that "from thence it parted itself (?), and became four heads (?)," which is commonly understood to mean that the river was so large that, soon after leaving the garden ("from thence" is all that the text says), it could still supply four considerable streams (the text says, not "streams," but "heads," i.e. perhaps "beginnings" or "starting-points"). In _vv._ 11-14 the names of four rivers are given, but in spite of the descriptive supplements attached to three of them, only that one which has no supplement can be identified with much probability. In fact, Perath may without any obvious difficulty be "Euphrates," except in Jer. xiii., where a more southerly stream seems indicated, but to the identification of "Hiddekel" with "Tigris" (Babylonian Diglat) the presence of the initial _Hi_ in the Hebrew is an objection. Now as to "Pishon" and "Gihon." If a moderately early tradition may be trusted, the "Gihon" is another name for the "Shihor," which was either in or beside "Mizraim" (= Egypt) or Mizrim (= the North Arabian Musri), and indeed according to most scholars means the Nile in Jer. ii. 18, where the Septuagint substitutes for it Geon, i.e. Gihon. For "Pishon" few plausible suggestions have been made; it is not, however, a hopeless problem from the point of view which recognizes Eden in Arabia.

For details of the interesting descriptive supplements of the names Pishon, Gihon, and Hiddekel, on which there is much difference of opinion, it must suffice to refer to the _Encyclopaedia Biblica_ and Hasting's _Dictionary of the Bible_. We must, however, mention a widely held explanation of the name _Eden_. Plausible as it is to interpret this name as "delight"--indeed, the Septuagint translates in Gen. iii. 23 f. [Greek: ho paradeisos tes tryphes]--this cannot have been the original meaning. Hence Delitzsch (_Wo lag das Paradies?_ p. 79) suggested that "Eden" might be a Hebraized form of the Babylonian _edinu_, "field, plain, desert." But whereas Delitzsch takes "Eden" to be the entire plain of Babylonia, Hommel thinks that it is rather the plain about the sacred city of Eridu. It is the latter scholar to whom the "Arabian theory" of Paradise in its best-known form is due. The rivers (apart from Perath, "Euphrates") he locates in northern and central Arabia, the "Cush" and "Asshur" of Genesis being, according to him, central Arabia and Edom respectively (_Ancient Hebrew Traditions_, pp. 314-316; _Aufsatze u. Abhandlungen_, iii. 281-284, 335-339). These rivers, in short, become Arabian wadis, on which see Hast. _D.B._ i. 132a (foot). Cheyne, on the other hand, rejects the Babylonian explanation of Eden as = "field, plain," on the ground that "Eden" was originally regarded as a mountainous tract.

See further Driver, _Book of Genesis_ (1904), pp. 57-60; _Ency. Bib._
"Paradise"; and the commentaries of Gunkel (2nd ed., 1902), and Cheyne
(1907). (T. K. C.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] _Wo lag das Paradies?_ p. 66. A Sumerian name of Babylon was
Tin-ter, "dwelling of life." Cf. Babilu, Babili, "gate of God."

EDENBRIDGE, a market town in the south-western parliamentary division of Kent, England, 26 m. S.S.E. of London, on the South-Eastern & Chatham, and the London, Brighton & South Coast railways. Pop. (1901) 2546. It is pleasantly situated on the river Eden, an affluent of the Medway, in a valley between the Ragstone Hills and the Forest Ridges. The church of St Peter and St Paul is principally Perpendicular. The town, which has considerable agricultural trade, possesses a chalybeate spring, but this is little used. Two miles from the town is Hever Castle, a beautiful moated mansion dating from the 15th and 16th centuries, but occupying the site of an earlier structure. This was rebuilt by Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, whose grandson, Sir Thomas, was father of Anne, second wife of Henry VIII., who here spent much of her life before her marriage, and was visited several times by the king. There is a chapel of her family in the fine parish church of Hever. Not far distant is the modern Chiddingstone Castle, on an ancient site. A block of sandstone in the park is called the "chiding stone," tradition asserting it to be a prehistoric seat of judgment.

EDEN HALL, LUCK OF, an old painted drinking goblet preserved at Eden Hall, Cumberland, the seat of the Musgrave family. It is of enamelled or painted glass and is believed to date from the 10th century. It is of fair size and has the letters I.H.S. on the top. Round the vase is the famous verse given below. A legend involving the fortunes of the Musgraves attaches to this cup. In the grounds of Eden Hall is a spring called St Cuthbert's Well, and the story is that one of the earliest of the Musgraves surprised the fairies feasting and making merry round the well. He snatched at the goblet from which the Fairy King was drinking and made off with it. The fairies pursued him to his castle, but failed to catch him. The Fairy King acknowledged his defeat and gave the cup as a prize to Musgrave, but warned him that the gift carried with it a condition:--

"When this cup shall break or fall.
Farewell the luck of Eden Hall."

There are variants of this legend, but substantially they agree. Possessed of the lucky cup the knight of Musgrave is said to have at once prospered in a love-suit which had till then gone against him. There is a curious poem on the cup called "The Drinking Match at Eden Hall," by Philip, duke of Wharton, a parody on the ballad of Chevy Chase. This is reprinted in full in Edward Walford's _Tales of Great Families_ (1877, vol. 11), under the heading, "The witty Duke of Wharton." In Longfellow's famous poem the goblet is represented as having been broken.

EDENKOBEN, a town of Germany, in the Bavarian Palatinate, 6 m. N. from Landau, on the railway to Weissenburg. Pop. 5300. It has a Roman Catholic and a Protestant church, several high-grade schools and a sulphur-spring. Its industries comprise linen- and damask-weaving, ironworks, and the manufacture of machinery, furniture and cigars. It has also a considerable trade in wine.

EDENTATA, the name assigned by Cuvier to an order of placental mammals apparently typified by the South American anteater, but likewise including the sloths and armadillos of the same country, and the Old World aard-varks and pangolins. Only the anteaters and pangolins are absolutely without teeth (Lat. _e_, out, _dens_, tooth), and the name is strictly applicable only to those two groups; but in all the existing representatives of the order teeth are absent from the front of the jaws, while the cheek-teeth are devoid of roots and of enamel, and only very exceptionally have deciduous predecessors. Practically this is all the definition that can be given to the assemblage, which is possibly an artificial one. It may be mentioned, however, that there is not unfrequently a separate coracoid bone.

Edentates may be divided into three distinct sections or suborders, firstly the Xenarthra, or Edentata Vera, of America, secondly the Tubulidenta, represented by the African aard-varks, and thirdly the Pholidota, which includes only the pangolins common to Africa and Asia. The Xenarthra are essentially a South and Central American group, some of the members of which have effected an entrance into North America. The three families by which they are now represented are widely sundered, both as regards habits and structure; but two of them--the sloths and the anteaters--are intimately connected by means of the extinct ground-sloths. As regards the presumed relationship of the Old World to the New World types, it is noteworthy that in the early Tertiary deposits of France and Germany are found certain fossil remains apparently referable to armadillos, aard-varks and pangolins, some of the armadillos coming very close to South American forms. This assemblage of three groups of edentates in the countries fringing northern Africa is suggestive that the latter continent may have been the original home of the group, which reached South America by means of a direct land connexion.

_Xenarthra._--The typical American edentates, or Xenarthra, are characterized by the circumstance that the last dorsal and all the lumbar vertebrae carry additional articular facets, or abnormal articulations (xenarthral). Teeth may be absent or present, and when developed either all similar (homaeodont) or to some extent differentiated. The bodily covering may take the form either of coarse hairs, or of bony plates, with a larger or smaller intermixture of hairs.

Of the three existing families of this group, the first is that of the _Bradypodidae_, or sloths, characterized by the presence of five pairs of upper and four of lower teeth, the normally-formed tongue and the rudimentary tail. The species are arboreal and feed on leaves; all being confined to the forests of tropical America. Externally sloths are clothed with long coarse, crisp hair; the head is short and rounded, and the external ears inconspicuous. The teeth are subcylindrical, of persistent growth, consisting of a central axis of vasodentine, with a thin investment of hard dentine, and a thick outer coating of cement; without any succession. Fore-limbs greatly longer than the hind-limbs; the extremities terminating in narrow, curved feet; with the digits never exceeding three in number, and encased for nearly their whole length in a common integument, and armed with long, strong claws. Stomach complex. No caecum. Placenta deciduate and dome-like, composed of an aggregation of numerous discoidal lobes.

A remarkable feature connected with sloths is the development of a green colour in their hair, due to the growth of an alga. According to Dr W.G. Ridewood, in the three-toed sloth the hair is invested with a thick extra-cortical layer. "The hair has a tendency to crack in a transverse direction, and in the cracks there come to lodge unicellular algae, to which Kuhn has given the name _Pleurococcus bradypi_. The moisture of the climate in which _Bradypus_ lives enables the alga to live and propagate in this curious position, and the sloth acquires a general green tint which must render it very difficult to distinguish as it hangs among the green foliage." In the two-toed sloth, on the other hand, the bulk of the hair is composed of an outer coat, or cortex, which is longitudinally fluted or grooved, the grooves being filled with strands of extra-cortex in which flourishes an alga (_Pleurococcus choloepi_) distinct from the one infesting the hairs of the three-toed species. Of quite a different type are the hairs of the extinct ground-sloths (see MYLODON), which are smooth and solid, Dr Ridewood rejecting the idea that they were originally coated with a cortex that has disappeared.

The typical genus _Bradypus_ is represented by the various species of ai, or three-toed sloth, in which none of the teeth project greatly beyond the others; the first in the upper jaw is much smaller than any of the others, while the first in the lower jaw is broad and compressed, and the grinding surfaces of all are much cupped. Vertebrae: C 9, D and L 20 (of which 15 to 17 bear ribs), S 6, Ca 11. All the species present the peculiarity of possessing nine cervical vertebrae; but the ninth, and sometimes the eighth, bears a pair of short movable ribs. The fore-limbs are considerably longer than the hind-legs, and the bones of the fore-arm are complete, free and capable of pronation and supination. The fore-feet are long, very narrow, habitually curved and terminate in three pointed curved claws, in close apposition to each other; they are, in fact, incapable of being divaricated, so that the foot is reduced to the condition of a triple hook, fit only for the function of suspension from the boughs of trees. The hind-foot closely resembles the fore-foot in general structure and mode of use, and has the sole habitually turned inwards so that it cannot be applied to the ground in walking. The tongue is short and soft, and the stomach large and complex, bearing some resemblance to that of ruminants. The windpipe or trachea has the remarkable peculiarity--not unfrequent among birds and reptiles--of being folded on itself before it reaches the lungs. The two teats are pectoral in position. The premaxilla is rudimentary and loosely attached to the maxilla. Except in _B. torquatus_, there is no perforation in the lower end of the humerus. Some of the species are covered uniformly with a grey or greyish-brown coat; others have a dark collar of elongated hairs around the shoulders (_B. torquatus_); some have the hair of the face shorter than that of the rest of the head and neck; and others have a remarkable-looking patch of soft, short hair on the back between the shoulders, consisting, when best marked, of a median stripe of glossy black, bordered on each side by bright orange, yellow or white. There are also structural differences in the skulls, as in the amount of inflation of the pterygoid bones. The habits of all are apparently alike. They are natives of Guiana, Brazil and Peru, and two species (_B. infuscatus_ and _B. castaneiceps_) extend north of the Isthmus of Panama as far as Nicaragua. Of the former of these a specimen in captivity uttered a shrill sound like a monkey when forcibly pulled away from the tree to which it was holding.

In the species of unau, or two-toed sloths, _Choloepus_, the front tooth in both jaws is separated by an interval from the others, and is large and caniniform, wearing to a sharp bevelled edge against the opposing tooth, the upper shutting in front of the lower when the mouth is closed, unlike true canines. Vertebrae: C 6 or 7, D 23-24, L 3, S 7-8, Ca 4-6. One species (_C. didactylus_) has the ordinary number of vertebrae in the neck; but an otherwise closely allied form (_C. hoffmanni_) has but six. The tail is very rudimentary. The fore-feet generally resemble those of _Bradypus_, but there are only two functional digits, with claws; these answering to the second and third of the typical five-toed limb. The structure of the hind-limb generally resembles that of _Bradypus_, the appellation "two-toed" referring only to the anterior limb, for in the foot the three middle toes are functionally developed and of nearly equal size. The premaxilla is well developed, and firmly attached to the maxilla; and there is always a perforation, or foramen, on the inner side of the lower end of the humerus. _C. didactylus_, which has been longest known, and is commonly called by the native name of unau, inhabits the forests of Brazil. _C. hoffmanni_ has a more northern geographical range, extending from Ecuador through Panama to Costa Rica. Its voice, which is seldom heard, is like the bleat of a sheep, and if the animal is seized it snorts violently. Both species are very variable in external coloration (see SLOTH).