Part 8

HARPIES (Gr. [Greek: Harpyiai], older form [Greek: Arepyiai], "swift robbers"), in ancient mythology, the personification of the sweeping storm-winds. In Homer, where they appear indifferently under the name of [Greek: harpyiai] and [Greek: thyellai], their function is to carry off those whose sudden disappearance is desired by the gods. Only one of them is there mentioned (_Iliad_, xvi. 150) by name, Podarge, the mother of the coursers of Achilles by Zephyrus, the generative wind. According to Hesiod (_Theog._ 265) they are two in number, Aello and Ocypete, daughters of Thaumas and Electra, winged goddesses with beautiful locks, swifter than winds and birds in their flight, and their domain is the air. In later times their number was increased (Celaeno being a frequent addition and their leader in Virgil), and they were described as hateful and repulsive creatures, birds with the faces of old women, the ears of bears, crooked talons and hanging breasts; even in Aeschylus (_Eumenides_, 50) they appear as ugly and misshapen monsters. Their function of snatching away mortals to the other world brings them into connexion with the Erinyes, with whom they are often confounded. On the so-called Harpy monument from Lycia, now in the British Museum, the Harpies appear carrying off some small figures, supposed to be the daughters of Pandareus, unless they are intended to represent departed souls. The repulsive character of the Harpies is more especially seen in the legend of Phineus, king of Salmydessus in Thrace (Apollodorus i. 9, 21; see also Diod. Sic. iv. 43). Having been deprived of his sight by the gods for his ill-treatment of his sons by his first wife (or for having revealed the future to mortals), he was condemned to be tormented by two Harpies, who carried off whatever food was placed before him. On the arrival of the Argonauts, Phineus promised to give them particulars of the course they should pursue and of the dangers that lay before them, if they would deliver him from his tormentors. Accordingly, when the Harpies appeared as usual to carry off the food from Phineus's table, they were driven off and pursued by Calais and Zetes, the sons of Boreas, as far as the Strophades islands in the Aegean. On promising to cease from molesting Phineus, their lives were spared. Their place of abode is variously placed in the Strophades, the entrance to the under-world, or a cave in Crete. According to Cecil Smith, _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, xiii. (1892-1893), the Harpies are the hostile spirits of the scorching south wind; E. Rohde (_Rheinisches Museum_, i., 1895) regards them as spirits of the storm, which at the bidding of the gods carry off human beings alive to the under-world or some spot beyond human ken.

See articles in Roscher's _Lexikon der Mythologie_ and Daremberg and Saglio's _Dictionnaire des antiquites_. In the article GREEK ART, fig. 14 gives a representation of the winged Harpies.

HARPIGNIES, HENRI (1819- ), French landscape painter, born at Valenciennes in 1819, was intended by his parents for a business career, but his determination to become an artist was so strong that it conquered all obstacles, and he was allowed at the age of twenty-seven to enter Achard's atelier in Paris. From this painter he acquired a groundwork of sound constructive draughtsmanship, which is so marked a feature of his landscape painting. After two years under this exacting teacher he went to Italy, whence he returned in 1850. During the next few years he devoted himself to the painting of children in landscape setting, and fell in with Corot and the other Barbizon masters, whose principles and methods are to a certain extent reflected in his own personal art. To Corot he was united by a bond of warm friendship, and the two artists went together to Italy in 1860. On his return, he scored his first great success at the Salon, in 1861, with his "Lisiere de bois sur les bords de l'Allier." After that year he was a regular exhibitor at the old Salon; in 1886 he received his first medal for "Le Soir dans la campagne de Rome," which was acquired for the Luxembourg Gallery. Many of his best works were painted at Herisson in the Bourbonnais, as well as in the Nivernais and the Auvergne. Among his chief pictures are "Soir sur les bords de la Loire" (1861), "Les Corbeaux" (1865), "Le Soir" (1866), "Le Saut-du-Loup" (1873), "La Loire" (1882), and "Vue de Saint-Prive" (1883). He also did some decorative work for the Paris Opera--the "Vallee d'Egerie" panel, which he showed at the Salon of 1870.

HARP-LUTE, or DITAL HARP, one of the many attempts to revive the popularity of the guitar and to increase its compass, invented in 1798 by Edward Light. The harp-lute owes the first part of its name to the characteristic mechanism for shortening the effective length of the strings; its second name--dital harp--emphasizes the nature of the stops, which are worked by the thumb in contradistinction to the pedals of the harp worked by the feet. It consists of a pear-shaped body, to which is added a curved neck supported on a front pillar or arm springing from the body, and therefore reminiscent of the harp. There are 12 catgut strings. The curved fingerboard, almost parallel with the neck, is provided with frets, and has in addition a thumb-key for each string, by means of which the accordance of the string is mechanically raised a semitone at will. The dital or key, on being depressed, acts upon a stop-ring or eye, which draws the string down against the fret, and thus shortens its effective length. The fingers then stop the strings as usual over the remaining frets. A further improvement was patented in 1816 as the British harp-lute. Other attempts possessing less practical merit than the dital harp were the lyra-guitarre, which appeared in Germany at the beginning of the 19th century; the accord-guitarre, towards the middle of the same century; and the keyed guitar. (K. S.)

HARPOCRATES, originally an Egyptian deity, adopted by the Greeks, and worshipped in later times both by Greeks and Romans. In Egypt, Harpa-khruti, Horus the child, was one of the forms of Horus, the sun-god, the child of Osiris. He was supposed to carry on war against the powers of darkness, and hence Herodotus (ii. 144) considers him the same as the Greek Apollo. He was represented in statues with his finger on his mouth, a symbol of childhood. The Greeks and Romans, not understanding the meaning of this attitude, made him the god of silence (Ovid, _Metam._ ix. 691), and as such he became a favourite deity with the later mystic schools of philosophy.

See articles by G. Lafaye in Daremberg and Saglio's _Dictionnaire des antiquites_, and by E. Meyer (_s.v._ "Horos") in Roscher's _Lexikon der Mythologie_.

HARPOCRATION, VALERIUS, Greek grammarian of Alexandria. He is possibly the Harpocration mentioned by Julius Capitolinus (_Life of Verus_, 2) as the Greek tutor of Antoninus Verus (2nd century A.D.); some authorities place him much later, on the ground that he borrowed from Athenaeus. He is the author of a [Greek: Lexikon] (or [Greek: Peri ton lexeon) ton deka rhetoron], which has come down to us in an incomplete form. The work contains, in more or less alphabetical order, notes on well-known events and persons mentioned by the orators, and explanations of legal and commercial expressions. As nearly all the lexicons to the Greek orators have been lost, Harpocration's work is especially valuable. Amongst his authorities were the writers of Atthides (histories of Attica), the grammarian Didymus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and the lexicographer Dionysius, son of Tryphon. The book also contains contributions to the history of Attic oratory and Greek literature generally. Nothing is known of an [Greek: 'Antheron synagoge], a sort of anthology or chrestomathy attributed to him by Suidas. A series of articles in the margin of a Cambridge MS. of the lexicon forms the basis of the _Lexicon rhetoricum Cantabrigiense_ (see DOBREE, P. P.).

The best edition is by W. Dindorf (1853); see also J. E. Sandys, _History of Classical Scholarship_, i. (1906), p. 325; C. Boysen, _De Harpocrationis fontibus_ (Kiel, 1876).

HARPOON (from Fr. _harpon_, a grappling-iron, O. Fr. _harpe_, a dog's claw, an iron clamp for fastening stones together; the source of these words is the Lat. _harpago_, _harpa_, &c., formed from Gr. [Greek: harpage], hook, [Greek: harpazein], to snatch, tear away, cf. "harpy"), barbed spear, particularly one used for spearing whales or other large fish, and either thrown by hand or fired from a gun (see WHALE-FISHERY).

HARPSICHORD, HARPSICON, DOUBLE VIRGINALS (Fr. _clavecin_; Ger. _Clavicymbel_, _Kiel-Flugel_; Ital. _arpicordo_, _cembalo_, _clavicembalo_, _gravecembalo_; Dutch, _clavisinbal_), a large keyboard instrument (see PIANOFORTE), belonging to the same family as the virginal and spinet, but having 2, 3, or even 4 strings to each note, and a case of the harp or wing shape, afterwards adopted for the grand pianoforte. J. S. Bach's harpsichord, preserved in the museum of the Hochschule fur Musik at Charlottenburg, has two manuals and 4 strings to each note, one 16 ft., two 8 ft. and one 4 ft. By means of stops the performer has within his power a number of combinations for varying the tone and dynamic power. In all instruments of the harpsichord family the strings, instead of being struck by tangents as in the clavichord, or by hammers as in the pianoforte, are plucked by means of a quill firmly embedded in the centred tongue of a jack or upright placed on the back end of the key-lever. When the finger depresses a key, the jack is thrown up, and in passing the crow-quill catches the string and twangs it. It is this twanging of the string which produces the brilliant incisive tone peculiar to the harpsichord family. What these instruments gain in brilliancy of tone, however, they lose in power of expression and of accent. The impossibility of commanding any emphasis necessarily created for the harpsichord an individual technique which influenced the music composed for it to so great an extent that it cannot be adequately rendered upon the pianoforte.

The harpsichord assumed a position of great importance during the 16th and 17th centuries, more especially in the orchestra, which was under the leadership of the harpsichord player. The most famous of all harpsichord makers, whose names form a guarantee for excellence, were the Ruckers, established at Antwerp from the last quarter of the 16th century. (K. S.)

HARPY, a large diurnal bird of prey, so named after the mythological monster of the classical poets (see HARPIES),--the _Thrasaetus harpyia_ of modern ornithologists--an inhabitant of the warmer parts of America from Southern Mexico to Brazil. Though known since the middle of the 17th century, its habits have come very little under the notice of naturalists, and what is said of them by the older writers must be received with some suspicion. A cursory inspection of the bird, which is not unfrequently brought alive to Europe, its size, and its enormous bill and talons, at once suggest the vast powers of destruction imputed to it, and are enough to account for the stories told of its ravages on mammals--sloths, fawns, peccaries and spider-monkeys. It has even been asserted to attack the human race. How much of this is fabulous there seems no means at present of determining, but some of the statements are made by veracious travellers--D'Orbigny and Tschudi. It is not uncommon in the forests of the isthmus of Panama, and Salvin says (_Proc. Zool. Society_, 1864, p. 368) that its flight is slow and heavy. Indeed its owl-like visage, its short wings and soft plumage, do not indicate a bird of very active habits, but the weapons of offence with which it is armed show that it must be able to cope with vigorous prey. Its appearance is sufficiently striking--the head and lower parts, except a pectoral band, white, the former adorned with an erectile crest, the upper parts dark grey banded with black, the wings dusky, and the tail barred; but the huge bill and powerful scutellated legs most of all impress the beholder. The precise affinities of the harpy cannot be said to have been determined. By some authors it is referred to the eagles, by others to the buzzards, and by others again to the hawks; but possibly the first of these alliances is the most likely to be true. (A. N.)

[Illustration: Harpy.]

HARRAN, HARAN or CHARRAN (Sept. [Greek: Charrhran] or [Greek: Charrha]: Strabo, [Greek: Karrhai]: Pliny, _Carrae_ or _Carrhae_; Arab. _Harran_), in biblical history the place where Terah halted after leaving Ur, and apparently the birthplace of Abraham, a town on the stream Jullab, some nine hours' journey from Edessa in Syria. At this point the road from Damascus joins the highway between Nineveh and Carchemish, and Haran had thus considerable military and commercial value. As a strategic position it is mentioned in inscriptions as early as the time of Tiglath Pileser I., about 1100 B.C., and subsequently by Sargon II., who restored the privileges lost at the rebellion which led to the conquest referred to in 2 Kings xix. 12 (= Isa. xxxvii. 12). It was the centre of a considerable commerce (Ezek. xxvii. 23), and one of its specialities was the odoriferous gum derived from the strobus (Pliny, _H.N._ xii. 40). It was here that Crassus in his eastern expedition was attacked and slain by the Parthians (53 B.C.); and here also the emperor Caracalla was murdered at the instigation of Macrinus (A.D. 217). Haran was the chief home of the moon-god Sin, whose temple was rebuilt by several kings, among them Assur-bani-pal and Nabunidus and Herodian (iv. 13, 7) mentions the town as possessing in his day a temple of the moon. In the middle ages it is mentioned as having been the seat of a particular heathen sect, that of the Haranite Sabeans. It retained its importance down to the period of the Arab ascendancy; but by Abulfeda it is mentioned as having before his time fallen into decay. It is now wholly in ruins. The Yahwistic writer (Gen. xxvii. 43) makes it the home of Laban and connects it with Isaac and Jacob. But we cannot thus put Haran in Aramnaharaim; the home of the Labanites is rather to be looked for in the very similar word Hauran.

HARRAR (or HARAR), a city of N.E. Africa, in 8 deg. 45' N., 42 deg. 36' E., capital of a province of Abyssinia and 220 m. S.S.W. of the ports of Zaila (British) and Jibuti (French) on the Gulf of Aden. With Jibuti it is connected by a railway (188 m. long) and carriage-road. Harrar is built on the slopes of a hill at an elevation of over 5000 ft. A lofty stone wall, pierced by five gates and flanked by twenty-four towers, encloses the city, which has a population of about 40,000. The streets are steep, narrow, dirty and unpaved, the roadways consisting of rough boulders. The houses are in general made of undressed stone and mud and are flat-topped, the general aspect of the city being Oriental and un-Abyssinian. A few houses, including the palace of the governor and the foreign consulates, are of more elaborate and solid construction than the majority of the buildings. There are several mosques and an Abyssinian church (of the usual circular construction) built of stone. Harrar is a city of considerable commercial importance, through it passing all the merchandise of southern Abyssinia, Kaffa and Galla land. The chief traders are Abyssinians, Armenians and Greeks. The principal article of export is coffee, which is grown extensively in the neighbouring hills and is of the finest quality. Besides coffee there is a large trade in durra, the kat plant (used by the Mahommedans as a drug), ghee, cattle, mules and camels, skins and hides, ivory and gums. The import trade is largely in cotton goods, but every kind of merchandise is included.

Harrar is believed to owe its foundation to Arab immigrants from the Yemen in the 7th century of the Christian era. In the region of Somaliland, now the western part of the British protectorate of that name, the Arabs established the Moslem state of Adel or Zaila, with their capital at Zaila on the Gulf of Aden. In the 13th century the sultans of Adel enjoyed great power. In 1521 the then sultan Abubekr transferred the seat of government to Harrar, probably regarding Zaila as too exposed to the attacks of the Turkish and Portuguese navies then contending for the mastery of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Abubekr's successor was Mahommed III., Ahmed ibn Ibrahim el-Ghazi (1507-1543), surnamed Gran (Granye), the left-handed. He was not an Arab but, probably, of Somali origin. The son of a noted warrior, he quickly rose to supreme power, becoming sultan or amir in 1525. He is famous for his invasion of Abyssinia, of which country he was virtual master for several years. From the beginning of the 17th century Adel suffered greatly from the ravages of pagan Galla tribes, and Harrar sank to the position of an amirate of little importance. It was first visited by a European in 1854 when (Sir) Richard Burton spent ten days there in the guise of an Arab. In 1875 Harrar was occupied by an Egyptian force under Raouf Pasha, by whose orders the amir was strangled. The town remained in the possession of Egypt until 1885, when the garrison was withdrawn in consequence of the rising of the Mahdi in the Sudan. The Egyptian garrison and many Egyptian civilians, in all 6500 persons, left Harrar between November 1884 and the 25th of April 1885, when a son of the ruler who had been deposed by Egypt was installed as amir, the arrangement being carried out under the superintendence of British officers. The new amir held power until January 1887, in which month Harrar was conquered by Menelek II., king of Shoa (afterwards emperor of Abyssinia). The governorship of Harrar was by Menelek entrusted to Ras Makonnen, who held the post until his death in 1906.

The Harrari proper are of a distinct stock from the neighbouring peoples, and speak a special language. Harrarese is "a Semitic graft inserted into an indigenous stock" (Sir R. Burton, _First Footsteps in East Africa_). The Harrari are Mahommedans of the Shafa'i or Persian sect, and they employ the solar year and the Persian calendar. Besides the native population there are in Harrar colonies of Abyssinians, Somalis and Gallas. By the Somalis the place is called Adari, by the Gallas Adaray.

See ABYSSINIA; SOMALILAND. Also P. Paulitschke, _Harar: Forschungsreise nach den Somal- und Galla-Landern Ost-Afrikas_ (Leipzig, 1888).

HARRATIN, black Berbers, dwelling in Tidikelt and other Saharan oases. Many of them are blacker than the average negro. In physique, however, they are true to the Berber type, being of handsome appearance with European features and well-proportioned bodies. They are the result of an early crossing with the Sudanese negro races, though to-day they have all the pride of the Berbers (q.v.), and do not live with or intermarry among negroes.

HARRIER, or HEN-HARRIER, name given to certain birds of prey which were formerly very abundant in parts of the British Islands, from their habit of harrying poultry. The first of these names has now become used in a generic sense for all the species ranked under the genus _Circus_ of Lacepede, and the second confined to the particular species which is the _Falco cyaneus_ of Linnaeus and the _Circus cyaneus_ of modern ornithologists.

One European species, _C. aeruginosus_, though called in books the marsh-harrier, is far more commonly known in England and Ireland as the moor-buzzard. But harriers are not, like buzzards, arboreal in their habits, and always affect open country, generally, though not invariably, preferring marshy or fenny districts, for snakes and frogs form a great part of their ordinary food. On the ground their carriage is utterly unlike that of a buzzard, and their long wings and legs render it easy to distinguish the two groups when taken in the hand. All the species also have a more or less well-developed ruff or frill of small thickset feathers surrounding the lower part of the head, nearly like that seen in owls, and accordingly many systematists consider that the genus _Circus_, though undoubtedly belonging to the _Falconidae_, connects that family with the Striges. No osteological affinity, however, can be established between the harriers and any section of the owls, and the superficial resemblance will have to be explained in some other way. Harriers are found almost all over the world,[1] and fifteen species are recognized by Bowdler Sharpe (_Cat. Birds Brit. Museum_, i. pp. 50-73). In most if not all the harriers the sexes differ greatly in colour, so much so that for a long while the males and females of one of the commonest and best known, the _C. cyaneus_ above mentioned, were thought to be distinct species, and were or still are called in various European languages by different names. The error was maintained with the greater persistency since the young males, far more abundant than the adults, wear much the same plumage as their mother, and it was not until after Montagu's observations were published at the beginning of the 19th century that the "ringtail," as she was called (the _Falco pygargus_ of Linnaeus), was generally admitted to be the female of the "hen-harrier." But this was not Montagu's only good service as regards this genus. He proved the hitherto unexpected existence of a second species,[2] subject to the same diversity of plumage. This was called by him the ash-coloured falcon, but it now generally bears his name, and is known as Montagu's harrier, _C. cineraceus_. In habits it is very similar to the hen-harrier, but it has longer wings, and its range is not so northerly, for while the hen-harrier extends to Lapland, Montagu's is but very rare in Scotland, though in the south of England it is the most common species. Harriers indeed in the British Islands are rapidly becoming things of the past. Their nests are easily found, and the birds when nesting are easily destroyed. In the south-east of Europe, reaching also to the Cape of Good Hope and to India, there is a fourth species, the _C. swainsoni_ of some writers, the _C. pallidus_ of others. In North America _C. cyaneus_ is represented by a kindred form, _C. hudsonius_, usually regarded as a good species, the adult male of which is always to be recognized by its rufous markings beneath, in which character it rather resembles _C. cineraceus_, but it has not the long wings of that species. South America has in _C. cinereus_ another representative form, while China, India and Australia possess more of this type. Thus there is a section in which the males have a strongly contrasted black and grey plumage, and finally there is a group of larger forms allied to the European _C. aeruginosus_, wherein a grey dress is less often attained, of which the South African _C. ranivorus_ and the New Zealand _C. gouldi_ are examples. (A. N.)

[Illustration: Hen-Harrier (Male and Female).]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The distribution of the different species is rather curious, while the range of some is exceedingly wide,--one, _C. maillardi_, seems to be limited to the island of Reunion (Bourbon).

[2] A singular mistake, which has been productive of further error, was made by Albin, who drew his figure (_Hist. Birds_, ii. pi. 5) from a specimen of one species, and coloured it from a specimen of the other.