II AM

H AM

cm

Halter, in the manege, a head-stall for a horse.

Halter-Cast, is an excoriation of the pastern, occasioned bythe halter’s being entangled about a horse’s foot, upon his endea-vouring to rub his neck with his hinder feet. For tire cure, anointthe place morning and evening, with equal quantities of lintseed-oil and brandy, well mixed.

I1ALTEUEN, a town of Germany , 20 miles S. W. of Mun-ster.

II ALTERlSTiE, in antiquity, a kind of players at Discus.Some take the discus to have been a leaden weight or ball, whichthe vauiters bore in their hands, to secure and keep themselves themore steady in their leaping. Others say the halter was a lump oflead or stone, with a hole, or handle fixed to it, by which it mightbe carried.

IIALTON, or I1AULTON, i. e. High-Town, a town ofCheshire, 13 miles N. E. of Chester, and 186 N. W. of Lon-don .

IIALTWEZEL, or 11 ALT WIIIST LE, a well-built town ofEngland, in Northumberland , on the South Tyne, 37 miles W. ofNewcastle, and 314 N. W. of London .

IIALYMOTE, properly signifies holy or ecclesiastical court.See Halmotk. It was anciently held on Sunday before St. Tho-mas’s day, raid hence.called the Ilaly Mote or Holy Court.

HALTS, in ancient geography, the noblest river of the HitherAsia , through which it has a long course, was the boundary ofGrce-us’s kingdom on the east. It separated Paphlagonia fromCappadocia ; and received its name aot tcj «>■<>;, from salt, be-cause its waters were of a salt taste, from the soil over which theyflowed. It is famous for the defeat of Croesus king of Lvdia, whowas misled by this ambiguous response of the oracle; x*im; axwtmSrt; /xiyaXtiv ImXvc-u ; i. c. If Croesus passes over the Halyshe shall destroy a great empire. That empire proved to be hisown.

HALYWERCFOLK, anciently persons who enjoyed land,by the pious service of repairing some church, or defending asepulchre. It also signified persons in the diocese of Durham,w ho held their lands to defend the corpse of St. Culhbert, andthence claimed the privilege of not being forced to go out of thebishopric.

HAM, [art. Ileb. i. e. crafty,] the youngest son of Noah,end father of Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan ; each of whomlossessed the countries peopled by them. Ham, it is believed,lad ail Africa for his inheritance, and peopled it with his posterity,fie himself, it is thought, dwelt in Egypt , but M. Basnage is ofopinion, that neither Flam nor Mizraim ever were in Egypt , butthat their posterity settled in this country, and called it by th* 1name of tneir ancestor. He also doubts of his having been wor-shipped as a god, by the name of Jupiter Ilammon. Be that as itmav, Africa is called the Land of Ham, in IValm lxxviii. 51,cv. 23, cvi. 22. In Plutarch, Egypt is called Chemia ; and thereare traces of the name of Ilam or Cham, in Psochemmis, andPsitta cheimnis, which are cantons of Egypt. See Egypt .

IIam, [limn, Saxon; hamme, Dutch, ] the hip ; the hinder partof the articulation of the thigh with the knee.

Ham, in commerce, &zc. the thigh of a hog salted. Westphalia hams are prepared by salting them with saltpetre, pre-sing themin a press eight or ten days, then steeping them in juniper-water,and drying them bv the smoke of juniper-wood. A ham may hesalted in imitation of those of Westphalia , by sprinkling a ham ofyoung pork with salt for one day, to fetch out the blood ; thenwiping it dry, and rubbing it with a mixture of a pound of brownsugar, a quarter of a pound of saltpetre, half a pint of bay-salt, andthree pints of common salt, well stirred in an iron pan over thefire, till moderately hot: let it lie three weeks in this salting ; turnit often ; and dry it and hang it up.

IIam, in names, whether initial or final, is no other than theSaxon ham, a house, farm, or village. Gibson’s Camden.

IIam signifies also a narrow meadow.

El am, or Hamm, a city in the kingdom of Westphalia . Lon. 7.53. E. Lat. 51.42. N.

IIa.v, a town of France, in the department of Somme , and lateprovince of Picardy, 10 miles N. of Noyons, and 48 of Paris .

HAMADRYADES, [from a^a, together, and an oak,]a kind of inferior deities revered among (he ancient heathens, andbelieved to preside over woods aud forests, anti to be inclosed un-

der the bark of oaks. They were supposed to live and die withthe trees they were attached to; as is observed by Servius onVirgil, Eelog. x. ver. 62. ’Phis idea among the ancients, of in-tellectual beings annexed to trees, accounts for their worship oftrees.

HAMAH, a town of Asiatic Turkey, in Syria . By sometravellers it is corruptly called Amarl and Amant. Some mis-take it fur ihiLuncienl Apamea. Linen is manufactured them, andsent to Tripoli to be exported into Europe . Lon. 36. 15. E. Lat.35. 1 5. N.

IIAMAMEEIS, Witch-Hazel, a genus of the digynia or-der, and tetrandria class of plants. Involucre three-leaved ; peri-anthers four-leaved; petals four; nut two-horned, two-celled.There is only one species, viz. II. virginica.

IIAMAMET, a town of Barbaiy, on the E. coast of Tunis , 30miles X. of Tunis .

1IAMAMLEEE, a town 12 miles E. of Tunis , noted for itshot-baths, which are famed for curing rheumatisms and many othercomplaints. The Bey has a very fine bath, which lie permits theconsuls and others to use.

IIAMAN, [;cn, Ileb. i.c. making an uproar,] the son ofIlaiv medatha, an Agagite, or Amalekite , the prime-minister ofPersia and favourite of King Ahasuerus; was one of the most bar-barous and vindictive monsters that ever existed, who, to gratifyhis haughty vengeance against a single individual, planned themassacre of the whole nation of the Jews . His diabolical scheme,repeated disappointments, and deserved death, are recorded in Es-ther, ch. iii. vi. and vii.

I1AMAR, a town of Norway , in Aggerlmys, 52 miles N. K-of Christiana.

JIAMAXOBIANS, IIAMAXOBII, or IIAMAXOBITIE,[from a chariot, and /3»?, life,] a people who had no

houses, but lived in carriages. They were an ancient people ofSarmatia Europara, inhabiting the southern pait of Muscovy, andinstead of houses had a sort of tents made ot leather, fixed on car-riages to be ready for travelling.

HAMBURG, or HAMBURGH, a late imperial city of Ger-many. Its name is derived from the old German word /Janwit’,signifying a wood, and Burg, a castle; and stands on the N. sideof Elbe , where it is four miles broad, and forms two spacious har-bours. It also runs through most part of it in canals. It lies 3*miles S. W. of Lubec, and 58 N. E. of Bremen. Eon. 9. 55. E-Lat. 53. 35. N.

IlAME, [jiurna, Sax.] the collar by which a horse draws in awageon.

HAMEL, John Baptiste Du, a learned French philosopherof the 17th century. At eighteen he wrote a treatise, in which h«explained in a very simple manner Theodosius’s three books ot Spherics ; to which he added a tract upon trigonometry; extreme*ly perspicuous, and designed as an introduction to astronomy-Natural philosophy, as then taught, was only a collection of vagne>knotty, and barren questions; when he undertook to establish Rupon right principles, and published his “ Astronomia Physica.In 1666, Mr. Colbert proposed to Lewis XIV. a scheme for esta-blishing a roval academy of sciences; and appointed Du Ilarnelsecretary. lie was also regies professor of philosophy, and pub*fished a great number of hooks. He died at Paris in 1706, aged83. He wrote Latin with purity and elegance.

IIAMELBUKG, a town of Franconia, in Fulda, on the Saab *16 miles S. of Schweinfurt , 24 S. of Fulda.

HAMELIN, or IIAMELN, a town in Lower Saxony , ISniile*S. K. of MHulun, and 28 S. W. of Hanover .

HAM ELEIA, in botany, a genus of the monogynia order, andpenlandria class of plants. Corolla quinquelid ; berry quinquelo-cular, inferior, polyspennous. It has four species, natives of th®W est Indies.

IIAMi, a country of Asia, subject to the Chinese , situated N'-E. of China, at the extremity of that desert which tin: Chinese callCliamo, and the Tartars Gobi; 90 leagues distant from the mostwesterly point of the province of Chensi.

IIamt, the capital of the above kingdom, is surrounded by loftywalls, half a league in circumference.

HAMILTON, a town of Scotland in Lanarkshire, 11 miles S.E. of Glasgow .

HAMLET, a prince of Denmark , whose history has been ren-8 dered