HEBRIDES, or WESTERN ISLANDS, a general name for the islands on the west coast of Scotland (save the islands of the Firth of Clyde), about 500 in number, of which 100 are inhabited; they belong to the counties of Ross, Inverness, and Argyll, and are divided by the Little Minch and the Minch into the Outer Hebrides, of which the chief are Lewis, Harris, North and South Uist, Benbecula, &c.; and the Inner Hebrides, including Skye, Rum, Mull, Iona, Staffa, &c.; they have wild and rocky coasts, but are picturesque and verdurous, and are much frequented by tourists; the climate is mild and moist; cattle and sheep rearing and fishing are the chief industries.

HEBRON, an ancient town and city of refuge, originally called Kirjath-arba, i. e. four cities, only 20 m.  S. of Jerusalem; it is a poor place now, but still abounds in orchards and vineyards.

HECATAEUS OF MILETUS, styled the “logographer,” who flourished about 500 B.C.; visited many countries, and wrote two books, “The Tour of the World” and “Genealogies or Histories,” the former containing descriptions of the places he visited, and the latter an account of the poetical fables and traditions of the Greeks.

HECATE, in the Greek mythology a mysterious divinity of the Titan brood and held in honour by all the gods, identified with Phoebe in heaven, Artemis on earth, and Persephone in Hades, as being invested with authority in all three regions; came to be regarded exclusively as an infernal deity, having under her command and at her beck all manner of demons and phantom spirits.

HECKER, FRIEDRICH KARL FRANZ, a German revolutionary, born at Eichtersheim, Baden; practised as an advocate in Mannheim, and in 1842 became an active democrat and Socialist; frustrated in an attempt during the ’48 Revolution to create a republican assembly, he headed a revolutionary attack upon Baden, was defeated, and subsequently settled in the United States, where he took to farming; took part in the Civil War at the head of a regiment of Germans, and became a commander of a brigade (1811-1881).

HECKER, JUSTUS FRIEDRICH KARL, author of a great work on the “Epidemics of the Middle Ages”; was a professor of Medicine at Berlin (1795-1850).

HECKMONDWIKE (10), a market-town in Yorkshire, 8 m.  NE. of Huddersfield; is the principal seat of the carpet and blanket manufactures in the West Riding.

HECLA or HEKLA, the loftiest of 20 active volcanoes in Iceland (5102 ft.); is an isolated peak with five craters, 68 m.  E. of Reykjavik; its most violent outbreak in recent times continued from 1845 to 1846; its last eruption was in March 1878.

HECTIC FEVER, a fever connected with consumption, and showing itself by a bright pink flush on the cheeks.

HECTOR, the chief hero of Troy in the war with the Greeks, the son of Priam and Hecuba; fought with the bravest of the enemy and finally slew Patroclus, the friend of ACHILLES (q. v.), which roused the latter from his long lethargy to challenge him to fight; Achilles chased him three times round the city, pierced him with his spear, and dragged his dead body after his chariot round Ilium; his body was at the command of Zeus delivered up to Priam and buried with great pomp within the city walls.