HYDASPES, the ancient name of the Jhelum, the northernmost tributary of the Indus.

HYDER ALI, a Mohammedan ruler of Mysore; raised himself to be commander-in-chief of the army; organised it on the French model; unseated the rajah; conquered Calicut, Bednor, and Kananur; waged war successfully against the English and the Mahrattas, and left his kingdom to his son TIPPOO SAIB (q. v.) (1728-1782).

HYDERABAD (370), the capital of the Nizam’s dominions in the Deccan, is 6 m. in circumference, strongly protected all round by a belt of rocky desert, and a centre of Mohammedanism in India.  Also the capital of Sind (58), near the apex of the delta of the Indus; manufactures silks, pottery, and lacquered ware, and is strongly fortified.

HYDRA, THE LERNEAN, a monstrous reptile inhabiting a marsh, with a number of heads, that grew on again as often as they were chopped off, and the destruction of which was one of the twelve labours of Hercules, an act which symbolises the toil expended in draining the fens of the world for man’s habitation.

HYGEIA, in the Greek mythology the Goddess of Health, and daughter of AEsculapius; is represented as a virgin in a long robe, with a cup in her hand and a serpent drinking out of it.

HYMEN, in the Greek mythology the God of Marriage, son of Apollo, and one of the Muses, represented as a boy with wings; originally a nuptial song sung at the departure of the bride from her parental home.

HYMER, a frost Joetun, whose cows are icebergs; splits rocks with the glance of his eye.

HYMETTUS, a mountain in Attica, famous for its honey and marble.

HYPATIA, a far-famed lady teacher of Greek philosophy in Alexandria, distinguished for her beauty and purity of life, who, one day in 415, on her return home from her lecture-room, was massacred in the streets of the city, at the instance, of both Jews and Christians, as a propagator of paganism.

HYPERBOREANS, a people blooming in youth and health, fabled by the Greeks to dwell in the extreme northern parts of the world under favour of Apollo.

HYPERMNESTRA, the only one of the DANAIDES (q. v.) who spared the life of her husband in spite of her father’s orders.

HYPNOTISM, the process of inducing sleep by wearying out the optic nerve of the eyes, by making the patient fix them upon a certain spot for a time, generally situated where it is a little wearisome for the eyes to find it.  The fatigue thus induced spreads from the ocular muscles to the system, causing deep sleep.

HYRCANIA, an ancient province of Persia, on the E. and SE. of the Caspian Sea, celebrated for the savage animals that inhabited its forests, as well as the savagery of its inhabitants.

HYRCANUS, JOHN, the son of Simon Maccabeus, king of Judea, as well as High-Priest of the Jews from 135 to 105 B.C.; achieved the independence of his country from the Syrian yoke, extended the borders of it, and compelled the Edomites to accept the Jewish faith at the point of the sword; in the strife then rampant between the SADDUCEES (q. v.) and the PHARISEES (q. v.) he sided with the former.