VOLUME XV SLICE VII Kelly, Edward to Kite (continued 6)

(D. G. H.)

KHARSAWAN, a feudatory state of India, within the Chota Nagpur division of Bengal; area 153 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 36,540; estimated revenue £2600. Since the opening of the main line of the Bengal-Nagpur railway through the state trade has been stimulated, and it is believed that both iron and copper can be worked profitably.

KHARTUM, the capital of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, on the left bank of the Blue Nile immediately above its junction with the White Nile in 15° 36′ N., 32° 32′ E., and 1252 ft. above the sea. It is 432 m. by rail S.W. of Port Sudan, on the Red Sea, and 1345 m. S. of Cairo by rail and steamer. Pop. (1907) with suburbs, but excluding Omdurman, 69,349.

The city, laid out on a plan drawn up by Lord Kitchener in 1898, has a picturesque aspect with its numerous handsome stone and brick buildings surrounded by gardens and its groves of palms and other trees. The river esplanade, 2 m. long, contains the chief buildings. Parallel with it is Khedive Avenue, of equal length. The rest of the city is in squares, the streets forming the design of the union jack. In the centre of the esplanade is the governor-general’s palace, occupying the site of the palace destroyed by the Mahdists in 1885. It is a three-storeyed building with arcaded verandas and a fine staircase leading to a loggia on the first floor. Here a tablet indicates the spot in the old palace where General Gordon fell. In the gardens, which cover six acres, is a colossal stone “lamb” brought from the ruins of Soba, an ancient Christian city on the Blue Nile. The “lamb” is in reality a ram of Ammon, and has an inscription in Ethiopian hieroglyphs. In front of the southern façade, which looks on to Khedive Avenue, is a bronze statue of General Gordon seated on a camel, a copy of the statue by Onslow Ford at Chatham, England. Government offices and private villas are on either side of the palace, and beyond, on the east, are the Sudan Club, the military hospital, and the Gordon Memorial College. The college, the chief educational centre in the Sudan, is a large, many-windowed building with accommodation for several hundred scholars and research laboratories and an economic museum. At the western end of the esplanade are the zoological gardens, the chief hotel, the Coptic church and the Mudiria House (residence of the governor of Khartum). Running south from Khedive Avenue at the spot where the Gordon statue stands, is Victoria Avenue, leading to Abbas Square, in the centre of which is the great mosque with two minarets. On the north-east side of the square are the public markets. The Anglican church, dedicated to All Saints, the principal banks and business houses, are in Khedive Avenue. There are Maronite and Greek churches, an Austrian Roman Catholic mission, a large and well-equipped civil hospital and a museum for Sudan archaeology. Outside the city are a number of model villages (each of the principal tribes of the Sudan having its own settlement) in which the dwellings are built after the tribal fashion. Adjacent are the parade ground and racecourse and the golf-links. A line of fortifications extends south of the city from the Blue to the White Nile. The buildings are used as barracks. Barracks for British troops occupy the end of the line facing the Blue Nile.

On the right (northern) bank of the Blue Nile is the suburb of Khartum North, formerly called Halfaya,1 where is the principal railway station. It is joined to the city by a bridge (completed 1910) containing a roadway and the railway, Khartum itself being served by steam trams and rickshaws. The steamers for the White and the Blue Nile start from the quay along the esplanade. West of the zoological gardens is the point of junction of the Blue and White Niles and here is a ferry across to Omdurman (q.v.) on the west bank of the White Nile a mile or two below Khartum. In the river immediately below Khartum is Tuti Island, on which is an old fort and an Arab village.

From its geographical position Khartum is admirably adapted as a commercial and political centre. It is the great entrepôt for the trade of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. By the Nile waterways there is easy transport from the southern and western equatorial provinces and from Sennar and other eastern districts. Through Omdurman come the exports of Kordofan and Darfur, while by the Red Sea railway there is ready access to the markets of the world. The only important manufacture is the making of bricks.

The population is heterogeneous. The official class is composed chiefly of British and Egyptians; the traders are mostly Greeks, Syrians and Copts, while nearly all the tribes of the Sudan are represented in the negro and Arab inhabitants.

At the time of the occupation of the Sudan by the Egyptians a small fishing village existed on the site of the present city. In 1822 the Egyptians established a permanent camp here and out of this grew the city, which in 1830 was chosen as the capital of the Sudanese possessions of Egypt. It got its name from the resemblance of the promontory at the confluence of the two Niles to an elephant’s trunk, the meaning of khartum in the dialect of Arabic spoken in the locality. The city rapidly acquired importance as the Sudan was opened up by travellers and traders, becoming, besides the seat of much legitimate commerce, a great slave mart. It was chosen as the headquarters of Protestant and Roman Catholic missions, and had a population of 50,000 or more. Despite its size it contained few buildings of any architectural merit; the most important were the palace of the governor-general and the church of the Austrian mission. The history of the city is intimately bound up with that of the Sudan generally, but it may be recalled here that in 1884, at the time of the Mahdist rising, General Gordon was sent to Khartum to arrange for the evacuation by the Egyptians of the Sudan. At Khartum he was besieged by the Mahdists, whose headquarters were at Omdurman. Khartum was captured and Gordon killed on the 26th of January 1885, two days before the arrival off the town of a small British relief force, which withdrew on seeing the city in the hands of the enemy. Nearly every building in Khartum was destroyed by the Mahdists and the city abandoned in favour of Omdurman, which place remained the headquarters of the mahdi’s successor, the khalifa Abdullah, till September 1898, when it was taken by the Anglo-Egyptian forces under General (afterwards Lord) Kitchener, and the seat of government again transferred to Khartum. It speedily arose from its ruins, being rebuilt on a much finer scale than the original city. In 1899 the railway from Wadi Haifa was completed to Khartum, and in 1906 through communication by rail was established with the Red Sea.

1 The village of Halfaya, a place of some importance before the foundation of Khartum, is 4 m. to the N., on the eastern bank of the Nile. From the 15th century up to 1821 it was the capital of a small state, tributary to Sennar, regarded as a continuation of the Christian kingdom of Aloa (see Dongola).

KHASI AND JAINTIA HILLS, a district of British India, in the Hills division of Eastern Bengal and Assam. It occupies the central plateau between the valleys of the Brahmaputra and the Surma. Area, 6027 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 202,250, showing an increase of 2% in the decade.

The district consists of a succession of steep ridges running east and west, with elevated table-lands between. On the southern side, towards Sylhet, the mountains rise precipitously from the valley of the Bārāk or Surma. The first plateau is about 4000 ft. above sea-level. Farther north is another plateau, on which is situated the station of Shillong, 4900 ft. above the sea; behind lies the Shillong range, of which the highest peak rises to 6450 ft. On the north side, towards Kamrūp, are two similar plateaus of lower elevation. The general appearance of all these table-lands is that of undulating downs, covered with grass, but destitute of large timber. At 3000 ft. elevation the indigenous pine predominates over all other vegetation, and forms almost pure pine forests. The highest ridges are clothed with magnificent clumps of timber trees, which superstition has preserved from the axe of the wood-cutter. The characteristic trees in these sacred groves chiefly consist of oaks, chestnuts, magnolias, &c. Beneath the shade grow rare orchids, rhododendrons and wild cinnamon. The streams are merely mountain torrents; many of them pass through narrow gorges of wild beauty. From time immemorial, Lower Bengal has drawn its supply of lime from the Khasi Hills, and the quarries along their southern slope are inexhaustible. Coal of fair quality crops out at several places, and there are a few small coal-mines.

The Khasi Hills were conquered by the British in 1833. They are inhabited by a tribe of the same name, who still live in primitive communities under elective chiefs in political subordination to the British government. There are 25 of these chiefs called Siems, who exercise independent jurisdiction and pay no tribute. According to the census of 1901 the Khasis numbered 107,500. They are a peculiar race, speaking a language that belongs to the Mon-Anam family, following the rule of matriarchal succession, and erecting monolithic monuments over their dead. The Jaintia Hills used to form a petty Hindu principality which was annexed in 1835. The inhabitants, called Syntengs, a cognate tribe to the Khasis, were subjected to a moderate income tax, an innovation against which they rebelled in 1860 and 1862. The revolt was stamped out by the Khasi and Jaintia Expedition of 1862-63. The headquarters of the district were transferred in 1864 from Cherrapunji to Shillong, which was afterwards made the capital of the province of Assam. A good cart-road runs north from Cherrapunji through Shillong to Gauhati on the Brahmaputra; total length, 97 m. The district was the focus of the great earthquake of the 12th of June 1897, which not only destroyed every permanent building, but broke up the roads and caused many landslips. The loss of life was put at only 916, but hundreds died subsequently of a malignant fever. In 1901 the district had 17,321 Christians, chiefly converts of the Welsh Calvinistic Mission.

See District Gazetteer (1906); Major P. R. T. Gurdon, The Khasis (1907).

KHASKOY (also Chaskoi, Haskoi, Khaskioi, Chaskovo, Haskovo, and in Bulgarian Khaskovo), the capital of the department of Khaskoy in the eastern Rumelia, Bulgaria; 45 m. E.S.E. of Philippopolis. Pop. (1900), 14,928. The town has a station 7 m. N. on the Philippopolis-Adrianople section of the Belgrade-Constantinople railway. Carpets and woollen goods are manufactured, and in the surrounding country tobacco and silk are produced.

KHATTAK, an important Pathan tribe in the North-West Frontier Province of India, inhabiting the south-eastern portion of the Peshawar district and the south-eastern and eastern portions of Kohat. They number 24,000, and have always been quiet and loyal subjects of the British government. They furnish many recruits to the Indian army, and make most excellent soldiers.

KHAZARS (known also as Chozars, as Ἀκάζιροι or Χάζαροι in Byzantine writers, as Khazirs in Armenian and Khwalisses in Russian chronicles, and Ugri Bielii in Nestor), an ancient people who occupied a prominent place amongst the secondary powers of the Byzantine state-system. In the epic of Firdousi Khazar is the representative name for all the northern foes of Persia, and legendary invasions long before the Christian era are vaguely attributed to them. But the Khazars are an historic figure upon the borderland of Europe and Asia for at least 900 years (A.D. 190-1100). The epoch of their greatness is from A.D. 600 to 950. Their home was in the spurs of the Caucasus and along the shores of the Caspian—called by medieval Moslem geographers Bahr-al-Khazar (“sea of the Khazars”); their cities, all populous and civilized commercial centres, were Itil, the capital, upon the delta of the Volga, the “river of the Khazars,” Semender (Tarkhu), the older capital, Khamlidje or Khalendsch, Belendscher, the outpost towards Armenia, and Sarkel on the Don. They were the Venetians of the Caspian and the Euxine, the organizers of the transit between the two basins, the universal carriers between East and West; and Itil was the meeting-place of the commerce of Persia, Byzantium, Armenia, Russia and the Bulgarians of the middle Volga. The tide of their dominion ebbed and flowed repeatedly, but the normal Khazari may be taken as the territory between the Caucasus, the Volga and the Don, with the outlying province of the Crimea, or Little Khazaria. The southern boundary never greatly altered; it did at times reach the Kur and the Aras, but on that side the Khazars were confronted by Byzantium and Persia, and were for the most part restrained within the passes of the Caucasus by the fortifications of Dariel. Amongst the nomadic Ugrians and agricultural Slavs of the north their frontier fluctuated widely, and in its zenith Khazaria extended from the Dnieper to Bolgari upon the middle Volga, and along the eastern shore of the Caspian to Astarabad.

Ethnology.—The origin of the Khazars has been much disputed, and they have been variously regarded as akin to the Georgians, Finno-Ugrians and Turks. This last view is perhaps the most probable. Their king Joseph, in answer to the inquiry of Ḥasdai Ibn Shaprūt of Cordova (c. 958), stated that his people sprang from Thogarmah, grandson of Japhet, and the supposed ancestor of the other peoples of the Caucasus. The Arab geographers who knew the Khazars best connect them either with the Georgians (Ibn Athīr) or with the Armenians (Dimishqi, ed. Mehren, p. 263); whilst Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān, who passed through Khazaria on a mission from the caliph Moqtaḍir (A.D. 921), positively asserts that the Khazar tongue differed not only from the Turkish, but from that of the bordering nations, which were Ugrian.

Nevertheless there are many points connected with the Khazars which indicate a close connexion with Ugrian or Turkish peoples. The official titles recorded by Ibn Faḍlān are those in use amongst the Tatar nations of that age, whether Huns, Bulgarians, Turks or Mongols. The names of their cities can be explained only by reference to Turkish or Ugrian dialects (Klaproth, Mém. sur les Khazars; Howorth, Khazars). Some too amongst the medieval authorities (Ibn Ḥauqal and Iṣṭakhri) note a resemblance between the speech in use amongst the Khazars and the Bulgarians; and the modern Magyar—a Ugrian language—can be traced back to a tribe which in the 9th century formed part of the Khazar kingdom. These characteristics, however, are accounted for by the fact that the Khazars were at one time subject to the Huns (A.D. 448 et seq.), at another to the Turks (c. 580), which would sufficiently explain the signs of Tatar influence in their polity, and also by the testimony of all observers, Greeks, Arabs and Russians, that there was a double strain within the Khazar nation. There were Khazars and Kara (black) Khazars. The Khazars were fair-skinned, black-haired and of a remarkable beauty and stature; their women indeed were sought as wives equally at Byzantium and Bagdad; while the Kara Khazars were ugly, short, and were reported by the Arabs almost as dark as Indians. The latter were indubitably the Ugrian nomads of the steppe, akin to the Tatar invaders of Europe, who filled the armies and convoyed the caravans of the ruling caste. But the Khazars proper were a civic commercial people, the founders of cities, remarkable for somewhat elaborate political institutions, for persistence and for good faith—all qualities foreign to the Hunnic character.

They have been identified with the Ἀκάτζιροι (perhaps Ak-Khazari, or White Khazars) who appear upon the lower Volga in the Byzantine annals, and thence they have been deduced, though with less convincing proof, either from the Ἀγάθυρσοι (Agathyrsi) or the Κατίαροι of Herodotus, iv. 104. There was throughout historic times a close connexion which eventually amounted to political identity between the Khazars and the Barsileens (the Passils of Moses of Chorene) who occupied the delta of the Volga; and the Barsileens can be traced through the pages of Ptolemy (Geog. v. 9), of Pliny (iv. 26), of Strabo (vii. 306), and of Pomponius Mela (ii. c. 1, p. 119) to the so-called Royal Scyths, Σκύθαι βασιλῆες, who were known to the Greek colonies upon the Euxine, and whose political superiority and commercial enterprise led to this rendering of their name. Such points, however, need not here be further pursued than to establish the presence of this white race around the Caspian and the Euxine throughout historic times. They appear in European history as White Huns (Ephthalites), White Ugrians (Sar-ogours), White Bulgarians. Owing to climatic causes the tract they occupied was slowly drying up. They were the outposts of civilization towards the encroaching desert, and the Tatar nomadism that advanced with it. They held in precarious subjection the hordes whom the conditions of the climate and the soil made it impossible to supplant. They bore the brunt of each of the great waves of Tatar conquests, and were eventually overwhelmed.

History.—Amidst this white race of the steppe the Khazars can be first historically distinguished at the end of the 2nd century A.D. They burst into Armenia with the Barsileens, A.D. 198. They were repulsed and attacked in turn. The pressure of the nomads of the steppe, the quest of plunder or revenge, these seem the only motives of these early expeditions; but in the long struggle between the Roman and Persian empires, of which Armenia was often the battlefield, and eventually the prize, the attitude of the Khazars assumed political importance. Armenia inclined to the civilization and ere long to the Christianity of Rome, whilst her Arsacid princes maintained an inveterate feud with the Sassanids of Persia. It became therefore the policy of the Persian kings to call in the Khazars in every collision with the empire (200-350). During the 4th century however, the growing power of Persia culminated in the annexation of eastern Armenia. The Khazars, endangered by so powerful a neighbour, passed from under Persian influence into that remote alliance with Byzantium which thenceforth characterized their policy, and they aided Julian in his invasion of Persia (363). Simultaneously with the approach of Persia to the Caucasus the terrible empire of the Huns sprang up among the Ugrians of the northern steppes. The Khazars, straitened on every side, remained passive till the danger culminated in the accession of Attila (434). The emperor Theodosius sent envoys to bribe the Khazars (Ἀκάτζιροι) to divert the Huns from the empire by an attack upon their flank. But there was a Hunnic party amongst the Khazar chiefs. The design was betrayed to Attila; and he extinguished the independence of the nation in a moment. Khazaria became the apanage of his eldest son, and the centre of government amongst the eastern subjects of the Hun (448). Even the iron rule of Attila was preferable to the time of anarchy that succeeded it. Upon his death (454) the wild immigration which he had arrested revived. The Khazars and the Sarogours (i.e. White Ogors, possibly the Barsileens of the Volga delta) were swept along in a flood of mixed Tatar peoples which the conquests of the Avars had set in motion. The Khazars and their companions broke through the Persian defences of the Caucasus. They appropriated the territory up to the Kur and the Aras, and roamed at large through Iberia, Georgia and Armenia. The Persian king implored the emperor Leo I. to help him defend Asia Minor at the Caucasus (457), but Rome was herself too hard pressed, nor was it for fifty years that the Khazars were driven back and the pass of Derbent fortified against them (c. 507).

Throughout the 6th century Khazaria was the mere highway for the wild hordes to whom the Huns had opened the passage into Europe, and the Khazars took refuge (like the Venetians from Attila) amongst the seventy mouths of the Volga. The pressure of the Turks in Asia precipitated the Avars upon the West. The conquering Turks followed in their footsteps (560-580). They beat down all opposition, wrested even Bosporus in the Crimea from the empire, and by the annihilation of the Ephthalites completed the ruin of the White Race of the plains from the Oxus to the Don. The empires of Turks and Avars, however, ran swiftly their barbaric course, and the Khazars arose out of the chaos to more than their ancient renown. They issued from the land of Barsilia, and extended their rule over the Bulgarian hordes left masterless by the Turks, compelling the more stubborn to migrate to the Danube (641). The agricultural Slavs of the Dnieper and the Oka were reduced to tribute, and before the end of the 7th century the Khazars had annexed the Crimea, had won complete command of the Sea of Azov, and, seizing upon the narrow neck which separates the Volga from the Don, had organized the portage which has continued since an important link in the traffic between Asia and Europe. The alliance with Byzantium was revived. Simultaneously, and no doubt in concert, with the Byzantine campaign against Persia (589), the Khazars had reappeared in Armenia, though it was not till 625 that they appear as Khazars in the Byzantine annals. They are then described as “Turks from the East,” a powerful nation which held the coasts of the Caspian and the Euxine, and took tribute of the Viatitsh, the Severians and the Polyane. The khakan, enticed by the promise of an imperial princess, furnished Heraclius with 40,000 men for his Persian war, who shared in the victory over Chosroes at Nineveh.

Meanwhile the Moslem empire had arisen. The Persian empire was struck down (637), and the Moslems poured into Armenia. The khakan, who had defied the summons sent him by the invaders, now aided the Byzantine patrician in the defence of Armenia. The allies were defeated, and the Moslems undertook the subjugation of Khazaria (651). Eighty years of warfare followed, but in the end the Moslems prevailed. The khakan and his chieftains were captured and compelled to embrace Islam (737), and till the decay of the Mahommedan empire Khazaria with all the other countries of the Caucasus paid an annual tribute of children and of corn (737-861). Nevertheless, though overpowered in the end, the Khazars had protected the plains of Europe from the Mahommedans, and made the Caucasus the limit of their conquests.

In the interval between the decline of the Mahommedan empire and the rise of Russia the Khazars reached the zenith of their power. The merchants of Byzantium, Armenia and Bagdad met in the markets of Itil (whither since the raids of the Mahommedans the capital had been transferred from Semender), and traded for the wax, furs, leather and honey that came down the Volga. So important was this traffic held at Constantinople that, when the portage to the Don was endangered by the irruption of a fresh horde of Turks (the Petchenegs), the emperor Theophilus himself despatched the materials and the workmen to build for the Khazars a fortress impregnable to their forays (834). Famous as the one stone structure is in that stoneless region, the post became known far and wide amongst the hordes of the steppe as Sarkel or the White Abode. Merchants from every nation found protection and good faith in the Khazar cities. The Jews, expelled from Constantinople, sought a home amongst them, developed the Khazar trade, and contended with Mahommedans and Christians for the theological allegiance of the Pagan people. The dynasty accepted Judaism (c. 740), but there was equal tolerance for all, and each man was held amenable to the authorized code and to the official judges of his own faith. At the Byzantine court the khakan was held in high honour. The emperor Justinian Rhinotmetus took refuge with him during his exile and married his daughter (702). Justinian’s rival Vardanes in turn sought an asylum in Khazaria, and in Leo IV. (775) the grandson of a Khazar sovereign ascended the Byzantine throne. Khazar troops were amongst the bodyguard of the imperial court; they fought for Leo VI. against Simeon of Bulgaria; and the khakan was honoured in diplomatic intercourse with the seal of three solidi, which marked him as a potentate of the first rank, above even the pope and the Carolingian monarchs. Indeed his dominion became an object of uneasiness to the jealous statecraft of Byzantium, and Constantine Porphyrogenitus, writing for his son’s instruction in the government, carefully enumerates the Alans, the Petchenegs, the Uzes and the Bulgarians as the forces he must rely on to restrain it.

It was, however, from a power that Constantine did not consider that the overthrow of the Khazars came. The arrival of the Varangians amidst the scattered Slavs (862) had united them into a nation. The advance of the Petchenegs from the East gave the Russians their opportunity. Before the onset of those fierce invaders the precarious suzerainty of the khakan broke up. By calling in the Uzes, the Khazars did indeed dislodge the Petchenegs from the position they had seized in the heart of the kingdom between the Volga and the Don, but only to drive them inwards to the Dnieper. The Hungarians, severed from their kindred and their rulers, migrated to the Carpathians, whilst Oleg, the Russ prince of Kiev, passed through the Slav tribes of the Dnieper basin with the cry “Pay nothing to the Khazars” (884). The kingdom dwindled rapidly to its ancient limits between the Caucasus, the Volga and the Don, whilst the Russian traders of Novgorod and Kiev supplanted the Khazars as the carriers between Constantinople and the North. When Ibn Faḍlān visited Khazaria forty years later, Itil was even yet a great city, with baths and market-places and thirty mosques. But there was no domestic product nor manufacture; the kingdom depended solely upon the now precarious transit dues, and administration was in the hands of a major domus also called khakan. At the assault of Swiatoslav of Kiev the rotten fabric crumbled into dust. His troops were equally at home on land and water. Sarkel, Itil and Semender surrendered to him (965-969). He pushed his conquests to the Caucasus, and established Russian colonies upon the Sea of Azov. The principality of Tmutarakan, founded by his grandson Mstislav (988), replaced the kingdom of Khazaria, the last trace of which was extinguished by a joint expedition of Russians and Byzantines (1016). The last of the khakans, George, Tzula, was taken prisoner. A remnant of the nation took refuge in an island of the Caspian (Siahcouyé); others retired to the Caucasus; part emigrated to the district of Kasakhi in Georgia, and appear for the last time joining with Georgia in her successful effort to throw off the yoke of the Seljuk Turks (1089). But the name is thought to survive in Kadzaria, the Georgian title for Mingrelia, and in Kadzaro, the Turkish word for the Lazis. Till the 13th century the Crimea was known to European travellers as Gazaria; the “ramparts of the Khazars” are still distinguished in the Ukraine; and the record of their dominion survives in the names of Kazarek, Kazaritshi, Kazarinovod, Kozar-owka, Kozari, and perhaps in Kazan.

Authorities.—Khazar: The letter of King Joseph to R. Hasdai Ibn Shaprūt, first published by J. Akrish, Kol Mebasser (Constantinople, 1577), and often reprinted in editions of Jehuda hal-Levy’s Kuzari. German translations by Zedner (Berlin, 1840) and Cassel, Magyar. Alterth. (Berlin, 1848); French by Carmoly, Rev. Or. (1841). Cf. Harkavy, Russische Revue, iv. 69; Graetz, Geschichte, v. 364, and Carmoly, Itinéraires de la Terre Sainte (Brussels, 1847). Armenian: Moses of Chorene; cf. Saint-Martin, Mémoires historiques et géographiques sur l’Armènie (Paris, 1818). Arabic: The account of Ibn Faḍlān (921) is preserved by Yākūt, ii. 436 seq. See also Iṣṭakhry (ed. de Geoje, pp. 220 seq.), Mas‘ūdy, ch. xvii. pp. 406 seq. of Sprenger’s translation; Ibn Ḥauḳal (ed. de Goeje, pp. 279 seq.) and the histories of Ibn el Athīr and Ṭabary. Much of the Arabic material has been collected and translated by Fraehn, “Veteres Memoriae Chasarorum” in Mém. de St Pét. (1822); Dorn (from the Persian Ṭabary), Mém. de St Pét. (1844); Dufrémery, Journ. As. (1849). See also D’Ohsson’s imaginary Voyage d’Abul Cassim, based on these sources. Byzantine Historians: The relative passages are collected in Stritter’s Memoriae populorum (St Petersburg, 1778). Russian: The Chronicle ascribed to Nestor.

Modern: Klaproth, “Mém. sur les Khazars,” in Journ. As. 1st series, vol. iii.; id., Tableaux hist. de l’Asie (Paris, 1823); id., Tabl. hist. de Caucases (1827); memoirs on the Khazars by Harkavy and by Howorth (Congrès intern. des Orientalistes, vol. ii.); Latham, Russian and Turk, pp. 209-217; Vivien St Martin, Études de géog. ancienne (Paris, 1850); id., Recherches sur les populations du Caucase (1847); id., “Sur les Khazars,” in Nouvelles ann. des voyages (1857); D’Ohsson, Peuples du Caucase (Paris, 1828); S. Krauss, “Zur Geschichte der Chazaren,” in Revue orientale pour les études Ourals-altaïques (1900).

(P. L. G.; C. El.)

KHEDIVE, a Persian word meaning prince or sovereign, granted as a title by the sultan of Turkey in 1867 to his viceroy in Egypt, Ismail, in place of that of “vali.”

KHERI, a district of British India, in the Lucknow division of the United Provinces, which takes its name from a small town with a railway station 81 m. N.W. of Lucknow. The area of the district is 2963 sq. m., and its population in 1901 was 905,138. It consists of a series of fairly elevated plateaus, separated by rivers flowing from the north-west, each bordered by alluvial land. North of the river Ul, the country is considered very unhealthy. Through this tract, probably the bed of a lake, flow two rivers, the Kauriala and Chauka, changing their courses constantly, so that the surface is seamed with deserted river beds much below the level of the surrounding country. The vegetation is very dense, and the stagnant waters are the cause of endemic fevers. The people reside in the neighbourhood of the low ground, as the soil is more fertile and less expensive to cultivate than the forest-covered uplands. South of the Ul, the scene changes. Between every two rivers or tributaries stretches a plain, considerably less elevated than the tract to the north. There is very little slope in any of these plains for many miles, and marshes are formed, from which emerge the headwaters of many secondary streams, which in the rains become dangerous torrents, and frequently cause devastating floods. The general drainage of the country is from north-west to south-east. Several large lakes exist, some formed by the ancient channels of the northern rivers, being fine sheets of water, from 10 to 20 ft. deep and from 3 to 4 m. long; in places they are fringed with magnificent groves. The whole north of the district is covered with vast forests, of which a considerable portion are government reserves. Sāl occupies about two-thirds of the forest area. The district is traversed by a branch of the Oudh & Rohilkhand railway from Lucknow to Bareilly.

KHERSON, a government of south Russia, on the N. coast of the Black Sea, bounded W. by the governments of Bessarabia and Podolia, N. by Kiev and Poltava, S. by Ekaterinoslav and Taurida. The area is 27,497 sq. m. The aspect of the country, especially in the south, is that of an open steppe, and almost the whole government is destitute of forest. The Dniester marks the western and the Dnieper the south-eastern boundary; the Bug, the Ingul and several minor streams drain the intermediate territory. Along the shore stretch extensive lagoons. Iron, kaolin and salt are the principal minerals. Nearly 45% of the land is owned by the peasants, 31% by the nobility, 12% by other classes, and 12% by the crown, municipalities and public institutions. The peasants rent 1,730,000 acres more from the landlords. Agriculture is well developed and 9,000,000 acres (51.1%) are under crops. Agricultural machinery is extensively used. The vine is widely grown, and yields 1,220,000 gallons of wine annually. Some tobacco is grown and manufactured. Besides the ordinary cereals, maize, hemp, flax, tobacco and mustard are commonly grown; the fruit trees in general cultivation include the cherry, plum, peach, apricot and mulberry; and gardening receives considerable attention. Agriculture has been greatly improved by some seventy German colonies. Cattle-breeding, horse-breeding and sheep-farming are pursued on a large scale. Some sheep farmers own 30,000 or 40,000 merinos each. Fishing is an important occupation. There are manufactures of wool, hemp and leather; also iron-works, machinery and especially agricultural machinery works, sugar factories, steam flour-mills and chemical works. The ports of Kherson, Ochakov, Nikolayev, and especially Odessa, are among the principal outlets of Russian commerce; Berislav, Alexandriya Elisavetgrad, Voznesenask, Olviopol and Tiraspol play an important part in the inland traffic. In 1871 the total population was 1,661,892, and in 1897 2,744,040, of whom 1,332,175 were women and 785,094 lived in towns. The estimated pop. in 1906 was 3,257,600. Besides Great and Little Russians, it comprises Rumanians, Greeks, Germans (123,453), Bulgarians, Bohemians, Swedes, and Jews (30% of the total), and some Gypsies. About 84% belong to the Orthodox Greek Church; there are also numerous Stundists. The government is divided into six districts, the chief towns of which are: Kherson (q.v.), Alexandriya (14,002 in 1897), Ananiev (16,713), Elisavetgrad (66,182 in 1900), Odessa (449,673 in 1900), and Tiraspol (29,323 in 1900). This region was long subject to the sway of the Tatar khans of the Crimea, and owes its rapid growth to the colonizing activity of Catherine II., who between 1778 and 1792 founded the cities of Kherson, Odessa and Nikolayev. Down to 1803 this government was called Nikolayev.

KHERSON, a town of south Russia, capital of the above government, on a hill above the right bank of the Dnieper, about 19 m. from its mouth. Founded by the courtier Potemkin in 1778 as a naval station and seaport, it had become by 1786 a place of 10,000 inhabitants, and, although its progress was checked by the rise of Odessa and the removal (in 1794) of the naval establishments to Nikolayev, it had in 1900 a population of 73,185. The Dnieper at this point breaks into several arms, forming islands overgrown with reeds and bushes; and vessels of burden must anchor at Stanislavskoe-selo, a good way down the stream. Of the traffic on the river the largest share is due to the timber, wool, cereals, cattle and hides trade; wool-dressing, soap-boiling, tallow-melting, brewing, flour-milling and the manufacture of tobacco are the chief industries. Kherson is a substantially built and regular town. The cathedral is the burial-place of Potemkin, and near Kherson lie the remains of John Howard, the English philanthropist, who died here in 1790. The fortifications have fallen into decay. The name Kherson was given to the town from the supposition that the site was formerly that of Chersonesus Heracleotica, the Greek city founded by the Dorians of Heraclea.

KHEVENHÜLLER, LUDWIG ANDREAS (1683-1744), Austrian field-marshal, Count of Aschelberg-Frankenburg, came of a noble family, which, originally Franconian, settled in Carinthia in the 11th century. He first saw active service under Prince Eugène in the War of the Spanish Succession, and by 1716 had risen to the command of Prince Eugène’s own regiment of dragoons. He distinguished himself greatly at the battles of Peterwardein and Belgrade, and became in 1723 major-general of cavalry (General-Wachtmeister), in 1726 proprietary colonel of a regiment and in 1733 lieutenant field marshal. In 1734 the War of the Polish Succession brought him into the field again. He was present at the battle of Parma (June 29), where Count Mercy, the Austrian commander, was killed, and after Mercy’s death he held the chief command of the army in Italy till Field Marshal Königsegg’s arrival. Under Königsegg he again distinguished himself at the battle of Guastalla (September 19). He was once more in command during the operations which followed the battle, and his skilful generalship won for him the grade of general of cavalry. He continued in military and diplomatic employment in Italy to the close of the war. In 1737 he was made field marshal, Prince Eugène recommending him to his sovereign as the best general in the service. His chief exploit in the Turkish War, which soon followed his promotion, was at Radojevatz (September 28, 1737), where he cut his way through a greatly superior Turkish army. It was in the Austrian Succession War that his most brilliant work was done. As commander-in-chief of the army on the Danube he not only drove out the French and Bavarian invaders of Austria in a few days of rapid marching and sharp engagements (January, 1742), but overran southern Bavaria, captured Munich, and forced a large French corps in Linz to surrender. Later in the summer of 1742, owing to the inadequate forces at his disposal, he had to evacuate his conquests, but in the following campaign, though now subordinated to Prince Charles of Lorraine, Khevenhüller reconquered southern Bavaria, and forced the emperor in June to conclude the unfavourable convention of Nieder-Schönfeld. He disapproved the advance beyond the Rhine which followed these successes, and the event justified his fears, for the Austrians had to fall back from the Rhine through Franconia and the Breisgau, Khevenhüller himself conducting the retreat with admirable skill. On his return to Vienna, Maria Theresa decorated the field marshal with the order of the Golden Fleece. He died suddenly at Vienna on the 26th of January 1744.

He was the author of various instructional works for officers and soldiers (Des G. F. M. Grafen v. Khevenhüller Observationspunkte für sein Dragoner-regiment (1734 and 1748) and a règlement for the infantry (1737), and of an important work on war in general, Kurzer Begriff aller militärischen Operationen (Vienna, 1756; French version, Maximes de guerre, Paris, 1771).

KHEVSURS, a people of the Caucasus, kinsfolk of the Georgians. They live in scattered groups in East Georgia to the north and north-west of Mount Borbalo. Their name is Georgian and means “People of the Valleys.” For the most part nomadic, they are still in a semi-barbarous state. They have not the beauty of the Georgian race. They are gaunt and thin to almost a ghastly extent, their generally repulsive aspect being accentuated by their large hands and feet and their ferocious expression. In complexion and colour of hair and eyes they vary greatly. They are very muscular and capable of bearing extraordinary fatigue. They are fond of fighting, and still wear armour of the true medieval type. This panoply is worn when the law of vendetta, which is sacred among them as among most Caucasian peoples, compels them to seek or avoid their enemy. They carry a spiked gauntlet, the terrible marks of which are borne by a large proportion of the Khevsur faces.

Many curious customs still prevail among the Khevsurs, as for instance the imprisonment of the woman during childbirth in a lonely hut, round which the husband parades, firing off his musket at intervals. After delivery, food is surreptitiously brought the mother, who is kept in her prison a month, after which the hut is burnt. The boys are usually named after some wild animal, e.g. bear or wolf, while the girls’ names are romantic, such as Daughter of the Sun, Sun of my Heart. Marriages are arranged by parents when the bride and bridegroom are still in long clothes. The chief ceremony is a forcible abduction of the girl. Divorce is very common, and some Khevsurs are polygamous. Formerly no Khevsur might die in a house, but was always carried out under the sun or stars. The Khevsurs like to call themselves Christians, but their religion is a mixture of Christianity, Mahommedanism and heathen rites. They keep the Sabbath of the Christian church, the Friday of the Moslems and the Saturday of the Jews. They worship sacred trees and offer sacrifices to the spirits of the earth and air. Their priests are a combination of medicine-men and divines.

See G. F. R. Radde, Die Chevs’uren und ihr Land (Cassel, 1878); Ernest Chantre, Recherches anthropologiques dans le Caucase (Lyons, 1885-1887).

KHILCHIPUR, a mediatized chiefship in Central India, under the Bhopal agency; area, 273 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 31,143; estimated revenue, £7000; tribute payable to Sindhia, £700. The residence of the chief, who is a Khichi Rajput of the Chauhan clan, is at Khilchipur (pop. 5121).

KHINGAN, two ranges of mountains in eastern Asia.

(1) Great Khingan is the eastern border ridge of the immense plateau which may be traced from the Himalaya to Bering Strait and from the Tian-shan Mountains to the Khingan Mountains. It is well known from 50° N. to Kalgan (41° N., 115° E.), where it is crossed by the highway from Urga to Peking. As a border ridge of the Mongolian plateau, it possesses very great orographical importance, in that it is an important climatic boundary, and constitutes the western limits of the Manchurian flora. The base of its western slope, which is very gentle, lies at altitudes of 3000 to 3500 ft. Its crest rises to 4800 to 6500 ft., but its eastern slope sinks very precipitately to the plains of Manchuria, which have only 1500 to 2000 ft. of altitude. On this stretch one or two subordinate ridges, parallel to the main range and separated from it by longitudinal valleys, fringe its eastern slope, thus marking two different terraces and giving to the whole system a width of from 80 to 100 m. Basalts, trachytes and other volcanic formations are found in the main range and on its south-eastern slopes. The range was in volcanic activity in 1720-1721.

South-west of Peking the Great Khingan is continued by the In-shan mountains, which exhibit similar features to those of the Great Khingan, and represent the same terraced escarpment of the Mongolian plateau. Moreover, it appears from the map of the Russian General Staff (surveys of Skassi, V. A. Obruchev, G. N. Potanin, &c.) that similar terrace-shaped escarpments—but considerably wider apart than in Manchuria—occur in the Shan-si province of China, along the southern border of the South Mongolian plateau. These escarpments are pierced by the Yellow River or Hwang-ho south of the Great Wall, between 38° and 39° N., and in all probability a border range homologous to the Great Khingan separates the upper tributaries of the Hwang-ho (namely the Tan-ho) from those of the Yang-tsze-kiang. But according to Obruchev the escarpments of the Wei-tsi-shan and Lu-huang-lin, by which southern Ordos drops towards the Wei-ho (tributary of the Hwang-ho), can hardly be taken as corresponding to the Kalgan escarpment. They fall with gentle slopes only towards the high plains on the south of them, while a steep descent towards the low plain seems to exist further south only, between 32° and 34°. Thus the southern continuations of the Great Khingan, south of 38° N., possibly consist of two separate escarpments. At its northern end the place where the Great Khingan is pierced by the Amur has not been ascertained by direct observation. Prince P. Kropotkin considers that the upper Amur emerges from the high plateau and its border-ridge, the Khingan, below Albazin and above Kumara.1 If this view prevail—Petermann has adopted it for his map of Asia, and it has been upheld in all the Gotha publications—it would appear that the Great Khingan joins the Stanovoi ridge or Jukjur, in that portion of it which faces the west coast of the Sea of Okhotsk. At any rate the Khingan, separating the Mongolian plateau from the much lower plains of the Sungari and the Nonni, is one of the most important orographical dividing-lines in Asia.

See Semenov’s Geographical Dictionary (in Russian); D. V. Putiata, Expedition to the Khingan in 1891 (St Petersburg, 1893); Potanin, “Journey to the Khingan,” in Izvestia Russ. Geog. Soc. (1901).

(2) The name Little Khingan is applied indiscriminately to two distinct mountain ranges. The proper application of the term would be to reserve it for the typical range which the Amur pierces 40 m. below Ekaterino-Nikolsk (on the Amur), and which is also known as the Bureya mountains, and as Dusse-alin. This range, which may be traced from the Amur to the Sea of Okhotsk, seems to be cleft twice by the Sungari and to be continued under different local names in the same south-westerly direction to the peninsula of Liao-tung in Manchuria. The other range to which the name of Little Khingan is applied is that of the Ilkhuri-alin mountains (51° N., 122°-126° E.), which run in a north-westerly direction between the upper Nonni and the Amur, west of Blagovyeshchensk.

(P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)

1 See his sketch of the orography of East Siberia (French trans., with addenda, published by the Institut Géographique of Brussels in 1902).

KHIVA, formerly an important kingdom of Asia, but now a much reduced khanate, dependent upon Russia, and confined to the delta of the Amu-darya (Oxus). Its frontier runs down the left bank of the Amu, from 40° 15′ N., and down its left branch to Lake Aral; then, for about 40 m. along the south coast of Lake Aral, and finally southwards, following the escarpment of the Ust-Urt plateau. From the Transcaspian territory of Russia Khiva is separated by a line running almost W.N.W.-E.S.E. under 40° 30′ N., from the Uzboi depression to the Amu-darya. The length of the khanate from north to south is 200 m., and its greatest width 300 m. The area of the Khiva oasis is 5210 sq. m. while the area of the steppes is estimated at 17,000 sq. m. The population of the former is estimated at 400,000, and that of the latter also at 400,000 (nomadic). The water of the Amu is brought by a number of irrigation canals to the oasis, the general declivity of the surface westwards facilitating the irrigation. Several old beds of the Amu intersect the territory. The water of the Amu and the very thin layer of ooze which it deposits render the oasis very fertile. Millet, rice, wheat, barley, oats, peas, flax, hemp, madder, and all sorts of vegetables and fruit (especially melons) are grown, as also the vine and cotton. The white-washed houses scattered amidst the elms and poplars, and surrounded by flourishing fields, produce the most agreeable contrast with the arid steppes. Livestock, especially sheep, camels, horses and cattle, is extensively bred by the nomads.

The population is composed of four divisions: Uzbegs (150,000 to 200,000), the dominating race among the settled inhabitants of the oasis, from whom the officials are recruited; Sarts and Tajiks, agriculturists and tradespeople of mixed race; Turkomans (c. 170,000), who live in the steppes, south and west of the oasis, and formerly plundered the settled inhabitants by their raids; and the Kara-kalpaks, or Black Bonnets, a Turki tribe some 50,000 in number. They live south of Lake Aral, and in the towns of Kungrad, Khodsheili and Kipchak form the prevailing element. They cultivate the soil, breed cattle, and their women make carpets. There are also about 10,000 Kirghiz, and when the Russians took Khiva in 1873 there were 29,300 Persian slaves, stolen by Turkoman raiders, and over 6500 liberated slaves, mostly Kizil-bashes. The former were set free and the slave trade abolished. Of domestic industries, the embroidering of cloth, silks and leather is worthy of notice. The trade of Khiva is considerable: cotton, wool, rough woollen cloth and silk cocoons are exported to Russia, and various animal products to Bokhara. Cottons, velveteen, hardware and pepper are imported from Russia, and silks, cotton, china and tea from Bokhara. Khivan merchants habitually attend the Orenburg and Nizhniy-Novgorod fairs.

History.—The present khanate is only a meagre relic of the great kingdom which under the name of Chorasmia, Kharezm (Khwārizm) and Urgenj (Jurjānīya, Gurganj) held the keys of the mightiest river in Central Asia. Its possession has consequently been much disputed from early times, but the country has undergone great changes, geographical as well as political, which have lessened its importance. The Oxus (Amu-darya) has changed its outlet, and no longer forms a water-way to the Caspian and thence to Europe, while Khiva is entirely surrounded by territory either directly administered or protected by Russia.

Chorasmia is mentioned by Herodotus, it being then one of the Persian provinces, over which Darius placed satraps, but nothing material of it is known till it was seized by the Arabs in A.D. 680. When the power of the caliphs declined the governor of the province probably became independent; but the first king known to history is Mamun-ibn-Mahommed in 995. Khwārizm fell under the power of Mahmud of Ghazni in 1017, and subsequently under that of the Seljuk Turks. In 1097 the governor Kutb-ud-din assumed the title of king, and one of his descendants, ‘Ala-ud-din-Mahommed, conquered Persia, and was the greatest prince in Central Asia when Jenghiz Khan appeared in 1219. Khiva was conquered again by Timur in 1379; and finally fell under the rule of the Uzbegs in 1512, who are still the dominant race under the protection of the Russians.

Russia established relations with Khiva in the 17th century. The Cossacks of the Yaik during their raids across the Caspian learnt of the existence of this rich territory and made more than one plundering expedition to the chief town Urgenj. In 1717 Peter the Great, having heard of the presence of auriferous sand in the bed of the Oxus, desiring also to “open mercantile relations with India through Turan” and to release from slavery some Russian subjects, sent a military force to Khiva. When within 100 miles of the capital they encountered the troops of the khan. The battle lasted three days, and ended in victory for the Russian arms. The Khivans, however, induced the victors to break up their army into small detachments and treacherously annihilated them in detail. It was not until the third decade of the 19th century that the attention of the Muscovite government was again directed to the khanate. In 1839 a force under General Perovsky moved from Orenburg across the Ust-Urt plateau to the Khivan frontiers, to occupy the khanate, liberate the captives and open the way for trade. This expedition likewise terminated in disaster. In 1847 the Russians founded a fort at the mouth of the Jaxartes or Syr-darya. This advance deprived the Khivans not only of territory, but of a large number of tax-paying Kirghiz, and also gave the Russians a base for further operations. For the next few years, however, the attention of the Russians was taken up with Khokand, their operations on that side culminating in the capture of Tashkent in 1865. Free in this quarter, they directed their thoughts once more to Khiva. In 1869 Krasnovodsk on the east shore of the Caspian was founded, and in 1871-1872 the country leading to Khiva from different parts of Russian Turkestan was thoroughly explored and surveyed. In 1873 an expedition to Khiva was carefully organized on a large scale. The army of 10,000 men placed at the disposal of General Kaufmann started from three different bases of operation—Krasnovodsk, Orenburg and Tashkent. Khiva was occupied almost without opposition. All the territory (35,700 sq. m. and 110,000 souls) on the right bank of the Oxus was annexed to Russia, while a heavy war indemnity was imposed upon the khanate. The Russians thereby so crippled the finances of the state that the khan is in complete subjection to his more powerful neighbour.

(J. T. Be.; C. El.)

KHIVA, capital of the khanate of Khiva, in Western Asia, 25 m. W. of the Amu-darya and 240 m. W.N.W. of Bokhara. Pop. about 10,000. It is surrounded by a low earthen wall, and has a citadel, the residence of the khan and the higher officials. There are a score of mosques, of which the one containing the tomb of Polvan, the patron saint of Khiva, is the best, and four large madrasas (Mahommedan colleges). Large gardens exist in the western part of the town. A small Russian quarter has grown up. The inhabitants make carpets, silks and cottons.

KHNOPFF, FERNAND EDMOND JEAN MARIE (1858- ), Belgian painter and etcher, was born at the château de Grembergen (Termonde), on the 12th of September 1858, and studied under X. Mellery. He developed a very original talent, his work being characterized by great delicacy of colour, tone and harmony, as subtle in spiritual and intellectual as in its material qualities. “A Crisis” (1881) was followed by “Listening to Schumann,” “St Anthony” and “The Queen of Sheba” (1883), and then came one of his best known works, “The Small Sphinx” (1884). His “Memories” (1889) and “White, Black and Gold” (1901) are in the Brussels Museum; “Portrait of Mlle R.” (1889) in the Venice Museum; “A Stream at Fosset” (1897) at Budapest Museum; “The Empress” (1899) in the collection of the emperor of Austria, and “A Musician” in that of the king of the Belgians. “I lock my Door upon Myself” (1891), which was exhibited at the New Gallery, London, in 1902 and there attracted much attention, was acquired by the Pinakothek at Munich. Other works are “Silence” (1890), “The Idea of Justice” (1905) and “Isolde” (1906), together with a polychrome bust “Sibyl” (1894) and an ivory mask (1897). In quiet intensity of feeling Khnopff was influenced by Rossetti, and in simplicity of line by Burne-Jones, but the poetry and the delicately mystic and enigmatic note of his work are entirely individual. He did good work also as an etcher and dry-pointist.

See L. Dumont-Wilden, Fernand Khnopff (Brussels, 1907).

KHOI, a district and town in the province of Azerbaijan, Persia, towards the extreme north-west frontier, between the Urmia Lake and the river Aras. The district contains many flourishing villages, and consists of an elevated plateau 60 m. by 10 to 15, highly cultivated by a skilful system of drainage and irrigation, producing fertile meadows, gardens and fields yielding rich crops of wheat and barley, cotton, rice and many kinds of fruit. In the northern part and bounding on Maku lies the plain of Chaldaran (Kalderan), where in August 1514 the Turks under Sultan Selim I. fought the Persians under Shah Ismail and gained a great victory.

The town of Khoi lies in 38° 37′ N., 45° 15′ E., 77 m. (90 by road) N.W. of Tabriz, at an elevation of 3300 ft., on the great trade route between Trebizond and Tabriz, and about 2 m. from the left bank of the Kotur Chai (river from Kotur) which is crossed there by a seven-arched bridge and is known lower down as the Kizil Chai, which flows into the Aras. The walled part of the town is a quadrilateral with faces of about 1200 yds. in length and fortifications consisting of two lines of bastions, ditches, &c., much out of repair. The population numbers about 35,000, a third living inside the walls. The Armenian quarter, with about 500 families and an old church, is outside the walls. The city within the walls forms one of the best laid out towns in Persia, cool streams and lines of willows running along the broad and regular streets. There are some good buildings, including the governor’s residence, several mosques, a large brick bazaar and a fine caravanserai. There is a large transit trade, and considerable local traffic across the Turkish border. The city surrendered to the Russians in 1827 without fighting and after the treaty of peace (Turkman Chai, Feb. 1828) was held for some time by a garrison of 3000 Russian troops as a guarantee for the payment of the war indemnity. In September 1881 Khoi suffered much from a violent earthquake. It has post and telegraph offices.

KHOJENT, or Khojend, a town of the province of Syr-darya, in Russian Turkestan, on the left bank of the Syr-darya or Jaxartes, 144 m. by rail S.S.E. from Tashkent, in 40° 17′ N. and 69° 30′ E., and on the direct road from Bokhara to Khokand. Pop. (1900), 31,881. The Russian quarter lies between the river and the native town. Near the river is the old citadel, on the top of an artificial square mound, about 100 ft. high. The banks of the river are so high as to make its water useless to the town in the absence of pumping gear. Formerly the entire commerce between the khanates of Bokhara and Khokand passed through this town, but since the Russian occupation (1866) much of it has been diverted. Silkworms are reared, and silk and cotton goods are manufactured. A coarse ware is made in imitation of Chinese porcelain. The district immediately around the town is taken up with cotton plantations, fruit gardens and vineyards. The majority of the inhabitants are Tajiks.

Khojent has always been a bone of contention between Khokand and Bokhara. When the amir of Bokhara assisted Khudayar Khan to regain his throne in 1864, he kept possession of Khojent. In 1866 the town was stormed by the Russians; and during their war with Khokand in 1875 it played an important part.

KHOKAND, or Kokan, a town of Asiatic Russia, in the province of Ferghana, on the railway from Samarkand to Andijan, 85 m. by rail S.W. of the latter, and 20 m. S. of the Syr-darya. Pop. (1900), 86,704. Situated at an altitude of 1375 ft., it has a severe climate, the average temperatures being—year, 56°; January, 22°; July, 65°. Yearly rainfall, 3.6 in. It is the centre of a fertile irrigated oasis, and consists of a citadel, enclosed by a wall nearly 12 m. in circuit, and of suburbs containing luxuriant gardens. The town is modernized, has broad streets and large squares, and a particularly handsome bazaar. The former palace of the khans, which recalls by its architecture the mosques of Samarkand, is the best building in the town. Khokand is one of the most important centres of trade in Turkestan. Raw cotton and silk are the principal exports, while manufactured goods are imported from Russia. Coins bearing the inscription “Khokand the Charming,” and known as khokands, have or had a wide currency.

The khanate of Khokand was a powerful state which grew up in the 18th century. Its early history is not well known, but the town was founded in 1732 by Abd-ur-Rahim under the name of Iski-kurgan, or Kali-i-Rahimbai. This must relate, however, to the fort only, because Arab travellers of the 10th century mention Hovakend or Hokand, the position of which has been identified with that of Khokand. Many other populous and wealthy towns existed in this region at the time of the Arab conquest of Ferghana. In 1758-1759 the Chinese conquered Dzungaria and East Turkestan, and the begs or rulers of Ferghana recognized Chinese suzerainty. In 1807 or 1808 Alim, son of Narbuta, brought all the begs of Ferghana under his authority, and conquered Tashkent and Chimkent. His attacks on the Bokharan fortress of Ura-tyube were however unsuccessful, and the country rose against him. He was killed in 1817 by the adherents of his brother Omar. Omar was a poet and patron of learning, but continued to enlarge his kingdom, taking the sacred town of Azret (Turkestan), and to protect Ferghana from the raids of the nomad Kirghiz built fortresses on the Syr-darya, which became a basis for raids of the Khokand people into Kirghiz land. This was the origin of a conflict with Russia. Several petty wars were undertaken by the Russians after 1847 to destroy the Khokand forts, and to secure possession, first, of the Ili (and so of Dzungaria), and next of the Syr-darya region, the result being that in 1866, after the occupation of Ura-tyube and Jizakh, the khanate of Khokand was separated from Bokhara. During the forty-five years after the death of Omar (he died in 1822) the khanate of Khokand was the seat of continuous wars between the settled Sarts and the nomad Kipchaks, the two parties securing the upper hand in turns, Khokand falling under the dominion or the suzerainty of Bokhara, which supported Khudayar-khan, the representative of the Kipchak party, in 1858-1866; while Alim-kul, the representative of the Sarts, put himself at the head of the gazawat (Holy War) proclaimed in 1860, and fought bravely against the Russians until killed at Tashkent in 1865. In 1868 Khudayar-khan, having secured independence from Bokhara, concluded a commercial treaty with the Russians, but was compelled to flee in 1875, when a new Holy War against Russia was proclaimed. It ended in the capture of the strong fort of Makhram, the occupation of Khokand and Marghelan (1875), and the recognition of Russian superiority by the amir of Bokhara, who conceded to Russia all the territory north of the Naryn river. War, however, was renewed in the following year. It ended, in February 1876, by the capture of Andijan and Khokand and the annexation of the Khokand khanate to Russia. Out of it was made the Russian province of Ferghana.

Authorities.—The following publications are all in Russian: Kuhn, Sketch of the Khanate of Khokand (1876); V. Nalivkin, Short History of Khokand (French trans., Paris, 1889); Niazi Mohammed, Tarihi Shahrohi, or History of the Rulers of Ferghana, edited by Pantusov (Kazañ, 1885); Makshéev, Historical Sketch of Turkestan and the Advance of the Russians (St Petersburg, 1890); N. Petrovskiy, Old Arabian Journals of Travel (Tashkent, 1894); Russian Encyclopaedic Dictionary, vol. xv. (1895).

(P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)

KHOLM (Polish Chelm), a town of Russian Poland, in the government of Lublin, 45 m. by rail E.S.E. of the town of Lublin. Pop. (1897), 19,236. It is a very old city and the see of a bishop, and has an archaeological museum for church antiquities.

KHONDS, or Kandhs, an aboriginal tribe of India, inhabiting the tributary states of Orissa and the Ganjam district of Madras. At the census of 1901 they numbered 701,198. Their main divisions are into Kutia or hill Khonds and plain-dwelling Khonds; the landowners are known as Raj Khonds. Their religion is animistic, and their pantheon includes eighty-four gods. They have given their name to the Khondmals, a subdivision of Angul district in Orissa: area, 800 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 64,214. The Khond language, Kui, spoken in 1901 by more than half a million persons, is much more closely related to Telugu than is Gondi. The Khonds are a finer type than the Gonds. They are as tall as the average Hindu and not much darker, while in features they are very Aryan. They are undoubtedly a mixed Dravidian race, with much Aryan blood.

The Khonds became notorious, on the British occupation of their district about 1835, from the prevalence and cruelty of the human sacrifices they practised. These “Meriah” sacrifices, as they were called, were intended to further the fertilization of the earth. It was incumbent on the Khonds to purchase their victims. Unless bought with a price they were not deemed acceptable. They seldom sacrificed Khonds, though in hard times Khonds were obliged to sell their children and they could then be purchased as Meriahs. Persons of any race, age or sex, were acceptable if purchased. Numbers were bought and kept and well treated; and Meriah women were encouraged to become mothers. Ten or twelve days before the sacrifice the victim’s hair was cut off, and the villagers having bathed, went with the priest to the sacred grove to forewarn the goddess. The festival lasted three days, and the wildest orgies were indulged in.

See Major Macpherson, Religious Doctrines of the Khonds; his account of their religion in Jour. R. Asiatic Soc. xiii. 220-221 and his Report upon the Khonds of Ganjam and Cuttack (Calcutta, 1842); also District Gazetteer of Angul (Calcutta, 1908).

KHORASAN, or Khorassan (i.e. “land of the sun”), a geographical term originally applied to the eastern of the four quarters (named from the cardinal points) into which the ancient monarchy of the Sassanians was divided. After the Arab conquest the name was retained both as the designation of a definite province and in a looser sense. Under the new Persian empire the expression has gradually become restricted to the north-eastern portion of Persia which forms one of the five great provinces of that country. The province is conterminous E. with Afghanistan, N. with Russian Transcaspian territory, W. with Astarabad and Shahrud-Bostam, and S. with Kerman and Yezd. It lies mainly within 29° 45′-38° 15′ N. and 56°-61° E., extending about 320 m. east and west and 570 m. north and south, with a total area of about 150,000 sq. m. The surface is mountainous. The ranges generally run in parallel ridges, inclosing extensive valleys, with a normal direction from N.W. to S.E. The whole of the north is occupied by an extensive highland system composed of a part of the Elburz and its continuation extending to the Paropamisus. This system, sometimes spoken of collectively as the Kuren Dagh, or Kopet Dagh from its chief sections, forms in the east three ranges, the Hazar Masjed, Binalud Kuh and Jagatai, enclosing the Meshed-Kuchan valley and the Jovain plain. The former is watered by the Kashaf-rud (Tortoise River), or river of Meshed, flowing east to the Hari-rud, their junction forming the Tejen, which sweeps round the Daman-i-Kuh, or northern skirt of the outer range, towards the Caspian but loses itself in the desert long before reaching it. The Jovain plain is watered by the Kali-i-mura, an unimportant river which flows south to the Great Kavir or central depression. In the west the northern highlands develop two branches: (1) the Kuren Dagh, stretching through the Great and Little Balkans to the Caspian at Krasnovodsk Bay, (2) the Ala Dagh, forming a continuation of the Binalud Kuh and joining the mountains between Bujnurd and Astarabad, which form part of the Elburz system. The Kuren Dagh and Ala Dagh enclose the valley of the Atrek River, which flows west and south-west into the Caspian at Hassan Kuli Bay. The western offshoots of the Ala Dagh in the north and the mountains of Astarabad in the south enclose the valley of the Gurgan River, which also flows westwards and parallel to the Atrek to the south-eastern corner of the Caspian. The outer range has probably a mean altitude of 8000 ft., the highest known summits being the Hazar Masjed (10,500) and the Kara Dagh (9800). The central range seems to be higher, culminating with the Shah-Jehan Kuh (11,000) and the Ala Dagh (11,500). The southern ridges, although generally much lower, have the highest point of the whole system in the Shah Kuh (13,000) between Shahrud and Astarabad. South of this northern highland several parallel ridges run diagonally across the province in a N.W.-S.E. direction as far as Seistan.

Beyond the Atrek and other rivers watering the northern valleys a few brackish and intermittent rivers lose themselves in the Great Kavir, which occupies the central and western parts of the province. The true character of the kavir, which forms the distinctive feature of east Persia, has scarcely been determined, some regarding it as the bed of a dried-up sea, others as developed by the saline streams draining to it from the surrounding highlands. Collecting in the central depressions, which have a mean elevation of scarcely more than 500 ft. above the Caspian, the water of these streams is supposed to form saline deposits with a thin hard crust, beneath which the moisture is retained for a considerable time, thus producing those dangerous and slimy quagmires which in winter are covered with brine, in summer with a treacherous incrustation of salt. Dr Sven Hedin explored the central depressions in 1906.

The surface of Khorasan thus consists mainly of highlands, saline, swampy deserts and upland valleys, some fertile and well-watered. Of the last, occurring mainly in the north, the chief are the longitudinal valley stretching from near the Herat frontier through Meshed, Kuchan and Shirvan to Bujnurd, the Derrehgez district, which lies on the northern skirt of the outer range projecting into the Akhal Tekkeh domain, now Russian territory, and the districts of Nishapur and Sabzevar which lie south of the Binalud and Jagatai ranges. These fertile tracts produce rice and other cereals, cotton, tobacco, opium and fruits in profusion. Other products are manna, suffron, asafoetida and other gums. The chief manufactures are swords, stoneware, carpets and rugs, woollens, cottons, silks and sheepskin pelisses (pustin, Afghan poshtin).

The administrative divisions of the province are: 1, Nishapur; 2, Sabzevar; 3, Jovain; 4, Asfarain; 5, Bujnurd; 6, Kuchan; 7, Derrehgez; 8, Kelat; 9, Chinaran; 10, Meshed; 11, Jam; 12, Bakharz; 13, Radkan; 14, Serrakhs; 15, Sar-i-jam; 16, Bam and Safiabad; 17, Turbet i Haidari; 18, Turshiz; 19, Khaf; 20, Tun and Tabbas; 21, Kain; 22, Seistan.

The population consists of Iranians (Tajiks, Kurds, Baluchis), Mongols, Tatars and Arabs, and is estimated at about a million. The Persians proper have always represented the settled, industrial and trading elements, and to them the Kurds and the Arabs have become largely assimilated. Even many of the original Tatar, Mongol and other nomad tribes (ilat), instead of leading their former roving and unsettled life of the sahara-nishin (dwellers in the desert), are settled and peaceful shahr-nishin (dwellers in towns). In religion all except some Tatars and Mongols and the Baluchis have conformed to the national Shiah faith. The revenues (cash and kind) of the province amount to about £180,000 a year, but very little of this amount reaches the Teheran treasury. The value of the exports and imports from and into the whole province is a little under a million sterling a year. The province produces about 10,000 tons of wool and a third of this quantity, or rather more, valued at £70,000 to £80,000, is exported via Russia to the markets of western Europe, notably to Marseilles, Russia keeping only a small part. Other important articles of export, all to Russia, are cotton, carpets, shawls and turquoises, the last from the mines near Nishapur.

(A. H.-S.)

KHORREMABAD, a town of Persia, capital of the province of Luristan, in 33° 32′ N., 48° 15′ E., and at an elevation of 4250 ft. Pop. about 6000. It is situated 138 m. W.N.W. of Isfahan and 117 m. S.E. of Kermanshah, on the right bank of the broad but shallow Khorremabad river, also called Ab-i-istaneh, and, lower down, Kashgan Rud. On an isolated rock between the town and the river stands a ruined castle, the Diz-i-siyah (black castle), the residence of the governor of the district (then called Samha) in the middle ages, and, with some modern additions, one of them consisting of rooms on the summit, called Felek ul aflak (heaven of heavens), the residence of the governors of Luristan in the beginning of the 19th century. At the foot of the castle stands the modern residence of the governor, built c. 1830, with several spacious courts and gardens. On the left bank of the river opposite the town are the ruins of the old city of Samha. There are a minaret 60 ft. high, parts of a mosque, an aqueduct, a number of walls of other buildings and a four-sided monolith, measuring 9½ ft. in height, by 3 ft. long and 21⁄3 broad, with an inscription partly illegible, commemorating Mahmud, a grandson of the Seljuk king Malik Shah, and dated A.H. 517, or 519 (A.D. 1148-1150). There also remain ten arches of a bridge which led over the river from Samha on to the road to Shapurkhast, a city situated some distance west.

KHORSABAD, a Turkish village in the vilayet of Mosul, 12½ m. N.E. of that town, and almost 20 m. N. of ancient Nineveh, on the left bank of the little river Kosar. Here, in 1843, P. E. Botta, then French consul at Mosul, discovered the remains of an Assyrian palace and town, at which excavations were conducted by him and Flandin in 1843-1844, and again by Victor Place in 1851-1855. The ruins proved to be those of the town of Dur-Sharrukin, “Sargon’s Castle,” built by Sargon, king of Assyria, as a royal residence. The town, in the shape of a rectangular parallelogram, with the corners pointing approximately toward the cardinal points of the compass, covered 741 acres of ground. On the north-west side, half within and half without the circuit of the walls, protruding into the plain like a great bastion, stood the royal palace, on a terrace, 45 ft. in height, covering about 25 acres. The palace proper was divided into three sections, built around three sides of a large court on the south-east or city side, into which opened the great outer gates, guarded by winged stone bulls, each section containing suites of rooms built around several smaller inner courts. In the centre was the serai, occupied by the king and his retinue, with an extension towards the north, opening on a large inner court, containing the public reception rooms, elaborately decorated with sculptures and historical inscriptions, representing scenes of hunting, worship, feasts, battles, and the like. The harem, with separate provisions for four wives, occupied the south corner, the domestic quarters, including stables, kitchen, bakery, wine cellar, &c., being at the east corner, to the north-east of the great entrance court. In the west corner stood a temple, with a stage-tower (ziggurat) adjoining. The walls of the rooms, which stood only to the height of one storey, were from 9 to 25 ft. in thickness, of clay, faced with brick, in the reception rooms wainscoted with stone slabs or tiles, elsewhere plastered, or, in the harem, adorned with fresco paintings and arabesques. Here and there the floors were formed of tiles or alabaster blocks, but in general they were of stamped clay, on which were spread at the time of occupancy mats and rugs. The exterior of the palace wall exhibited a system of groups of half columns and stepped recesses, an ornament familiar in Babylonian architecture. The palace and city were completed in 707 B.C., and in 706 Sargon took up his residence there. He died the following year, and palace and city seem to have been abandoned shortly thereafter. Up to 1909 this was the only Assyrian palace which had ever been explored systematically, in its entirety, and fortunately it was found on the whole in an admirable state of preservation. An immense number of statues and bas-reliefs, excavated by Botta, were transported to Paris, and formed the first Assyrian museum opened to the world. The objects excavated by Place, together with the objects found by Fresnel’s expedition in Babylonia and a part of the results of Rawlinson’s excavations at Nineveh, were unfortunately lost in the Tigris, on transport from Bagdad to Basra. Flandin had, however, made careful drawings and copies of all objects of importance from Khorsabad. The whole material was published by the French government in two monumental publications.

See P. E. Botta and E. Flandin, Monument de Ninive (Paris, 1849-1850; 5 vols. 400 plates); Victor Place, Ninïve et l’Assyrie, avec des essais de restauration par F. Thomas (Paris, 1866-1869; 3 vols.).

(J. P. Pe.)

KHOTAN (locally Ilchi), a town and oasis of East Turkestan, on the Khotan-darya, between the N. foot of the Kuen-lun and the edge of the Takla-makan desert, nearly 200 m. by caravan road S.E. from Yarkand. Pop., about 5000. The town consists of a labyrinth of narrow, winding, dirty streets, with poor, square, flat-roofed houses, half a dozen madrasas (Mahommedan colleges), a score of mosques, and some masars (tombs of Mahommedan saints). Dotted about the town are open squares, with tanks or ponds overhung by trees. For centuries Khotan was famous for jade or nephrite, a semi-precious stone greatly esteemed by the Chinese for making small fancy boxes, bottles and cups, mouthpieces for pipes, bracelets, &c. The stone is still exported to China. Other local products are carpets (silk and felt), silk goods, hides, grapes, rice and other cereals, fruits, tobacco, opium and cotton. There is an active trade in these goods and in wool with India, West Turkestan and China. The oasis contains two small towns, Kara-kash and Yurun-kash, and over 300 villages, its total population being about 150,000.

Khotan, known in Sanskrit as Kustana and in Chinese as Yu-than, Yu-tien, Kiu-sa-tan-na, and Khio-tan, is mentioned in Chinese chronicles in the 2nd century B.C. In A.D. 73 it was conquered by the Chinese, and ever since has been generally dependent upon the Chinese empire. During the early centuries of the Christian era, and long before that, it was an important and flourishing place, the capital of a kingdom to which the Chinese sent embassies, and famous for its glass-wares, copper tankards and textiles. About the year A.D. 400 it was a city of some magnificence, and the seat of a flourishing cult of Buddha, with temples rich in paintings and ornaments of the precious metals; but from the 5th century it seems to have declined. In the 8th century it was conquered, after a struggle of 25 years, by the Arab chieftain Kotaiba ibn Moslim, from West Turkestan, who imposed Islam upon the people. In 1220 Khotan was destroyed by the Mongols under Jenghiz Khan. Marco Polo, who passed through the town in 1274, says that “Everything is to be had there [at Cotan, i.e. Khotan] in plenty, including abundance of cotton, with flax, hemp, wheat, wine, and the like. The people have vineyards and gardens and estates. They live by commerce and manufactures, and are no soldiers.”1 The place suffered severely during the Dungan revolt against China in 1864-1875, and again a few years later when Yakub Beg of Kashgar made himself master of East Turkestan.

The Khotan-darya rises in the Kuen-lun Mountains in two headstreams, the Kara-kash and the Yurun-kash, which unite towards the middle of the desert, some 90 m. N. of the town of Khotan. The conjoint stream then flows 180 m. northwards across the desert of Takla-makan, though it carries water only in the early summer, and empties itself into the Tarim a few miles below the confluence of the Ak-su with the Yarkand-darya (Tarim). In crossing the desert it falls 1250 ft. in a distance of 270 m. Its total length is about 300 m. and the area it drains probably nearly 40,000 sq. m.

See J. P. A. Rémusat, Histoire de la ville de Khotan (Paris, 1820); and Sven Hedin, Through Asia (Eng. trans., London, 1898), chs. lx. and lxii., and Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia, 1899-1902, vol. ii. (Stockholm, 1906).

(J. T. Be.)

1 Sir H. Yule, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, bk. i. ch. xxxvi. (3rd ed., London, 1903).

KHOTIN, or Khoteen (variously written Khochim, Choczim, and Chocim), a fortified town of South Russia, in the government of Bessarabia, in 48° 30′ N. and 26° 30′ E., on the right bank of the Dniester, near the Austrian (Galician) frontier, and opposite Podolian Kamenets. Pop. (1897), 18,126. It possesses a few manufactures (leather, candles, beer, shoes, bricks), and carries on a considerable trade, but has always been of importance mainly as a military post, defending one of the most frequented passages of the Dniester. In the middle ages it was the seat of a Genoese colony; and it has been in Polish, Turkish and Austrian possession. The chief events in its annals are the defeat of the Turks in 1621 by Ladislaus IV., of Poland, in 1673 by John Sobieski, of Poland, and in 1739 by the Russians under Münnich; the defeat of the Russians by the Turks in 1768; the capture by the Russians in 1769, and by the Austrians in 1788; and the occupation by the Russians in 1806. It finally passed to Russia with Bessarabia in 1812 by the peace of Bucharest.

KHULNA, a town and district of British India, in the Presidency division of Bengal. The town stands on the river Bhairab, and is the terminus of the Bengal Central railway, 109 m. E. of Calcutta. Pop. (1901), 10,426. It is the most important centre of river-borne trade in the delta.

The District of Khulna lies in the middle of the delta of the Ganges, including a portion of the Sundarbans or seaward fringe of swamps. It was formed out of Jessore in 1882. Area (excluding the Sundarbans), 2077 sq. m. Besides the Sundarbans, the north-east part of the district is swampy; the north-west is more elevated and drier, while the central part, though low-lying, is cultivated. The whole is alluvial. In 1901 the population was 1,253,043, showing an increase of 6% in the decade. Rice is the principal crop; mustard, jute and tobacco are also grown, and the fisheries are important. Sugar is manufactured from the date palm. The district is entered by the Bengal Central railway, but by far the greater part of the traffic is carried by water.

See District Gazetteer (Calcutta, 1908).

KHUNSAR, a town of Persia, sometimes belonging to the province of Isfahan, at others to Irak, 96 m. N.W. of Isfahan, in 33° 9′ N., 50° 23′ E., at an elevation of 7600 ft. Pop., about 10,000. It is picturesquely situated on both sides of a narrow valley through which the Khunsar River, a stream about 12 ft. wide, flows in a north-east direction to Kuom. The town and its fine gardens and orchards straggle some 6 m. along the valley with a mean breadth of scarcely half a mile. There is a great profusion of fruit, the apples yielding a kind of cider which, however, does not keep longer than a month. The climate is cool in summer and cold in winter. There are five caravanserais, three mosques and a post office.

KHURJA, a town of British India, in the Bulandshahr district of the United Provinces, 27 m. N.W. of Aligarh, near the main line of the East Indian railway. Pop. (1901), 29,277. It is an important centre of trade in grain, indigo, sugar and ghi, and has cotton gins and presses and a manufacture of pottery. Jain traders form a large and wealthy class; and the principal building in the town is a modern Jain temple, a fine domed structure richly carved and ornamented in gold and colours.

KHYBER PASS, the most important of the passes which lead from Afghanistan into India. It is a narrow defile winding between cliffs of shale and limestone 600 to 1000 ft. high, stretching up to more lofty mountains behind. No other pass in the world has possessed such strategic importance or retains so many historic associations as this gateway to the plains of India. It has probably seen Persian and Greek, Seljuk, Tatar, Mongol and Durani conquerors, with the hosts of Alexander the Great, Mahmud of Ghazni, Jenghiz Khan, Timur, Baber, Nadir Shah, Ahmed Shah, and numerous other warrior chiefs pass and repass through its rocky defiles during a period of 2000 years. The mountain barrier which separates the Peshawar plains from the Afghan highlands differs in many respects from the mountain barrier which intervenes between the Indus plains and the plateau farther south. To the south this barrier consists of a series of flexures folded parallel to the river, through which the plateau drainage breaks down in transverse lines forming gorges and clefts as it cuts through successive ridges. West of Peshawar the strike of the mountain systems is roughly from west to east, and this formation is maintained with more or less regularity as far south as the Tochi River and Waziristan. Almost immediately west of Peshawar, and stretching along the same parallel of latitude from the meridian of Kabul to within ten miles of the Peshawar cantonment, is the great central range of the Safed Koh, which forms throughout its long, straight line of rugged peaks the southern wall, or water-divide, of the Kabul River basin. About the meridian of 71 E. it forks, sending off to the north-east what is locally known as a spur to the Kabul River, but which is geographically only part of that stupendous water-divide which hedges in the Kunar and Chitral valleys, and, under the name of the Shandur Range, unites with the Hindu Kush near the head of the Taghdumbash Pamir. The Kabul River breaks through this northern spur of the Safed Koh; and in breaking through it is forced to the northward in a curved channel or trough, deeply sunk in the mountains between terrific cliffs and precipices, where its narrow waterway affords no foothold to man or beast for many miles. To reach the Kabul River within Afghan territory it is necessary to pass over this water-divide; and the Khyber stream, flowing down from the pass at Landi Kotal to a point in the plains opposite Jamrud, 9 m. W. of Peshawar, affords the opportunity.

Pursuing the main road from Peshawar to Kabul, the fort of Jamrud, which commands the British end of the Khyber Pass, lies some 11 m. W. of Peshawar. The road leads through a barren stony plain, cut up by water-courses and infested by all the worst cut-throats in the Peshawar district. Some three miles beyond Jamrud the road enters the mountains at an opening called Shadi Bagiar, and here the Khyber proper begins. The highway runs for a short distance through the bed of a ravine, and then joins the road made by Colonel Mackeson in 1839-1842, until it ascends on the left-hand side to a plateau called Shagai. From here can be seen the fort of Ali Masjid, which commands the centre of the pass, and which has been the scene of more than one famous siege. Still going westward the road turns to the right, and by an easy zigzag descends to the river of Ali Masjid, and runs along its bank. The new road along this cliff was made by the British during the Second Afghan War (1879-80), and here is the narrowest part of the Khyber, not more than 15 ft. broad, with the Rhotas hill on the right fully 2000 ft. overhead. Some three miles farther on the valley widens, and on either side lie the hamlets and some sixty towers of the Zakka Khel Afridis. Then comes the Loargi Shinwari plateau, some seven miles in length and three in its widest part, ending at Landi Kotal, where is another British fort, which closes this end of the Khyber and overlooks the plains of Afghanistan. After leaving Landi Kotal the great Kabul highway passes between low hills, until it debouches on the Kabul River and leads to Dakka. The whole of the Khyber Pass from end to end lies within the country of the Afridis, and is now recognized as under British control. From Shadi Bagiar on the east to Landi Kotal on the west is about 20 m. in a straight line.

The Khyber has been adopted by the British as the main road to Kabul, but its difficulties (before they were overcome by British engineers) were such that it was never so regarded by former rulers of India. The old road to India left the Kabul River near its junction with the Kunar, and crossed the great divide between the Kunar valley and Bajour; then it turned southwards to the plains. During the first Afghan War the Khyber was the scene of many skirmishes with the Afridis and some disasters to the British troops. In July 1839 Colonel Wade captured the fortress of Ali Masjid. In 1842, when Jalalabad was blockaded, Colonel Moseley was sent to occupy the same fort, but was compelled to evacuate it after a few days owing to scarcity of provisions. In April of the same year it was reoccupied by General Pollock in his advance to Kabul. It was at Ali Masjid that Sir Neville Chamberlain’s friendly mission to the amir Shere Ali was stopped in 1878, thus causing the second Afghan War; and on the outbreak of that war Ali Masjid was captured by Sir Samuel Browne. The treaty which closed the war in May 1879 left the Khyber tribes under British control. From that time the pass was protected by jezailchis drawn from the Afridi tribe, who were paid a subsidy by the British government. For 18 years, from 1879 onward, Colonel R. Warburton controlled the Khyber, and for the greater part of that time secured its safety; but his term of office came to an end synchronously with the wave of fanaticism which swept along the north-west border of India during 1897. The Afridis were persuaded by their mullahs to attack the pass, which they themselves had guaranteed. The British government were warned of the intended movement, but only withdrew the British officers belonging to the Khyber Rifles, and left the pass to its fate. The Khyber Rifles, deserted by their officers, made a half-hearted resistance to their fellow-tribesmen, and the pass fell into the hands of the Afridis, and remained in their possession for some months. This was the chief cause of the Tirah Expedition of 1897. The Khyber Rifles were afterwards strengthened, and divided into two battalions commanded by four British officers.

See Eighteen Years in the Khyber, by Sir Robert Warburton (1900); Indian Borderland, by Sir T. Holdich (1901).

(T. H. H.*)

KIAKHTA, a town of Siberia, one of the chief centres of trade between Russia and China, on the Kiakhta, an affluent of the Selenga, and on an elevated plain surrounded by mountains, in the Russian government of Transbaikalia, 320 m. S.W. of Chita, the capital, and close to the Chinese frontier, in 50° 20′ N., 106° 40′ E. Besides the lower town or Kiakhta proper, the municipal jurisdiction comprises the fortified upper town of Troitskosavsk, about 2 m. N., and the settlement of Ust-Kiakhta, 10 m. farther distant. The lower town stands directly opposite to the Chinese emporium of Maimachin, is surrounded by walls, and consists principally of one broad street and a large exchange courtyard. From 1689 to 1727 the trade of Kiakhta was a government monopoly, but in the latter year it was thrown open to private merchants, and continued to improve until 1860, when the right of commercial intercourse was extended along the whole Russian-Chinese frontier. The annual December fairs for which Kiakhta was formerly famous, and also the regular traffic passing through the town, have considerably fallen off since that date. The Russians exchange here leather, sheepskins, furs, horns, woollen cloths, coarse linens and cattle for teas (in value 95% of the entire imports), porcelain, rhubarb, manufactured silks, nankeens and other Chinese produce. The population, including Ust-Kiakhta (5000) and Troitskosavsk (9213 in 1897), is nearly 20,000.

KIANG-SI, an eastern province of China, bounded N. by Hu-peh and Ngan-hui, S. by Kwang-tung, E. by Fu-kien, and W. by Hu-nan. It has an area of 72,176 sq. m., and a population returned at 22,000,000. It is divided into fourteen prefectures. The provincial capital is Nan-ch’ang Fu, on the Kan Kiang, about 35 m. from the Po-yang Lake. The whole province is traversed in a south-westerly and north-easterly direction by the Nan-shan ranges. The largest river is the Kan Kiang, which rises in the mountains in the south of the province and flows north-east to the Po-yang Lake. It was over the Meiling Pass and down this river that, in old days, embassies landing at Canton proceeded to Peking. During the summer time it has water of sufficient depth for steamers of light draft as far as Nan-ch’ang, and it is navigable by native craft for a considerable distance beyond that city. Another river of note is the Chang Kiang, which has its source in the province of Ngan-hui and flows into the Po-yang Lake, connecting in its course the Wu-yuen district, whence come the celebrated “Moyune” green teas, and the city of King-te-chên, celebrated for its pottery, with Jao-chow Fu on the lake. The black “Kaisow” teas are brought from the Ho-kow district, where they are grown, down the river Kin to Juy-hung on the lake, and the Siu-ho connects by a navigable stream I-ning Chow, in the neighbourhood of which city the best black teas of this part of China are produced, with Wu-ching, the principal mart of trade on the lake. The principal products of the province are tea, China ware, grass-cloth, hemp, paper, tobacco and tallow. Kiu-kiang, the treaty port of the province, opened to foreign trade in 1861, is on the Yangtsze-kiang, a short distance above the junction of the Po-yang Lake with that river.

KIANG-SU, a maritime province of China, bounded N. by Shantung, S. by Cheh-kiang, W. by Ngan-hui, and E. by the sea. It has an area of 45,000 sq. m., and a population estimated at 21,000,000. Kiang-su forms part of the great plain of northern China. There are no mountains within its limits, and few hills. It is watered as no other province in China is watered. The Grand Canal runs through it from south to north; the Yangtsze-kiang crosses its southern portion from west to east; it possesses several lakes, of which the T’ai-hu is the most noteworthy, and numberless streams connect the canal with the sea. Its coast is studded with low islands and sandbanks, the results of the deposits brought down by the Hwang-ho. Kiang-su is rich in places of interest. Nanking, “the Southern Capital,” was the seat of the Chinese court until the beginning of the 15th century, and it was the headquarters of the T’ai-p’ing rebels from 1853, when they took the city by assault, to 1864, when its garrison yielded to Colonel Gordon’s army. Hang-chow Fu and Su-chow Fu, situated on the T’ai-hu, are reckoned the most beautiful cities in China. “Above there is Paradise, below are Su and Hang,” says a Chinese proverb. Shang-hai is the chief port in the province. In 1909 it was connected by railway (270 m. long) via Su-Chow and Chin-kiang with Nanking. Tea and silk are the principal articles of commerce produced in Kiang-su, and next in importance are cotton, sugar and medicines. The silk manufactured in the looms of Su-chow is famous all over the empire. In the mountains near Nanking, coal, plumbago, iron ore and marble are found. Shang-hai, Chin-kiang, Nanking and Su-chow are the treaty ports of the province.

KIAOCHOW BAY, a large inlet on the south side of the promontory of Shantung, in China. It was seized in November 1897 by the German fleet, nominally to secure reparation for the murder of two German missionaries in the province of Shantung. In the negotiations which followed, it was arranged that the bay and the land on both sides of the entrance within certain defined lines should be leased to Germany for 99 years. During the continuance of the lease Germany exercises all the rights of territorial sovereignty, including the right to erect fortifications. The area leased is about 117 sq. m., and over a further area, comprising a zone of some 32 m., measured from any point on the shore of the bay, the Chinese government may not issue any ordinances without the consent of Germany. The native population in the ceded area is about 60,000. The German government in 1899 declared Kiaochow a free port. By arrangement with the Chinese government a branch of the Imperial maritime customs has been established there for the collection of duties upon goods coming from or going to the interior, in accordance with the general treaty tariff. Trade centres at Ts’ingtao, a town within the bay. The country in the neighbourhood is mountainous and bare, but the lowlands are well cultivated. Ts’ingtao is connected by railway with Chinan Fu, the capital of the province; a continuation of the same line provides for a junction with the main Lu-Han (Peking-Hankow) railway. The value of the trade of the port during 1904 was £2,712,145 (£1,808,113 imports and £904,032 exports).

KICKAPOO (“he moves about”), the name of a tribe of North American Indians of Algonquian stock. When first met by the French they were in central Wisconsin. They subsequently removed to the Ohio valley. They fought on the English side in the War of Independence and that of 1812. In 1852 a large band went to Texas and Mexico and gave much trouble to the settlers; but in 1873 the bulk of the tribe was settled on its present reservation in Oklahoma. They number some 800, of whom about a third are still in Mexico.