[1] The _real_ principal source of the river has been correctly
located at ten miles above the _reputed_ principal source, but the
name Kurang has been erroneously explained as standing for Kuh i rang
and has been given to the mountain with the real principal source.
Kuh i rang has been wrongly explained as meaning the "variegated
mountain."
KARWAR, or CARWAR, a seaport of British India, administrative
headquarters of North Kanara district in the Bombay presidency; 295 m.
S. of Bombay city. Pop. (1901), 16,847. As early as 1660 the East India
Company had a factory here, with a trade in muslin and pepper; but it
suffered frequently from Dutch, Portuguese and native attacks, and in
1752 the English agent was withdrawn. Old Karwar fell into ruins, but a
new town grew up after the transfer of North Kanara to the Bombay
presidency. It is the only safe harbour all the year round between
Bombay and Cochin. In the bay is a cluster of islets called the Oyster
Rocks, on the largest of which is a lighthouse. Two smaller islands in
the bay afford good shelter to native craft during the strong north-west
winds that prevail from February to April. The commercial importance of
Karwar has declined since the opening of the railway to Marmagao in
Portuguese territory.
KARWI, a town of British India, in the Banda district of the United
Provinces, on a branch of the Indian Midland railway; pop. (1901), 7743.
Before the Mutiny it was the residence of a Mahratta noble, who lived in
great state, and whose accumulations constituted the treasure afterwards
famous as "the Kirwee and Banda Prize Money."
KARYOGAMY (Gr. [Greek: karuon], nut or kernel, thus "nucleus," and
[Greek: gamos], marriage), in biology: (1) the fusion of nuclei to form
a single nucleus in syngamic processes (see REPRODUCTION); (2) the
process of pairing in Infusoria (q.v.), in which two migratory nuclei
are interchanged and fuse with two stationary nuclei, while the
cytoplasmic bodies of the two mates are in intimate temporary union.
KASAI, or CASSAI, a river of Africa, the chief southern affluent of the
Congo. It enters the main stream in 3 deg. 10' S., 16 deg. 16' E. after
a course of over 800 m. from its source in the highlands which form the
south-western edge of the Congo basin--separating the Congo and Zambezi
systems. The Kasai and its many tributaries cover a very large part of
the Congo basin. The Kasai rises in about 12 deg. S., 19 deg. E. and
flows first in a north-easterly direction. About 10 deg. 35' S., 22 deg.
15' E. it makes a rectangular bend northward and then takes a
north-westerly direction. Five rivers--the Luembo, Chiumbo, Luijimo or
Luashimo, Chikapa and Lovua or Lowo--rise west of the Kasai and run in
parallel courses for a considerable distance, falling successively into
the parent stream (between 7 deg. and 6 deg. S.) as it bends westward in
its northern course. The Luembo and Chiumbo join and enter the Kasai as
one river. A number of rapids occur in these streams. A few miles below
the confluence of the Lowo, the last of the five rivers named to join
the Kasai, the main stream is interrupted by the Wissmann Falls which,
though not very high, bar further navigation from the north. Below this
point the river receives several right-hand (eastern) tributaries. These
also have their source in the Zambezi-Congo watershed, rising just north
of 12 deg. S., flowing north in parallel lines, and in their lower
course bending west to join the Kasai. The chief of these affluents are
the Lulua and the Sankuru, the Lulua running between the Kasai and the
Sankuru. The Sankuru makes a bold curve westward on reaching 4 deg. S.,
following that parallel of latitude a considerable distance. Its waters
are of a bright yellow colour. After the junction of the two rivers (in
4 deg. 17' S., 20 deg. 15' E.), the united stream of the Kasai flows
N.W. to the Congo. From the south it is joined by the Loange and the
Kwango. The Kwango is a large river rising a little north of 12 deg. S.,
and west of the source of the Kasai. Without any marked bends it flows
north--is joined from the east by the Juma, Wamba and other streams--and
has a course of 600 m. before joining the Kasai in 3 deg. S., 18' E. The
lower reaches of the Kwango are navigable; the upper course is
interrupted by rapids. On the north (in 3 deg. 8' S., 17 deg. E.) the
lower Kasai is joined by the Lukenye or Ikatta. This river, the most
northerly affluent of the Kasai, rises between 24 deg. and 25 deg. E.,
and about 3 deg. S. in swampy land through which the Lomami (another
Congo affluent) flows northward. The Lukenye has an east to west
direction flowing across a level country once occupied by a lake, of
which Lake Leopold II. (q.v.), connected with the lower course of the
Lukenye, is the scanty remnant. Below the lake the Lukenye is known as
the Mfini. Near its mouth the Kasai, in its lower course generally a
broad stream strewn with islands, is narrowed to about half a mile on
passing through a gap in the inner line of the West African highlands,
by the cutting of which the old lake of the Kasai basin must have been
drained. The Kasai enters the Congo with a minimum depth of 25 feet and
a breadth of about 700 yards, at a height of 942 ft. above the sea. The
confluence is known as the Kwa mouth, Kwa being an alternative name for
the lower Kasai. The volume of water entering the Congo averages 321,000
cub. ft. per second: far the largest amount discharged by any of the
Congo affluents. In floodtime the current flows at the rate of 5 or 6 m.
an hour. The Kasai and its tributaries are navigable for over 1500 m. by
steamer.
The Kwango affluent of the Kasai was the first of the large affluents
of the Congo known to Europeans. It was reached by the Portuguese from
their settlements on the west coast in the 16th century. Of its lower
course they were ignorant. Portuguese travellers in the 18th century
are believed to have reached the upper Kasai, but the first accurate
knowledge of the river basin was obtained by David Livingstone, who
reached the upper Kasai from the east and explored in part the upper
Kwango (1854-1855). V. L. Cameron and Paul Pogge crossed the upper
Kasai in the early "seventies." The Kwa mouth was seen by H. M.
Stanley in his journey down the Congo in 1877, and he rightly regarded
it as the outlet of the Kwango, though not surmising it was also the
outlet of the Kasai. In 1882 Stanley ascended the river to the
Kwango-Kasai confluence and thence proceeding up the Mfini discovered
Lake Leopold II. In 1884 George Grenfell journeyed up the river beyond
the Kwango confluence. The systematic exploration of the main stream
and its chief tributaries was, however, mainly the work of Hermann von
Wissmann, Ludwig Wolf, Paul Pogge and other Germans during 1880-1887.
(See Wissmann's books, especially _Im Innern Afrikas_, Leipzig, 1888.)
On his third journey, 1886, Wissmann was accompanied by Grenfell.
Major von Mechow, an Austrian, explored the middle Kwango in 1880, and
its lower course was subsequently surveyed by Grenfell and Holman
Bentley, a Baptist missionary. In 1899-1900 a Belgian expedition under
Captain C. Lemaire traced the Congo-Zambezi watershed, obtaining
valuable information concerning the upper courses of the southern
Kasai tributaries. The upper Kasai basin and its peoples were further
investigated by a Hungarian traveller, E. Torday, in 1908-1909. (See
Torday's paper in _Geog. Jour._, 1910; also CONGO and the authorities
there cited.)
KASBEK (Georgian, _Mkin-vari_; Ossetian, _Urs-khokh_), one of the chief
summits of the Caucasus, situated in 42 deg. 42' N. and 44 deg. 30' E.,
7 m. as the crow flies from a station of the same name on the high road
to Tiflis. Its altitude is 16,545 ft. It rises on the range which runs
north of the main range (main water-parting), and which is pierced by
the gorges of the Ardon and the Terek. It represents an extinct volcano,
built up of trachyte and sheathed with lava, and has the shape of a
double cone, whose base lies at an altitude of 5800 ft. Owing to the
steepness of its slopes, its eight glaciers cover an aggregate surface
of not more than 8 sq. m., though one of them, Maliev, is 36 m. long.
The best-known glacier is the Dyevdorak, or Devdorak, which creeps down
the north-eastern slope into a gorge of the same name, reaching a level
of 7530 ft. At its eastern foot runs the Georgian military road through
the pass of Darial (7805 ft.). The summit was first climbed in 1868 by
D. W. Freshfield, A. W. Moore, and C. Tucker, with a Swiss guide.
Several successful ascents have been made since, the most valuable in
scientific results being that of Pastukhov (1889) and that of G.
Merzbacher and L. Purtscheller in 1890. Kasbek has a great literature,
and has left a deep mark in Russian poetry.
See D. W. Freshfield in _Proc. Geog. Soc._ (November 1888) and _The
Exploration of the Caucasus_ (2nd ed., 2 vols., 1902); Hatisian's
"Kazbek Glaciers" in _Izvestia Russ. Geog. Soc._ (xxiv., 1888);
Pastukhov in _Izvestia of the Caucasus Branch of Russ. Geog. Soc._ (x.
1, 1891, with large-scale map).
KASHAN, a small province of Persia, situated between Isfahan and Kum. It
is divided into the two districts _germsir_, the "warm," and _sardsir_,
the "cold," the former with the city of Kashan in the plains, the latter
in the hills. It has a population of 75,000 to 80,000, and pays a yearly
revenue of about L18,000. KASHAN (Cashan) is the provincial capital, in
34 deg. 0' N. and 51 deg. 27' E., at an elevation of 3190 ft., 150 m.
from Teheran; pop. 35,000, including a few hundred Jews occupied as
silk-winders, and a few Zoroastrians engaged in trade. Great quantities
of silk stuffs, from raw material imported from Gilan, and copper
utensils are manufactured at Kashan and sent to all parts of Persia.
Kashan also exports rose-water made in villages in the hilly districts
about 20 m. from the city, and is the only place in Persia where cobalt
can be obtained, from the mine at Kamsar, 19 m. to the south. At the
foot of the hills 4 m. W. of the city are the beautiful gardens of Fin,
the scene of the official murder, on the 9th of January 1852, of Mirza
Taki Khan, Amir Nizam, the grand vizier, one of the ablest ministers
that Persia has had in modern times.
KASHGAR, an important city of Chinese Turkestan, in 39 deg. 24' 26" N.
lat., 76 deg. 6' 47" E. long., 4043 ft. above sea-level. It consists of
two towns, Kuhna Shahr or "old city," and Yangi Shahr or "new city,"
about five miles apart, and separated from one another by the Kyzyl Su,
a tributary of the Tarim river. It is called Su-leh by the Chinese,
which perhaps represents an original Solek or Sorak. This name seems to
be older than Kashgar, which is said to mean "variegated houses."
Situated at the junction of routes from the valley of the Oxus, from
Khokand and Samarkand, Almati, Aksu, and Khotan, the last two leading
from China and India, Kashgar has been noted from very early times as a
political and commercial centre. Like all other cities of Central Asia,
it has changed hands repeatedly, and was from 1864-1887 the seat of
government of the Amir Yakub Beg, surnamed the Atalik Ghazi, who
established and for a brief period ruled with remarkable success a
Mahommedan state comprising the chief cities of the Tarim basin from
Turfan round along the skirt of the mountains to Khotan. But the kingdom
collapsed with his death and the Chinese retook the country in 1877 and
have held it since.
Kuhna Shahr is a small fortified city on high ground overlooking the
river Tuman. Its walls are lofty and supported by buttress bastions with
loopholed turrets at intervals; the fortifications, however, are but of
hard clay and are much out of repair. The city contains about 2500
houses. Beyond the bridge, a little way off, are the ruins of ancient
Kashgar, which once covered a large extent of country on both sides of
the Tuman, and the walls of which even now are 12 feet wide at the top
and twice that in height. This city--Aski Shahr (Old Town) as it is now
called--was destroyed in 1514 by Mirza Ababakar (Abubekr) on the
approach of Sultan Said Khan's army. About two miles to the north beyond
the river is the shrine of Hazrat Afak, the saint king of the country,
who died and was buried here in 1693. It is a handsome mausoleum faced
with blue and white glazed tiles, standing under the shade of some
magnificent silver poplars. About it Yakub Beg erected a commodious
college, mosque and monastery, the whole being surrounded by rich
orchards, fruit gardens and vineyards. The Yangi Shahr of Kashgar is, as
its name implies, modern, having been built in 1838. It is of oblong
shape running north and south, and is entered by a single gateway. The
walls are lofty and massive and topped by turrets, while on each side is
a projecting bastion. The whole is surrounded by a deep and wide ditch,
which can be filled from the river, at the risk, however, of bringing
down the whole structure, for the walls are of mud, and stand upon a
porous sandy soil. In the time of the Chinese, before Yakub Beg's sway,
Yangi Shahr held a garrison of six thousand men, and was the residence
of the _amban_ or governor. Yakub erected his _orda_ or palace on the
site of the amban's residence, and two hundred ladies of his harem
occupied a commodious enclosure hard by. The population of Kashgar has
been recently estimated at 60,000 in the Kuhna Shahr and only 2000 in
the Yangi Shahr.
With the overthrow of the Chinese rule in 1865 the manufacturing
industries of Kashgar declined. Silk culture and carpet manufacture have
flourished for ages at Khotan, and the products always find a ready sale
at Kashgar. Other manufactures consist of a strong coarse cotton cloth
called _kham_ (which forms the dress of the common people, and for
winter wear is padded with cotton and quilted), boots and shoes,
saddlery, felts, furs and sheepskins made up into cloaks, and various
articles of domestic use. A curious street sight in Kashgar is presented
by the hawkers of meat pies, pastry and sweetmeats, which they trundle
about on hand-barrows just as their counterparts do in Europe; while the
knife-grinder's cart, and the vegetable seller with his tray or basket
on his head, recall exactly similar itinerant traders further west.
The earliest authentic mention of Kashgar is during the second period
of ascendancy of the Han dynasty, when the Chinese conquered the
Hiungnu, Yutien (Khotan), Sulei (Kashgar), and a group of states in
the Tarim basin almost up to the foot of the Tian Shan mountains. This
happened in 76 B.C. Kashgar does not appear to have been known in the
West at this time but Ptolemy speaks of Scythia beyond the Imaus,
which is in a _Kasia Regio_, possibly exhibiting the name whence
Kashgar and Kashgaria (often applied to the district) are formed. Next
ensues a long epoch of obscurity. The country was converted to
Buddhism and probably ruled by Indo-Scythian or Kushan kings. Hsuan
Tswang passed through Kashgar (which he calls Ka-sha) on his return
journey from India to China. The Buddhist religion, then beginning to
decay in India, was working its way to a new growth in China, and
contemporaneously the Nestorian Christians were establishing
bishoprics at Herat, Merv and Samarkand, whence they subsequently
proceeded to Kashgar, and finally to China itself. In the 8th century
came the Arab invasion from the west, and we find Kashgar and
Turkestan lending assistance to the reigning queen of Bokhara, to
enable her to repel the enemy. But although the Mahommedan religion
from the very commencement sustained checks, it nevertheless made its
weight felt upon the independent states of Turkestan to the north and
east, and thus acquired a steadily growing influence. It was not,
however, till the 10th century that Islam was established at Kashgar,
under the Uighur kingdom (see TURKS). The Uighurs appear to have been
the descendants of the people called Tolas and to have been one of the
many Turkish tribes who migrated westwards from China. Boghra Khan,
the most celebrated prince of this line, was converted to
Mahommedanism late in the 10th century and the Uighur kingdom lasted
until 1120 but was distracted by complicated dynastic struggles. The
Uighurs employed an alphabet based upon the Syriac and borrowed from
the Nestorian missionaries. They spoke a dialect of Turkish preserved
in the Kudatku Bilik, a moral treatise composed in 1065. Their kingdom
was destroyed by an invasion of the Kara-Kitais, another Turkish tribe
pressing westwards from the Chinese frontier, who in their turn were
swept away in 1219 by Jenghiz Khan. His invasion gave a decided check
to the progress of the Mahommedan creed, but on his death, and during
the rule of the Jagatai Khans, who became converts to that faith, it
began to reassert its ascendancy. Marco Polo visited the city, which
he calls Cascar, about 1275 and left some notes on it.
In 1389-1390 Timur ravaged Kashgar, Andijan and the intervening
country. Kashgar passed through a troublous time, and in 1514, on the
invasion of the Khan Sultan Said, was destroyed by Mirza Ababakar, who
with the aid of ten thousand men built the new fort with massive
defences higher up on the banks of the Tuman. The dynasty of the
Jagatai Khans collapsed in 1572 by the dismemberment of the country
between rival representatives; and soon after two powerful Khoja
factions, the White and Black Mountaineers (_Ak_ and _Kara Taghluk_),
arose, whose dissensions and warfares, with the intervention of the
Kalmucks of Dzungaria, fill up the history till 1759, when a Chinese
army from Ili (Kulja) invaded the country, and, after perpetrating
wholesale massacres, finally consolidated their authority by settling
therein Chinese emigrants, together with a Manchu garrison. The
Chinese had thoughts of pushing their conquests towards western
Turkestan and Samarkand, the chiefs of which sent to ask assistance of
the Afghan king Ahmed Shah. This monarch despatched an embassy to
Peking to demand the restitution of the Mahommedan states of Central
Asia, but the embassy was not well received, and Ahmed Shah was too
much engaged with the Sikhs to attempt to enforce his demands by arms.
The Chinese continued to hold Kashgar, with sundry interruptions from
Mahommedan revolts--one of the most serious occurring in 1827, when
the territory was invaded and the city taken by Jahanghir Khoja;
Chang-lung, however, the Chinese general of Ili, recovered possession
of Kashgar and the other revolted cities in 1828. A revolt in 1829
under Mahommed Ali Khan and Yusuf, brother of Jahanghir, was more
successful, and resulted in the concession of several important trade
privileges to the Mahommedans of the district of Alty Shahr (the "six
cities"), as it was then named. Until 1846 the country enjoyed peace
under the just and liberal rule of Zahir-ud-din, the Chinese governor,
but in that year a fresh Khoja revolt under Kath Tora led to his
making himself master of the city, with circumstances of unbridled
licence and oppression. His reign was, however, brief, for at the end
of seventy-five days, on the approach of the Chinese, he fled back to
Khokand amid the jeers of the inhabitants. The last of the Khoja
revolts (1857) was of about equal duration with the previous one, and
took place under Wali-Khan, a degraded debauchee, and the murderer of
the lamented traveller Adolf Schlagintweit.
The great Tungani (Dungani) revolt, or insurrection of the Chinese
Mahommedans, which broke out in 1862 in Kan-suh, spread rapidly to
Dzungaria and through the line of towns in the Tarim basin. The
Tungani troops in Yarkand rose, and (10th of August 1863) massacred
some seven thousand Chinese, while the inhabitants of Kashgar, rising
in their turn against their masters, invoked the aid of Sadik Beg, a
Kirghiz chief, who was reinforced by Buzurg Khan, the heir of
Jahanghir, and Yakub Beg, his general, these being despatched at
Sadik's request by the ruler of Khokand to raise what troops they
could to aid his Mahommedan friends in Kashgar. Sadik Beg soon
repented of having asked for a Khoja, and eventually marched against
Kashgar, which by this time had succumbed to Buzurg Khan and Yakub
Beg, but was defeated and driven back to Khokand. Buzurg Khan
delivered himself up to indolence and debauchery, but Yakub Beg, with
singular energy and perseverance, made himself master of Yangi Shahr,
Yangi-Hissar, Yarkand and other towns, and eventually became sole
master of the country, Buzurg Khan proving himself totally unfitted
for the post of ruler. Kashgar and the other cities of the Tarim basin
remained under Yakub Beg's rule until 1877, when the Chinese regained
possession of their ancient dominion. (C. E. D. B.; C. El.)
KASHI, or KASI, formerly the Persian word for all glazed and enamelled
pottery irrespectively; now the accepted term for certain kinds of
enamelled tile-work, including brick-work and tile-mosaic work,
manufactured in Persia and parts of Mahommedan India, chiefly during the
16th and 17th centuries.[1]
Undoubtedly originating in the Semitic word for glass, _kas_, it is
quite possible that the name _kashi_ is immediately derived from Kashan,
a town in Persia noted for its _faience_. This ancient pottery site, in
turn, probably receives its name from the old-time industry; as a "city
of the plain" it would obviously have no claim to the farther-eastern
suffix _shan_, meaning a mountain. Sir George Birdwood wisely considers
that "the art of glazing earthenware has, in Persia, descended in an
almost unbroken tradition from the period of the greatness of Chaldaea
and Assyria ... the name _kas_, by which it is known in Arabic and
Hebrew, carries us back to the manufacture of glass and enamels for
which great Sidon was already famous 1500 years before Christ ... the
designs used in the decoration of Sind and Punjab glazed pottery also go
to prove how much these Indian wares have been influenced by Persian
examples and the Persian tradition of the much earlier art of Nineveh
and Babylon" (_The Industrial Arts of India_, 1880). The two native
names for glass, _kanch_ and _shisha_, common to Persia and India, are,
seemingly, modifications of kashi. The Indian tradition of Chinese
potters settling in bygone days at Lahore and Hala respectively, still
lingers in the Punjab and Sind provinces, and evidently travelled
eastward from Persia with the Moguls. Howbeit in Lahore the name Chini
is sometimes wrongly applied to _kashi_ work; and the so-called
Chini-ka-Rauza mausoleum at Agra is an instance of this misuse. It now
seems an established fact that a colony of Chinese ceramic experts
migrated to Isfahan during the 16th century (probably in the reign, and
at the invitation, of Shah Abbas I.), and there helped to revive the
jaded pottery industry of that district.
_Kashi_ work consisted of two kinds: (a) Enamel-faced tiles and
bricks of strongly fired red earthenware, or terra-cotta; (b)
Enamel-faced tiles and tesserae of lightly fired "lime-mortar," or
sandstone. Tile-mosaic work is described by some authorities as the
true _kashi_. From examination of figured tile-mosaic patterns, it
would appear that, in some instances, the shaped tesserae had been cut
out of enamelled slabs or tiles after firing; in other examples to
have been cut into shape before receiving their facing of coloured
enamel. Mosaic panels in the fort at Lahore are described by J. L.
Kipling as "showing a _gul dasta_, or foliated pattern of a branching
tree, each leaf of which is a separate piece of pottery." Conventional
representations of foliage, flowers and fruit, intricate geometrical
figures, interlacing arabesques, and decorative
calligraphy--inscriptions in Arabic and Persian--constitute the
ordinary _kashi_ designs. The colours chiefly used were cobalt blue,
copper blue (turquoise colour), lead-antimoniate yellow (mustard
colour), manganese purple, iron brown and tin white. A colour-scheme,
popular with Mogul and contemporary Persian _kashigars_, was the
design, in cobalt blue and copper blue, reserved on a ground of deep
mustard yellow. Before applying the enamel colours, the rough face of
the tile, or the tesserae, received a thin coating of slip of variable
composition. It is probably owing to some defect in this part of the
process, or to imperfect firing, that the enamelled tile surfaces on
many old buildings, particularly on the south side, have weathered and
flaked away.
In India the finest examples of _kashi_ work are in the Punjab and
Sind provinces. At Lahore, amongst many beautiful structures, the most
notable are the mosque of Wazir Khan (A.D. 1634) and the gateways of
three famous pleasure gardens, the Shalamar Bagh (A.D. 1637), the
Gulabi Bagh (A.D. 1640), and the Charburji (c. A.D. 1665). At Tatta
the Jami Masjid, built by Shah Jahan (c. A.D. 1645), is a splendid
illustration; whilst in that "vast cemetery of six square miles" on
the adjacent Malki plateau, are numerous Mahommedan tombs (A.D.
1570-1640) with extraordinary _kashi_ ornamentation. Delhi, Multan,
Jullundur, Shahdara, Lahore cantonment, Agra and Hyderabad (Sind), all
possess excellent monuments of the best period viz. those erected
during the reigns of Akbar and Jahangir (A.D. 1556-1628).
In Persia, at Isfahan, Kashan, Meshed and Kerman are a few buildings
and ruins showing the old _kashi_ work; the palace of Chehel Situn in
Isfahan, built during the reign of Shah Abbas I. (c. A.D. 1600), is a
magnificent specimen of this art.
Occasional revivals of the manufacture have taken place both in India
and Persia. Mahommed Sharif, a potter of Jullundur in the Punjab,
reproduced the Mogul enamelled tile-work in 1885, and there is a
manuscript record of a certain Ustad Ali Mahommed, of Isfahan, who
revived the Persian processes in 1887. (W. B.*; C. S. C.)