The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 268

KAFFIRS, including Kaffirs proper and Zulus, a division of the Bantu negroes, found all over S. Africa, are a pastoral and latterly agricultural people of fine physique, naturally hospitable, honest, and truthful, but now much contaminated by the white man; Kaffir wars broke out in 1834, 1846, 1850, and 1877; the name, which means infidel, was originally applied by the Mohammedans to all pagans.

KAFIRISTAN (200), a lofty mountainous region in the E. of Afghanistan, S. of the Hindu-Kush, with the Panjs.h.i.+r, Kabul, and Chitral Rivers on the W., S., and E.; the people are undersized, pastoral, and devoted to their Aryan faith, which here has its last stronghold, not organised politically, but united in their love of independence and hatred of Mohammedanism.

KAIRWAN' (5), the sacred city of Northern Africa, in Tunis, 80 m. S.

of Tunis, a _decayed_ town, was the chief seat of the Mohammedans in N.

Africa, and a sacred city; manufactures copper vessels, carpets, and articles of leather.

KAISAR-I-HIND (i. e. Caesar of India), a t.i.tle applied to Queen Victoria as Empress of India since 1876.

KAISER, the name, derived from the Latin Caesar, given to the emperor of the old German Empire or Reich, and resumed by the modern Emperor, William I., and his successors.

KAISER WILHELM'S LAND (116), the N. of the eastern half of New Guinea, belonging partly to Britain, partly to Holland, and partly to Germany.

KAITHAL (15), in the Punjab, 90 m. NW. of Delhi, an ancient town, with saltpetre refineries; has old a.s.sociations with the Hindu monkey-G.o.d, HANUMAN (q. v.).

KaLA, the Hindu Chronus, or G.o.d of time, who, as in the Greek mythology, at once produces and devours all things.

KALAHARI DESERT, in S. Africa, stretches far northward from the Orange River between German SW. Africa and the Transvaal, an elevated plateau, not really desert, but covered with scrub and affording coa.r.s.e pasturage for cattle.

KALAMAZOO' (18), a railway centre and flouris.h.i.+ng town in the SW. of Michigan, 144 m. NE. of Chicago; manufactures machinery, paper, and flour.

KALEIDOSCOPE, an optical instrument, invented by Sir David Brewster in 1817, consisting of a cylinder with two mirrors set lengthwise inside, two plates of gla.s.s with bits of coloured gla.s.s loose between at one end and an eye-hole at the other, presents varying patterns on rotation.

KALEVALE, a collection of popular songs current among the peasantry of Finland from earliest times.

KALI (i. e. the black one), one of the names of the wife of SIVA (q. v.), and of whom she is the female counterpart, and has been identified with the GREEK HECATE (q. v.); she is represented with a necklace of human heads.

KaLIDaSA, a great Indian dramatist and poet, probably of the 6th century A.D.; was author of "The Lost Ring" and "The Hero and the Nymph," translated by Sir William Jones, much praised by Goethe and Max Muller.

KALMAR (12), seaport in SE. of Sweden, on an island in Kalmar Sound; carries on a large timber trade, and manufactures of tobacco and matches.

KALMUCKS, the name given to the Western Moguls, inhabiting Central Asia, and considerably intermingled with their neighbours, the Russians, Persians, and Turks; they are Buddhists, nomadic, and have herds of horses and cattle.

KALPA, a Braminical name for the immense period of time which separates one destruction of the world from the next, a day and a night of Brahma.

KALPI (14), a decaying town in the NW. Provinces of India, on the Jumna, 50 m. SW. of Cawnpore; was the scene of the defeat of 12,000 mutineers in 1858; manufactures paper, and exports grain and cotton.

KaMA, the Hindu Cupid, or G.o.d of love, a potent G.o.d of the Hindu pantheon, able to subdue nearly all the rest of the G.o.ds except Siva, who once with a single glance of his Cyclop eye reduced him to ashes for daring to bring trouble into his breast; he is one of the primitive G.o.ds of the Hindu pantheon, like the EROS (q. v.) of the Greeks.

KAMCHATKA (7), a long narrow peninsula on the E. coast of Siberia, stretching southwards between the Behring Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk, with a precipitous coast and a volcanic range of mountains down the centre, has a cold, wet climate, gra.s.s and tree vegetation, and many hot springs; the people live by fis.h.i.+ng, hunting, and trading in furs; they are Russianised, the peninsula having been Russian since the 17th century.

KAMES, HENRY HOME, LORD, Scottish judge and philosopher, born in Berwicks.h.i.+re; became an advocate in 1723 and judge in 1752; wrote books on law, "Essays on Morality and Natural Religion," and other philosophical works, in which he indulged in a wide and often fanciful range of speculation; was noted for his sociality and public spirit, and died at Edinburgh (1696-1782).

KAMPEN (19), a reviving Dutch town on the Yssel, 3 m. from the Zuyder Zee, and 5 m. W. of Zwolle; has s.h.i.+pbuilding and fis.h.i.+ng industries; the inhabitants are the proverbial fools of Holland.

KAMPTULICON, a floorcloth composed of cork and india-rubber or similar substance.

KAMTHI (43), a town of recent origin in the Central Provinces of India, 9 m. NW. of Nagpur; trades in cattle and grain, salt, and timber.

KANARA, a rainy district on the W. coast of India, between Goa and Malabar, mostly malarial forest country, with the Ghat Mountains and many rivers. NORTH KANARA (446) is in Bombay Presidency. SOUTH KANARA (1,056), capital Mangalore, is in Madras.

KANARIS, CONSTANTIN, an intrepid Greek sea-captain who distinguished himself by his exploits in the Greek War of Independence, particularly in the destruction of the Turkish vessels by means of fire-s.h.i.+ps; he attained the rank of admiral in 1862, and took part in the revolution which overthrew King Otho (1780-1877).

KANDAHAR, capital of Southern Afghanistan, near the Argandab River, 200 m. SW. of Kabul; a well-watered, regularly built town in the middle of orchards and vineyards; is of great political and commercial importance; a centre of trade with India, Persia, and Turkestan; it was held by the British through the war of 1839-41, and again in 1880-81; population variously estimated from 25,000 to 100,000.

KANDY (20), a town on a mountain lake in the middle of Ceylon, 75 m.

NE. of Colombo; is a railway centre; has the ruins of the palace of the old native kings, and a temple with the famous tooth of Buddha.

KANE, ELISHA KENT, an American explorer, born in Philadelphia; bred to medicine; became a surgeon in the navy; acquired a taste for adventure; from his experiences in such accompanied, in 1850, the first Grinnell expedition to the Arctic seas, and commanded the second in 1853, after three years returning with many discoveries; he wrote accounts of both expeditions (1820-1857).

KANE, SIR ROBERT, chemist, born in Dublin; originator of the _Dublin Journal of Medical Science_ in 1832, and of the Irish Museum of Industry in 1846; was President of Queen's College, Cork, and President of the Royal Irish Academy in 1876; Published "Elements of Chemistry," and other works (1810-1890).

KANSAS (1,427), the central State of the American Union; lies in the basin of the Kansas and Arkansas Rivers, between Nebraska on the N. and Oklahoma on the S., with Colorado on the W. and Missouri on the E. It is a rolling prairie, with a fine climate subject to occasional extremes, and a rainfall, except in some districts, sufficient; raises crops of grain and sugar, and affords excellent grazing ground. Pork and beef packing, flour-milling, and iron-founding industries are carried on. The State University is at Lawrence, an agricultural college at Manhattan, and good schools in every town. Previous to its admission to the Union in 1859 Kansas was the scene of violent conflicts between pro- and anti-slavery parties for five years. In the Civil War it joined the North. The capital is Topeka (31), and the largest other towns Kansas City (38) and Wichita (23).

KANSAS CITY, two contiguous towns on the S. bank of the Missouri River, 280 m. W. of St. Louis, are so called. The larger and more easterly one (164) is the second city of Missouri; an important railway centre, and distributes the agricultural products of a large region; has pork-packing industries and iron manufactures. The smaller, westerly city (51), is in Kansas, the largest town of that State; has a remarkable elevated railway.

KANT, IMMANUEL, a celebrated German philosopher, born in Konigsberg, the son of a saddler, of Scotch descent, and fortunate in both his parents; entered the university in 1740 as a student of theology; gave himself to the study of philosophy, mathematics, and physics; wrote an essay, his first literary effort, on "Motive Force" in 1747; settled at the University as a private lecturer on a variety of academic subjects in 1755; became professor of Logic and Metaphysics in 1770, when he was 46, and continued till his retirement, in 1797, from the frailties of age, spending the last 17 years of his life in a small house with a garden in a quiet quarter of the town; his great work, the "Kritic of Pure Reason,"