Kaaba. See Caaba.
Kabul (70), on the Kabul River, at the foot of the Takht-i-Shah
Hills, 650 m. NW. of Delhi, is the capital of Afghanistan, an ancient, mud-built city, but progressing; noted for its fruit and trading in carpets, camel-hair cloth, and skins; the town was taken by General Pollok 1842, avenging the death of Burnes and Macnaughten, and by General Roberts in 1879, avenging the murder of Cavagnari.
Kabyles, the name given to a division of the Berbers of N. Africa, who occupy the coast and tablelands of Mauritania, and are indigenous to it.
Kadijah, a rich widow, the wife of Mahomet, who had been her steward
and factotum, and whom he married when she was forty and himself only
twenty-five, and with whom he lived till her death, “loving her truly and
her alone,” himself now a man of fifty; he had begun his mission as a
prophet before she died, and one service she did him he never forgot as
the greatest of them all: she believed in him, when no one else did.
Kadris, a set of Mohammedan dervishes who lacerate themselves with
scourges, like the Flagellants.
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 Panjshir, 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. Cæsar of India), a title applied to Queen
Victoria as Empress of India since 1876.
Kaiser, the name, derived from the Latin Cæsar, 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 associations with the Hindu monkey-god, Hanuman (q. v.).
Kâla, the Hindu Chronus, or god 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 coarse
pasturage for cattle.
Kalamazoo` (18), a railway centre and flourishing 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 glass with bits of coloured glass 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.
Kálidása, 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
Müller.
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.