The largest town is Tarikere (pop. 10,164); the headquarters are at Chikmagalur (9515): The staple crop is rice, chiefly grown on the hill slopes, where the natural rainfall is sufficient, or in the river valley, where the fields can be irrigated. Coffee cultivation is said to have been introduced by a Mahommedan saint, Baba Budan, more than two centuries ago; but it first attracted European capital in 1840. The district is served by the Southern Mahratta railway.
KAEMPFER, ENGELBRECHT (1651–1716), German traveller and physician, was born on the 16th of November 1651 at Lemgo in Lippe-Detmold, Westphalia, where his father was a pastor. He studied at Hameln, Lüneburg, Hamburg, Lübeck and Danzig, and after graduating Ph.D. at Cracow, spent four years at Königsberg in Prussia, studying medicine and natural science. In 1681 he visited Upsala in Sweden, where he was offered inducements to settle; but his desire for foreign travel led him to become secretary to the embassy which Charles XI. sent through Russia to Persia in 1683. He reached Persia by way of Moscow, Kazan and Astrakhan, landing at Nizabad in Daghestan after a voyage in the Caspian; from Shemakha in Shirvan he made an expedition to the Baku peninsula, being perhaps the first modern scientist to visit these fields of “eternal fire.” In 1684 he arrived in Isfahan, then the Persian capital. When after a stay of more than a year the Swedish embassy prepared to return, Kaempfer joined the fleet of the Dutch East India Company in the Persian Gulf as chief surgeon, and in spite of fever caught at Bander Abbasi he found opportunity to see something of Arabia and of many of the western coast-lands of India. In September 1689 he reached Batavia; spent the following winter in studying Javanese natural history; and in May 1690 set out for Japan as physician to the embassy sent yearly to that country by the Dutch. The ship in which he sailed touched at Siam, whose capital he visited; and in September 1690 he arrived at Nagasaki, the only Japanese port then open to foreigners. Kaempfer stayed two years in Japan, during which he twice visited Tōkyō. His adroitness, insinuating manners and medical skill overcame the habitual jealousy and reticence of the natives, and enabled him to elicit much valuable information. In November 1692 he left Japan for Java and Europe, and in October 1693 he landed at Amsterdam. Receiving the degree of M.D. at Leiden, he settled down in his native city, becoming also physician to the count of Lippe. He died at Lemgo on the 2nd of November 1716.
The only work Kaempfer lived to publish was Amoenitatum exoticarum politico-physico-medicarum fasciculi V. (Lemgo, 1712), a selection from his papers giving results of his invaluable observations in Georgia, Persia and Japan. At his death the unpublished manuscripts were purchased by Sir Hans Sloane, and conveyed to England. Among them was a History of Japan, translated from the manuscript into English by J. G. Scheuchzer and published at London, in 2 vols., in 1727. The original German has never been published, the extant German version being taken from the English. Besides Japanese history, this book contains a description of the political, social and physical state of the country in the 17th century. For upwards of a hundred years it remained the chief source of information for the general reader, and is still not wholly obsolete. A life of the author is prefixed to the History.
KAFFA, a country of N.E. Africa, part of the Abyssinian
empire. Kaffa proper (formerly known also as Gomara) has
an area of little more than 5000 sq. m., but the name is used
in a general sense to include the neighbouring territories of
Gimirra, Jimma, Ennarea, &c. In this larger acceptation Kaffa
extends roughly from 6° to 9° N. and from 35° to 3712° E. It
forms the S.W. part of the great Abyssinian plateau and consists
of broken table-land deeply scored by mountain torrents and
densely wooded. The general elevation is about 8000 ft., while
several peaks are over 10,000 ft. From the western slopes of
the plateau descend headstreams of the Sobat. The principal
river however is the Omo, the chief feeder of Lake Rudolf.
Kaffa proper is believed to be the native home of the coffee plant
(whence the name), which grows in profusion on the mountain
sides. The principal town was Bonga, 712° N., 36° 12′ E., a
great trading centre, but the Abyssinian headquarters are at
Anderacha, about 12 m. S.S.W. of Bonga. Jiren, the capital
of Jimma, 60 m. N.E. of Bonga, is a still more important town,
its weekly market being attended by some 20,000 persons.
A great variety of races inhabit these countries of southern Ethiopia. The Kaficho (people of Kaffa proper) are said to be of the same stock as the northern Abyssinians and to have been separated from the rest of the country by the Mahommedan invasion of the 16th century. Thus Jimma, immediately north of Kaffa proper, is peopled by Mahommedan Gallas. The Kaficho, though much mixed with Galla blood, retained their Christianity and a knowledge of Geez, the ecclesiastical tongue of Abyssinia. The ordinary language of the Kaficho has no outward resemblance to modern Abyssinian. Their speech was, however, stated by Dr C. T. Beke (c. 1850) to be cognate with the Gonga tongue, spoken in a portion of Damot, on the northern side of the Abai. Kaffa, after having been ruled by independent sovereigns, who were also suzerains of the neighbouring states, was about 1895 conquered by the Abyssinians. The first European explorer of Kaffa was Antoine de’Abbadie, who visited it in 1843. Not until the early years of the 20th century was the country accurately mapped.
KAFFIR BREAD, in botany, the popular name for a species
of Encephalartos (E. caffra), one of the cycads, a native of South
Africa, so called from the farinaceous food-stuff which is found at
the apex of the stem (Gr. ἐν, in, κεφαλή, head, and ἄρτος, bread).
It is a tree reaching nearly 20 ft. in height, with very stiff,
spreading pinnate leaves 3 to 4 ft. long and recurving at the tip.
The species of Encephalartos, which are natives of tropical and
South Africa, form handsome greenhouse and conservatory
plants; some species are effectively used in subtropical gardening
in the summer months.
KAFFIRS (Arabic Kafir, an unbeliever), a name given by the
Arabs to the native races of the east coast of Africa. The term
was current along the east coast at the arrival of the Portuguese,
and passed from them to the Dutch and English, and to the
natives themselves under the form of Kafula. There are no
general or collective national names for these peoples, and the
various tribal divisions are mostly designated by historical or
legendary chiefs, founders of dynasties or hereditary chieftaincies.
The term has no real ethnological value, for the Kaffirs
have no national unity. To-day it is used to describe that large
family of Bantu negroes inhabiting the greater part of the Cape,
the whole of Natal and Zululand, and the Portuguese dominions
on the east coast south of the Zambezi. The name is also loosely
applied to any negro inhabitant of South Africa. For example,
the Bechuana of the Transvaal and Orange Free State are usually
called Kaffirs.
The Kaffirs are divisible into two great branches: the Ama-Zulu with the Ama-Swazi and Ama-Tonga and the Kaffirs proper, represented by the Ama-Xosa, the Tembu (q.v.) and the Pondo (q.v.). Hence the compound term Zulu-Kaffir applied in a collective sense to all the Kaffir peoples. Intermediate between these two branches were several broken tribes now collectively known as Ama-Fengu, i.e. “wanderers” or “needy” people, from fenguza, to seek service[1] (see Fingo).
The ramifications of the Kaffirs proper cannot be understood without reference to the national genealogies, most of the tribal names, as already stated, being those of real or reputed founders of dynasties. Thus the term Ama-Xosa means simply the “people of Xosa,” a somewhat mythical chief supposed to have flourished about the year 1530. Ninth in descent from his son Toguh was Palo, who died about 1780, leaving two sons, Gcaleka and Rarabe (pronounced Kha-Kha-bē), from whom came the Ama-Gcaleka, Ama-Dhlambe (T’slambies) and the Ama-Ngquika (Gaika or Sandili’s people). The Pondo do not descend from Xosa, but probably from an elder brother, while the Tembu, though apparently representing a younger branch, are regarded by all the Kaffir tribes as the royal race. Hence the Gcaleka chief, who is the head of all
- ↑ The Ama-Fengu are regarded both by the Zulu and Ama-Xosa as slaves or out-castes, without any right to the privileges of true-born Kaffirs. Any tribes which become broken and mixed would probably be regarded as Ama-Fengu by the other Kaffirs. Hence the multiplicity of clans, such as the Ama-Bele, Aba-Sembotweni Ama-Zizi, Ama-Kuze, Aba-Sekunene, Ama-Ntokaze, Ama-Tetyeni Aba-Shwawa, &c., all of whom are collectively grouped as Ama-Fengu.
