Chio in April 1822 by the Turkish Capitan Pasha. The commander of the force of fifty small vessels and eight fireships sent to assail the Turkish fleet was the navarch Miaoulis, but it was Kanaris who executed the attack with the fireships on the flagship of the Capitan Pasha on the night of the 18th of June 1822. The Turks were celebrating the feast of Bahram at the end of the Ramadān fast. Kanaris had two small brigs fitted as fireships, and thirty-six men. He was allowed to come close to the Turkish flagship, and succeeded in attaching his fireships to her, setting them on fire, and escaping with his party. The fire reached the powder and the flagship blew up, sending the Capitan Pasha and 2000 Turks into the air. Kanaris was undoubtedly aided by the almost incredible sloth and folly of his opponents, but he chose his time well, and the service of the fireships was always considered peculiarly dangerous. That Kanaris could carry out the venture with a volunteer party not belonging to a regularly disciplined service, not only proved him to be a clever partisan fighter, but showed that he was a leader of men. He repeated the feat at Tenedos in November of 1822, and was then considered to have disposed of nearly 4000 Turks in the two ventures. When his native island, Psara, was occupied by the Turks he continued to serve under the command of Miaoulis. He was no less distinguished in other attacks with fireships at Samos and Mytilene in 1824, which finally established an utter panic in the Turkish navy. His efforts to destroy the ships of Mehemet Ali at Alexandria in 1825 were defeated by contrary winds. When the Greeks tried to organize a regular navy he was appointed captain of the frigate “Hellas” in 1826. In politics he was a follower of Capo d’Istria. He helped to upset the government of King Otho and to establish his successor, was prime minister in 1864–1865, came back from retirement to preside over the ministry formed during the crisis of the Russo-Turkish war, and died in office on the 15th of September 1877. Kanaris is described as of small stature, simple in appearance, somewhat shy and melancholy. He is justly remembered as the most blameless of the popular heroes of the War of Independence. He was almost the only one among them whom Dundonald, with whom he served in a successful attack on an Egyptian war-ship near Alexandria, exempts from the sweeping charges of cowardice he brings against the Greeks. (D. H.)
KANAUJ, an ancient city of British India, in Farukhabad district, United Provinces, near the left bank of the Ganges. Pop. (1901), 18,552. Kanauj in early times formed the capital of a great Hindu kingdom. Its prosperity dates from a prehistoric period, and seems to have culminated about the 6th century under Harsha. In 1019 it fell before Mahmud of Ghazni, and again in 1194 before Mahommed Ghori. The existing ruins extend over the lands of five villages, occupying a semicircle fully 4 m. in diameter. No Hindu buildings remain intact; but the great mosque, constructed by Ibrahim Shah of Jaunpur in 1406 out of Hindu temples, is still called by Hindus “Sita’s Kitchen.” Kanauj, which is traditionally said to be derived from Kanyakubja ( = the crooked maiden), has given its name to an important division of Brahmans in northern India. Hinduism in Lower Bengal also dates its origin from a Brahman migration southwards from this city, about 800 or 900. Kanauj is now noted for the distilling of scents.
KANDAHAR, the largest city in Afghanistan, situated in 31° 37′ N. lat. and 65° 43′ E. long., 3400 ft. above the sea. It is 370 m. distant from Herat on the N.W., by Girishk and Farah—Girishk being 75 m., and Farah 225 m. from Kandahar. From Kabul, on the N.E., it is distant 315 m., by Kalat-i-Ghilzai and Ghazni—Kalat-i-Ghilzai being 85 m., and Ghazni 225 m. from Kandahar. To the Peshin valley the distance is about 110 m., and from Peshin to India the three principal routes measure approximately as follows: by the Zhob valley to Dera Ismail Khan, 300 m.; by the Bori valley to Dera Ghazi Khan, 275 m.; by Quetta and the Bolan to Dadar, 125 m.; and by Chappar and Nari to Sibi, 120 m. The Indian railway system extends to New Chaman, within some 80 m. of Kandahar. Immediately round the city is a plain, highly cultivated and well populated to the south and west; but on the north-west barren, and bounded by a double line of hills, rising to about 1000 ft. above its general level, and breaking its dull monotony with irregular lines of scarped precipices, crowned with fantastic pinnacles and peaks. To the north-west these hills form the watershed between the valleys of the Arghandab and the Tarnak, until they are lost in the mountain masses of the Hazarajat—a wild region inhabited by tribes of Tatar origin, which effectually shuts off Kandahar from communication with the north. On the south-west they lose themselves in the sandy desert of Registan, which wraps itself round the plain of Kandahar, and forms another impassable barrier. But there is a break in these hills—a gate, as it were, to the great high road between Herat and India; and it is this gate which the fortress of Kandahar so effectually guards, and to which it owes its strategic importance. Other routes there are, open to trade, between Herat and northern India, either following the banks of the Hari Rud, or, more circuitously, through the valley of the Helmund to Kabul; or the line of hills between the Arghandab and the Tarnak may be crossed close to Kalat-i-Ghilzai; but of the two former it may be said that they are not ways open to the passage of Afghan armies owing to the hereditary hostility existing between the Aeimak and Hazara tribes and the Afghans generally, while the latter is not beyond striking distance from Kandahar. The one great high road from Herat and the Persian frontier to India is that which passes by Farah and crosses the Helmund at Girishk. Between Kandahar and India the road is comparatively open, and would be available for railway communication but for the jealous exclusiveness of the Afghans.
To the north-west, and parallel to the long ridges of the Tarnak watershed, stretches the great road to Kabul, traversed by Nott in 1842, and by Stewart and subsequently by Roberts in 1880. Between this and the direct route to Peshin is a road which leads through Maruf to the Kundar river and the Guleri pass into the plains of Hindustan at Dera Ismail Khan. This is the most direct route to northern India, but it involves the passage of some rough country, across the great watershed between the basins of the Helmund and the Indus. But the best known road from Kandahar to India is that which stretches across the series of open stony plains interspersed with rocky hills of irregular formation leading to the foot of the Kwaja Amran (Khojak) range, on the far side of which from Kandahar lies the valley of Peshin. The passage of the Kwaja Amran involves a rise and fall of some 2300 ft., but the range has been tunnelled and a railway now connects the frontier post of New Chaman with Quetta. Two lines of railway now connect Quetta with Sind, the one known as the Harnai loop, the other as the Bolan or Mashkaf line. They meet at Sibi (see Baluchistan). Several roads to India have been developed through Baluchistan, but they are all dominated from Kandahar. Thus Kandahar becomes a sort of focus of all the direct routes converging from the wide-stretching western frontier of India towards Herat and Persia, and the fortress of Kandahar gives protection on the one hand to trade between Hindustan and Herat, and on the other it lends to Kabul security from invasion by way of Herat.
Kandahar is approximately a square-built city, surrounded by a wall of about 334 m. circuit, and from 25 to 30 ft. high, with an average breadth of 15 ft. Outside the wall is a ditch 10 ft. deep. The city and its defences are entirely mud-built. There are four main streets crossing each other nearly at right angles, the central “chouk” being covered with a dome. These streets are wide and bordered with trees, and are flanked by shops with open fronts and verandas. There are no buildings of any great pretension in Kandahar, a few of the more wealthy Hindus occupying the best houses. The tomb of Ahmad Shah is the only attempt at monumental architecture. This, with its rather handsome cupola, and the twelve minor tombs of Ahmad Shah’s children grouped around, contains a few good specimens of fretwork and of inlaid inscriptions. The four streets of the city divide it into convenient quarters for the accommodation of its mixed population of Duranis, Ghilzais, Parsiwans and Kakars, numbering in all some 30,000 souls. Of these the greater proportion are the Parsiwans (chiefly Kizilbashes).
