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° 42′ N. and 44° 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 £18,000.
Kashan (Cashan) is the provincial capital, in 34° 0′ N. and
51° 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° 24′ 26″ N. lat., 76° 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-lēh 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. Hsüan 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
