reconquered southern Bavaria, and forced the emperor in June to conclude the unfavourable convention of Nieder-Schönfeld. He disapproved the advance beyond the Rhine which followed these successes, and the event justified his fears, for the Austrians had to fall back from the Rhine through Franconia and the Breisgau, Khevenhüller himself conducting the retreat with admirable skill. On his return to Vienna, Maria Theresa decorated the field marshal with the order of the Golden Fleece. He died suddenly at Vienna on the 26th of January 1744.
He was the author of various instructional works for officers and soldiers (Des G. F. M. Grafen v. Khevenhüller Observationspunkte für sein Dragoner-regiment (1734 and 1748) and a règlement for the infantry (1737), and of an important work on war in general, Kurzer Begriff aller militärischen Operationen (Vienna, 1756; French version, Maximes de guerre, Paris, 1771).
KHEVSURS, a people of the Caucasus, kinsfolk of the Georgians.
They live in scattered groups in East Georgia to the north and
north-west of Mount Borbalo. Their name is Georgian and
means “People of the Valleys.” For the most part nomadic,
they are still in a semi-barbarous state. They have not the
beauty of the Georgian race. They are gaunt and thin to almost
a ghastly extent, their generally repulsive aspect being accentuated
by their large hands and feet and their ferocious expression.
In complexion and colour of hair and eyes they vary greatly.
They are very muscular and capable of bearing extraordinary
fatigue. They are fond of fighting, and still wear armour of
the true medieval type. This panoply is worn when the law of
vendetta, which is sacred among them as among most Caucasian
peoples, compels them to seek or avoid their enemy. They carry
a spiked gauntlet, the terrible marks of which are borne by a
large proportion of the Khevsur faces.
Many curious customs still prevail among the Khevsurs, as for instance the imprisonment of the woman during childbirth in a lonely hut, round which the husband parades, firing off his musket at intervals. After delivery, food is surreptitiously brought the mother, who is kept in her prison a month, after which the hut is burnt. The boys are usually named after some wild animal, e.g. bear or wolf, while the girls’ names are romantic, such as Daughter of the Sun, Sun of my Heart. Marriages are arranged by parents when the bride and bridegroom are still in long clothes. The chief ceremony is a forcible abduction of the girl. Divorce is very common, and some Khevsurs are polygamous. Formerly no Khevsur might die in a house, but was always carried out under the sun or stars. The Khevsurs like to call themselves Christians, but their religion is a mixture of Christianity, Mahommedanism and heathen rites. They keep the Sabbath of the Christian church, the Friday of the Moslems and the Saturday of the Jews. They worship sacred trees and offer sacrifices to the spirits of the earth and air. Their priests are a combination of medicine-men and divines.
See G. F. R. Radde, Die Chevs’uren und ihr Land (Cassel, 1878); Ernest Chantre, Recherches anthropologiques dans le Caucase (Lyons, 1885–1887).
KHILCHIPUR, a mediatized chiefship in Central India, under the Bhopal agency; area, 273 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 31,143; estimated revenue, £7000; tribute payable to Sindhia, £700. The residence of the chief, who is a Khichi Rajput of the Chauhan clan, is at Khilchipur (pop. 5121).
KHINGAN, two ranges of mountains in eastern Asia.
(1) Great Khingan is the eastern border ridge of the immense plateau which may be traced from the Himalaya to Bering Strait and from the Tian-shan Mountains to the Khingan Mountains. It is well known from 50° N. to Kalgan (41° N., 115° E.), where it is crossed by the highway from Urga to Peking. As a border ridge of the Mongolian plateau, it possesses very great orographical importance, in that it is an important climatic boundary, and constitutes the western limits of the Manchurian flora. The base of its western slope, which is very gentle, lies at altitudes of 3000 to 3500 ft. Its crest rises to 4800 to 6500 ft., but its eastern slope sinks very precipitately to the plains of Manchuria, which have only 1500 to 2000 ft. of altitude. On this stretch one or two subordinate ridges, parallel to the main range and separated from it by longitudinal valleys, fringe its eastern slope, thus marking two different terraces and giving to the whole system a width of from 80 to 100 m. Basalts, trachytes and other volcanic formations are found in the main range and on its south-eastern slopes. The range was in volcanic activity in 1720–1721.
South-west of Peking the Great Khingan is continued by the In-shan mountains, which exhibit similar features to those of the Great Khingan, and represent the same terraced escarpment of the Mongolian plateau. Moreover, it appears from the map of the Russian General Staff (surveys of Skassi, V. A. Obruchev, G. N. Potanin, &c.) that similar terrace-shaped escarpments—but considerably wider apart than in Manchuria—occur in the Shan-si province of China, along the southern border of the South Mongolian plateau. These escarpments are pierced by the Yellow River or Hwang-ho south of the Great Wall, between 38° and 39° N., and in all probability a border range homologous to the Great Khingan separates the upper tributaries of the Hwang-ho (namely the Tan-ho) from those of the Yang-tsze-kiang. But according to Obruchev the escarpments of the Wei-tsi-shan and Lu-huang-lin, by which southern Ordos drops towards the Wei-ho (tributary of the Hwang-ho), can hardly be taken as corresponding to the Kalgan escarpment. They fall with gentle slopes only towards the high plains on the south of them, while a steep descent towards the low plain seems to exist further south only, between 32° and 34°. Thus the southern continuations of the Great Khingan, south of 38° N., possibly consist of two separate escarpments. At its northern end the place where the Great Khingan is pierced by the Amur has not been ascertained by direct observation. Prince P. Kropotkin considers that the upper Amur emerges from the high plateau and its border-ridge, the Khingan, below Albazin and above Kumara.[1] If this view prevail—Petermann has adopted it for his map of Asia, and it has been upheld in all the Gotha publications—it would appear that the Great Khingan joins the Stanovoi ridge or Jukjur, in that portion of it which faces the west coast of the Sea of Okhotsk. At any rate the Khingan, separating the Mongolian plateau from the much lower plains of the Sungari and the Nonni, is one of the most important orographical dividing-lines in Asia.
See Semenov’s Geographical Dictionary (in Russian); D. V. Putiata, Expedition to the Khingan in 1891 (St Petersburg, 1893); Potanin, “Journey to the Khingan,” in Izvestia Russ. Geog. Soc. (1901).
(2) The name Little Khingan is applied indiscriminately to two distinct mountain ranges. The proper application of the term would be to reserve it for the typical range which the Amur pierces 40 m. below Ekaterino-Nikolsk (on the Amur), and which is also known as the Bureya mountains, and as Dusse-alin. This range, which may be traced from the Amur to the Sea of Okhotsk, seems to be cleft twice by the Sungari and to be continued under different local names in the same south-westerly direction to the peninsula of Liao-tung in Manchuria. The other range to which the name of Little Khingan is applied is that of the Ilkhuri-alin mountains (51° N., 122°–126° E.), which run in a north-westerly direction between the upper Nonni and the Amur, west of Blagovyeshchensk. (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
KHIVA, formerly an important kingdom of Asia, but now a
much reduced khanate, dependent upon Russia, and confined to
the delta of the Amu-darya (Oxus). Its frontier runs down the
left bank of the Amu, from 40° 15′ N., and down its left branch to
Lake Aral; then, for about 40 m. along the south coast of Lake
Aral, and finally southwards, following the escarpment of the
Ust-Urt plateau. From the Transcaspian territory of Russia
Khiva is separated by a line running almost W.N.W.-E.S.E.
under 40° 30′ N., from the Uzboi depression to the Amu-darya.
The length of the khanate from north to south is 200 m., and its
greatest width 300 m. The area of the Khiva oasis is 5210 sq. m.
while the area of the steppes is estimated at 17,000 sq. m. The
population of the former is estimated at 400,000, and that of the
latter also at 400,000 (nomadic). The water of the Amu is
brought by a number of irrigation canals to the oasis, the general
declivity of the surface westwards facilitating the irrigation.
Several old beds of the Amu intersect the territory. The water
of the Amu and the very thin layer of ooze which it deposits
render the oasis very fertile. Millet, rice, wheat, barley, oats,
peas, flax, hemp, madder, and all sorts of vegetables and fruit
(especially melons) are grown, as also the vine and cotton. The
white-washed houses scattered amidst the elms and poplars, and
surrounded by flourishing fields, produce the most agreeable
contrast with the arid steppes. Livestock, especially sheep,
camels, horses and cattle, is extensively bred by the nomads.
- ↑ See his sketch of the orography of East Siberia (French trans., with addenda, published by the Institut Géographique of Brussels in 1902).
