Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/850

 816 K A E K A F Government, and necessitated the use of British troops before it was suppressed. The inquiry that followed led to the assumption of the direct administration of the entire state of Mysore by the British. This administration was continued till March 1881, when the state was again handed over to its native rulers, on the repre sentative of the ruling family attaining his majority. KAEMPFER, ENGELBRECHT (1651-1716), traveller and physician, was born September 16, 1651, at Lemgo in Lippe-Detmold, Westphalia, where his father was a pastor. He studied at Hameln, Liineburg, Hamburg, and Liibeck, and, after graduating as doctor of philosophy at Cracow, he spent four years at Konigsberg in Prussia, in the study of medicine and the natural sciences. In 1681 he visited Upsala in Sweden, where he was offered inducements to settle ; but his desire for foreign travel led him eagerly to accept the post of secretary to the embassy which Charles XI. sent through Russia to Persia in 1683. When after a stay of two years the Swedish embassy prepared to return from Ispahan, Kaempfer entered the service of the Dutch East India Company, as chief surgeon of the fleet then in the Persian Gulf. A malignant fever which seized him at Gamron on the Gulf prevented his further travels for a long while; and he did not arrive at Batavia till September 1689. The following winter was spent by Kaempfer in studying the natural history of Java ; and in May 1690 he 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, and in September arrived at Nagasaki, the only Japanese port then open to foreigners. Kaempfer stayed two years in Japan, during which he twice visited Yedo (now Tokio), the capital of the shogun. His adroit ness, insinuating manners, and medical skill overcame the habitual jealousy and reticence of the natives, and enabled him to elicit much valuable information, which he has embodied in his History of Japan. In November 1692 Kaempfer left Japan, and in October 1693 he landed at Amsterdam. Receiving the degree of doctor of medicine at Leyden, he settled down in his native city to edit and publish his travels and scientific papers at his leisure ; but his appointment as physician to the count of Lippe involved him in the cares of an. extensive medical practice that hindered his literary labours. His health, already impaired by his travels, gave way under various domestic troubles ; and he died at Lemgo, November 2, 1716, in his sixty- sixth year. The only work Kaempfer lived to publish was Amcenitatum Exoticarum Politico-physico-mcdicarum Fasciculi V. (Lemgo, 1712), a selection from his papers giving most interesting results of his observations in Georgia, Persia, and Japan. At his death his unpublished manuscripts were purchased by Sir Hans Sloaue, and conveyed to England. Among them was a History of Japan, which was translated from the manuscript into English by J. G. Scheuchzer and published at London, in 2 vols., in 1728. The original German has never been published, the extant German version being taken from the English. The interest and value of the work are very great. It not only contains a history, strictly so called, but also 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, if not almost the only available source of information about Japan for the general reader, and is still not wholly obsolete. A life of the author is prefixed to the History. KAFFxV, a town in the Crimea. See THEODOSIA. KAFFA, or GOMARA, a little-known region to the south of Abyssinia in Africa, forming a cool elevated tract between the basins of the Sobat on the west and the Juba on the east. Some of its mountain summits, among which is Mount Mata Gera, are believed to be over 12,000 feet high. Kaffa is held to be the native home of the coffee- plant, which grows in wild profusion on the mountain slopes. The chief town is Bonga, described as one of the largest towns in Ethiopia, in 7 12 N. lat. The inhabitants, largely belonging to the race of black Gallas, are said by Beke to be Christians, and to speak a language cognate with the Gong a tongue, spoken in a portion of Damot, on the northern side of the Abai. The French traveller Abbadie, who visited Kaffa in 1843, was the first European explorer. Dr Beke gives a description of the habits of the people in the London Geographical Journal for 1843 ; as also does Dr Krapf in his Travels, &c., in Eastern Africa (1860). KAFFKARIA, KAFFRES. The name Kaffraria or Kaffreland properly means the country of the Kafl res, and in this sense would embrace the whole region extend ing from the river Keiskamma to Delagoa Bay, including at least British Kaffraria and Kaffraria Proper, Natal, Zululand, the Transvaal, and the Orange River Free State. The term, however, has usually been confined to the districts popularly known as British Kaffraria and Kaffraria Proper. Neither term is now used officially. British Kaffraria was incorporated with Cape Colony in 1866, and now forms the two official districts of King- William s Town and East London ; Kaffraria Proper is now known officially as -the Transkeiau Territories, or simply the Transkei. But, as the two designations are still in popular use, and as they are in several respects con venient, it will be useful here to give some account of the geography and the more important events in the history of the two districts under the general heading. The physical characteristics of the two Kaffrarias bear a general resemblance to those of the Cape Colony, of which they are the north-east continuation. The country generally rises from the sea-level in a series of terraces to the lofty mountains forming the north-west boundary. British Kaffraria culminates in the Amatola mountains, rising in one part to upwards of 6000 feet. The features of Kaffraria Proper are much more varied, and exhibit some of the most picturesque scenery in South Africa. The rugged range of the Drakenberg forms its north-west boundary, rising at its north-eastern point to a height of 9657 feet. Between that range and the coast-lands are many subsidiary ranges with fertile valleys through which the great rivers make their way to the Indian Ocean. The coast region is more broken than is the case farther south. The prevalent rock along, the coast of Kaffraria is the Old Sandstone, nonfossiliferous rock, quartzite, in tersected occasionally -with veins of white quartz rock, and often capped with a dense mass of conglomerate ; while the interior mountains are classed by Mr Dunn as the Stormberg coal-bearing fossiliferous beds of the Triassic period. Kaffraria is watered by hundreds of rivers, most of them rising at no great distance from the coast, but several of them of large dimensions. The chief, begin ning at the south, are the Keiskamma, the Buffalo, the Kei, the Bashee, the Umtata, the St John s or Umzimvubu, with several large tributaries, and the Umtamvuna, which separates British Kaffraria from Natal. The rivers are of little use for navigation. Kaffraria forms one of the most naturally fertile regions in S. Africa. In British Kaffraria most of the cereals grow, and in the cloofs, and scattered over the country, are forests and clumps of valuable timber. The Trauskei shows even greater possibilities of culture. The moun tain gorges abound in fine trees ; thick forest and bush cover the banks of the rivers; grass grows luxuriantly in the lower regions ; and the lowlands and valleys are favourable to almost any kind of fruit, field, and garden cultivation. In the occupied district cattle and sheep are numerous ; lions are still found in the interior, and a fail- amount of the game characteristic of the inland districts belonging to the Cape. The climate generally resembles that of the eastern province of Cape Colony, but with features more approaching to those of the tropics. The coast districts are extremely hot in summer, the temper ature on an average varying from 70&quot; to $0, while in