Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/114

 102 K I the river. The wide suburbs are remarkable for their gardens, which occupy about 12,000 acres, and produce great quantities of fruits (especially plums, which are dried and exported), tobacco, and wine. The buildings of the town are, however, very plain, and the streets remain mostly unpaved. Kishineff is the seat of the archbishop of Bessarabia, and has an ecclesiastical seminary with 800 students, a college, and several secondary and primary schools. There are several tallow-melting houses, steam flour-mills, candle and soap works, distilleries, and tobacco factories. The trade is very active and yearly becomes more important, Kishineff being now a centre for the whole Bessarabian trade in grain, wine, tobacco, tallow, wool, and skins, exported to Austria and to Odessa. The fairs, which are held twice a week, are very animated, and their yearly return is estimated at 300,000. The town played an important part in the late war between Russia and Turkey, as the chief centre of the Russian invasion. KISHM, or TAwfLAH (i.e., Long Island), an island at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, separated from the coast of the Persian province of Kirman by Clarence Strait, which at its narrowest point has a breadth of less than 2 miles. The island has a length of about 55 miles, its main axis running north-east and south-west ; and the area is estimated at 640 square miles. A range of hills from 300 to 600 feet in height, and with strongly marked escarpments, runs nearly parallel to the southern coast; they are largely composed, like those of Hormuz and the neighbouring mainland, of rock salt, which is regularly excavated in one or two places, and forms one of the chief products of the island, finding its way first to Muscat and thence to India and Africa. The rest of the island consists of sandstones and marls. In its general aspect it is parched and barren-looking, like the south of Persia, but it contains fertile portions which produce grain, dates, grapes, melons, &amp;lt;fec. Naphtha springs exist near the village of Saluk on the south coast. Kishm, the largest of the towns, lies at the eastern extremity of the island; Bassidore, the next in importance, at the western extremity ; and Lafit (Luft, Leit) about midway along the northern coast. The town of Leit was reduced by a British fleet in 1809. Politically the island belongs to Persia, but the shah has long farmed it to the sultan of Muscat. The inhabitants are reckoned at 5000 or 6000. Kishm is the ancient Oaracta, or Uorochtha, a name said to sur vive in a village called Brokt. The old Arabic word is Barkawan or Bany-Kawau. Mas udy (ch. x. ), who mentions its capture by Amr ibn el As, says that it also bore the name of Lafit. See Wellsted s Travels to the City of the Caliphs, 1840, vol. i. p. 65 sq. ; Pelly, in Journ. Roy. Geog. Soc., 1864 ; Sprenger, Alte Geoy. Arabiens, p. 119 sq. ; and Ouseley s Travels, i. 162. KISSINGEN, the chief town of a department in the government district of Lower Franconia and Aschaffenburg, Bavaria, is situated on the Franconian Saale, 656 feet above sea-level, and about 62 miles east of Frankfort-on- the-Main. Its streets are regular, and its houses attrac tive. A stone bridge spans the Saale at the town. It has a local court, a commercial school, a theatre, and various benevolent institutions, besides all the usual buildings for the lodging, cure, and amusement of the 10,000 annual visitors who are attracted to this, the most popular watering-place in Bavaria. In the Kurgarten, a tree-shaded expanse between the Kurhaus and the handsome colonnaded Conversations-Saal, are the three principal springs, Rakoczi, Pandur, and Maxbrunnen, of which the first two, strongly impregnated with iron and salt, have a temperature of 5F-26 Fahr. ; and the last (50 72), is like Selters or Seltzer water. At short distances from the town are the intermittent artesian spring Soolensprudel, the Schonborn- sprudel, and the Therestenquelle ; and in the same valley as Kissingen are the minor spas of Booklet and Briickenau. -K I S The waters of Kissingen are prescribed for both internal and external use in a great variety of diseases, such as chronic catarrh, rheumatism, scrofula, affections of the bowels, of the lungs, and also of the eyes and ears. They are all highly charged with salt, and productive Government salt works were at one time stationed near Kissingen. The manufactures of the town, chiefly carriages and furniture, are unimportant. The population in 1875 was 3471. The salt springs were known in the 9th century, and their medi cinal properties were recognized in the 16th, but it was only within I the first half of the 19th century that Kissingen became a popular resort. On July 10, 1866, the Prussians defeated the Bavarians with great slaughter near Kissingen. The town was the scene of the attempted assassination of Prince Bismarck by Kullman, July 13, 1874. KISTNA, or KRISHNA, a district in the Madras Presi dency, India, lying between 15 35 and 17 10 N. lat., and between 79 14 and 81 34 E. long., and bounded on the N. by Godavari, on the E. by the Bay of Bengal, on the S. by Nellore, and on the W. by the Nizam s Dominions and Karnul. Kistna is, speaking generally, a flat country, but the interior is broken by a few low hills, the highest being 1857 feet above sea-level. The principal rivers are the Kistna, which cuts the district into two portions known as the Masulipatam and Gantiir divisions, and the Munyeru, Paleru, and Naguleru (tributaries of the Guncllakamma and the Kistna) ; the last only is navigable. The Kolar Lake, which covers an area of 21 by 14 miles, and the Romparu swamp are natural receptacles for the drainage on the north and south sides of the Kistna respectively. Iron and copper exist, and at one time the mines were worked ; but the smelting of copper is now a thing of the past, and that of iron is also dying out. Diamond mines are still worked, to a very slight extent, in five villages belonging to the nizAm; and at other places there are traces of mines which were abandoned long ago. Garnets and small rubies are also found. There are no forests in the district. Every variety of the game birds of India, except the pheasant, woodcock, and hill partridge, abounds. The most deadly of poisonous snakes, the Russell viper, is com mon about Masulipatam. The cobra, carpet snake, and one kind of bangaras (Arcuatus) are also mot with. The census of 1871 returned the population of Kistna district at 1,452,374 (1,373,089 Hindus, 78,937 Mohammedans, 90 Europeans, 218 Eurasians, and 36 &quot; others &quot;). As a whole the people are poor, except in the fertile Godavari delta. The cultivated area, exclu sive .of zaminddri estates, in 1875-76, was returned at 1,907,213 acres, cultivable but not under tillage 981,377 acres, and waste 1,215,853 acres. The principal agricultural products are rice, maize, rdgl, pulses, hemp, flax, cotton, tobacco, gingelly, oil-seeds, chilies, wheat, garlic, indigo. The delta is irrigated by the Kistna river, which in 1875 watered 218,029 acres. A considerable trade is carried on in dressed hides at Bezwara. The inland villages carry on weaving from native hand-made cotton or silk thread. The chief exports are cotton and indigo. The total revenue in 1870-71 amounted to 548,469, of which 359,172 was derived from the land. The number of cultivators holdings in 1 871 was 137,880, owned by 169,036 proprietors or coparceners. The early history of Kistna is inseparable from that of the northern Circars and Godavari district. Dharanikota and the adjacent town of Amaravati were the seats of early Hindu and Buddhist Governments ; and the more modern Bajdmahendri (Rajahmundry) owed its importance to later dynasties. The Chalukyas here gave place to the Ganapatis, who in turn were ousted by the Reddi chiefs, who flourished during the 14th century, and built the forts of Bellamkonda, Kondavir, and KondapalH. On the death of one of these, at the commencement of the 15th cen tury, Deva Rayalu, of the Vijayanagar dynasty, seized the country and held it until Mohammed II. (1463-86), a Moslem king of the Bahmani line, wrested this portion of his kingdom from him. The power of the Bahmani dynasty failed towards the end of the 15th century. Kuli Kutab Shah became king of Golconda about 1512 A.D., and his kingdom included the whole of what is now the Masulipatam portion of Kistna district. On the other side of the Kistna, Narasinha Deva Rayalu ruled at this time. His territory, which included Gantiir, was annexed to Golconda by Kutab Shah s great-grandson, about 1600. This line of kings ended with Tanisha,