Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/17

 K A R K A S the fact that it is a meeting point for the roads from Samarkand, Bokhara, Hissar, Balkh, and Maimene, and serves as the mercantile centre for the surrounding steppes, the market where horses are obtained for the caravans, and where the Turkomans and Uzbegs dispose of the products of their camps (carpets, seats, &amp;lt;tc.). The knives and weapons manufactured in Karshi are known as far as Persia and Arabia, and its coppersmiths turn out excellent work. KARWAR, or CARWAR, the chief town and headquarters station of North Kdnara district, Bombay, 50 miles south east of Goa, 14 50 N. lat., 74 14 E. long. It was once an important place of commerce ; the East India Company had a factory there in the year 1663. It is the only safe harbour all the year round between Bombay and Cochin. In the bay is a cluster of islets called the Oyster Rocks, on the largest of which is a lighthouse. There are two smaller islands in the bay, which afford good shelter to native craft and small vessels during the strong north-west winds that prevail from February to April. The average annual value of the imports at Karwar port during the five years ending 1873-74 was 244,469, of the exports 310,884. Population in 1872, 13,263. KASAN. See KAZAN. KASANLIK, or KEZANLYK, a town of Roumelia, in the vilayet of Adrianople, is situated at the foot of the Balkans, about 5 miles south of the Shipka Pass, in a highly fertile plain watered by the Tundja and its nume rous tributaries. Throughout the plain there are exten sive fields of roses grown for the manufacture of attar of roses, which is exported largely to western Europe. Maize is also grown ; and cattle and sheep are reared in consider able numbers. The town is surrounded by valuable woods of walnut trees. The Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78 has done serious injury to the prosperity of the whole region, and has told on the production of attar of roses, which formerly was estimated at about 200 gallons for the Kasanlik district. The population is variously esti mated at from 10,000 to 12,000. Two- thirds of these are Bulgarians and Christians ; the remainder are Turks. KASCIIAU (Hung., Kassa; Lat., Cassovia), an ancient royal free town, and capital of the cis-Tisian county of Abauj, Hungary, is pleasantly situated on the right bank of the Hernad, in a valley surrounded by sloping vineyards, about 130 miles north-east from Budapest, with which city, as also with Cracow, Lemberg, and other centres, it is connected by railway, 48 42 N. lat., 21 17 E. long. Kaschau is the sea of a Roman Catholic bishop suffragan of Eger (Erlau), the headquarters of the general adminis tration for the county, and has royal and magisterial courts of law, as well as boards of assay, finance, and postal direction, and the supervision of the tobacco manufacture. Kaschau is one of the best built towns in Hungary, and consists of the inner town, intersected by the Csermel, which forms an island and is crossed by several bridges, and three suburbs (upper, middle, and lower) approached by a broad glacis. The most remarkable edifice, considered the grandest masterpiece of architectural skill in Hungary, is the cathedral of St Elizabeth, situated in the great square, and built in a faultless Gothic style. Commenced about 1270 by Stephen V., the structure was continued 1324-82 by Queen Elizabeth, wife of Charles I., and her son Louis I., and finished about 1468, in the reign of Matthias I. (Corvinus). The interior was transformed in the 18th century to the Renaissance style, and restored in 1859-65. The church of St Michael and the Franciscan or Garrison church date from the 13th century. The royal law academy, founded in 1659, and sanctioned by golden bull of King Leopold I. in 1660, has an extensive library ; there are also a museum, a Roman Catholic upper gymnasium and seminary for priests, and other schools and benevolent institutions. Kaschau is the centre of the trade for the surrounding counties in wine, gall-nuts, salt, and most descriptions of grain, and from its com mercial importance forms a kind of provincial capital. About 3 miles north-west of the town are the baths of Banko, with alkaline and ferruginous springs. The popu lation of Kaschau in 1880 amounted to 26,422 (in 1870 it was 21,742), consisting of Magyars, Germans, Slovaks, and Ruthens. The majority are Roman Catholics. Kaschau consisted originally of two villages, Upper and Lower Kassa, of which the latter was created a town and granted special privileges by Be la IV. (1235). Under Stephen V. (1270) the two separate portions were united, and raised to the rank of a royal free town. In 1290 it was surrounded with walls. The subsequent history presents a long record of revolts, sieges, and disastrous conflagrations. In 1430 the plague carried off a great number of the inhabitants. In 1458 the right of minting money according to the pattern and value of the Buda coinage was granted to the municipality by King Matthias I. The bishopric was established in 1804. In the revolutionary war of 1848-49 the Hungarians were twice defeated before the walls of Kaschau by the Austrians under General Schlick, and the town was held successively by the Austrians, Hungarians, and Russians. KASHGAR, or KASHGHAR, an important city of eastern Turkestan, in 39 24 26&quot; N. lat., 76 6 47&quot; E. long., 4043 English feet above the sea-level. It consists of two towns, Kuhna Shahr or &quot; old city,&quot; and Yangi Shahr or &quot; new city,&quot; about 5 miles apart, and separated from one another by the Kizil Su, a tributary of the Tarini river, which receives and deposits in the distant lake Lob Nor the drainage of the vast semi-desert plain included between the Kuen-lun, Thian Shan, and Pamir mountains. 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, but its greatest modern prominence is probably due to its having formed a few years ago 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 Mohammedan state comprising the chief cities of the Tarim basin from Turfan round along the skirt of the mountains to Khotan. During his rule both Russian and British missions visited Kashgar, and it is chiefly to this circumstance that we are indebted for a full and tolerably recent knowledge thereof. 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 as it is now called was destroyed in 1514 by Mirza Ababakar on the approach of Sultan Said Khan s invading army. About 2 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 magni ficent silver poplars. About it Yakub Beg erected a com modious 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, quite modern, having been built in 1838. It is of oblong shape running north and south, and is entered by a single gate way. The walls are lofty and massive, and topped by turrets, while on each side is a projecting bastion to protect