Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/19

 K A S K A S two kinds on clay (bricks or tiles), and on cakes of lime mortar. For surfaces of one colour, domes, ifec., both kinds are used, differing only in the shape of the tiles or mortar-cakes. Figured patterns are differently treated with the different materials. On clay tiles, the designs with their several colours are laid on by stencilling, and the tile then glazed. Designs in coloured mortar work hive each separate piece of colour on a separate cake of hardened mortar, cut to the required shape ; and these, glazed separately, are afterwards cemented together on the walls of the building, or first made up into complete panels, which are then set in their place on the walls. The designs are commonly foliage and flowers, or geometrical figures and interlacing arabesques, and inscriptions in Arabic and Persian characters, and are, many of them, very beautiful. The colours chiefly used are blue, green, yellow, purple, brown, and white. A tile is first painted over with a very fine clay paste, to make a smooth surface on which to apply the colour ; and similarly the little mortar cakes are first painted, on the side to be coloured, with a thin liquid glass. It is perhaps owing to defect in this part of the process, or to imperfect burning, that the tile figured work on some old buildings, particularly on the south side, has fl iked off. The glazed work on mortar, and on tiles of one colour, is generally more permanent. The best specimens of kashf work in India are at Tatta and Hyderabad in Sind, and at Multan and Lahore in the Punjab. There are also buildings thus ornamented, chiefly of the time of Akbar and Jahangir (16th and 17th cen turies), at Delhi, Agra, Gwalior, and some other places, but the best and most numerous are in ths western provinces abova named, particularly at Lahore and at Tatta. The buildings at Lahore having the finest figured kashi work are the mosque of Wazir Khan, the gateways of certain old pleasure garden 5, and the Gola Sarai. There is a tomb at the same place (the tomb of Abd ur Razzak) built in | the early part of the 16th century, which bears the name ! of the blue dome, its covering being of clay bricks coloured blue on the narrow exposed face. Another, built about ] fifty years later (the tomb of Shah Miisa), is known as the : green dome. It is covered with little mortar blocks, in shape half cylinders, coloured and glazed on the flat face, and with two deep nicks on the rounded back to give a hold on the plaster iu which they are set. A celebrated tomb at Meshherl in northern Persia bears the same name, and likewise another at Kirman ; the domes of these buildings, however, though called green, are in reality blue. At Tatta the kashi work is all on clay tiles ; there is no inlaid work of coloured mortar. The finest of the buildings at Tatta, a mosque built by Shah Jahan, has lately had the defective parts of the figured tile-work restored. The art is now carried on at Tatta, at Hala, a village 30 miles north of Hyderabad, and at a few other places. K ASH IX, a district town of Russia, in the government of Tver, 1 25 miles north-east of the government town, near the Kashinka, a subtributary of the Volga. A consider able trade is carried on in the despatch of grain to St Petersburg. The chief buildings are the cathedral and three monastic establishments. Kashin, first mentioned about 1238, was in the Hth century a separate principality which contended with Tver for pre-eminence in the region. There are still some remains of the defences erected in 1661. Population, according to St Petersburg Calendar for 1874, 73 A 46. KASHKAR, also called CHITRAL, from the residence of the prince, a high-lying Mohammedan state among the spurs of Hindu Rush, has been already spoken of under HINDU RUSH (vol. xi. p. 838). Since that was published, a work (Tribes of the Hindon Koosh, Calcutta, 1880) has known to have visited the state, and we here enter a very few corrections or new particulars from his work. The geographical position of Kashkar is likely to give it great interest in the future. A considerable part of Upper Kashkar belongs to Yassin, in the Gilgit ba^in (see GILGIT, vol. x. p. 597). Indeed the left bank of the ChitrAl river, down to within 20 miles of Chitral itself, belongs to Yassin. The chief place of this Upper Rashkar is Mastuj (vol. x. p. 596). The rulers of the two states ars of the same blood, sprung from a Khorasani adventurer who im migrated hither about the first half of the 17th century, and are respectively descended from two brothers of his family, Shah Rator and Shah Rhushwakt, who lived a century later. The two royal families are hence known as Katore and Khushwakte respectively ; they generally act in concert, though neither is dependent on the other. We know not the origin of the former name, but most probably it is connected with an ancient tribal name in RAFIRISTAN (q.v.). The ruler of Chitral is known both as Mihtar, or &quot;Prince,&quot; and by the pretentious title of Jiddshdh. He Ins five viziers, of whom the chief, &amp;lt;-r Dewan-begi, has charge of the king s slave-agency, an important part of the reigning system. Under this the rulers of Chitral have come to regard the sale of their subjects as a legitimate and ordinary supplement to their revenue. But of late the market has become circumscribed. The population of the kingdom is estimated at 200,000, not including the tributary tribe of Bashgali Kafirs, who occupy a nearly parallel valley on the west, confluent with that of Kashkar. The ethnology of Rashkar is very intricate. The largest, and probably aboriginal, population are called Kho. Their language, Khowdr, is closely allied to the dialects of the Rafir tribes. There are also tribes in a depressed position, immigrants from the other side of the watershed, and speaking the language of Munjan, a hill canton of the Oxus valley, calling themselves YidghdJi. In the lower part of the valley is a race, also with a peculiar language, called Gabar (mentioned by Sultan Baber), and some broken tribes of Siahposh, &c. All these constitute the lower or ryot class, who alune pay regular revenue, cannot hold slaves, and are styled fakir mushkin (&quot;poor beggars &quot;). Above them are several privileged classes, descended from the founders of the reigning family, or from older ruling families also of foreign blood. We may add that Chitral is identical with the Shang-miot Hwen Tsang (644 A D ), see J. R. As. Soc., new ser., vol. vi. p. 114. A somewhat later Chinese record gives, as an alternative name of Shang-mi, Khhi-weS, which evidently contains the Kh &amp;gt; just mentioned. In this Kho also we have probably an ele ment of Choaspes, the Greek name of the Chitral river. A singular point in Chitral history is the fact that it was invaded by a Chinese army about the middle of last century, probably in 1759-60, and continued to send occasional tribute to China at least to 1769, i.e., twelve years after the battle of Plassy. This was brought to notice by the present writer in 1872 (/. 7?. G. &amp;lt;b ., xlii. 477), when tracing the curious history of the name Bolor. And now Major Biddulph has found in the country itself the memory of the Chinese invasion, and thus entile corroboration of the identification of the Chinese Foheul or Bolor with Rashkar. (H. Y.) KASHMIR, or CASHMERE, an elevated and enclosed valley in the Himalaya mountains, north of the Punjab. It is surrounded by lofty hills, with one opening on the west, by which flows out from the valley the river Jhelum. The enclosing hills on the north and east belong to the Bara Lacha chain, and on their outer side is the broad mountainous region which holds the valley of the upper Indus, and which, beyond the Indus, culminates in XIV. 2
 * come from the pen of Major Biddulph, the only Europen