Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/78

 66 K H O K H O great extent, and the bazaar is built on a more handsome scale than that even of Tashkend. The palace erected by the last khan is after the style of the palace at Samarkand, and rivals it in the rich colouring of its enamels and the general effect of its relief. The audience chamber now serves as a Russian church and the women s apartments are occupied by the Russian governor of the fortress. The mosques, according to native exaggeration, number 600, and there are fifteen colleges. The gardens, especially those of the palace, are conspicuous for their rich foliage. Silk weaving and papermaking are the chief industries. Coins bearing the inscription &quot; Khokund the Charming,&quot; and known as khokands, have a wide currency. Population about 75,000. See Sclmyler s Turkistan, 1876 ; Khoroslikin s narrative trans lated in Recueil d itineraries et dc voyages dans I Asie Centralc, Paris, 1878 ; Ujfalvy, &quot; L Asie Centrale,&quot; in Tour dy, Monde, 1880. KHOXSAR, a town in the province of Irak-Adjemi, Persia, 92 miles north-west of Ispahan on the Hamadan route, in a gorge of the hills, which here approach so close that all the intervening space is occupied by the houses and their garden plots. The town straggles some 6 miles along the gorge, with a mean breadth of scarcely half a mile. There is good water from the hills, and a great profusion of fruits, the apples yielding a kind of cider, which does not keep. The climate is cool in summer but excessively cold in winter. Population 2500 families, or about 12,500 souls. KHORAMABAD, a town and fortress of Persia, capital of the province of Luristan, in 33 32 N. lat., 47 43 E. long., 138 miles west-north-west of Ispahan, 117 south-east of Kirmanshahan. The fort is perched on an isolated steep rock in the middle of a difficult pass, and is 1000 yards in circuit. The modern town lies at the south-west foot of the fort in a narrow valley watered by the broad but shallow and rapid river Kashgan. A rich plain stretching thence southwards yields abundance of supplies. Popula tion about 6000. KHORASAN, i.e., &quot;land of the sun,&quot; a geographical term originally applied to the eastern quarter of the four, named from the cardinal points, into which the ancient monarchy of the Sassanians was divided. 1 After the Arabic conquests the name was retained both as the desig nation of a definite province and in a looser sense. Under the new Persian empire the expression has gradually be come restricted to the north-eastern portion of Persia proper, of which it now forms the largest province. The boundaries of this vast region have scarcely anywhere been accurately determined, and have constantly fluctuated, especially towards the north and east. Speaking generally, however, the province is conterminous on the east with Afghanistan and Sistan, north with Astrabad and the re- recently organized Russian trans-Caspian territory, north east with the Turkoman country, west with Mazandaran and Irak-Adjemi, south with Farsistan and Kirman. It lies mainly within 33 30 -38 30 N. lat. and 53-61 E. long., extending 500 miles north-west and south-east and 300 north and south, with total area of about 150,000 square miles, and a population estimated at from 800,000 to over 1,000,000. The surface in the north, south-west, and partly in the east is distinctly mountainous to a far greater extent than is commonly supposed. The ranges generally run in two or more parallel ridges, enclosing extensive longitudinal valleys, and running in the normal direction from north west to south-east. The whole of the north is occupied by an extensive highland system forming a continuation of the Hindu Kush and Paropamisus, and stretching from the 1 See Noldeke s translation of Tabari, p. 155. Herat valley between the Iranian plateau and the Turkestan depression north-west to the south-east corner of the Caspian. This system, for which there is no general name, but which is now sometimes spoken of collectively as the Kuren-Dagh or Kopet-Dagh, from its chief sections, forms in the east three ranges, the Hazar-Masjid, Binalud-Kuh, and Jagatai, enclosing the Meshhed-Kuchan valley and the Jagatai plain. The former is watered by the Kashaf-rud, or river of Meshhed, flowing east to the Hari-rud, their junction forming the Tejend, which sweeps round the Damau-i-Koh, or northern skirt of the outer range in the direction of the Caspian or Usboi (old bed of the Oxus), but now losing itself in the desert long before reaching them. The Jagatai plain is watered by the Kal-Mura river, formed by the junction of the Kara-su and several other head streams, and flowing south-west to the Great Salt Desert. In the west the northern highlands also develop three branches, the Kuren-Dagh stretching through the Great and Little Balkans to the Caspian at Krasnovodsk Bay, the Ala-Dagh forming a continuation of the Binalud- Kuh and the Astrabad mountains merging south-westwards in the Elburz system. The Kuren and Ala Daghs enclose the valley of the Atrek, which flows mainly west to the Caspian at Hasan Kuli bay. The western offshoots of the Ala Dagh and the Astrabad mountains enclose in the same way the valley of the Gurgan, which also flows westwards to the south-east corner of the Caspian. The outer range has probably a mean altitude of 8000 feet, the highest known summits being the Hazar-Masjid (10,500 feet) and the Kara-Dagh (980J) ; it is crossed by the Maidan-Kuni and Allaho-Akhbar (4200 feet) passes leading from Kuchan north to the Daragez district. The central range seems to be still higher, culminating with the Shah Jahan Kuh (11,000 feet), the Kuh Ala Dagh (12,300), and Kuh Khorkhud (12,500). The southern ridges, although generally much lower, have the highest point of the whole system in the Shah-Kuh (13,000 feet) at the junction of the Astrabad and Elburz ranges. Another system runs diagonally right across the province from Yezd in the south-west to the Hari-rud valley in the north-east, throwing off the Kuh Shorab, Kuh Shutari (10,000 feet), and Kuh Nastanji (8000 feet) in the Tabbas district. Towards Sistan the country is also very moun tainous, with several nearly parallel ridges stretching from near Tun south-east to the Hamun lake or swamp. Beyond the Atrek and others watering the northern valleys there are scarcely any rivers, and most of these are brackish and intermittent, losing themselves in the Dasht-i-Kavlr or Great Salt Desert, which occupies the central and western parts of the province, and which is separated by the diagonal range from the more sandy and drier desert of Lut in the south. The true character of the kavfr, which forms the distinctive feature of east Persia, has scarcely yet been determined, some regarding it as the bed of a dried-up sea, others as developed by the saline streams draining to it from the surrounding highlands. Collecting in the central depressions, which have a mean elevation of scarcely more than 500 feet above the Caspian, the water of these streams is supposed to form a saline efflorescence with a thin whitish crust beneath which the moisture is retained for a considerable time, thus producing those dangerous and slimy quagmires which in winter are covered with brine, in summer with a thick incrustation of salt. &quot; The waters of all springs and rivers contain salts in minute quantities, but the rivers of Persia are often so salt as to be undrinkable. The salts brought down by the rivers are deposited in the marsh, which thus gets salter year by year. It dries up during the fierce summer heats, to become a marsh again when the winter floods occur. This process is repeated for ages, and in the course of time