Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/80

 08 K H U K I D bans, and for the last hundred years at least has been a place of considerable importance. It was the headquarters of the salt department under the East Indian Company. The whole boat traffic from the east and north-east passes here on its way to Calcutta ; from Calcutta the principal cargo is Liverpool salt, the trade in which is very consider able. There are numerous sugar refineries. KHURJA, an important trading town and station on the East Indian Railway in Bulandshahr district, North- Western Provinces, India, 28 15 N. lat., 77 54 E. long. The population in 1872 was 26,858 15,543 Hindus and 11,315 Mohammedans. A large business in raw cotton is carried on, of which about 70,000 cwts. are annually ex ported to Cawnpur, Mirzapur, and Calcutta ; eight cotton presses are at work in the town. There is a local trade in cotton, safflower, indigo, sugar, molasses, grain, rice, and (jln. KHUSHAB, or KOSHAUB, a town in Shahpur district, Punjab, India, situated on the river Jhelum, 32 18 N. lat., 7224 E. long.; population (1868) 8509. A nourishing trade is carried on with Mooltan, Sakkar, Afghanistan, and the Derajat. The exports consist of grain, cotton, wool, glil, and country cloth ; and the imports of English piece goods, metal, dried fruits, sugar, and molasses. It is the chief mart for the trade of the Salt Range. Coarse cloth and cotton scarfs are manufactured ; there are six hundred weaving establishments. KHUZISTAN, a province of West Persia, bounded N. and N.E. by Luristan, S.E. by Fars, S. by the Persian Gulf, W. by Turkey, lies mainly within 30-33 N. lat. and 47- 51 E. long., stretching about 200 miles north and south, with a. mean breadth of 80 to 100 miles, and an area of 25,677 square miles. In the south is the rich alluvial lowland tract of Arabistan, &quot;the most extensive and fertile plain in Persia.&quot; Elsewhere the surface is very mountainous, being traversed by the lofty Bakhtiari ranges, which form a south-eastern continuation of the Pusht-i-Koh highlands, and which preserve a remarkable parallelism throughout their entire length, while increasing in elevation from 8000 to 16,000 feet as they advance inland to the Kuh-Dinar. They are broken by several deep and romantic gorges, through which the Karkhah, Karun, Jarahi, and Tab rivers escape to the Euphrates delta or to the coast, watering several fertile upland valleys on their winding course seawards. The climate on the coast is excessively hot, and in some low-lying swampy districts very unhealthy ; in the highlands severe winters and hot summers are followed by genial springs and autumns ; the prevailing winds are north-west and south-east, the latter bearing much moisture from the Indian Ocean. The lowlands take the name of Arabistan from the Arabs, who form the bulk of their population. Many of the Ka b Arabs have been assimilated in speech and religion to the Persians ; but most of the great Beni-Lam nation, compris ing in Khuzistan and Baghdad 17 branches, 85 septs, and 30,000 families, are still in the nomad state. The high lands are mainly occupied by the Feili, Bakhtiari, Kohgelu, | Mamaseni, and other Luri tribes of Kurd stock and speech, also nomads and addicted to brigandage. The staples of food are dates and fish in the south, elsewhere the produce of the herds and flocks. The chief products are rice, tobacco, cotton, indigo, silk, maize, barley ; the trade is mainly with Baghdad and Bussorah. The manufactures include coarse woollens, cottons, tents, red cloth. Dyeing is extensively carried on in Dizful, which, besides Shaster and Mohammrah, is the only place worthy the name of town. ! Khuzistan is the Biblical ELAM (q.v.), the classical Susiana. The name appears in the great inscription of Darius as Uvaja, corre sponding to the Uxii of classical writers. The transition to the modern Khuz, Khuzistan, appears in the name Beth KMzaye, used by Syriac writers of the Sassanian period. KHYRPOOR. See KHAIRPUR. KIACHTA, or KIAKHTA, a mercantile town of Siberia, and one of the chief centres of trade between Russia and China, is situated upon the Kiachta, an affluent of the Selenga, and on an elevated and barren expanse of country surrounded by mountains, in the Russian government of Transbaikal, about 280 miles south-west of the capital Tchita, and close to the Chinese frontier, in 50 20 N. lat., 106 40 E. long. Besides the lower town or Kiachta proper, the municipal jurisdiction comprises the fortified upper town of Troitskosavsk, about 2 miles to the north, and the settlement of Ust-Kiachta, 10 miles further distant. The upper town, which is substantially built, contains the public offices, barracks, a stone church, and many large warehouses, &c., and is the headquarters of the command ant of the Transbaikal Cossacks. The lower town, lying directly opposite to the Chinese emporium of Maimaichin, consists of several stores and about a hundred houses inhabited mostly by merchants. Prior to 1727 the trade, of Kiachta was a Government monopoly, but from that year it was open to private merchants, and continued to improve until 1860, when the right of commercial inter course was extended along the whole Russian Chinese frontier in conformity with the treaty of Pekin. The annual December fairs for which Kiachta was formerly famous, and which were resorted to by merchants from a great distance, and also the regular commercial traffic, passing through the town, have considerably fallen off since that date. The Russians exchange here leather, sheep-skins, furs, horns, woollen cloths, coarse linens, and cattle for teas, porcelain, rhubarb, manufactured silks, nankeens, and other Chinese produce. In 1873 the popu lation, including Ust-Kiachta, was 9050. KIDDERMINSTER, a market-town and municipal and parliamentary borough of Worcestershire, England, is situated in the north-west corner of the county, on the Stour, near its junction with the Severn, on the Stafford shire and Worcestershire canal, and on the West Midland branch of the Great Western Railway, 14 miles north from Worcester and 18 miles south-west from Birmingham. Tho streets are rather irregular, and the houses for the most part small and mean in appearance, but of late years great improvements have been made by the paving and widen ing of the streets and the construction of shops and houses of a better class. A new system of drainage has also been completed, and the town is now well supplied with water. Besides the churches, the principal buildings of Kidderminster are the corporation buildings, the infir mary, the town hall in the Renaissance style, erected in 1876, the masonic hall and club, and the buildings of the school of art. The parish church of St Mary, a fine old structure in the Perpendicular style, containing several ancient monuments, was lately extensively repaired. The town is adorned by a statue erected in 1875 to Richard Baxter, who was for some time minister in Kidderminster, and another to Sir Rowland Hill, completed in 1881, and by a beautiful drinking fountain. There is a free grammar school founded in 1637, besides board schools and others connected with some of the churches. A new cemetery for the town was opened in 1878. At an early period Kidderminster had a large manufacture of broad-cloths, but it is now chiefly celebrated for its carpets (see CARPETS, vol. v. p. 129), the manufacture of which was introduced about the year 1735. At first Scotch carpets were the only variety made, but in 1745 the manufacture of Wilton and Brussels carpets was commenced, and since that period the carpets manufactured at Kidderminster, on account of the permanency of their colour, due it is supposed to peculiar properties of the water of the Stour, have retained an exceptional reputation. Worsted spinning