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 KAPPEL KARAKORUH 767 man Reichstag. He has published Die Sklaven- frage in den Vereinigten Staaten (Gottingen, 1854) ; Leben des amerikanischen Generals F. W. von Steuben (Berlin, 1858; English ed., New York, 1859) ; Geschichte der Sklaverei in den Vereinigten Staaten (Hamburg, 1860) ; Leben des amerikanischen Generalt Johann Kail (Stuttgart, 1862 ; English ed., New York, 1870) ; Der Soldatenhandel deutscher Fiirsten nath Amerika (Berlin, 1864; 2d revised and enlarged ed., 1874); Geschichte der deuttchen Auswanderung in Amerika, (vol. i., Leipsic, 1868) ; and Friedrich der Grosse und die Ver- einigten Staaten von Amerika (1871). KAPPEL, a village of Switzerland, in the can- ton and 10 m. S. of the city of Zurich, noted for a great defeat of the Protestant army in October, 1531, when Zwingli was slain by a mercenary of Unterwalden, and his remains were burnt by the common hangman. A mon- ument to him was erected here in 1838, on the spot where he fell. KARA GEORGE. See CZERNY GEORGE. KARAHISSAR. See AFIUM KARAHISSAR. KARAITES, or Caraites (Heb. Karaim, read- ers, scripturists), a Jewish sect, existing in Russia (chiefly in the Crimea), Austria (Gali- cia), Turkey, and other countries of the East, whose distinguishing tenet is a strict adherence to the Biblical books, and the rejection, except as exegetical aids, of all oral traditions and Talmudical interpretations. They themselves retrace their origin to the time of Shalmaneser ; and as that king of Assyria carried the ten tribes of Israel to the north, they hold that they must worship with the face turned toward the south. Non-Karaite historians, however, disregard their representations, and Maimoni- des and others have attempted to show that they were the same sect as that once known as Sadducees ; but it seems that some of the doc- trines of the latter were directly antagonistic to those of the Karaites. Others, especially Wolf, attribute their origin to a massacre among the Jewish doctors under Alexander Jannams, about 100 B. C. Others again, among them Steinschneider, regard Karaism as a literary and theological development of Judaism which had its origin in Babylonia about A. D. 760, and Anan ben David as the founder of the sect; but Firkovitch has endeavored to prove from archaeological and numismatic evidences that Karaites occupied the Crimea about the beginning of the 4th century. The Karaites have produced a valuable literature, not only on Biblical interpretation, dogmatics, and other subjects connected with religion, but also on philosophy and mathematics, written partly in Hebrew or Arabic, partly in a mixture of Tar- taric and Turkish which is a peculiar idiom of their own in the regions bordering on the Black sea, and partly in the languages of the several countries which they inhabit. Their literature is, however, little known to the oc- cidental world. Several of their principal writings, such as Eshlcol hakkapher, by Judah 462 VOL. ix. 49 Hadasi (of the 12th century), and Mib'hcw, by Aaron ben Joseph (13th), have recently been published at Eupatoria, in the Crimea. See Furst, Geschichte des Karderthums (Leipsio, 1865), and Rule, "History of the Karaite Jews " (London, 1870). KARAJITCH, Vuk Stefanovitth, a Servian schol- ar, born Nov. 7, 1787, died in February, 1864. He was educated in Carlovitz, and in the war for Servian independence served as secretary to various national chiefs, most of whom were ignorant of the art of writing, and also aj secretary of the national senate at Belgrade. When Servia was left to the mercy of the sultan by the treaty of Bucharest, Karajitch sought refuge in Austria (1813). He collected the popular songs of the Illyrian tongue, travelling for the purpose in Bosnia and Montenegro, and published Narodne srpske pjesme ("Popular Serb Songs," 4 vols., Vienna, 1814-'33; 3d ed. enlarged, 1841-'6). They were translated by " Talvj " (Mrs. Robinson, Volkslieder der Ser- ben, Halle, 1825-'6), and by Bowring (" Servian Popular Poetry," London, 1827). Karajitch also published a Serb grammar (translated by Jacob Grimm), a Serbo-German dictionary, a literary almanac under the title of Danitza ("Dawn," 1826-'34), a collection of "Serb Popular Proverbs," and another of " Serb Popular Tales." He was a member of the academies of Gottingen, Berlin, and Vienna, and the university of Jena conferred upon him the degree of doctor of philosophy. The Rus- sian government bestowed on. him a pension and other honors. KARAK, a small rocky island in the Persian gulf, in lat. 29 14' N., Ion. 50 20' E., about 15 m. in circumference, and 40 m. N. W. of Busbire ; pop. about 3,000. It affords a safe anchorage, especially during the prevailing N. W. gales. The soil is fertile and the water is good, but there is no timber. The Dutch erected a fort here in the middle of the 18th century, but were soon compelled to evacuate the island. From 1839 to 1841 it was occu- pied by the English, and in December, 1856, the English expedition against Persia landed on its S. E. coast. KARAKORl M, or Hnstag Mountains, also called Tsung Ling, a range of central Asia, extending S. E. from about lat. 37 N. and Ion. 73 E. to lat. 34 N. and Ion. 79 E., and separating the British province of Cashmere from Chinese Tartary. The N. W. extremity reaches the Hindoo Koosh, and the S. E. ridges separate the western spurs of the Kuen-lun on the north from those of the Himalaya on the south. One of their peaks, the Dapsang, is 28,278 ft. high, and several others exceed 27,000 ft. The aver- age height of the principal ridges is 25,000 ft., and even the lowest valleys are 10,000 ft. above the sea. The researches of the brothers Schlagintweit and of George W. Hayward, who was murdered in 1870 in the Karakorum valley, have demonstrated that the Karakorum moun- tains constitute the watershed of High Asia.