Book V
., comprising satires xiii.-xvi. At xiii. 16 Juvenal speaks of his friend Calvinus as now past sixty years of age, having been born in the consulship of Fonteius. Now L. Fonteius Capito was consul in 67. Again at xv. 27 an event is said to have happened in Egypt "nuper consule Iunco." There was a L. Aemilius Iuncus consul _suffectus_ in 127. The fifth book must therefore have been published some time after this date. More than the fourth, this book bears the marks of age, both in the milder tone of the sentiments expressed, and in the feebler power of composition exhibited. The last satire is now imperfect, and the authenticity both of this and of the fifteenth has been questioned, though on insufficient grounds.
Thus the satires were published at different intervals, and for the most part composed between 100 and 130, but the most powerful in feeling and vivid in conception among them deal with the experience and impressions of the reign of Domitian, occasionally recall the memories or traditions of the times of Nero and Claudius, and reproduce at least one startling page from the annals of Tiberius.[4] The same overmastering feeling which constrained Tacitus (_Agric._ 2, 3), when the time of long endurance and silence was over, to recall the "memory of the former oppression," acted upon Juvenal. There is no evidence that these two great writers, who lived and wrote at the same time, who were animated by the same hatred of the tyrant under whom the best years of their manhood were spent, and who both felt most deeply the degradation of their times, were even known to one another. Tacitus belonged to the highest official and senatorial class, Juvenal apparently to the middle class and to that of the struggling men of letters; and this difference in position had much influence in determining the different bent of their genius, and in forming one to be a great national historian, the other to be a great social satirist. If the view of the satirist is owing to this circumstance more limited in some directions, and his taste and temper less conformable to the best ancient standards of propriety, he is also saved by it from prejudices to which the traditions of his class exposed the historian. But both writers are thoroughly national in sentiment, thoroughly masculine in tone. No ancient authors express so strong a hatred of evil. The peculiar greatness and value of both Juvenal and Tacitus is that they did not shut their eyes to the evil through which they had lived, but deeply resented it--the one with a vehement and burning passion, like the "saeva indignatio" of Swift, the other with perhaps even deeper but more restrained emotions of mingled scorn and sorrow, like the scorn and sorrow of Milton when "fallen on evil days and evil tongues." In one respect there is a difference. For Tacitus the prospect is not wholly cheerless, the detested tyranny was at an end, and its effects might disappear with a more beneficent rule. But the gloom of Juvenal's pessimism is unlighted by hope.
A. C. Swinburne has suggested that the secret of Juvenal's concentrated power consisted in this, that he knew what he hated, and that what he did hate was despotism and democracy. But it would be hardly true to say that the animating motive of his satire was political. It is true that he finds the most typical examples of lust, cruelty, levity and weakness in the emperors and their wives--in Domitian, Otho, Nero, Claudius and Messalina. It is true also that he shares in the traditional idolatry of Brutus, that he strikes at Augustus in his mention of the "three disciples of Sulla," and that he has no word of recognition for what even Tacitus acknowledges as the beneficent rule of Trajan. So too his scorn for the Roman populace of his time, who cared only for their dole of bread and the public games, is unqualified. But it is only in connexion with its indirect effects that he seems to think of despotism; and he has no thought of democracy at all. It is not for the loss of liberty and of the senatorian rule that he chafes, but for the loss of the old national manliness and self-respect. This feeling explains his detestation of foreign manners and superstitions, his loathing not only of inhuman crimes and cruelties but even of the lesser derelictions from self-respect, his scorn of luxury and of art as ministering to luxury, his mockery of the poetry and of the stale and dilettante culture of his time, and perhaps, too, his indifference to the schools of philosophy and his readiness to identify all the professors of stoicism with the reserved and close-cropped puritans, who concealed the worst vices under an outward appearance of austerity. The great fault of his character, as it appears in his writings, is that he too exclusively indulged this mood. It is much more difficult to find what he loved and admired than what he hated. But it is characteristic of his strong nature that, where he does betray any sign of human sympathy or tenderness, it is for those who by their weakness and position are dependent on others for their protection--as for "the peasant boy with the little dog, his playfellow,"[5] or for "the home-sick lad from the Sabine highlands, who sighs for his mother whom he has not seen for a long time, and for the little hut and the familiar kids."[6]
If Juvenal is to be ranked as a great moralist, it is not for his greatness and consistency as a thinker on moral questions. In the rhetorical exaggeration of the famous tenth satire, for instance, the highest energies of patriotism--the gallant and desperate defence of great causes, by sword or speech--are quoted as mere examples of disappointed ambition; and, in the indiscriminate condemnation of the arts by which men sought to gain a livelihood, he leaves no room for the legitimate pursuits of industry. His services to morals do not consist in any positive contributions to the notions of active duty, but in the strength with which he has realized and expressed the restraining influence of the old Roman and Italian ideal of character, and also of that religious conscience which was becoming a new power in the world. Though he disclaims any debt to philosophy (xiii. 121), yet he really owes more to the "Stoica dogmata," then prevalent, than he is aware of. But his highest and rarest literary quality is his power of painting characters, scenes, incidents and actions, whether from past history or from contemporary life. In this power, which is also the great power of Tacitus, he has few equals and perhaps no superior among ancient writers. The difference between Tacitus and Juvenal in power of representation is that the prose historian is more of an imaginative poet, the satirist more of a realist and a grotesque humorist. Juvenal can paint great historical pictures in all their detail--as in the famous representation of the fall of Sejanus; he can describe a character elaborately or hit it off with a single stroke. The picture drawn may be a caricature, or a misrepresentation of the fact--as that of the father of Demosthenes, "blear-eyed with the soot of the glowing mass," &c.--but it is, with rare exceptions, realistically conceived, and it is brought before us with the vivid touches of a Defoe or a Swift, or of the great pictorial satirist of the 18th century, Hogarth. Yet even in this, his most characteristic talent, his proneness to exaggeration, the attraction which coarse and repulsive images have for his mind, and the tendency to sacrifice general effect to minuteness of detail not infrequently mar his best effects.
The difficulty is often felt of distinguishing between a powerful rhetorician and a genuine poet, and it is felt particularly in the case of Juvenal. He himself knew and has well described (vii. 53 seq.) the conditions under which a great poet could flourish; and he felt that his own age was incapable of producing one. He has little sense of beauty either in human life or nature. Whenever such sense is evoked it is only as a momentary relief to his prevailing sense of the hideousness of contemporary life, or in protest against what he regarded as the enervating influences of art. Even his references to the great poets of the past indicate rather a _blase_ sense of indifference and weariness than a fresh enjoyment of them. Yet his power of touching the springs of tragic awe and horror is a genuine poetical gift, of the same kind as that which is displayed by some of the early English dramatists. But he is, on the whole, more essentially a great rhetorician than a great poet. His training, the practical bent of his understanding, his strong but morose character, the circumstances of his time, and the materials available for his art, all fitted him to rebuke his own age and all after-times in the tones of a powerful preacher, rather than charm them with the art of an accomplished poet. The composition of his various satires shows no negligence, but rather excess of elaboration; but it produces the impression of mechanical contrivance rather than of organic growth. His movement is sustained and powerful, but there is no rise and fall in it. The verse is most carefully constructed, and is also most effective, but it is so with the rhetorical effectiveness of Lucan, not with the musical charm of Virgil. The diction is full, even to excess, of meaning, point and emphasis. Few writers have added so much to the currency of quotation. But his style altogether wants the charm of ease and simplicity. It wearies by the constant strain after effect, its mock-heroics and allusive periphrasis, and excites distrust by its want of moderation.
On the whole no one of the ten or twelve really great writers of ancient Rome leaves on the mind so mixed an impression, both as a writer and as a man, as Juvenal. He has little, if anything at all, of the high imaginative mood--the mood of reverence and noble admiration--which made Ennius, Lucretius and Virgil the truest poetical representatives of the genius of Rome. He has nothing of the wide humanity of Cicero, of the urbanity of Horace, of the ease and grace of Catullus. Yet he represents another mood of ancient Rome, the mood natural to her before she was humanized by the lessons of Greek art and thought. If we could imagine the elder Cato living under Domitian, cut off from all share in public life, and finding no outlet for his combative energy except in literature, we should perhaps understand the motives of Juvenal's satire and the place which is his due as a representative of the genius of his country. As a man he shows many of the strong qualities of the old Roman plebeian--the aggressive boldness, the intolerance of superiority and privilege, which animated the tribunes in their opposition to the senatorian rule. Even where we least like him we find nothing small or mean to alienate our respect from him. Though he loses no opportunity of being coarse, he is not licentious; though he is often truculent, he cannot be called malignant. It is, indeed, impossible to say what motives of personal chagrin, of love of detraction, of the mere literary passion for effective writing, may have contributed to the indignation which inspired his verse. But the prevailing impression we carry away after reading him is that in all his early satires he was animated by a sincere and manly detestation of the tyranny and cruelty, the debauchery and luxury, the levity and effeminacy, the crimes and frauds, which we know from other sources were then rife in Rome, and that a more serene wisdom and a happier frame of mind were attained by him when old age had somewhat allayed the fierce rage which vexed his manhood.
AUTHORITIES.--The remarkable statements in a "life" found in a late Italian MS. (Barberini, viii. 18), "Iunius Iuvenalis Aquinas Iunio Iuvenale patre matre vero Septumuleia ex Aquinati municipio Claudio Nerone et L. Antistio consulibus (55) natus est, sororem habuit Septumuleiam quae Fuscino (_Sat._ xiv. 1) nupsit," though not necessarily false, cannot be accepted without confirmation.
The earliest evidence for the banishment of Juvenal is that of Sidonius Apollinaris (c. 480), _Carm._ ix. 269, "Non qui tempore Caesaris secundi | Aeterno coluit Tomos reatu | Nec qui consimili deinde casu | Ad vulgi tenuem strepentis auram | Irati fuit histrionis exul," lines which by the exact parallel drawn between Ovid's fate and Juvenal's imply the belief that Juvenal died in exile. The banishment is also mentioned by J. Malalas, a Greek historian subsequent to Justinian, who gives the place as Pentapolis in Africa, _Chron._ x. 262, Dindorf. The inscription (on a stone now lost) is as follows, the words and letters in brackets being the conjectural restorations of scholars:--"[Cere] ri sacrum | [D. Iu] nius Iuvenalis | trib. coh. [I] Delmatarum | II vir quinq. flamen | divi Vespasiani | vovit dedicav[it] que | sua pec.," _Corp. inscr. lat._ X. 5382, xiii. 201 sqq. The best of the known manuscripts of Juvenal (P) is at Montpellier (125); but there are several others which cannot be neglected. Amongst these may be specially mentioned the Bodleian MS. (Canon. Lat. 41), which contains a portion of Satire vi., the existence of which was unknown until E. O. Winstedt published it in the _Classical Review_ (1899), pp. 201 seq. Another fragment in the Bibliotheque Nationale was described by C. E. Stuart in the _Classical Quarterly_ (Jan. 1909). Numerous scholia and glossaries attest the interest taken in Juvenal in post-classical times and the middle ages. There are two classes of scholia--the older or "Pithoeana," first published by P. Pithoeus, and the "Cornutus scholia" of less value, specimens of which have been published by various scholars. The earliest edition which need now be mentioned is that of P. Pithoeus, 1585, in which P was first used for the text. Amongst later ones we may mention the commentaries of Ruperti (1819) and C. F. Heinrich (1839, with the old scholia), O. Jahn (1851, critical with the old scholia), A. Weidner (1889), L. Friedlander (1895, with a full verbal index). The most useful English commentaries are those of J. E. B. Mayor (a voluminous and learned commentary on thirteen of the _Satires_, ii., vi. and ix. being omitted), J. D. Lewis (1882, with a prose translation) and J. D. Duff (1898, expurgated, and ii. and ix. being omitted). There are recent critical texts: conservative and chiefly based on P, by F. Buecheler (1893, with selections from the scholia) and S. G. Owen (in the Oxford Series of Texts); on the other side, by A. E. Housman (1905) and by the same, but with fewer innovations, in the new _Corpus poetarum latinorum_, fasc. v. The two last-named editors alone give the newly discovered lines of Satire vi. There are no recent translations of Juvenal into English verse. Dryden translated i., iii., vi., x. and xvi., the others being committed to inferior hands. Other versions are Gifford's (1802), of some merit, and C. Badham's (1814). Johnson's imitations of Satires iii. and x. are well known. For the numerous articles and contributions to the criticism and elucidation of the _Satires_, reference should be made to Teuffel's _Geschichte der romischen Litteratur_ (Eng. trans. by Warre), S 331, and Schanz, ditto (1901, ii. S 2, S 420a). (W. Y. S.; J. P. P.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This is especially noticeable in the seventh satire, but it applies also to the mention of Crispinus, Latinus, the class of _delatores_, &c., in the first, to the notice of Veiento in the third, of Rubellius Blandus in the eighth, of Gallicus in the thirteenth, &c.
[2] Cf. Tacitus, _Annals_, xiii. 25.
[3] Pliny's remarks on the vulgarity as well as the ostentation of his host imply that he regarded such behaviour as exceptional, at least in the circle in which he himself lived (_Ep._ ii. 6).
[4] x. 56-107.
[5] ... "Meliusne hic rusticus infans Cum matre et casulis et conlusore catello," &c.--ix. 60.
[6] xi. 152, 153.
JUVENCUS, GAIUS VETTIUS AQUILINUS, Christian poet, flourished during the reign of Constantine the Great. Nothing is known of him except that he was a Spanish presbyter of distinguished family. About 330 he published his _Libri evangeliorum IV._, each book containing about 800 hexameters. The division into books is possibly a reminiscence of the number of the Gospels. The work itself, written with the idea of ousting the absurdities of Pagan mythology and replacing them by the truths of Christianity, may be called the first Christian epic. In the _Praefatio_ the author expresses the hope that the sacredness of his subject may procure him safety at the final conflagration of the world and admission into heaven. The whole is, in the main, a poetical version of the Gospel of Matthew, the other evangelists only being used for supplementary details. It is founded upon a pre-vulgate Latin translation, although there is evidence that Juvencus also consulted the Greek. In spite of metrical irregularities, the language and style are simple and show good taste, being free from the artificiality of other Christian poets and prose writers, and the author has made excellent use of Virgil (his chief model) and other classical writers. Juvencus set the fashion of verse translations of the Bible, and the large number of MSS. of his poem mentioned in lists and still extant are sufficient evidence of its great popularity. According to Jerome, he was also the author of some poems on the sacraments, but no trace of these has survived. The Latin _Heptateuch_, a hexameter version of the first seven books of the Old Testament, has been attributed to Juvencus amongst others; but it is now generally supposed to be the work of a certain Cyprianus, a Gaul who lived in the 6th century, possibly a bishop of Toulon, author of the _Life of Caesarius_, bishop of Arelate (Arles).
See M. Manitius, _Geschichte der christlich-lateinischen Poesie_ (1891); A. Ebert, _Allgemeine Geschichte der Literatur des Mittelalters_, vol. i. (1889); editions of Juvencus by C. Marold (1886); J. Humer in _Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum_, vol. xxiv. (Vienna, 1891); J. T. Hatfield, _A Study of Juvencus_ (1890), dealing with syntax, metre and language; editions of the _Heptateuch_ by J. E. B. Mayor (1889; reviewed by W. Sanday in _Classical Review_, October 1889, and by J. T. Hatfield in _American Journal of Philology_, vol. xi., 1890), and R. Peiper, vol. xxiii. of the Vienna series above.
JUVENILE OFFENDERS. In modern social science the question of the proper penal treatment of juvenile (i.e. non-adult) offenders has been increasingly discussed; and the reformatory principle, first applied in the case of children, has even been extended to reclaimable adult offenders (juveniles in crime, if not in age) in a way which brings them sufficiently within the same category to be noticed in this article. In the old days the main idea in England was to use the same penal methods for all criminals, young and old; when the child broke the law he was sent to prison like his elders. It was only in comparatively recent times that it was realized that child criminals were too often the victims to circumstances beyond their own control. They were cursed with inherited taint; they were brought up among evil surroundings; they suffered from the culpable neglect of vicious parents, and still more from bad example and pernicious promptings. They were rather potential than actual criminals, calling for rescue and regeneration rather than vindictive reprisals. Under the old system a painstaking English gaol chaplain calculated that 58% of all criminals had made their first lapse at fifteen. Boys and girls laughed at imprisonment. Striplings of thirteen and fourteen had been committed ten, twelve, sixteen or seventeen times. Religion and moral improvement were little regarded in prisons, industrial and technical training were impossible. The chief lesson learnt was an intimate and contemptuous acquaintance with the demoralizing interior of a gaol. There were at one time in London 200 "flash houses" frequented by 6000 boys trained and proficient in thieving and depredation.
The substantial movement for reform dates from the protests of Charles Dickens, who roused public opinion to such an extent that the first Reformatory School Act was passed in 1854. Sporadic efforts to meet the evil had indeed been made earlier. In 1756 the Marine Society established a school for the reception and reform of younger criminals; in 1788 the City of London formed a similar institution, which grew much later into the farm school at Redhlll. In 1838 an act of parliament created an establishment at Parkhurst for the detention and correction of juvenile offenders, to whom pardon was given conditional on their entrance into some charitable institution. Parkhurst was technically a prison, and the system combined industrial training with religious and educational instruction. These earlier efforts had, however, been quite insufficient to meet the evils, for in the years immediately preceding 1854 crime was being so constantly reinforced in its beginnings, under the existing penal system, that it threatened to swamp the country. Unofficial, but more or less accurate, figures showed that between 11,000 and 12,000 juveniles passed annually through the prisons of England and Wales, a third of the whole number being contributed by London alone. In 1854 the total reached 14,000. The ages of offenders ranged from less than twelve to seventeen; 60% of the whole were between fourteen and seventeen; 46% had been committed more than once; 18% four times and more.
The Reformatory School Act 1854, which was thrashed out at conferences held in Birmingham in 1851 and 1853, substituted the school for the gaol, and all judicial benches were empowered to send delinquents to schools when they had been guilty of acts punishable by short imprisonment, the limit of which was at first fourteen and became afterwards ten days. A serious flaw in this act long survived; this was the provision that a short period of imprisonment in gaol must precede reception into the reformatory; it was upheld by well-meaning but mistaken people as essential for deterrence. But more enlightened opinion condemned the rule as inflicting an indelible prison taint and breeding contamination, even with ample and effective safeguards. Wiser legislation has followed, and an act of 1899 abolished preliminary imprisonment.
Existing reformatories, or "senior home office schools" as they are officially styled, in England numbered 44 in 1907. They receive all juvenile offenders, up to the age of sixteen, who have been convicted of an offence punishable with penal servitude or imprisonment. The number of these during the years between 1894 and 1906 constantly varied, but the figure of the earliest date, 6604, was never exceeded, and in some years it was considerably less, while in 1906 it was no more than 5586, though the general population had increased by several millions in the period. These figures, in comparison with those of 1854, must be deemed highly satisfactory, even when we take into account that the latter went up to the age of seventeen. Older offenders, between sixteen and twenty-one, come within the category of juvenile adults and are dealt with differently (see _Borstal Scheme_ below).
Other schools must be classed with the reformatory, although they have no connexion with prisons and deal with youths who are only potential criminals. The first in importance are the industrial schools. When the newly devised reformatories were doing excellent service it was realized that many of the rising generation might some day lapse into evil ways but were still on the right side and might with proper precautions be kept there. They wanted preventive, not punitive treatment, and for them industrial schools were instituted. The germ of these establishments existed in the Ragged Schools, "intended to educate destitute children and save them from vagrancy and crime." They had been invented by John Pounds (1766-1839), a Portsmouth shoemaker, who, early in the 19th century, was moved with sympathy for these little outcasts and devoted himself to this good work. The ragged school movement found powerful support in active philanthropists when public attention was aroused to the prevalence of juvenile delinquency. The first Industrial School Act was passed in 1856 and applied only to Scotland. Next year its provisions were extended to England, and their growth was rapid. There were 45 schools in the beginning; in 1878 the number had more than been doubled; in 1907 there were 102 in England and Wales and 31 in Scotland.
The provisions of the Education Acts 1871 and 1876 led to a large increase in the number of children committed for breaches of the law and to the establishment of two kinds of subsidiary industrial schools, short detention of truant schools and day industrial schools in which children do not reside but receive their meals, their elementary education and a certain amount of industrial training. The total admissions to truant schools in 1907 were 1368 boys, and the numbers actually in the schools on the last day of that year were 1125 with 2568 on licence. The average length of detention was fourteen weeks and three days on first admission, seventeen weeks and five days on first re-admission, and twenty-three weeks six days on second re-admission. The total number of admissions into truant schools from 1878 to the end of 1907 was 44,315, of whom just half had been licensed and not returned, 11,239 had been licensed and once re-admitted, 8900 had been re-admitted twice or oftener.
The day industrial schools owed their origin to another reason than the enforcement of the Education Acts. It was found that some special treatment was required for large masses of youths in large cities, who were in such a neglected or degraded condition that there was little hope of their growing into healthy men and women or becoming good citizens. They were left unclean, were ill-fed and insufficiently clothed, and were not usefully taught. The total number who attended these day schools in 1907 was 1951 boys and 1232 girls.
The disciplinary system of the English schools is planned upon the establishment or institution system, as opposed to that of the "family" or "boarding out" systems adopted in some countries, and some controversy has been aroused as to the comparative value of the methods. The British practice has always favoured the well-governed school, with the proviso that it is kept small so that the head may know all of his charges. But a compromise has been effected in large establishments by dividing the boys into "houses," each containing a small manageable total as a family under an official father or head. Under this system the idea of the home is maintained, while uniformity of treatment and discipline is secured by grouping several houses together under one general authority. The plan of "boarding out" is not generally approved of in England; the value of the domestic training is questionable and of uncertain quality, depending entirely upon the character and fitness of the foster-parents secured. Education must be less systematic in the private home, industrial training is less easily carried out, and there can be none of that _esprit de corps_ that stimulates effort in physical training as applied to athletics and the playing of games. No very definite decision has been arrived at as to the comparative merits of institution life and boarding out. Among the Latin races--France, Italy, Portugal and Spain--the former is as a rule preferred; also in Belgium; in Germany, Holland and the United States placing out in private families is very much the rule; in Austria-Hungary and Russia both methods are in use.
The total admissions to English reformatory schools from their creation to the 31st of December 1907 amounted to 76,455, or 64,031 boys and 12,424 girls. The total discharges for the same period were 70,890, or 59,081 boys and 11,809 girls. The results may be tested by the figures for those discharged in 1904, 1905 and 1906:--
_Boys._--3573 were placed out, of whom 66 had died, leaving 3507; of these it was found that 2735 (or about 78%) were in regular employment; 158 (or about 4%) were in casual employment; 439 (or about 13%) had been convicted; and 175 (or about 5%) were unknown.
_Girls._--480, of whom 11 had died, leaving 469; of these it was found that 384 (or about 82%) were in regular employment; 28 (or about 6%) were in casual employment; 17 (or about 4%) had been convicted, and 40 (or about 8%) were unknown.
For industrial schools, including truant and day schools, the total admissions, up to the 31st of December 1907, were 153,893, or 120,955 boys and 32,938 girls. The total discharges to the same date (excluding transfers) were 136,961, or 108,398 boys and 28,563 girls. The results as tested by those discharged in 1904, 1905 and 1906 were as follow:--
_Boys._--8909 were placed out, of whom 118 had since died, leaving 8791 to be reported on; of these it was found that 7547 (or about 86%) were in regular employment; 415 (or about 4.7%) were in casual employment; 419 (or about 4.7%) convicted or re-committed; and 410 (or about 4.6%) unknown.
_Girls._--2505 placed out, of whom 50 had died, leaving 2455; of these 2180 (or about 89%) were in regular employment; 112 (or about 4%) were in casual employment; 21 (or about 1%) convicted or re-committed; and 142 (or about 6%) unknown.
These results are of course wholly independent of those achieved by the juvenile-adult prison reformatory at Borstal instituted in October 1902. The record of the first year's work of this excellent system showed that 50% of cases placed out had done well, thanks to the system and philanthropic labours of the Borstal Association.
An interesting point in regard to the reclamation of these criminally inclined juveniles is the nature of the employments to which they have been recommended, and in which, as shown, they have done so well. In 1904, 1905 and 1906, the total number of boys discharged and placed was 12,482. By far the largest number of these, nearly a sixth, joined the army, 679 of them entering the bands; 292 joined the navy; 961 the mercantile marine; 1567 went to farm service; 414 worked in factories or mills as skilled hands; but others joined as labourers, a general class the total of which was 1096. Other jobs found included miners (629), carters (352), iron or steel workers (214), mechanics (301), shoemakers (181), tailors (161), shop assistants (228), carpenters (178), bakers (131), messengers and porters, including 112 errand boys (315). The balance found employment in smaller numbers at other trades. The fate of 585 was unknown, 858 had been re-convicted, and the balance were in unrecorded or casual employment.
The outlets found by the girls from these various schools naturally follow lines appropriate to their sex and the instruction received. Out of a total of 2985 discharged in the three years mentioned, 1235 became general servants, 268 housemaids, 203 laundry-maids, 52 cooks, 98 nursemaids, 65 dressmakers, 221 were engaged in factories and mills, and the balance was made up by marriage, death or casual employment.
In Ireland the reformatory and industrial school system conforms to that of Great Britain. There were in 1905 six reformatory and 70 industrial schools in Ireland, mostly under Roman Catholic management.
A short account of the reformatory methods of dealing with juvenile offenders in certain other countries will fitly find a place here.
_Austria-Hungary._--The law leaves children of less than ten years of age to domestic discipline, as also children above that age if not exactly criminal, although the latter may be sent to correctional schools. There they are detained for varying periods, but never after twenty years of age, and they may be sent out on licence to situations or employment found for them. These schools also receive children between ten and fourteen guilty of crimes which are, however, by law deemed "contraventions" only; also the destitute between the same ages and the incorrigible whose parents cannot manage them.
In Hungary the penal code prescribes that children of less than twelve cannot be charged with offences; those between twelve and sixteen may be deemed to have acted without discretion, and thus escape sentence, but are sent to a correctional school where they may be detained till they are twenty years of age. An excellent system prevails in Hungary by which the supervision of those liberated is entrusted to a "protector," a philanthropic person in the district who visits and reports upon the conduct of the boys, much like the "probation officer" in the United States.
_Belgium._--The law of November 1891 places the whole mass of juveniles--those who are likely to give trouble and those who have already done so--at the disposal of the state. The system is very elastic, realizing the infinite variety of childish natures. The purely paternal regime would be wasted upon the really vicious; a severe discipline would press too heavily on the well-disposed. Accordingly, all juveniles, male and female, are divided into six principal classes with a corresponding treatment, it being strictly ruled that there is no intermingling of the classes; the very youngest, rescued early, are never to be associated with the older, who may be already vicious and degraded and who could not fail to exercise a pernicious influence. One of the great merits of the Belgian system is that the regulations may be relaxed, and children of whose amendment good hopes are entertained may be released provisionally, either to the care of parents and guardians or to employers, artisans or agriculturists who will teach them a trade.
_Denmark._--There were 61 establishments of all classes for juveniles in Denmark in 1906, holding some 2000 inmates. In 1874, by the will of Countess Danner, a large female refuge was founded at Castle Jagerspris, which holds some 360 girls. Another of the same class is the Royal Vodrofsvei Bonnehjem at Copenhagen, founded in the same year by Mlle Schneider. The regime preferred in Denmark is that of the family or the very small school. The Jagerspris system is to divide the whole number of 360 into small parties of 20 each under a nurse or official mother. Employment in Danish schools is mainly agricultural, field labour and gardening, with a certain amount of industrial training; and on discharge the inmates go to farms or to apprenticeship, while a few emigrate.
_France._--There are five methods of disposing of juvenile offenders in France:--
1. The preliminary or preventative prison (_maisons d'arret_ and _de justice_) for those arrested and accused.
2. The ordinary prison for all sentenced to less than six months, whose time of detention is too short to admit of their transfer to a provincial colony. It also receives children whom parents have found unmanageable.
3. The public or private penitentiary colony for the irresponsible children, acquitted as "without discretion," as well as for the guilty sentenced to more than six months' and less than two years' detention.
4. The correctional colony, where the system is more severe, receiving all sentenced for more than two years and all who have misconducted themselves in the milder establishments.
5. Various penitentiary houses for young females, whatever their particular sentence.
Foremost among French penal reformers stands the name of F. A. Demetz (1796-1873), the founder of the famous colony of Mettray. M. Demetz was a judge who, aghast at the evils inflicted upon children whom he was compelled by law to imprison, left the bench and undertook to find some other outlet for them. At that time the French law, while it acquitted minors shown to have acted without discretion, still consigned them for safe keeping and inevitable contamination to the common gaols. M. Demetz conceived the idea of an agricultural colony, and in 1840 organized a small "_societe paternelle_," as it was called, of which he became vice-president. Another philanthropist, the Vicomte de Bretignieres de Courteilles, a landed proprietor in Touraine, associated himself in the enterprise and endowed the institution with land at Mettray near Tours. The earliest labours at Mettray were in the development of the institution, but as this approached completion they were applied to farmwork, agricultural employment being the chief feature of the place. The motto and device of Mettray was "the moralization of youth by the cultivation of the soil"; a healthy life in the open air was to replace the enervating and demoralizing influences of the confined prisons; and this was effected in the usual farming operations, to which were added gardening, vine-dressing, the raising of stock and the breeding of silkworms. The labour was not light; on the contrary, the directors of the colony sought by constant employment to send their charges to bed tired, ready to sleep soundly and not romp and chatter in their dormitories. The excellence of its aims, and the manifestly good results that were growing out of the system, soon made Mettray a model for imitation in France and beyond it. Many establishments were planned upon it, started by the state or private enterprise; penitentiary colonies were created for boys in connexion with some of the great central prisons. The colony of Val de Yevre has a good record. It was started by a private philanthropist, Charles J. M. Lucas, (1803-1889) but after five-and-twenty years was handed over to the state. Other cognate establishments are those of Petit Quevilly near Rouen, Petit Bourg near Paris, St Hiliar and Eysses. There are several female colonies, especially that of Darnetal at Rouen.
It is for the magistrate or _juge d'instruction_ to select the class of establishment to which the juvenile delinquents brought before him shall be committed. The very young, those of twelve years of age and under, are placed out in the country with families, unless they can be again entrusted to their parents or committed to _maisons paternels_, containing very limited numbers, twenty or thirty, in charge of a large staff. After twelve, and from that age to fourteen or fifteen, the "ungrateful age" as the French call it, boys are sent to a reformatory or "preservative school," where they will be under stronger discipline. For the third class, from fifteen to sixteen or eighteen, stricter measures are necessary, so as to dispose of them in specially selected penal colonies, as has already been done at Eysses, where the discipline is severe, while embodying technical and industrial instruction.
_Germany._--In most parts of the German Empire juvenile delinquents and neglected youths are treated in the same establishments. No child of less than twelve years of age can be proceeded against in a court of law, although in some German states destitute or abandoned children have been taken at the ages of six, five and even three years. Youths between twelve and eighteen may be convicted, but their offences are passed over if they are proved to have acted without discretion. There are many kinds of correctional institutions and a number of schools not of a correctional character. These last are generally very small, the largest taking barely a hundred, but are very numerous. Many private persons have devoted themselves to the work. Count A. von der Recke-Volmerstein (1791-1878) about 1821 founded a refuge for neglected children in Dusselthal, between Dusseldorf and Elberstadt. Pastor T. F. Fliedner (1800-1864) built up a fine establishment at Kaiserswerth from 1833, in which was an infant school, a penitentiary and an orphan asylum. Another famous name is that of W. von Turk (1774-1846), who studied under Pestalozzi in Switzerland.
A school which has largely influenced public opinion in Great Britain, as in Germany, is the Rauhe Haus, near Hamburg, founded by Dr Wickern in 1833. This began with a single cottage but had grown in twenty years to a hamlet of twenty houses, with from twelve to sixteen inmates in each. The establishment is a Lutheran one; both boys and girls are admitted, in separate houses, and a marked feature of the place is the number of "brothers," young men of good character qualifying for rescue work as superintendents of homes, prison officers and schoolmasters. They take part in the work and are in constant touch with the boys whom they closely supervise, being bound to "keep them in sight day and night, eat with them, sleep in their dormitories, direct their labour, accompany them to chapel, join in their recreations and sports." These "brothers" are honourably known throughout the world and have performed a large work in distant lands as missionaries, prison officers and schoolmasters. The Rauhe Haus receives three classes of juveniles: first, the boys, mostly street arabs; second, girls of the same category; third, children taken as boarders from private families, who confess their inability to manage them. The instruction given is in trades, in farming operations, gardening and fruit-raising. The pupils are largely assisted on release, through the good offices of the citizens of Hamburg.
_Holland._--In the Low Countries, refuges, called "Godshuis," were founded as early as the 14th century, intended for the care and shelter of neglected youth and indigent old age. In the 17th century people came from all parts of Europe to learn from the Dutch how orphans and unfortunate children could best be cared for. The Godshuis of Amsterdam was a vast establishment, into which as many as 4000 juveniles were sometimes crowded, with such disastrous effects that its name was changed to that of "pesthuis," and the government in the beginning of the present century ordered it to be emptied and closed. Other reformatory institutions in Holland are the Netherlands Mettray, the reform school of Zetten, near the Arnheim railway station, for Protestant girls; and that of Alkmaar for boys; the reformatory school of St Vincent de Paul at Amsterdam for both sexes; the Amsterdam reformatory for young vagabonds, male and female; the reform school of Smallepod at Amsterdam. The Netherlands Mettray, which is about five hours' journey from Amsterdam on a farm called Rissjelt, near Zutphen, is planned on the model of the French Mettray and was founded about 1855 by M. Suringar, a veteran Dutch philanthropist, long vice-president of the directors of prisons in Amsterdam.
_Italy._--In Italy there is no distinction between the treatment of the offending and the neglected or deserted in youth. There are seventeen or more correctional establishments, eight of which are state institutions and the rest founded by private benevolence or by charitable associations or local communities. None of these is exclusively agricultural; ten are industrial, seven industrial and agricultural combined. In Italy the age of responsibility is nine, below which no child can be charged with an offence. The Italian schools are mostly planned on a large scale. That of Marchiondi Spagliardi accommodates 550, divided among three houses under one supreme head. The Turazza institution at Treviso holds 380, and there are eight others with from 200 to 300 inmates. The regime is very various; the larger number of schools are on the congregate system, with daily labour in association and isolation by night. The "family" method is also practised with small groups, divisions or companies, into which the children are formed according to age or conduct.
_Sweden._--All children below the age of sixteen may be sent to a correctional establishment or boarded out in respectable families:--
1. If they have committed acts punishable by law which indicate moral perversity and it is deemed advisable to correct them.
2. If they are neglected, ill-used, or if their moral deterioration is feared from the vicious life and character of parents or friends.
3. If their conduct at school or at home is such that a more severe correctional treatment is necessary for their rescue.
Under this law the state is also to provide special schools to take all above ten who have shown peculiar depravity; all who have reached eighteen and who are not yet thought fit for freedom; all who have relapsed after provisional release. Sweden is rich in institutions devoted to the care of destitute and deserted children, all due to the efforts of the charitable. The largest correctional establishment is that founded at Hall, near the town of Sodertelge on the shores of the Baltic. This admirable agricultural colony, modelled on that of Mettray, owes its existence to the "Oscar-Josephine society," founded by Queen Josephine, widow of Oscar I.
_United States._--In the words of a report made in 1878 by F. B. Sanborn, secretary of the American Social Science Society, "America can justly plume herself upon the work accomplished by her juvenile reformatories since their inauguration down to the present time." The first in point of date and still the most considerable of the reformatories in the United States is that founded in 1825, thanks to the unwearied efforts of the great American publicist and philanthropist Edward Livingston, which now has its home on Randall's Island in New York City. In the following year a reformatory of the same class was founded in Boston, and another in the year after in Philadelphia. All were intended to receive criminal youth. There are state reformatories now in almost all the states of the Union, and those for juvenile adults in New York and Massachusetts have attracted world-wide attention, aiming so high and with such an elaboration of means that they deserve particular description.
The great state reformatory establishment of Elmira, New York, called into existence in 1889 with the avowed aim of compassing the reformation of the criminal by new processes, partakes of the system involved in the treatment of juvenile offenders. It was based upon the principle that crime ought to be attacked in its beginnings by other than ordinary punitive and prison methods. Under this view, the right of society to defend itself by punishment was denied, and it was held that a youthful offender was more sinned against than sinning. It was urged that his crime, due largely to inherited defects, mental or physical and vicious surroundings, was not his own fault, and he had a paramount claim to be treated differently by the state when in custody. The state was not justified in using powers of repression to imprison him in the usual mechanical hard and fast fashion and then return him to society, no better, possibly worse, than before; it was bound to regenerate him, to change his nature, improve his physique, and give him a new mental equipment, so that when again at large he might be fitted to take his place amongst honest citizens, to earn his living by reputable means and escape all temptation to drift back into crime. This is the plausible explanation given for the state reformatory movement, which led to the creation on such costly and extensive lines of Elmira, and of Concord in Massachusetts, a cognate establishment. There is very little penal about the treatment, which is that of a boarding school; the education, thorough and carried far, includes languages, music, science and industrial art; diet is plentiful, even luxurious; amusements and varied recreation are permitted; well stocked libraries are provided with entertaining books; a prison newspaper is issued (edited by an inmate). Physical development is sedulously cultivated both by gymnastics and military exercises, and the whole course is well adapted to change entirely the character of the individual subjected to it. The trouble taken in the hope of transforming erring youth into useful members of society goes still further. The original sentence has been indefinite, and release on parole will be granted to inmates who pass through the various courses with credit and are supposed to have satisfied the authorities of their desire to amend. The limit of detention need not exceed twelve months, after which parole is possible, although the average period passed before it is granted is twenty-two months. The hope of permanent amendment is further sought by the fact that a situation, generally with good wages and congenial work, provided by the authorities, awaits every inmate at the time of his discharge. The inmates, selected from a very large class, are first offenders, but guilty generally of criminal offences, which include manslaughter, burglary, forgery, fraud, robbery and receiving. The exact measure of reformation achieved can never be exactly known, from the absence of authentic statistics and the difficulty of following up the surveillance of individuals when released on parole. Reports issued by the manager of Elmira claim that 81% of those paroled have done well, but these results are not definitely authenticated. They are based upon the ascertained good conduct during the term of surveillance, six or twelve months only, during which time these subjects have not yet spent the gratuities earned and have probably still kept the situations found for them on discharge. No doubt the material treated at Elmira and Concord is of a kind to encourage hope of reformation, as they are first offenders and presumably not of the criminal classes. Although the processes are open to criticism, the discipline enforced in these state reformatories does not err in excessive leniency. They are not "hotels," as has been sometimes said in ridicule, where prisoners go to enjoy themselves, have a good time, study Plato and conic sections, and pass out to an assured future. There is plenty of hard work, mental and physical, and the "inmates" rather envy their fellows in state prisons. A point to which great attention is paid is that physical degeneracy lies at the bottom of the criminal character, and great attention is paid to the development of nervous energy and strengthening by every means the normal and healthful functions of the body. A leading feature in the treatment is the frequency and perfection with which bathing is carried out. A series of Turkish baths forms a part of the course of instruction; the baths being fitted elaborately with all the adjuncts of shower bath, cold douche, ending with gymnastic exercises.
A remarkable and unique institution is the state reformatory for women at Sherborn, Massachusetts, for women with sentences of more than a year, who in the opinion of the court are fit subjects for reformatory treatment. The majority of the inmates were convicted of drunkenness, an offence which the law of Massachusetts visits with severity--a sentence of two years being very common. This at once differentiates the class of women from that in ordinary penal establishments. At the same time we find that other women guilty of serious crime are sent by the courts to this prison with a view to their reform. Thus of 352 inmates, while no fewer than 200 were convicted of drunkenness, there were also 63 cases of offences against chastity and 30 of larceny. The average age was thirty-one and the average duration of sentence just over a year. In appearance and in character it more resembles a hospital or home for inebriates than a state convict prison. A system of grades or divisions is relied upon as a stimulus to reform. The difference in grades is denoted by small and scarcely perceptible variations of the little details of everyday life, such as are supposed in a peculiar degree to affect the appreciation of women, e.g. in the lowest division the women have their meals off old and chipped china; in the next the china is less chipped; in the highest there is no chipped china; in the next prettily set out with tumblers, cruet-stands and a pepper pot to each prisoner. The superintendent relies greatly also on the moralizing influence of animals and birds. Well-behaved convicts are allowed to tend sheep, calves, pigs, chickens, canaries and parrots. This privilege is highly esteemed and productive, it is said, of the most softening influences.
The "George Junior Republic" (q.v.) is a remarkable institution established in 1895 at Freeville, near the centre of New York State, by Mr. William Reuben George. The original features of the institution are that the motto "Nothing without labour" is rigidly enforced, and that self-government is carried to a point that, with mere children, would appear whimsical were it not a proved success. The place is, as the name implies, a miniature "republic" with laws, legislature, courts and administration of its own, all made and carried on by the "citizens" themselves. The tone and spirit of the place appeared to be excellent and there is much evidence that in many cases strong and independent character is developed in children whose antecedents have been almost hopeless.
_Borstal Scheme in England._--The American system of state reformatories as above described has been sharply criticized, but the principle that underlies it is recognized as, in a measure, sound, and it has been adopted by the English authorities. Some time back the experiment of establishing a penal reformatory for offenders above the age hitherto committed to reformatory schools was resolved upon. This led to the foundation of the Borstal scheme, which was first formally started in October 1902. The arguments which had led to it may be briefly stated here. It had been conclusively shown that quite half the whole number of professional criminals had been first convicted when under twenty-one years of age, when still at a malleable period of development, when in short the criminal habit had not yet been definitely formed. Moreover these adolescents escaped special reformatory treatment, for sixteen is in Great Britain the age of criminal majority, after which no youthful offenders can be committed to the state reformatory schools. But there was always a formidable contingent of juvenile adults between sixteen and twenty-one, sent to penal servitude, and their numbers although diminishing rose to an average total of 15,000. It was accordingly decided to create a penal establishment under state control, which should be a half-way house between the prison and the reformatory school. A selection was made of juvenile adults, sentenced to not less than six months and sent to Borstal in 1902 to be treated under rules approved by the home secretary. They were to be divided on arrival into three separate classes, penal, ordinary and special, with promotion by industry and good conduct from the lowest to the highest, in which they enjoyed distinctive privileges. The general system, educational and disciplinary, was intelligent and governed by common sense. Instruction, both manual and educational, was well suited to the recipients; the first embraced field work, market gardening, and a knowledge of useful handicrafts; the second was elementary but sound, aided by well-chosen libraries and brightened by the privilege of evening association to play harmless but interesting games. Physical development was also guaranteed by gymnastics and regular exercises. The results were distinctly encouraging. They arrived at Borstal "rough, untrained cubs," but rapidly improved in demeanour and inward character, gaining self-reliance and self-respect, and left the prison on the high road to regeneration. It was wisely remembered that to secure lasting amendment it is not enough to chasten the erring subject, to train his hands, to strengthen his moral sense while still in durance; it is essential to assist him on discharge by helping him to find work, and encourage him by timely advice to keep him in the straight path. Too much praise cannot be accorded to the agencies and associations which labour strenuously and unceasingly to this excellent end. Especial good work has been done by the Borstal association, founded under the patronage of the best known and most distinguished persons in English public life--archbishops, judges, cabinet ministers and privy councillors--which receives the juvenile adults on their release and helps them to employment. Their labours, backed by generous voluntary contributions, have produced very gratifying results. Although the offenders originally selected to undergo the Borstal treatment were those committed for a period of six months, it was recognized that this limit was experimental, and that thoroughly satisfactory results could only be obtained with sentences of at least a year's duration, so as to give the reforming agencies ample time to operate. In the second year's working of the system it was formally applied to young convicts sentenced to penal servitude between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one. In the next year it was adopted for all offenders between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one committed to prison, as far as the length of sentence would permit. The commissioners of prisons, in their _Report_ for the year 1908 (Cd. 4300) thus expressed themselves on the working of the experiment:--
"Experience soon began to point to the probable success of this general application of the principle, in spite of the fact that the prevailing shortness of sentences operated against full benefit being derived from reformatory effort. The success was most marked in those localities where magistrates, or other benevolent persons, personally co-operated in making the scheme a success. Local Borstal committees were established at all prisons, and it was arranged that those members of the local committees should become _ex officio_ honorary members of the Central Borstal Association, which it was intended should become, what it now is, the parent society directing the general aid on discharge of this category of young prisoners."
In spite of the general adoption of the Borstal system, there was a large class of young criminals who were outside its effects, those who were sentenced to terms of ten days and under for trifling offences. These juvenile adults, once having had the fear of prison taken away by actual experience, were found to come back again and again. To remedy this state of affairs, a bill was introduced in 1907 to give effect to the principle of a long period of detention for all those showing a tendency to embark on a criminal career. The bill was, however, dropped, but a somewhat similar bill was introduced the next year and became law under the title of The Prevention of Crime Act 1908. This measure introduces a new departure in the treatment of professional crime by initiating a system of detention for habitual criminals (see RECIDIVISM). The act attempts the reformation of young offenders by giving the court power to pass sentence of detention in a Borstal institution for a term of not less than one year nor more than three on those between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one who by reason of criminal habits or tendencies or association with persons of bad character require such instruction and discipline as appear most conducive to their reformation. The power of detention applies also to reformatory school offences, while such persons as are already undergoing penal servitude or imprisonment may be transferred to a Borstal institution if detention would conduce to their advantage. The establishment of other Borstal institutions is authorized by the act, while a very useful provision is the power to release on licence if there is a reasonable probability that the offender will abstain from crime and lead a useful and industrious life. The licence is issued on condition that he is placed under the supervision or authority of some society or person willing to take charge of him. Supervision is introduced after the expiration of the term of sentence, and power is given to transfer to prison incorrigibles or those exercising a bad influence on the other inmates of a Borstal institution. The act marks a noteworthy advance in the endeavour to arrest the growing habit of crime. (A. G.; T. A. I.)
JUVENTAS (Latin for "youth": later _Juventus_), in Roman mythology, the tutelar goddess of young men. She was worshipped at Rome from very early times. In the front court of the temple of Minerva on the Capitol there was a chapel of Juventas, in which a coin had to be deposited by each youth on his assumption of the _toga virilis_, and sacrifices were offered on behalf of the rising manhood of the state. In connexion with this chapel it is related that, when the temple was in course of erection, Terminus, the god of boundaries, and Juventas refused to quit the sites they had already appropriated as sacred to themselves, which accordingly became part of the new sanctuary. This was interpreted as a sign of the immovable boundaries and eternal youth of the Roman state. It should be observed that in the oldest accounts there is no mention of Juventas, whose name (with that of Mars) was added in support of the augural prediction. After the Second Punic War Greek elements were introduced into her cult. In 218 B.C., by order of the Sibylline books, a _lectisternium_ was prepared for Juventas and a public thanksgiving to Hercules, an association which shows the influence of the Greek Hebe, the wife of Heracles. In 207 Marcus Livius Salinator, after the defeat of Hasdrubal at the battle of Sena, vowed another temple to Juventas in the Circus Maximus, which was dedicated in 191 by C. (or M.) Licinius Lucullus; it was destroyed by fire in 16 B.C. and rebuilt by Augustus. In imperial times, Juventas personified, not the youth of the Roman state, but of the future emperor.
See Dion. Halic., iii. 69, iv. 15; Livy v. 54, xxi. 62, xxxvi. 36.
JUXON, WILLIAM (1582-1663), English prelate, was the son of Robert Juxon and was born probably at Chichester, being educated at Merchant Taylors' School, London, and at St John's College, Oxford, where he was elected to a scholarship in 1598. He studied law at Oxford, but afterwards he took holy orders, and in 1609 became vicar of St Giles, Oxford, a living which he retained until he became rector of Somerton, Oxfordshire, in 1615. In December 1621 he succeeded his friend, William Laud, as president of St John's College, and in 1626 and 1627 he was vice-chancellor of the university. Juxon soon obtained other important positions, including that of chaplain-in-ordinary to Charles I. In 1627 he was made dean of Worcester and in 1632 he was nominated to the bishopric of Hereford, an event which led him to resign the presidency of St John's in January 1633. However, he never took up his episcopal duties at Hereford, as in October 1633 he was consecrated bishop of London in succession to Laud. He appears to have been an excellent bishop, and in March 1636 Charles I. entrusted him with important secular duties by making him lord high treasurer of England; thus for the next five years he was dealing with the many financial and other difficulties which beset the king and his advisers. He resigned the treasurership in May 1641. During the Civil War the bishop, against whom no charges were brought in parliament, lived undisturbed at Fulham Palace, and his advice was often sought by the king, who had a very high opinion of him, and who at his execution selected him to be with him on the scaffold and to administer to him the last consolations of religion. Juxon was deprived of his bishopric in 1649 and retired to Little Compton in Gloucestershire, where he had bought an estate, and here he became famous as the owner of a pack of hounds. At the restoration of Charles II. he became archbishop of Canterbury and in his official capacity he took part in the coronation of this king, but his health soon began to fail and he died at Lambeth on the 4th of June 1663. By his will the archbishop was a benefactor to St John's College, where he was buried; he also aided the work of restoring St Paul's Cathedral and rebuilt the great hall at Lambeth Palace.
See W. H. Marah, _Memoirs of Archbishop Juxon and his Times_ (1869); the best authority for the archbishop's life is the article by W. H. Hutton in the _Dict. Nat. Biog._ (1892).
K The eleventh letter in the Phoenician alphabet and in its descendant Greek, the tenth in Latin owing to the omission of Teth (see I), and once more the eleventh in the alphabets of Western Europe owing to the insertion of J. In its long history the shape of K has changed very little. It is on the inscription of the Moabite Stone (early 9th cent. B.C.) in the form (written from right to left) of [symbol] and [symbol]. Similar forms are also found in early Aramaic, but another form [symbol] or [symbol], which is found in the Phoenician of Cyprus in the 9th or 10th century B.C. has had more effect upon the later development of the Semitic forms. The length of the two back strokes and the manner in which they join the upright are the only variations in Greek. In various places the back strokes, treated as an angle <, become more rounded (, so that the letter appears as K, a form which in Latin probably affected the development of C (q.v.). In Crete it is elaborated into [symbol] and [symbol]. In Latin K, which is found in the earliest inscriptions, was soon replaced by C, and survived only in the abbreviations for _Kalendae_ and the proper name _Kaeso_. The original name Kaph became in Greek _Kappa_. The sound of K throughout has been that of the unvoiced guttural, varying to some extent in its pronunciation according to the nature of the vowel sound which followed it. In Anglo-Saxon C replaced K through Latin influence, writing being almost entirely in the hands of ecclesiastics. As the sound-changes have been discussed under C it is necessary here only to refer to the palatalization of K followed earlier by a final _e_ as in _watch_ (Middle English _wacche_, Anglo-Saxon _waecce_) by the side of _wake_ (M.E. _waken_, A.-S. _wacan_); batch, bake, &c. Sometimes an older form of the substantive survives, as in the Elizabethan and Northern _make_ = _mate_ alongside _match_. (P. Gi.)
K2, or MT GODWIN-AUSTEN, the second highest mountain in the world, ranking after Mt Everest. It is a peak of the Karakoram extension of the Muztagh range dividing Kashmir from Chinese Turkestan. The height of K2 as at present determined by triangulation is 28,250 ft., but it is possible that an ultimate revision of the values of refraction at high altitudes may have the effect of lowering the height of K2, while it would elevate those of Everest and Kinchinjunga. The latter mountain would then rank second, and K2 third, in the scale of altitude, Everest always maintaining its ascendancy. K2 was ascended for the first time by the duke of the Abruzzi in June 1909, being the highest elevation on the earth's surface ever reached by man.
KA'BA, KAABA, or KAABEH, the sacred shrine of Mahommedanism, containing the "black stone," in the middle of the great mosque at Mecca (q.v.).
KABARDIA, a territory of S. Russia, now part of the province of Terek. It is divided into Great and Little Kabardia by the upper river Terek, and covers 3780 sq. m. on the northern slopes of the Caucasus range (from Mount Elbruz to Pasis-mta, or Edena), including the Black Mountains (Kara-dagh) and the high plains on their northern slope. Before the Russian conquest it extended as far as the Sea of Azov. Its population is now about 70,000. One-fourth of the territory is owned by the aristocracy and the remainder is divided among the _auls_ or villages. A great portion is under permanent pasture, part under forests, and some under perpetual snow. Excellent breeds of horses are reared, and the peasants own many cattle. The land is well cultivated in the lower parts, the chief crops being millet, maize, wheat and oats. Bee-keeping is extensively practised, and Kabardian honey is in repute. Wood-cutting and the manufacture of wooden wares, the making of _burkas_ (felt and fur cloaks), and saddlery are very general. Nalchik is the chief town.
The Kabardians are a branch of the Adyghe (Circassians). The policy of Russia was always to be friendly with the Kabardian aristocracy, who were possessed of feudal rights over the Ossetes, the Ingushes, the Abkhasians and the mountain Tatars, and had command of the roads leading into Transcaucasia. Ivan the Terrible took Kabardia under his protection in the 16th century. Later, Russian influence was counterbalanced by that of the Crimean khans, but the Kabardian nobles nevertheless supported Peter the Great during his Caucasian campaign in 1722-23. In 1739 Kabardia was recognized as being under the double protectorate of Russia and Turkey, but thirty-five years later it was definitively annexed to Russia, and risings of the population in 1804 and 1822 were cruelly suppressed. Kabardia is considered as a school of good manners in Caucasia; the Kabardian dress sets the fashion to all the mountaineers. Kabardians constitute the best detachment of the personal Imperial Guards at St Petersburg.
A short grammar of the Kabardian language and a Russian-Kabardian dictionary, by Lopatinsky, were published in _Sbornik Materialov dla Opisaniya Kavkaza_ (vol. xii., Tiflis, 1891). Fragments of the poem "Sosyruko," some Persian tales, and the tenets of the Mussulman religion were printed in Kabardian in 1864, by Kazi Atazhukin and Shardanov. The common law of the Kabardians has been studied by Maxim Kovalevsky and Vsevolod Miller.
KABBA, a province of the British protectorate of Northern Nigeria, situated chiefly on the right bank of the Niger, between 7 deg. 5' and 8 deg. 45' N. and 5 deg. 30' and 7 deg. E. It has an area of 7800 sq. m. and an estimated population of about 70,000. The province consists of relatively healthy uplands interspersed with fertile valleys. It formed part at one time of the Nupe emirate, and under Fula rule the armies of Bida regularly raided for slaves and laid waste the country. Amongst the native inhabitants the Igbira are very industrious, and crops of tobacco, indigo, all the African grains, and a good quantity of cotton are already grown. The sylvan products are valuable and include palm oil, kolas, shea and rubber. Lokoja, a town which up to 1902 was the principal British station in the protectorate, is situated in this province. The site of Lokoja, with a surrounding tract of country at the junction of the Benue and the Niger, was ceded to the British government in 1841 by the _attah_ of Idah, whose dominions at that time extended to the right bank of the river. The first British settlement was a failure. In 1854 MacGregor Laird, who had taken an active part in promoting the exploration of the river, sent thither Dr W. B. Baikie, who was successful in dealing with the natives and in 1857 became the first British consul in the interior. The town of Lokoja was founded by him in 1860. In 1868 the consulate was abolished and the settlement was left wholly to commercial interests. In 1879 Sir George Goldie formed the Royal Niger Company, which bought out its foreign rivals and acquired a charter from the British government. In 1886 the company made Lokoja its military centre, and on the transfer of the company's territories to the Crown it remained for a time the capital of Northern Nigeria. In 1902 the political capital of the protectorate was shifted to Zungeru in the province of Zaria, but Lokoja remains the commercial centre. The distance of Lokoja from the sea at the Niger mouth is about 250 m.
In the absence of any central native authority the province is entirely dependent for administration upon British initiative. It has been divided into four administrative divisions. British and native courts of justice have been established. A British station has been established at Kabba town, which is an admirable site some 50 m. W. by N. of Lokoja, about 1300 ft. above the sea, and a good road has been made from Kabba to Lokoja. Roads have been opened through the province. (See NIGERIA.)
KABBABISH ("goatherds": James Bruce derives the name from _Hebsh_, sheep), a tribe of African nomads of Semitic origin. It is perhaps the largest "Arab" tribe in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and its many clans are scattered over the country extending S.W. from the province of Dongola to the confines of Darfur. The Kabbabish speak Arabic, but their pronunciation differs much from that of the true Arabs. The Kabbabish have a tradition that they came from Tunisia and are of Mogrebin or western descent; but while the chiefs look like Arabs, the tribesmen resemble the Beja family. They themselves declare that one of their clans, Kawahla, is not of Kabbabish blood, but was affiliated to them long ago. Kawahla is a name of Arab formation, and J. L. Burckhardt spoke of the clan as a distinct one living about Abu Haraz and on the Atbara. The Kabbabish probably received Arab rulers, as did the Ababda. They are chiefly employed in cattle, camel and sheep breeding, and before the Sudan wars of 1883-99 they had a monopoly of all transport from the Nile, north of Abu Gussi, to Kordofan. They also cultivate the lowlands which border the Nile, where they have permanent villages. They are of fine physique, dark with black wiry hair, carefully arranged in tightly rolled curls which cling to the head, with regular features and rather thick aquiline noses. Some of the tribes wear large hats like those of the Kabyles of Algeria and Tunisia.
See James Bruce, _Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile_ (1790); A. H. Keane, _Ethnology of Egyptian Sudan_ (1884); _Anglo-Egyptian Sudan_ (edited by Count Gleichen, 1905).
KABBALAH (late Hebrew _kabbalah_, _qabbalah_), the technical name for the system of Jewish theosophy which played an important part in the Christian Church in the middle ages. The term primarily denotes "reception" and then "doctrines received by tradition." In the older Jewish literature the name is applied to the whole body of received religious doctrine with the exception of the Pentateuch, thus including the Prophets and Hagiographa as well as the oral traditions ultimately embodied in the Mishnah.[1] It is only since the 11th or 12th century that Kabbalah has become the exclusive appellation for the renowned system of theosophy which claims to have been transmitted uninterruptedly by the mouths of the patriarchs and prophets ever since the creation of the first man.
Doctrine of the Sephiroth.
The cardinal doctrines of the Kabbalah embrace the nature of the Deity, the Divine emanations or _Sephiroth_, the cosmogony, the creation of angels and man, their destiny, and the import of the revealed law. According to this esoteric doctrine, God, who is boundless, and above everything, even above being and thinking, is called _En Soph_ ([Greek: apeiros]); He is the space of the universe containing [Greek: to pan], but the universe is not his space. In this boundlessness He could not be comprehended by the intellect or described in words, and as such the En Soph was in a certain sense _Ayin_, non-existent (_Zohar_, iii. 283).[2] To make his existence known and comprehensible, the En Soph had to become active and creative. As creation involves intention, desire, thought and work, and as these are properties which imply limit and belong to a finite being, and moreover as the imperfect and circumscribed nature of this creation precludes the idea of its being the direct work of the infinite and perfect, the En Soph had to become creative, through the medium of ten Sephiroth or intelligences, which emanated from him like rays proceeding from a luminary.
Now the wish to become manifest and known, and hence the idea of creation, is co-eternal with the inscrutable Deity, and the first manifestation of this primordial will is called the first _Sephirah_ or emanation. This first Sephirah, this spiritual substance which existed in the En Soph from all eternity, contained nine other intelligences or _Sephiroth_. These again emanated one from the other, the second from the first, the third from the second, and so on up to ten.
The ten Sephiroth, which form among themselves and with the En Soph a strict unity, and which simply represent different aspects of one and the same being, are respectively denominated (1) the Crown, (2) Wisdom, (3) Intelligence, (4) Love, (5) Justice, (6) Beauty, (7) Firmness, (8) Splendour, (9) Foundation, and (10) Kingdom. Their evolution was as follows: "When the Holy Aged, the concealed of all concealed, assumed a form, he produced everything in the form of male and female, as things could not continue in any other form. Hence Wisdom, the second Sephirah, and the beginning of development, when it proceeded from the Holy Aged (another name of the first Sephirah) emanated in male and female, for Wisdom expanded, and Intelligence, the third Sephirah, proceeded from it, and thus were obtained male and female, viz. Wisdom the father and Intelligence the mother, from whose union the other pairs of Sephiroth successively emanated" (_Zohar_, iii. 290). These two opposite potencies, viz. the masculine Wisdom or Sephirah No. 2 and the feminine Intelligence or Sephirah No. 3 are joined together by the first potency, the Crown or Sephirah No. 1; they yield the first triad of the Sephiric decade, and constitute the divine head of the archetypal man.
From the junction of Sephiroth Nos. 2 and 3 emanated the masculine potency Love or Mercy (4) and the feminine potency Justice (5), and from the junction of the latter two emanated again the uniting potency Beauty (6). Beauty, the sixth Sephirah, constitutes the chest in the archetypal man, and unites Love (4) and Justice (5), which constitute the divine arms, thus yielding the second triad of the Sephiric decade. From this second conjunction emanated again the masculine potency Firmness (7) and the feminine potency Splendour (8), which constitute the divine legs of the archetypal man; and these sent forth Foundation (9), which is the genital organ and medium of union between them, thus yielding the third triad in the Sephiric decade. Kingdom (10), which emanated from the ninth Sephirah, encircles all the other nine, inasmuch as it is the Shechinah, the divine halo, which encompasses the whole by its all-glorious presence.
In their totality and unity the ten Sephiroth are not only denominated the World of Sephiroth, or the World of Emanations, but, owing to the above representation, are called the primordial or archetypal man (= [Greek: protogonos]) and the heavenly man. It is this form which, as we are assured, the prophet Ezekiel saw in the mysterious chariot (Ezek. i. 1-28), and of which the earthly man is a faint copy.
As the three triads respectively represent intellectual, moral and physical qualities, the first is called the Intellectual, the second the Moral or Sensuous, and the third the Material World. According to this theory of the archetypal man the three Sephiroth on the right-hand side are masculine and represent the principle of rigour, the three on the left are feminine and represent the principle of mercy, and the four central or uniting Sephiroth represent the principle of mildness. Hence the right is called "the Pillar of Judgment," the left "the Pillar of Mercy," and the centre "the Middle Pillar." The middle Sephiroth are synecdochically used to represent the worlds or triads of which they are the uniting potencies. Hence the Crown, the first Sephirah, which unites Wisdom and Intelligence to constitute the first triad, is by itself denominated the Intellectual World. So Beauty is by itself described as the Sensuous World, and in this capacity is called the Sacred King or simply the King, whilst Kingdom, the tenth Sephirah, which unites all the nine Sephiroth, is used to denote the Material World, and as such is denominated the Queen or the Matron. Thus a trinity of units, viz. the Crown, Beauty and Kingdom, is obtained within the trinity of triads. But further, each Sephirah is as it were a trinity in itself. It (1) has its own absolute character, (2) receives from above, and (3) communicates to what is below. "Just as the Sacred Aged is represented by the number three, so are all the other lights (Sephiroth) of a threefold nature" (_Zohar_, iii. 288). In this all-important doctrine of the Sephiroth, the Kabbalah insists upon the fact that these potencies are not creations of the En Soph, which would be a diminution of strength; that they form among themselves and with the En Soph a strict unity, and simply represent different aspects of the same being, just as the different rays which proceed from the light, and which appear different things to the eye, are only different manifestations of one and the same light; that for this reason they all alike partake of the perfections of the En Soph; and that as emanations from the Infinite, the Sephiroth are infinite and perfect like the En Soph, and yet constitute the first finite things. They are infinite and perfect when the En Soph imparts his fullness to them, and finite and imperfect when that fullness is withdrawn from them.
The Universe.
The conjunction of the Sephiroth, or, according to the language of the Kabbalah, the union of the crowned King and Queen, produced the universe in their own image. Worlds came into existence before the En Soph manifested himself in the human form of emanations, but they could not continue, and necessarily perished because the conditions of development which obtained with the sexual opposites of the Sephiroth did not exist. These worlds which perished are compared to sparks which fly out from a red-hot iron beaten by a hammer, and which are extinguished according to the distance they are removed from the burning mass. Creation is not _ex nihilo_; it is simply a further expansion or evolution of the Sephiroth.[3] The world reveals and makes visible the Boundless and the concealed of the concealed. And, though it exhibits the Deity in less splendour than its Sephiric parents exhibit the En Soph, because it is farther removed from the primordial source of light than the Sephiroth, still, as it is God manifested, all the multifarious forms in the world point out the unity which they represent. Hence nothing in the whole universe can be annihilated. Everything, spirit as well as body, must return to the source whence it emanated (_Zohar_, ii. 218). The universe consists of four different worlds, each of which forms a separate Sephiric system of a decade of emanations.
They were evolved in the following order. (1) The World Of Emanations, also called the Image and the Heavenly or Archetypal Man, is, as we have seen, a direct emanation from the En Soph. Hence it is most intimately allied to the Deity, and is perfect and immutable. From the conjunction of the King and Queen (i.e. these ten Sephiroth) is produced (2) the World of Creation, or the Briatic world, also called "the Throne." Its ten Sephiroth, being farther removed from the En Soph, are of a more limited and circumscribed potency, though the substances they comprise are of the purest nature and without any admixture of matter. The angel Metatron inhabits this world. He alone constitutes the world of pure spirit, and is the garment of Shaddai, i.e. the visible manifestation of the Deity. His name is numerically equivalent to that of the Lord (_Zohar_, iii. 231). He governs the visible world, preserves the harmony and guides the revolutions of all the spheres, and is the captain of all the myriads of angelic beings. This Briatic world again gave rise to (3) the World of Formation, or Yetziratic World. Its ten Sephiroth, being still farther removed from the Primordial Source, are of a less refined substance. Still they are yet without matter. It is the abode of the angels, who are wrapped in luminous garments, and who assume a sensuous form when they appear to men. The myriads of the angelic hosts who people this world are divided into ten ranks, answering to the ten Sephiroth, and each one of these numerous angels is set over a different part of the universe, and derives his name from the heavenly body or element which he guards (_Zohar_, i. 42). From this world finally emanated (4) the World of Action, also called the World of Matter. Its ten Sephiroth are made up of the grosser elements of the former three worlds; they consist of material substance limited by space and perceptible to the senses in a multiplicity of forms. This world is subject to constant changes and corruption, and is the dwelling of the evil spirits. These, the grossest and most deficient of all forms, are also divided into ten degrees, each lower than the other. The first two are nothing more than the absence of all visible form and organization; the third degree is the abode of darkness; whilst the remaining seven are "the seven infernal halls," occupied by the demons, who are the incarnation of all human vices. These seven hells are subdivided into innumerable compartments corresponding to every species of sin, where the demons torture the poor deluded human beings who have suffered themselves to be led astray whilst on earth. The prince of this region of darkness is Samael, the evil spirit, the serpent who seduced Eve. His wife is the Harlot or the Woman of Whoredom. The two are treated as one person, and are called "the Beast" (_Zohar_, ii. 255-259, with i. 35).
Doctrine of Man.
The whole universe, however, was incomplete, and did not receive its finishing stroke till man was formed, who is the acme of the creation and the microcosm. "The heavenly Adam (i.e. the ten Sephiroth) who emanated from the highest primordial obscurity (i.e. the En Soph) created the earthly Adam" (_Zohar_, ii. 70). "Man is both the import and the highest degree of creation, for which reason he was formed on the sixth day. As soon as man was created everything was complete, including the upper and nether worlds, for everything is comprised in man. He unites in himself all forms" (_Zohar_, iii. 48). Each member of his body corresponds to a part of the visible universe. "Just as we see in the firmament above, covering all things, different signs which are formed of the stars and the planets, and which contain secret things and profound mysteries studied by those who are wise and expert in these things; so there are in the skin, which is the cover of the body of the son of man, and which is like the sky that covers all things above, signs and features which are the stars and planets of the skin, indicating secret things and profound mysteries whereby the wise are attracted who understand the reading of the mysteries in the human face" (_Zohar_, ii. 76). The human form is shaped after the four letters which constitute the Jewish Tetragrammaton (q.v.; see also JEHOVAH). The head is in the shape of [Hebrew: iod], the arms and the shoulders are like [Hebrew: hei], the breast like [Hebrew: vav], and the two legs with the back again resemble [Hebrew: hei] (_Zohar_, ii. 72). The souls of the whole human race pre-exist in the World of Emanations, and are all destined to inhabit human bodies. Like the Sephiroth from which it emanates, every soul has ten potencies, consisting of a trinity of triads. (1) The Spirit (_neshamah_), which is the highest degree of being, corresponds to and is operated upon by the Crown, which is the highest triad in the Sephiroth, and is called the Intellectual World; (2) the Soul (_ruah_), which is the seat of the moral qualities, corresponds to and is operated upon by Beauty, which is the second triad in the Sephiroth, and is called the Moral World; and (3) the Cruder Soul (_nephesh_), which is immediately connected with the body, and is the cause of its lower instincts and the animal life, corresponds to and is operated upon by Foundation, the third triad in the Sephiroth, called the Material World. Each soul prior to its entering into this world consists of male and female united into one being. When it descends on this earth the two parts are separated and animate two different bodies. "At the time of marriage the Holy One, blessed be he, who knows all souls and spirits, unites them again as they were before; and they again constitute one body and one soul, forming as it were the right and the left of the individual.... This union, however, is influenced by the deeds of the man and by the ways in which he walks. If the man is pure and his conduct is pleasing in the sight of God, he is united with that female part of the soul which was his component part prior to his birth" (_Zohar_, i. 91). The soul's destiny upon earth is to develop those perfections the germs of which are eternally implanted in it, and it ultimately must return to the infinite source from which it emanated. Hence, if, after assuming a body and sojourning upon earth, it becomes polluted by sin and fails to acquire the experience for which it descends from heaven, it must three times reinhabit a body, till it is able to ascend in a purified state through repeated trials. If, after its third residence in a human body, it is still too weak to withstand the contamination of sin, it is united with another soul, in order that by their combined efforts it may resist the pollution which by itself it was unable to conquer. When the whole pleroma of pre-existent souls in the world of the Sephiroth shall have descended and occupied human bodies and have passed their period of probation and have returned purified to the bosom of the infinite Source, then the soul of Messiah will descend from the region of souls; then the great Jubilee will commence. There shall be no more sin, no more temptation, no more suffering. Universal restoration will take place. Satan himself, "the venomous Beast," will be restored to his angelic nature. Life will be an everlasting feast, a Sabbath without end. All souls will be united with the Highest Soul, and will supplement each other in the Holy of Holies of the Seven Halls (_Zohar_, i. 45, 168; ii. 97).
Antiquity and Influence of Kabbalah.
According to the Kabbalah all these esoteric doctrines are contained in the Hebrew Scriptures. The uninitiated cannot perceive them; but they are plainly revealed to the spiritually minded, who discern the profound import of this theosophy beneath the surface of the letters and words of Holy Writ. "If the law simply consists of ordinary expressions and narratives, such as the words of Esau, Hagar, Laban, the ass of Balaam or Balaam himself, why should it be called the law of truth, the perfect law, the true witness of God? Each word contains a sublime source, each narrative points not only to the single instance in question, but also to generals" (_Zohar_, iii. 149, cf. 152).
To obtain these heavenly mysteries, which alone make the Torah superior to profane codes, definite hermeneutical rules are employed, of which the following are the most important. (1) The words of several verses in the Hebrew Scriptures which are regarded as containing a recondite sense are placed over each other, and the letters are formed into new words by reading them vertically. (2) The words of the text are ranged in squares in such a manner as to be read either vertically or boustrophedon. (3) The words are joined together and redivided. (4) The initials and final letters of several words are formed into separate words. (5) Every letter of a word is reduced to its numerical value, and the word is explained by another of the same quantity. (6) Every letter of a word is taken to be the initial or abbreviation of a word. (7) The twenty-two letters of the alphabet are divided into two halves; one half is placed above the other; and the two letters which thus become associated are interchanged. By this permutation, _Aleph_, the first letter of the alphabet, becomes _Lamed_, the twelfth letter; _Beth_ becomes _Mem_, and so on. This cipher alphabet is called _Albam_, from the first interchangeable pairs. (8) The commutation of the twenty-two letters is effected by the last letter of the alphabet taking the place of the first, the last but one the place of the second, and so forth. This cipher is called _Atbash_. These hermeneutical canons are much older than the Kabbalah. They obtained in the synagogue from time immemorial, and were used by the Christian fathers in the interpretation of Scripture.[4] Thus Canon V., according to which a word is reduced to its numerical value and interpreted by another word of the same value, is recognized in the New Testament (cf. Rev. xiii. 18). Canon VI. is adopted by Irenaeus, who tells us that, according to the learned among the Hebrews, the name Jesus contains two letters and a half, and signifies that Lord who contains heaven and earth [[Hebrew: ieshu] = [Hebrew: ieova shamaim vaaretz]] (_Against Heresies_, ii. xxiv., i. 205, ed. Clark). The cipher _Atbash_ (Canon VIII.) is used in Jeremiah xxv. 26, li. 41, where Sheshach is written for Babel. In Jer. li. 1, [Hebrew: lev kamai], _Leb-Kamai_ ("the heart of them that rise up against me"), is written for [Hebrew: kasdim], _Chaldea_, by the same rule.
Exegesis of this sort is not the characteristic of any single circle, people or century; unscientific methods of biblical interpretation have prevailed from Philo's treatment of the Pentateuch to modern apologetic interpretations of Genesis, ch. i.[5] The Kabbalah itself is but an extreme and remarkable development of certain forms of thought which had never been absent from Judaism; it is bound up with earlier tendencies to mysticism, with man's inherent striving to enter into communion with the Deity. To seek its sources would be futile. The Pythagorean theory of numbers, Neoplatonic ideas of emanation, the Logos, the personified Wisdom, Gnosticism--these and many other features combine to show the antiquity of tendencies which, clad in other shapes, are already found in the old pre-Christian Oriental religions.[6] In its more mature form the Kabbalah belongs to the period when medieval Christian mysticism was beginning to manifest itself (viz. in Eckhart, towards end of 13th century); it is an age which also produced the rationalism of Maimonides (q.v.). Although some of its foremost exponents were famous Talmudists, it was a protest against excessive intellectualism and Aristotelian scholasticism. It laid stress, not on external authority, as did the Jewish law, but on individual experience and inward meditation. "The mystics accorded the first place to prayer, which was considered as a mystical progress towards God, demanding a state of ecstasy."[7] As a result, some of the finest specimens of Jewish devotional literature and some of the best types of Jewish individual character have been Kabbalist.[8] On the other hand, the Kabbalah has been condemned, and nowhere more strongly than among the Jews themselves. Jewish orthodoxy found itself attacked by the more revolutionary aspects of mysticism and its tendencies to alter established customs. While the medieval scholasticism denied the possibility of knowing anything unattainable by reason, the spirit of the Kabbalah held that the Deity could be realized, and it sought to bridge the gulf. Thus it encouraged an unrestrained emotionalism, rank superstition, an unhealthy asceticism, and the employment of artificial means to induce the ecstatic state. That this brought moral laxity was a stronger reason for condemning the Kabbalah, and the evil effects of nervous degeneration find a more recent illustration in the mysticism of the Chasidim (_Hasidim_, "saints"), a Jewish sect in eastern Europe which started from a movement in the 18th century against the exaggerated casuistry of contemporary rabbis, and combined much that was spiritual and beautiful with extreme emotionalism and degradation.[9] The appearance of the Kabbalah and of other forms of mysticism in Judaism may seem contrary to ordinary and narrow conceptions of orthodox Jewish legalism. Its interest lies, not in its doctrines, which have often been absurdly over-estimated (particularly among Christians), but in its contribution to the study of human thought. It supplied a want which has always been felt by certain types, and it became a movement which had mischievous effects upon ill-balanced minds. As usual, the excessive self-introspection was not checked by a rational criticism; the individual was guided by his own reason, the limitations of which he did not realize; and in becoming a law unto himself he ignored the accumulated experiences of civilized humanity.[10]
A feature of greater interest is the extraordinary part which this theosophy played in the Christian Church, especially at the time of the Renaissance. We have already seen that the Sephiric decade or the archetypal man, like Christ, is considered to be of a double nature, both infinite and finite, perfect and imperfect. More distinct, however, is the doctrine of the Trinity. In Deut. vi. 43, where Yahweh occurs first, then Elohenu, and then again Yahweh, we are told "The voice though one, consists of three elements, fire (i.e. warmth), air (i.e. breath), and water (i.e. humidity), yet all three are one in the mystery of the voice and can only be one. Thus also Yahweh, Elohenu, Yahweh, constitute one--three forms which are one" (_Zohar_, ii. 43; compare iii. 65). Discussing the thrice holy in Isaiah vi. 3, one codex of the _Zohar_ had the following remark: "The first holy denotes the Holy Father, the second the Holy Son, and the third the Holy Ghost" (cf. Galatinus, _De arcanis cathol._ lib. ii. c. 3, p. 31; Wolf, _Bibliotheca hebraica_, i. 1136). Still more distinct is the doctrine of the atonement. "The Messiah invokes all the sufferings, pain, and afflictions of Israel to come upon Him. Now if He did not remove them thus and take them upon Himself, no man could endure the sufferings of Israel, due as their punishment for transgressing the law; as it is written (Isa. liii. 4), Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows" (_Zohar_, ii. 12). These and similar statements favouring the doctrines of the New Testament made many Kabbalists of the highest position in the synagogue embrace the Christian faith and write elaborate books to win their Jewish brethren over to Christ. As early as 1450 a company of Jewish converts in Spain, at the head of which were Paul de Heredia, Vidal de Saragossa de Aragon, and Davila, published compilations of Kabbalistic treatises to prove from them the doctrines of Christianity. They were followed by Paul Rici, professor at Pavia, and physician to the emperor Maximilian I. Among the best-known non-Jewish exponents of the Kabbalah were the Italian count Pico di Mirandola (1463-1494), the renowned Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522), Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim (1487-1535), Theophrastus Paracelsus (1493-1541), and, later, the Englishman Robert Fludd (1574-1637). Prominent among the "nine hundred theses" which Mirandola had placarded in Rome, and which he undertook to defend in the presence of all European scholars, whom he invited to the Eternal City, promising to defray their travelling expenses, was the following: "No science yields greater proof of the divinity of Christ than magic and the Kabbalah." Mirandola so convinced Pope Sixtus of the paramount importance of the Kabbalah as an auxiliary to Christianity that his holiness exerted himself to have Kabbalistic writings translated into Latin for the use of divinity students. With equal zeal did Reuchlin act as the apostle of the Kabbalah. His treatises exercised an almost magic influence upon the greatest thinkers of the time. Pope Leo X. and the early Reformers were alike captivated by the charms of the Kabbalah as propounded by Reuchlin, and not only divines, but statesmen and warriors, began to study the Oriental languages in order to be able to fathom the mysteries of Jewish theosophy. The _Zohar_, that farrago of absurdity and spiritual devotion, was the weapon with which these Christians defended Jewish literature against hostile ecclesiastic bodies (Abrahams, _Jew. Lit._ p. 106). Thus the Kabbalah linked the old scholasticism with the new and independent inquiries in learning and philosophy after the Renaissance, and although it had evolved a remarkably bizarre conception of the universe, it partly anticipated, in its own way, the scientific study of natural philosophy.[11] Jewish theosophy, then, with its good and evil tendencies, and with its varied results, may thus claim to have played no unimportant part in the history of European scholarship and thought.
The main sources to be noticed are:--
Main Sources.
1. The _Sepher Yesirah_, or "book of creation," not the old Hilkoth Y. ("rules of creation"), which belongs to the Talmudic period (on which see Kohler, _Jew. Ency._ xii. 602 seq.), but a later treatise, a combination of medieval natural philosophy and mysticism. It has been variously ascribed to the patriarch Abraham and to the illustrious rabbi 'Aqiba; its essential elements, however, maybe of the 3rd or 4th century A.D., and it is apparently earlier than the 9th (see L. Ginzberg, _op. cit._ 603 sqq.). It has "had a greater influence on the development of the Jewish mind than almost any other book after the completion of the Talmud" (ibid.).
2. The _Bahir_ ("brilliant," Job. xxxvii. 21), though ascribed to Nehunyah b. Haqqanah (1st century A.D.), is first quoted by Nahmanides, and is now attributed to his teacher Ezra or Azriel (1160-1238). It shows the influence of the _Sepher Yesirah_, is marked by the teaching of a celestial Trinity, is a rough outline of what the _Zohar_ was destined to be, and gave the first opening to a thorough study of metaphysics among the Jews. (See further 1. Broyde, _Jew. Ency._ ii. 442 seq.).
3. The _Zohar_ ("shining," Dan. xii. 3) is a commentary on the Pentateuch, according to its division into fifty-two hebdomadal lessons. It begins with the exposition of Gen. i. 4 ("let there be light") and includes eleven dissertations: (1) "Additions and Supplements"; (2) "The Mansions and Abodes," describing the structure of paradise and hell; (3) "The Mysteries of the Pentateuch," describing the evolution of the Sephiroth, &c.; (4) "The Hidden Interpretation," deducing esoteric doctrine from the narratives in the Pentateuch; (5) "The Faithful Shepherd," recording discussions between Moses the faithful shepherd, the prophet Elijah and R. Simon b. Yohai, the reputed compiler of the _Zohar_; (6) "The Secret of Secrets," a treatise on physiognomy and psychology; (7) "The Aged," i.e. the prophet Elijah, discoursing with R. Simon on the doctrine of transmigration as evolved from Exod. xxi. 1-xxiv. 18; (8) "The Book of Secrets," discourses on cosmogony and demonology; (9) "The Great Assembly," discourses of R. Simon to his numerous assembly of disciples on the form of the Deity and on pneumatology; (10) "The Young Man," discourses by young men of superhuman origin on the mysteries of ablutions; and (11) "The Small Assembly," containing the discourses on the Sephiroth which R. Simon delivered to the small congregation of six surviving disciples. The _Zohar_ pretends to be a compilation made by Simon b. Yohai (the second century A.D.) of doctrines which God communicated to Adam in Paradise, and which have been received uninterruptedly from the mouths of the patriarchs and prophets. It was discovered, so the story went, in a cavern in Galilee where it had been hidden for a thousand years. Amongst the many facts, however, established by modern criticism which prove the _Zohar_ to be a compilation of the 13th century, are the following: (1) the _Zohar_ itself praises most fulsomely R. Simon, its reputed author, and exalts him above Moses; (2) it mystically explains the Hebrew vowel points, which did not obtain till 570; (3) the compiler borrows two verses from the celebrated hymn called "The Royal Diadem," written by Ibn Gabirol, who was born about 1021; (4) it mentions the capture of Jerusalem by the crusaders and the re-taking of the Holy City by the Saracens; (5) it speaks of the comet which appeared at Rome, 15th July 1264, under the pontificate of Urban IV.; (6) by a slip the _Zohar_ assigns a reason why its contents were not revealed before 5060-5066 A.M., i.e. 1300-1306 A.D., (7) the doctrine of the En Soph and the Sephiroth was not known before the 13th century; and (8) the very existence of the _Zohar_ itself was not known prior to the 13th century. Hence it is now believed that Moses de Leon (d. 1305), who first circulated and sold the _Zohar_ as the production of R. Simon, was himself the author or compiler. That eminent scholars both in the synagogue and in the church should have been induced to believe in its antiquity is owing to the fact that the _Zohar_ embodies many older opinions and doctrines, and the undoubted antiquity of some of them has served as a lever in the minds of these scholars to raise the late speculations about the En Soph, the Sephiroth, &c., to the same age.
LITERATURE.--The study of the whole subject being wrapped up with Gnosticism and Oriental theosophy, the related literature is immense. Among the more important works may be mentioned, Baron von Rosenroth's _Kabbala Denudata_ (Sulzbach, 1677-1678; Frankfort, 1684); A. Franck, _La Kabbale_ (Paris, 2nd ed., 1889; German by Jellinek, Leipzig, 1844); C. D. Ginsburg, _The Kabbalah, its Doctrines, Development and Literature_ (London, 1865); I. Meyer, _Qabbalah_ (Philadelphia, 1888); Rubin, _Kabbala und Agada_ (Vienna, 1895), _Heidentum und Kabbalah_ (1893); Karppe, _Et. sur les origines du Zohar_ (Paris, 1891); A. E. Waite, _Doctrine and Literature of the Kabbalah_ (London, 1902); Flugel, _Philosophy, Kabbala, &c._ (Baltimore, 1902); D. Neumark, _Gesch. d. Jud. Philosophie d. Mittelalters_ (Berlin, 1907); also S. A. Binion, in C. D. Warner's _World's Best Literature_, 8425 sqq. See further the very full articles in the _Jewish Ency._ by K. Kohler and L. Ginzberg ("Cabbala"), I. Broyde ("Bahir," "Zohar"), with the references. (C. D. G.; S. A. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] C. Taylor, _Sayings of the Jewish Fathers_ (1897), pp. 106 sqq., 175 seq.; W. Bacher, _Jew. Quart. Rev._ xx. 572 sqq. (1908).
[2] On the _Zohar_, "the Bible of the Kabbalists," see below.
[3] The view of a mediate creation, in the place of immediate creation out of nothing, and that the mediate beings were emanations, was much influenced by Solomon ibn Gabirol (1021-1070).
[4] See F. Weber, _Judische Theologie_ (1897), pp. 118 sqq.
[5] See C. A. Briggs, _Study of Holy Scripture_ (1899), pp. 427 sqq., 570.
[6] Even the "over-Soul" of the mystic Isaac Luria (1534-1572) is a conception known in the 3rd century A.D. (Rabbi Resh Lakish). For the early stages of Kabbalistic theories, see K. Kohler, _Jew. Ency._ iii. 457 seq., and L. Ginzberg, ibid. 459 seq.; and for examples of the relationship between old Oriental (especially Babylonian) and Jewish Kabbalistic teaching (early and late), see especially A. Jeremias, _Babylonisches in N. Test._ (Leipzig, 1905); E. Bischoff, _Bab. Astrales im Weltbilde des Thalmud u. Midrasch_ (1907).
[7] L. Ginzberg, _Jew. Ency._ iii. 465.
[8] See, especially, on the mystics of Safed in Upper Galilee, S. Schechter, _Studies_ (1908), pp. 202-285.
[9] See the instructive article by S. Schechter, _Studies in Judaism_ (London, 1896), pp. 1-55.
[10] See the discriminating estimates by S. A. Hirsch, _Jew. Quart. Rev._ xx. 50-73; I. Abrahams, _Jew. Lit._ (1906), ch. xvii.: _Judaism_ (1907), ch. vi.
[11] See, e.g., G. Margoliouth, "The Doctrine of Ether in the Kabbalah," _Jew. Quart. Rev._ xx. 828 sqq. On the influence of the Kabbalah on the Reformation, see Stockl, _Gesch. d. Philosophie des Mittelalters_, ii. 232-251.
KABINDA, a Portuguese possession on the west coast of Africa north of the mouth of the Congo. Westwards it borders the Atlantic, N. and N.E. French Congo, S. and S.E. Belgian Congo. It has a coast-line of 93 m., extends inland, at its greatest breadth, 70 m., and has an area of about 3000 sq. m. In its physical features, flora, fauna and inhabitants, it resembles the coast region of French Congo (q.v.). The only considerable river is the Chiloango, which in part forms the boundary between Portuguese and Belgian territory, and in its lower course divides Kabinda into two fairly even portions. The mouth of the river is in 5 deg. 12' S., 12 deg. 5' E. The chief town, named Kabinda, is a seaport on the right bank of the small river Bele, in 5 deg. 33' S., 12 deg. 10' E.; pop. about 10,000. From the beauty of its situation, and the fertility of the adjacent country, it has been called the paradise of the coast. The harbour is sheltered and commodious, with anchorage in four fathoms. Kabinda was formerly a noted slave mart. Farther north are the ports of Landana and Massabi. Between Kabinda and Landana is Molembo at the head of a small bay of the same name. There is a considerable trade in palm oil, ground nuts and other jungle produce, largely in the hands of British and German firms.
The possession of the enclave of Kabinda by Portugal is a result of the efforts made by that nation during the last quarter of the 19th century to obtain sovereignty over both banks of the lower Congo. Whilst Portugal succeeded in obtaining the southern bank of the river to the limit of navigability from the sea, the northern bank became part of the Congo Free State (see AFRICA, S 5). Portuguese claims to the north of the river were, however, to some extent met by the recognition of her right to Kabinda. The southernmost part of Kabinda is 25 m. (following the coast-line) north of the mouth of the Congo. This district as far north as the Chiloango river (and including the adjacent territory of Belgian Congo) is sometimes spoken of as Kacongo. The name Loango (q.v.) was also applied to this region as well as to the coast-lands immediately to the north. Administratively Kabinda forms a division of the Congo district of the province of Angola (q.v.). The inhabitants are Bantu negroes who are called Kabindas. They are an intelligent, energetic and enterprising people, daring sailors and active traders.
KABIR, the most notable of the Vaishnava reformers of religion in northern India, who flourished during the first half of the 15th century. He is counted as one of the twelve disciples of Ramanand, the great preacher in the north (about A.D. 1400) of the doctrine of _bhakti_ addressed to Rama, which originated with Ramanuja (12th century) in southern India. He himself also mentions among his spiritual forerunners Jaideo and Namdeo (or Nama) the earliest Marathi poet (both about 1250). Legend relates that Kabir was the son of a Brahman widow, by whom he was exposed, and was found on a lotus in Lahar Talao, a pond near Benares, by a Musalman weaver named 'Ali (or Nuri), who with his wife Nima adopted him and brought him up in their craft as a Musalman. He lived most of his life at Benares, and afterwards removed to Maghar (or Magahar), in the present district of Basti, where he is said to have died in 1449. There appears to be no reason to doubt that he was originally a Musalman and a weaver; his own name and that of his son Kamal are Mahommedan, not Hindu. His adhesion to the doctrine of Ramanand is not a solitary instance of the religious syncretism which prevailed at this time in northern India. The religion of the earlier Sikh _Gurus_, which was largely based upon his teaching, also aimed at the fusion of Hinduism and Islam; and the example of Malik Muhammad,[1] the author of the Padmawat, who lived a century later than Kabir, shows that the relations between the two creeds were in some cases extremely intimate. It is related that at Kabir's death the Hindus and Musalmans each claimed him as an adherent of their faith, and that when his funeral issued forth from his house at Maghar the contention was only assuaged by the appearance of Kabir himself, who bade them look under the cloth which covered the corpse, and immediately vanished. On raising the cloth they found nothing but a heap of flowers. This was divided between the rival faiths, half being buried by the Musalmans and the other half burned by the Hindus.[2]
Kabir's fame as a preacher of _bhakti_, or enthusiastic devotion to a personal God, whom he preferred to call by the Hindu names of Rama and Hari, is greater than that of any other of the Vaishnava spiritual leaders. His fervent conviction of the truth and power of his doctrine, and the homely and searching expression given to it in his utterances, in the tongue of the people and not in a learned language remote from their understanding, won for him multitudes of adherents; and his sect, the _Kabirpanthis_, is still one of the most numerous in northern India, its numbers exceeding a million. Its headquarters are the _Kabir Chaura_ at Benares, where are preserved the works attributed to Kabir (called the _Granth_), the greater part of which, however, were written by his immediate disciples and their followers in his name.
Those works which seem to have the best claim to be considered his own compositions are the _Sakhis_, or stanzas, some 5000 in number, which have a very wide currency even among those who do not formally belong to the sect, and the _Shabdawali_, consisting of a thousand "words" (_shabd_), or short doctrinal expositions. Perhaps some of the _Rekhtas_, or odes (100 in number), and of the _Ramainis_--brief mystical poems in very obscure language--may also be from his hand. Of these different forms specimens will be found translated in Professor H. H. Wilson's _Sketch of the Religious Sects of the Hindus_, i. 79-90. Besides the followers who call themselves by Kabir's name, there may be reckoned to him many other religious sects which bear that of some intermediate _guru_ or master, but substantially concur with Kabir in doctrine and practice. Such, for instance, are the _Nanakshahis_ in the United Provinces, the Central Provinces, and Bombay, and the _Dadu-panthis_, numerous in Rajputana (Wilson, _loc. cit._ pp. 103 sqq.); the Sikhs, numbering two and a half millions in the Panjab, are also his spiritual descendants, and their _Granth_ or Scripture is largely stocked with texts drawn from his works.
Kabir taught the life of _bhakti_ (faith, or personal love and devotion), the object of which is a _personal_ God, and not a philosophical abstraction or an impersonal quality-less, all-pervading spiritual substance (as in the Vedanta of Sankaracharya). His utterances do not, like those of Tulsi Das, dwell upon the incidents of the human life of Rama, whom he takes as his type of the Supreme; nevertheless, it is the essence of his creed that God became incarnate to bring salvation to His children, mankind, and that the human mind of this incarnation still subsists in the Divine Person. He proclaims the unity of the Godhead, the vanity of idols, the powerlessness of _brahmans_ or _mullas_ to guide or help, and the divine origin of the human soul, _divinae particula aurae_. All evil in the world is ascribed to _Maya_, illusion or falsehood, and truth in thought, word and deed is enjoined as the chief duty of man: "No act of devotion can equal truth; no crime is so heinous as falsehood; in the heart where truth abides there is My abode."[3] The distinctions of creeds are declared to be of no importance in the presence of God: "The city of _Hara_[4] is to the east, that of '_Ali_[5] is to the west; but explore your own heart, for there are both _Rama_ and _Karim_;"[6] "Behold but One in all things: it is the second that leads you astray. Every man and woman that has ever been born is of the same nature as yourself. _He_, whose is the world, and whose are the children of '_Ali_ and _Rama_, He is my _Guru_, He is my _Pir_." He proclaims the universal brotherhood of man, and the duty of kindness to all living creatures. Life is the gift of God, and must not be violated; the shedding of blood, whether of man or animals, is a heinous crime. The followers of Kabir do not observe celibacy, and live quiet unostentatious lives; Wilson (p. 97) compares them to Quakers for their hatred of violence and unobtrusive piety.
The resemblance of many of Kabir's utterances to those of Christ, and especially to the ideas set forth in St John's gospel, is very striking; still more so is the existence in the ritual of the sect of a sacramental meal, involving the eating of a consecrated wafer and the drinking of water administered by the _Mahant_ or spiritual superior, which bears a remarkable likeness to the Eucharist. Yet, though the deities of Hinduism and the prophet of Islam are frequently mentioned in his sayings, the name of Jesus has nowhere been found in them. It is conjectured that the doctrine of Ramanand, which came from southern India, has been influenced by the Christian settlements in that region, which go back to very early times. It is also possible that Sufiism, the pietistic (as distinguished from the theosophic) form of which seems to owe much to eastern Christianity, has contributed some echo of the Gospel to Kabir's teaching. A third (but scarcely probable) hypothesis is that the sect has borrowed both maxims and ritual, long after Kabir's own time, from the teaching of the Roman Catholic missionaries, who were established at Agra from the reign of Akbar (1556-1605) onwards.
No critical edition of the writings current under the name of Kabir has yet been published, though collections of his sayings (chiefly the _Sakhis_) are constantly appearing from Indian presses. The reader is referred, for a summary account of his life and doctrine, to H. H. Wilson's _Sketch of the Religious Sects of the Hindus_ (Works, i. 68 sqq.). Dr E. Trumpp's edition of the _Adi Granth_ (Introduction, pp. xcvii. sqq.) may also be consulted. Recent publications dealing with the subject are the Rev. G. H. Westcott's _Kabir and the Kabir Panth_ (Cawnpore, 1908), and Mr. M. A. Macauliffe's _The Sikh Religion_ (Oxford, 1909), vi. 122-316. (C. J. L.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See article HINDOSTANI LITERATURE.
[2] An exactly similar tale is told of Nanak, the first _Guru_ of the Sikhs, who died in 1538.
[3] This and the following passages in quotation marks are from Professor Wilson's translation of 100 _Sakhis_, pp. 83-90.
[4] Benares; Hara, a name of Siva.
[5] I.e. Mecca.
[6] "The Bountiful," one of the Koranic names of God (Allah).
KABUL, the capital of Afghanistan, standing at an elevation of 6900 ft. above the sea in 34 deg. 32' N. and 69 deg. 14' E. Estimated pop. (1901), 140,000. Lying at the foot of the bare and rocky mountains forming the western boundary of the Kabul valley, just below the gorge made by the Kabul River, the city extends a mile and a half east to west and one mile north to south. Hemmed in by the mountains, there is no way of extending it, except in a northerly direction towards the Sherpur cantonment. As the key of northern India, Kabul has been a city of vast importance for countless ages. It commands all the passes which here debouch from the north through the Hindu Kush, and from the west through Kandahar; and through it passed successive invasions of India by Alexander the Great, Mahmud of Ghazni, Jenghiz Khan, Baber, Nadir Shah and Ahmad Shah. Indeed from the time of Baber to that of Nadir Shah (1526-1738) Kabul was part of the empire of Delhi. It is now some 160 m. from the British frontier post of Jamrud near Peshawar.
Kabul was formerly walled; the old wall had seven gates, of which two alone remain, the Lahori and the Sirdar. The city itself is a huddle of narrow and dirty streets, with the Bala Hissar or fort forming the south-east angle, and rising about 150 ft. above the plain. The Amir's palace is situated outside the town about midway between it and the Sherpur cantonment which lies about a mile to the north-east. Formerly the greatest ornament of the city was the arcaded and roofed bazaar called _Chihar Chata_, ascribed to Ali Mardan Khan, a noble of the 17th century, who has left behind him many monuments of his munificent public spirit both in Kabul and in Hindustan. Its four arms had an aggregate length of about 600 ft., with a breadth of 30. The display of goods was remarkable, and in the evening it was illuminated. This edifice was destroyed by Sir G. Pollock on evacuating Kabul in 1842 as a record of the treachery of the city.
The tomb of the Sultan Baber stands on a slope about a mile to the west of the city in a charming spot. The grave is marked by two erect slabs of white marble. Near him lie several of his wives and children; the garden was formerly enclosed by a marble wall; a clear stream waters the flower-beds. From the hill that rises behind the tomb there is a noble prospect of his beloved city, and of the all-fruitful plain stretching to the north of it.
After the accession of Abdur Rahman in 1880 the city underwent great changes. The Bala Hissar was destroyed and has never since been entirely rebuilt, and a fortified cantonment at Sherpur (one side of which was represented by the historic Bemaru ridge) had taken the place of the old earthworks of the British occupation of 1842 which were constructed on nearly the same site. The city streets were as narrow and evil-smelling, the surrounding gardens as picturesque and attractive, and the wealth of fruit was as great, as they had been fifty years previously. The amir, however, effected many improvements. Kabul is now connected by well-planned and metalled roads with Afghan Turkestan on the west, with the Oxus and Bokhara on the north, and with India on the east. The road to India was first made by British and is now maintained by Afghan engineers. The road southwards to Ghazni and Kandahar was always naturally excellent and has probably needed little engineering, but the general principle of road-making in support of a military advance has always been consistently maintained, and the expeditions of Kabul troops to Kafiristan have been supported by a very well graded and substantially constructed road up the Kunar valley from Jalalabad to Asmar, and onwards to the Bashgol valley of Kafiristan. The city ways have been improved until it has become possible for wheeled vehicles to pass, and the various roads connecting the suburbs and the city are efficiently maintained. A purely local railway has also been introduced, to assist in transporting building material. The buildings erected by Abdur Rahman were pretentious, but unmarked by any originality in design and hardly worthy representation of the beauty and dignity of Mahommedan architecture. They included a new palace and a durbar hall, a bridge across the river and embankment, a pavilion and garden laid out around the site of Baber's tomb overlooking the Chardeh valley; and many other buildings of public utility connected with stud arrangements, the manufacture of small arms and ammunition, and the requirements of what may be termed a wholesale shop under European direction, besides hospitals, dispensaries, bazaars, &c. The new palace is within an entrenchment just outside the city. It is enclosed in a fine garden, well planted with trees, where the harem serai (or ladies' apartments) occupies a considerable space. The public portion of the buildings comprise an ornamental and lofty pavilion with entrances on each side, and a high-domed octagonal room in the centre, beautifully fitted and appointed, where public receptions take place. The durbar hall, which is a separate building, is 60 yards long by 20 broad, with a painted roof supported by two rows of pillars. But the arrangement of terraced gardens and the lightly constructed pavilion which graces the western slopes of the hills overlooking Chardeh are the most attractive of these innovations. Here, on a summer's day, with the scent of roses pervading the heated air, the cool refreshment of the passing breezes and of splashing fountains may be enjoyed by the officials of the Kabul court, whilst they look across the beauty of the thickly planted plains of Chardeh to the rugged outlines of Paghman and the snows of the Hindu Kush. The artistic taste of the landscape gardening is excellent, and the mountain scenery is not unworthy of Kashmir. It is pleasant to record that the graveyard of those officers who fell in the Kabul campaign of 1879-1880, which lies at the northern end of the Bemaru ridge, is not uncared for.
Kabul is believed to be the _Ortospanum_ or _Ortospana_ of the geographies of Alexander's march, a name conjectured to be a corruption of _Urddhasthana_, "high place." This is the meaning of the name Bala Hissar. But the actual name is perhaps also found as that of a people in this position (Ptolemy's _Kabolitae_), if not in the name of a city apparently identical with Ortospana, _Carura_, in some copies read_ Cabura_. It was invaded by the Arabs as early as the thirty-fifth year of the Hegira, but it was long before the Mahommedans effected any lasting settlement. In the early Mahommedan histories and geographies we find (according to a favourite Arabic love of jingle) _Kabul_ and _Zabul_ constantly associated. Zabul appears to have been the country about Ghazni. Kabul first became a capital when Baber made himself master of it in 1504, and here he reigned for fifteen years before his invasion of Hindustan. In modern times it became a capital again, under Timur Shah (see AFGHANISTAN), and so has continued both to the end of the Durani dynasty, and under the Barakzais, who now reign. It was occupied by Sir John Keane in 1839, General Pollock in 1842, and again by Sir Frederick, afterwards Lord Roberts, in 1879.
Kabul is also the name of the province including the city so called. It may be considered to embrace the whole of the plains called Koh Daman and Beghram, &c., to the Hindu Kush northward, with the Kohistan or hill country adjoining. Eastward it extends to the border of Jalalabad at Jagdalak; southward it includes the Logar district, and extends to the border of Ghazni; north-westward it includes the Paghman hills, and the valley of the upper Kabul river, and so to the Koh-i-Baba. Roughly it embraces a territory of about 100 m. square, chiefly mountainous. Wheat and barley are the staple products of the arable tracts. Artificial grasses are also much cultivated, and fruits largely, especially in the Koh Daman. A considerable part of the population spends the summer in tents. The villages are not enclosed by fortifications, but contain small private castles or fortalices.
See C. Yate, _Northern Afghanistan_ (1888); J. A. Gray, _At the Court of the Amir_ (1895); Sir T. H. H. Holdich, _The Indian Borderland_ (1901). (T. H. H.*)
KABUL RIVER, a river of Afghanistan, 300 m. in length. The Kabul (ancient _Kophes_), which is the most important (although not the largest) river in Afghanistan, rises at the foot of the Unai pass leading over the Sanglakh range, an offshoot of the Hindu Kush towards Bamian and Afghan Turkestan. Its basin forms the province of Kabul, which includes all northern Afghanistan between the Hindu Kush and the Safed Koh ranges. From its source to the city of Kabul the course of the river is only 45 m., and this part of it is often exhausted in summer for purposes of irrigation. Half a mile east of Kabul it is joined by the Logar, a much larger river, which rises beyond Ghazni among the slopes of the Gul Koh (14,200 ft.), and drains the rich and picturesque valleys of Logar and Wardak. Below the confluence the Kabul becomes a rapid stream with a great volume of water and gradually absorbs the whole drainage of the Hindu Kush. About 40 m. below Kabul the Panjshir river joins it; 15 m. farther the Tagao; 20 m. from the Tagao junction the united streams of Alingar and Alishang (rivers of Kafiristan); and 20 m. below that, at Balabagh, the Surkhab from the Safed Koh. Two or three miles below Jalalabad it is joined by the Kunar, the river of Chitral. Thenceforward it passes by deep gorges through the Mohmand hills, curving northward until it emerges into the Peshawar plain at Michni. Soon afterwards it receives the Swat river from the north and the Bara river from the south, and after a further course of 40 m. falls into the Indus at Attock. From Jalalabad downwards the river is navigable by boats or rafts of inflated skins, and is considerably used for purposes of commerce.
KABYLES, or KABAIL, a confederation of tribes in Algeria, Tunisia, and a few oases of the Sahara, who form a branch of the great Berber race. Their name is the Arabic _gabilat_ (pl.: _gabail_), and was at first indiscriminately applied by the Arabs to all Berber peoples. The part of Algeria which they inhabit is usually regarded as consisting of two divisions--Great Kabylia and Lesser Kabylia, the former being also known as the Kabylia of the Jurjura (also called Adrar Budfel, "Mountain of Snow"). Physically many Kabyles do not present much contrast to the Arabs of Algeria. Both Kabyle and Arab are white at birth, but rapidly grow brown through exposure to air and sunshine. Both have in general brown eyes and wavy hair of coarse quality, varying from dark brown to jet black. In stature there is perhaps a little difference in favour of the Kabyle, and he appears also to be of heavier build and more muscular. Both are clearly long-headed. Some, however, of the purer type of Kabyles in Kabylia proper have fair skins, ruddy complexions and blue or grey eyes. In fact there are two distinct types of Kabyles: those which by much admixture have approximated to Arab and negroid types, and those which preserve Libyan features. Active, energetic and enterprising, the Kabyle is to be found far from home--as a soldier in the French army, as a workman in the towns, as a field labourer, or as a pedlar or trader earning the means of purchasing his bit of ground in his native village. The Kabyles are Mahommedans of the Sunnite branch and the Malikite rite, looking to Morocco as the nearer centre of their religion. Some of the Kabyles retain their vernacular speech, while others have more or less completely adopted Arabic. The best known of the Kabyle dialects is the Zouave[1] or Igaouaouen, those speaking it having been settled on the northern side of the Jurjura at least from the time of Ibn Khaldun; it is the principal basis of Hanoteau's _Essai de grammaire kabyle_ (Paris, 1858). Unlike their southern brethren, the Kabyles have no alphabet, and their literature is still in the stage of oral transmission, for the most part by professional reciters. Hanoteau's _Poesies populaires de la Kabylie du Jurjura_ (Paris, 1867) gives the text and translation of a considerable number of historical pieces, proverbial couplets and quatrains, dancing songs, &c.
Consult General L. L. C. Faidherbe and Dr Paul Topinard, _Instructions sur l'anthropologie de l'Algerie_ (Paris, 1874); Melchior Joseph Eugene Daumas, _Le Sahara algerien_ (Paris, 1845) and _Moeurs et coutumes de l'Algerie_ (1857); De Slane's translation of Ibn Khaldun's _Hist. des Berberes_ (Algiers, 1852); Aucapitaine, _Les Kabyles et la colonie de l'Algerie_ (Paris, 1864) and _Les Beni M'zab_ (1868); L.J.A.C. Hanoteau and A. Letourneux, _La Kabylie et les coutumes kabyles_ (Paris, 1893); Charmetant, in _Jahrbucher der Verbreitung des Glaubens_ (1874); Masqueray, _Formation des cites ... de l'Algerie_ (1886); Dugas, _La Kabylie et le peuple kabyle_ (Paris, 1878); Recoux, _La Demographie de l'Algerie_ (Paris, 1880); J. Liorel, _Races berberes: les Kabyles_ (Paris, 1893); MacIver and Wilkin, _Libyan Notes_ (1901).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] From the enlistment of Kabyles speaking the Zouave dialect the Zouave regiments of the French army came to be so called.
KACH GANDAVA, or KACHHI (Kach, Kej, Kiz), a low-lying flat region in Baluchistan separating the Bugti hills from those of Kalat. It is driven, like a wedge, into the frontier mountain system and extends for 150 m. from Jacobabad to Sibi, with nearly as great a breadth at its base on the Sind frontier. Area, 5310 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 82,909. The Mula pass, which connects it with the Kalat highlands, was once (when the ancient city of Kandabel was the capital of Gandava) a much trodden trade highway, and is still a practicable route though no longer a popular one. The soil is fertile wherever it can be irrigated by the floods brought down from the surrounding hills; but much of the central portion is sandy waste. It is traversed by the North-Western railway. The climate is unhealthy in summer, when pestilential hot winds are sometimes destructive to life. The annual rainfall averages only 3 in. Kachhi, though subject to the khan of Kalat, is administered under the tribal system. There are no schools, dispensaries or gaols.
See _Baluchistan District Gazetteer_, vol. vi. (Bombay, 1907).
KACHIN HILLS, a mountainous tract in Upper Burma, inhabited by the Kachin or Chingpaw, who are known on the Assam frontier as Singphos. Owing to the great number of tribes, sub-tribes and clans of the Kachins, the part of the Kachin hills which has been taken under administration in the Myitkyina and Bhamo districts was divided into 40 Kachin hill tracts (recently reduced to five). Beyond these tracts there are many Kachins in Katha, Mong Mit and the northern Shan States. The country within the Kachin hill tracts is roughly estimated at 19,177 sq. m., and consists of a series of ranges, for the most part running north and south, and intersected by valleys, all leading towards the Irrawaddy, which drains the country. There were 64,405 Kachins enumerated at the census of 1901. Philological investigations show that it is probable that the progenitors of the Kachins or Chingpaw were the Indo-Chinese race who, before the beginnings of history, but after the Mon-Annam wave had covered Indo-China, forsook their home in western China to pour over the region where Tibet, Assam, Burma and China converge, and that the Chingpaw are the residue left round the headquarters of the Irrawaddy and the Chindwin after those branches, destined to become the Tibetans, the Nagas, the Burmans and the Kuki Chins, had gone westwards and southwards. In the middle of the 19th century the southern limit of the Kachins was 200 m. farther north than it is now. Since then the race has been drifting steadily southward and eastward, a vast aggregate of small independent clans united by no common government, but all obeying a common impulse to move outwards from their original seats along the line of least resistance. Now the Kachins are on both sides of the border of Upper Burma, and are a force to be reckoned with by frontier administrators. According to the Kachin Hill Tribes Regulation of 1895, administrative responsibility is accepted by the British government on the left bank of the Irrawaddy for the country south of the Nmaikha, and on the right bank for the country south of a line drawn from the confluence of the Malikha and Nmaikha through the northern limit of the Laban district and including the jade mines. The tribes north of this line were told that if they abstained from raiding to the south of it they would not be interfered with. South of that line peace was to be enforced and a small tribute exacted, with a minimum of interference in their private affairs. On the British side of the border the chief objects have been the disarmament of the tribes and the construction of frontier and internal roads. A light tribute is exacted.
The Kachins have been the object of many police operations and two regular expeditions: (1) Expedition of 1892-93. Bhamo was occupied by the British on the 28th of December 1885, and almost immediately trouble began. Constant punitive measures were carried on by the military police; but in December 1892 a police column proceeding to establish a post at Sima was heavily attacked, and simultaneously the town of Myitkyina was raided by Kachins. A force of 1200 troops was sent to put down the rising. The enemy received their final blow at Palap, but not before three officers were killed, three wounded, and 102 sepoys and followers killed and wounded. (2) Expedition of 1895-96. The continued misconduct of the Sana Kachins from beyond the administrative border rendered punitive measures necessary. They had remained unpunished since the attack on Myitkyina in December 1892. Two columns were sent up, one of 250 rifles from Myitkyina, the other of 200 rifles from Mogaung, marching in December 1895. The resistance was insignificant, and the operations were completely successful. A strong force of military police is stationed at Myitkyina, with several outposts in the Kachin hills, and the country is never wholly free from crimes of violence committed by the Kachins.
KADUR, a district of Mysore state, in southern India, with an area of 2813 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 362,752, showing an increase of 9% in the decade. The larger portion of the district consists of the Malnad or hill country, which contains some of the wildest mountain scenery in southern India. The western frontier is formed by the chain of the Ghats, of which the highest peaks are the Kudremukh (6215 ft.) and the Meniti Gudda (5451 ft.). The centre is occupied by the horse-shoe range of the Baba Budans, containing the loftiest mountain in Mysore, Mulaingiri (6317 ft.). The Maidan or plain country lying beneath the amphitheatre formed by the Baba Budan hills is a most fertile region, well watered, and with the famous "black cotton soil." The principal rivers are the Tunga and Bhadra, which rise near each other in the Ghats, and unite to form the Tungabhadra, a tributary of the Kistna. The eastern region is watered by the Vedavati. At the point where this river leaves the Baba Budan hills it is embanked to form two extensive tanks which irrigate the lower valley. From all the rivers water is drawn off into irrigation channels by means of anicuts or weirs. The chief natural wealth of Kadur is in its forests, which contain inexhaustible supplies of the finest timber, especially teak, and also furnish shelter for the coffee plantations. Iron is found and smelted at the foot of the hills, and corundum exists in certain localities. Wild beasts and game are numerous, and fish are abundant.
The largest town is Tarikere (pop. 10,164); the headquarters are at Chikmagalur (9515): The staple crop is rice, chiefly grown on the hill slopes, where the natural rainfall is sufficient, or in the river valley, where the fields can be irrigated. Coffee cultivation is said to have been introduced by a Mahommedan saint, Baba Budan, more than two centuries ago; but it first attracted European capital in 1840. The district is served by the Southern Mahratta railway.
KAEMPFER, ENGELBRECHT (1651-1716), German traveller and physician, was born on the 16th of November 1651 at Lemgo in Lippe-Detmold, Westphalia, where his father was a pastor. He studied at Hameln, Luneburg, Hamburg, Lubeck and Danzig, and after graduating Ph.D. at Cracow, spent four years at Konigsberg in Prussia, studying medicine and natural science. In 1681 he visited Upsala in Sweden, where he was offered inducements to settle; but his desire for foreign travel led him to become secretary to the embassy which Charles XI. sent through Russia to Persia in 1683. He reached Persia by way of Moscow, Kazan and Astrakhan, landing at Nizabad in Daghestan after a voyage in the Caspian; from Shemakha in Shirvan he made an expedition to the Baku peninsula, being perhaps the first modern scientist to visit these fields of "eternal fire." In 1684 he arrived in Isfahan, then the Persian capital. When after a stay of more than a year the Swedish embassy prepared to return, Kaempfer joined the fleet of the Dutch East India Company in the Persian Gulf as chief surgeon, and in spite of fever caught at Bander Abbasi he found opportunity to see something of Arabia and of many of the western coast-lands of India. In September 1689 he reached Batavia; spent the following winter in studying Javanese natural history; and in May 1690 set out for Japan as physician to the embassy sent yearly to that country by the Dutch. The ship in which he sailed touched at Siam, whose capital he visited; and in September 1690 he arrived at Nagasaki, the only Japanese port then open to foreigners. Kaempfer stayed two years in Japan, during which he twice visited Tokyo. His adroitness, insinuating manners and medical skill overcame the habitual jealousy and reticence of the natives, and enabled him to elicit much valuable information. In November 1692 he left Japan for Java and Europe, and in October 1693 he landed at Amsterdam. Receiving the degree of M.D. at Leiden, he settled down in his native city, becoming also physician to the count of Lippe. He died at Lemgo on the 2nd of November 1716.
The only work Kaempfer lived to publish was _Amoenitatum exoticarum politico-physico-medicarum fasciculi_ V. (Lemgo, 1712), a selection from his papers giving results of his invaluable observations in Georgia, Persia and Japan. At his death the unpublished manuscripts were purchased by Sir Hans Sloane, and conveyed to England. Among them was a _History of Japan_, translated from the manuscript into English by J. G. Scheuchzer and published at London, in 2 vols., in 1727. The original German has never been published, the extant German version being taken from the English. Besides Japanese history, this book contains a description of the political, social and physical state of the country in the 17th century. For upwards of a hundred years it remained the chief source of information for the general reader, and is still not wholly obsolete. A life of the author is prefixed to the _History_.
KAFFA, a country of N.E. Africa, part of the Abyssinian empire. Kaffa proper (formerly known also as Gomara) has an area of little more than 5000 sq. m., but the name is used in a general sense to include the neighbouring territories of Gimirra, Jimma, Ennarea, &c. In this larger acceptation Kaffa extends roughly from 6 deg. to 9 deg. N. and from 35 deg. to 37(1/2) deg. E. It forms the S.W. part of the great Abyssinian plateau and consists of broken table-land deeply scored by mountain torrents and densely wooded. The general elevation is about 8000 ft., while several peaks are over 10,000 ft. From the western slopes of the plateau descend headstreams of the Sobat. The principal river however is the Omo, the chief feeder of Lake Rudolf. Kaffa proper is believed to be the native home of the coffee plant (whence the name), which grows in profusion on the mountain sides. The principal town was Bonga, 7(1/2) deg. N., 36 deg. 12' E., a great trading centre, but the Abyssinian headquarters are at Anderacha, about 12 m. S.S.W. of Bonga. Jiren, the capital of Jimma, 60 m. N.E. of Bonga, is a still more important town, its weekly market being attended by some 20,000 persons.
A great variety of races inhabit these countries of southern Ethiopia. The Kaficho (people of Kaffa proper) are said to be of the same stock as the northern Abyssinians and to have been separated from the rest of the country by the Mahommedan invasion of the 16th century. Thus Jimma, immediately north of Kaffa proper, is peopled by Mahommedan Gallas. The Kaficho, though much mixed with Galla blood, retained their Christianity and a knowledge of Geez, the ecclesiastical tongue of Abyssinia. The ordinary language of the Kaficho has no outward resemblance to modern Abyssinian. Their speech was, however, stated by Dr C. T. Beke (c. 1850) to be cognate with the Gonga tongue, spoken in a portion of Damot, on the northern side of the Abai. Kaffa, after having been ruled by independent sovereigns, who were also suzerains of the neighbouring states, was about 1895 conquered by the Abyssinians. The first European explorer of Kaffa was Antoine de'Abbadie, who visited it in 1843. Not until the early years of the 20th century was the country accurately mapped.
KAFFIR BREAD, in botany, the popular name for a species of _Encephalartos_ (_E. caffra_), one of the cycads, a native of South Africa, so called from the farinaceous food-stuff which is found at the apex of the stem (Gr. [Greek: en], in, [Greek: kephale], head, and [Greek: artos], bread). It is a tree reaching nearly 20 ft. in height, with very stiff, spreading pinnate leaves 3 to 4 ft. long and recurving at the tip. The species of _Encephalartos_, which are natives of tropical and South Africa, form handsome greenhouse and conservatory plants; some species are effectively used in subtropical gardening in the summer months.
KAFFIRS (Arabic _Kafir_, an unbeliever), a name given by the Arabs to the native races of the east coast of Africa. The term was current along the east coast at the arrival of the Portuguese, and passed from them to the Dutch and English, and to the natives themselves under the form of _Kafula_. There are no general or collective national names for these peoples, and the various tribal divisions are mostly designated by historical or legendary chiefs, founders of dynasties or hereditary chieftaincies. The term has no real ethnological value, for the Kaffirs have no national unity. To-day it is used to describe that large family of Bantu negroes inhabiting the greater part of the Cape, the whole of Natal and Zululand, and the Portuguese dominions on the east coast south of the Zambezi. The name is also loosely applied to any negro inhabitant of South Africa. For example, the Bechuana of the Transvaal and Orange Free State are usually called Kaffirs.
The Kaffirs are divisible into two great branches: the Ama-Zulu with the Ama-Swazi and Ama-Tonga and the Kaffirs proper, represented by the Ama-Xosa, the Tembu (q.v.) and the Pondo (q.v.). Hence the compound term Zulu-Kaffir applied in a collective sense to all the Kaffir peoples. Intermediate between these two branches were several broken tribes now collectively known as Ama-Fengu, i.e. "wanderers" or "needy" people, from _fenguza_, to seek service[1] (see FINGO).
The ramifications of the Kaffirs proper cannot be understood without reference to the national genealogies, most of the tribal names, as already stated, being those of real or reputed founders of dynasties. Thus the term Ama-Xosa means simply the "people of Xosa," a somewhat mythical chief supposed to have flourished about the year 1530. Ninth in descent from his son Toguh was Palo, who died about 1780, leaving two sons, Gcaleka and Rarabe (pronounced Kha-Kha-be), from whom came the Ama-Gcaleka, Ama-Dhlambe (T'slambies) and the Ama-Ngquika (Gaika or Sandili's people). The Pondo do not descend from Xosa, but probably from an elder brother, while the Tembu, though apparently representing a younger branch, are regarded by all the Kaffir tribes as the royal race. Hence the Gcaleka chief, who is the head of all the Ama-Xosa tribes, always takes his first or "great wife" from the Tembu royal family, and her issue alone have any claim to the succession. The subjoined genealogical tree will place Kaffir relations in a clearer light:--
Zuide (1500?), reputed founder of the nation. | +--------------------+--------+---------------+ | | | Tembu. Xosa (1530?). Mpondo. | | | Ama-Tembu Toguh. +---------+-----+ (Tambookies), | | Tembuland Palo (ob. 1780?), Ama-Mponda, Ama-Mpondumisi and Emigrant 10th in descent between river | Tembuland. from Xosa. Umtata and Abelungu | Natal. (dispersed?) | +--------------------+-------------+ | | Gcaleka. Rarabe | (Khakhabe). Klanta. | | +--------------+----------------+ Hinza. | | | | Omlao. Mbalu. Ndhlambe | | --- | Kreli. Ngqika. Ama-Mbalus. Ama-Ndhlambes ----- | Ama-Gwali. or T'slambies, Ama-Gcaleka Macomo Ama-Ntinde. between the (Galeka), | Ama-Gqunukwebi. Keiskamma and between the Tyali. Ama-Velelo. Great Kei Bashee and | Ama-Baxa. rivers. Umtata rivers. Sandili. Imi-Dange. ----- Imi-Dushane. Ama-Ngqika (Gaika), Amatola highlands. \___________________________________________/ | Ama-Khakhabe. \______________________________________________________________/ | Ama-Xosa.
It will be seen that, as representing the elder branch, the Gcaleka stand apart from the rest of Xosa's descendants, whom they group collectively as Ama-Rarabe (Ama-Khakhabe), and whose genealogies, except in the case of the Gaikas and T'slambies, are very confused. The Ama-Xosa country lies mainly between the Keiskama and Umtata rivers.
The Zulu call themselves Abantu ba-Kwa-Zulu, i.e. "people of Zulu's land," or briefly Bakwa-Zulu, from a legendary chief Zulu, founder of the royal dynasty. They were originally an obscure tribe occupying the basin of the Umfolosi river, but rose suddenly to power under Chaka,[2] who had been brought up among the neighbouring and powerful Umtetwas, and who succeeded the chiefs of that tribe and of his own in the beginning of the 19th century. But the true mother tribe seems to have been the extinct Ama-Ntombela, whence the Ama-Tefulu, the U'ndwande, U'mlelas, U'mtetwas and many others, all absorbed or claiming to be true Zulus. But they are only so by political subjection, and the gradual adoption of the Zulu dress, usages and speech. Hence in most cases the term Zulu implies political rather than blood relationship. This remark applies also to the followers of Mosilikatze (properly Umsilikazi), who, after a fierce struggle with the Bechuana, founded about 1820 a second Zulu state about the head waters of the Orange river. In 1837 most of them were driven northwards by the Boers and are now known as Matabele.
The origin of the Zulu-Kaffir race has given rise to much controversy. It is obvious that they are not the aborigines of their present domain, whence in comparatively recent times--since the beginning of the 16th century--they have displaced the Hottentots and Bushmen of fundamentally distinct stock. They themselves are conscious of their foreign origin. Yet they are closely allied in speech (see BANTU LANGUAGES) and physique to the surrounding Basuto, Bechuana and other members of the great South African Negroid family. Hence their appearance in the south-east corner of the continent is sufficiently explained by the gradual onward movement of the populations pressing southward on the Hottentot and Bushman domain. The specific differences in speech and appearance by which they are distinguished from the other branches of the family must in the same way be explained by the altered conditions of their new habitat. Hence it is that the farther they have penetrated southwards the farther have they become differentiated from the pure Negro type. Thus the light and clear brown complexion prevalent amongst the southern Tembu becomes gradually darker as we proceed northwards, passing at last to the blue-black and sepia of the Ama-Swazi and Tekeza. Even many of the mixed Fingo tribes are of a polished ebony colour, like that of the Jolofs and other Senegambian negroes. The Kaffir hair is uniformly of a woolly texture. The head is dolichocephalic, but it is also high or long vertically,[3] and it is in this feature of hypsistenocephaly (height and length combined) that the Kaffir presents the most striking contrast with the pure Negro. But, the nose being generally rather broad[4] and the lips thick, the Kaffir face, though somewhat oval, is never regular in the European sense, the deviations being normally in the direction of the Negro, with which race the peculiar odour of the skin again connects the Kaffirs. In stature they rank next to the Patagonians, Polynesians and West Africans, averaging from 5 ft. 9 in. to 5 ft. 11 in., and even 6 ft.[5] They are slim, well-proportioned and muscular. Owing to the hard life they lead, the women are generally inferior in appearance to the men, except amongst the Zulu, and especially the Tembu. Hence in the matrimonial market, while the Ama-Xosa girl realizes no more than ten or twelve head of cattle, the Tembu belle fetches as many as forty, and if especially fine even eighty.
The more warlike tribes were usually arrayed in leopard or ox skins, of late years generally replaced by European blankets, with feather head-dresses, coral and metal ornaments, bead armlets and necklaces. The Makua and a few others practise tattooing, and the Ama-Xosa are fond of painting or smearing their bodies with red ochre. Their arms consist chiefly of ox-hide shields 4 to 6 ft. long, the kerrie or club, and the assegai, of which there are two kinds, one long, with 9-in. narrow blade, for throwing, the other short, with broad blade 12 to 18 in. long, for stabbing. The dwellings are simple conical huts grouped in kraals or villages. Although cattle form their chief wealth, and hunting and stock-breeding their main pursuits, many have turned to husbandry. The Zulu raise regular crops of "mealies" (maize), and the Pondo cultivate a species of millet, tobacco, water melons, yams and other vegetables. Milk (never taken fresh), millet and maize form the staples of food, and meat is seldom eaten except in time of war.
A young Kaffir attains man's estate socially, not at puberty, but upon his marriage. Polygyny is the rule and each wife is regarded as adding dignity to the household. Marriage is by purchase, the price being paid in cattle. Upon the husband's death family life is continued under the headship of the eldest son of the house, the widows by virtue of levirate becoming the property of the uncle or nearest males, not sons. A son inherits and honourably liquidates, if he can, his father's debts.
Mentally the Kaffirs are superior to the Negro. In their social and political relations they display great tact and intelligence; they are remarkably brave, warlike and hospitable, and were honest and truthful until through contact with the whites they became suspicious, revengeful and thievish, besides acquiring most European vices. Of religion as ordinarily understood they have very little, and have certainly never developed any mythologies or dogmatic systems. It is more than doubtful whether they had originally formed any notion of a Supreme Being. Some conception, however, of a future state is implied by a strongly developed worship of ancestry, and by a belief in spirits and ghosts to whom sacrifices are made. There are no idols or priests, but belief in witchcraft formerly gave the "witch-doctor" or medicine-man overwhelming power.[6] Circumcision and polygyny are universal; the former is sometimes attributed to Mahommedan influences, but has really prevailed almost everywhere in East Africa from the remotest time.
Dearer than anything else to the Kaffir are his cattle; and many ceremonial observances in connexion with them were once the rule. Formerly ox-racing was a common sport, the oxen running, riderless, over a ten-mile course. The owner of a champion racing ox was a popular hero, and these racers were valued at hundreds of head of cattle. Cattle are the currency of the Kaffirs in their wild state. Ten to twenty head are the price of a wife. When a girl marries, her father (if well off) presents her with a cow from his herd. This animal is called _ubulungu_ or "doer of good" and is regarded as sacred. It must never be killed nor may its descendants, as long as it lives. A hair of its tail is tied round the neck of each child immediately after birth. In large kraals there is the "dancing-ox," usually of red colour. Its horns are trained to peculiar shapes by early mutilations. It figures in many ceremonies when it is paid a kind of knee-worship.
The Kaffirs have three, not four, seasons: "Green Heads," "Kindness" and "Cutting"; the first and last referring to the crops, the second to the "warm weather." Women and children only eat after the men are satisfied. A light beer made from sorghum is the national drink.
Of the few industries the chief are copper and iron smelting, practised by the Tembu, Zulu and Swazi, who manufacture weapons, spoons and agricultural implements both for their own use and for trade. The Swazi display some taste in wood-carving, and others prepare a peculiar water-tight vessel of grass. Characteristic of this race is their neglect of the art of navigation. Not the smallest boats are ever made for crossing the rivers, much less for venturing on the sea, except by the Makazana of Delagoa Bay and by the Zambezi people, who have canoes and flat-bottomed boats made of planks.
The Kaffir race had a distinct and apparently very old political system, which may be described as a patriarchal monarchy limited by a powerful aristocracy. Under British rule the tribal independence of the Kaffirs has disappeared. Varying degrees of autonomy have been granted, but the supreme powers of the chiefs have gone, the Swazi being in 1904 the last to be brought to order. In the Transkeian Territories tribal organization exists, but it is modified by special legislation and the natives are under the control of special magistrates. To a considerable extent in Natal and throughout Zululand the Kaffirs are placed in reserves, where tribal organization is kept up under European supervision. In Basutoland the tribal organization is very strong, and the power of chiefs is upheld by the imperial government, which exercises general supervision.
See Gustav Fritsch, _Die Eingeborenen Sudafrikas_, with atlas, 30 plates and 120 typical heads (Breslau, 1872); W. H. I. Bleek, _Comparative Grammar of the South African Languages_ (London and Cape Town, pt. i., 1862; pt. ii., 1869); Theo. Hahn, _Grundzuge einer Grammatik des Herero_ (Berlin, 1857); Dr Colenso, _Grammar of the Zulu-Kafir Language_ (1855); Girard de Rialle, _Les Peuples de l'Afrique et de l'Amerique_ (Paris, 1880); G. W. Stow, _The Native Races of South Africa_ (London, 1905); G. McC. Theal, _History and Ethnography of South Africa, 1505 to 1795_ (3 vols., London, 1907-1910) and _History of South Africa since 1795_ (5 vols., London, 1908), specially valuable for the political history of the Kaffirs; Caesar C. Henkel, _The Native or Transkeian Territories_ (Hamburg, 1903); _The Natives of South Africa_ (1901), and its sequel, _The South African Natives_ (1908); Dudley Kidd, _The Essential Kafir_ (1904) and _Kafir Socialism_. The last four books deal with the many social and economic questions raised by the contact of the Kaffir races with Europeans.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Ama-Fengu are regarded both by the Zulu and Ama-Xosa as slaves or out-castes, without any right to the privileges of true-born Kaffirs. Any tribes which become broken and mixed would probably be regarded as Ama-Fengu by the other Kaffirs. Hence the multiplicity of clans, such as the Ama-Bele, Aba-Sembotweni Ama-Zizi, Ama-Kuze, Aba-Sekunene, Ama-Ntokaze, Ama-Tetyeni Aba-Shwawa, &c., all of whom are collectively grouped as Ama-Fengu.
[2] Seventh in descent from Zulu, through Kumede, Makeba, Punga, Ndaba, Yama and Tezengakona or Senzangakona (Bleek, _Zulu Legends_).
[3] P. Topinard, _Anthropology_ (1878), p. 274.
[4] This feature varies considerably, "in the T'slambie tribes being broader and more of the Negro shape than in the Gaika or Gcaleka, while among the Ama-Tembu and Ama-Mpondo it assumes more of the European character. In many of them the perfect Grecian and Roman noses are discernible" (Fleming's _Kaffraria_, p. 92).
[5] Gustav Fritsch gives the mean of the Ama-Xosa as 1.718 metres, less than that of the Guinea Negro (1.724), but more than the English (1.708) and Scotch (1.710).
[6] Since the early years of the 19th century Protestant and Roman Catholic missions have gained hundreds of thousands of converts among the Kaffirs. Purely native Christian churches have also been organized.
KAFFRARIA, the descriptive name given to the S.E. part of the Cape province, South Africa. Kaffraria, i.e. the land of the Kaffirs (q.v.), is no longer an official designation. It used to comprise the districts now known as King William's Town and East London, which formed British Kaffraria, annexed to Cape Colony in 1865, and the territory beyond the Kei River south of the Drakensberg Mountains as far as the Natal frontier, known as Kaffraria proper. As a geographical term it is still used to indicate the Transkeian territories of the Cape provinces comprising the four administrative divisions of Transkei, Pondoland, Tembuland and Griqualand East, incorporated into Cape Colony at various periods between 1879 and 1894. They have a total area of 18,310 sq. m., and a population (1904) of 834,644, of whom 16,777 were whites. Excluding Pondoland--not counted previously to 1904--the population had increased from 487,364 in 1891 to 631,887 in 1904.
_Physical Features._--The physical characteristics of Kaffraria bear a general resemblance to those of the Cape province proper. The country rises from sea-level in a series of terraces to the rugged range of the Drakensberg. Between that range and the coast-lands are many subsidiary ranges with fertile valleys through which a large number of rivers make their way to the Indian Ocean. These rivers have very rapid falls in comparison to their length and when less than 40 m. from the coast are still 2000 ft. above sea-level. The chief, beginning at the south, are the Kei, the Bashee, the Umtata, the St John's or Umzimvubu, and the Umtamvuna, which separates Kaffraria from Natal. The St John's River rises in the Drakensberg near the Basuto-Natal frontier. The river valley has a length of 140 m., the river with its many twists being double that length. It receives numerous tributaries, one, the Tsitza, possessing a magnificent waterfall, the river leaping over an almost vertical precipice of 375 ft. The St John's reaches the sea between precipitous cliffs some 1200 ft. high and covered with verdure. The mouth is obstructed by a sand bar over which there is 14 ft. of water. None of the rivers of Kaffraria except the St John's is navigable.
Kaffraria is one of the most fertile regions in South Africa. The mountain gorges abound in fine trees, thick forest and bush cover the river banks, grass grows luxuriantly in the lower regions, and the lowlands and valleys are favourable to almost any kind of fruit, field and garden cultivation. The coast districts are very hot in summer, the temperature from October to April on an average varying from 70 deg. to 90 deg. F., while in winter the day temperature is seldom below 50 deg., though the nights are very cold. But the variation in altitude places climates of all grades within easy reach, from the burning coast to the often snow-clad mountain. Thunderstorms are frequent in summer; the winters are generally dry. On the whole the climate is extremely healthy. At St John's are sulphur springs.
A considerable area is devoted to the raising of wheat and other cereals, especially in the northern district (Griqualand East), where in the higher valleys are many farms owned by Europeans. Large quantities of stock are raised. Most of the land is held by the natives under tribal tenure, and the ease with which their wants are supplied is detrimental to the full cultivation of the land. Kaffraria is, however, one of the chief recruiting grounds for labour throughout South Africa. Most of the white inhabitants are engaged in trade.
_Towns and Communication._--The chief town is Kokstad (q.v.), pop. (1904), 2903, the capital of Griqualand East. Umtata (2100 ft. above the sea, pop. 2342) on the river of the same name, capital of Tembuland, is the residence of an assistant chief magistrate, headquarters of a division of the Cape Mounted Rifles, and seat of the Anglican bishopric of Kaffraria. The principal buildings are the cathedral, a Gothic structure, built 1901-1906, and the town-hall, a fine building in Renaissance style, erected 1907-1908. Port St John is the chief town in Pondoland, and the only harbour of the country. Butterworth is the chief town in Transkei. Cala (pop. about 1000), in the N.W. part of Tembuland, is the educational centre of Kaffraria. A railway, 107 m. long, the first link in the direct Cape-Natal line, runs from Indwe, 65 m. from Sterkstroom Junction on the main line from East London to the Transvaal, to Maclear, an agricultural centre in Griqualand East. Another railway parallel but south of that described also traverses Kaffraria. Starting from Amabele, a station on the main line from East London to the north, it goes via Butterworth (132 m. from East London) to Umtata (234 m.).
_Administration and Justice._--The Cape administrative and judicial system is in force, save as modified by special enactments of the Cape parliament. A "Native Territories Penal Code" which came into operation on the 1st of January 1887 governs the relations of the natives, who are under the jurisdiction of a chief magistrate (resident at Cape Town) with subordinate magistrates in the Territories. In civil affairs the tribal organization and native laws are maintained. No chief, however, exercises criminal jurisdiction. Since 1898 certain provisions of the Glen Grey Act have been applied to Kaffraria (see GLEN GREY). The revenue is included in the ordinary budget of the Cape province. The expenditure on Kaffraria considerably exceeds the revenue derived from it. The franchise laws are the same as in the Cape proper. Though the Kaffirs outnumber the whites by fifty to one, white men form the bulk of the electorate, which in 1904 numbered 4778.
_Religion._--Numbers of Protestant missionary societies have churches and educational establishments in Kaffraria, but, except in Fingoland, the bulk of the Kaffirs are heathen. The Griquas profess Christianity and have their own churches and ministers. The Anglican diocese of St John's, Kaffraria, was founded in 1873.
_Annexation to the Cape._--The story of the conflicts between the Kaffir tribes and the Cape colonists is told under CAPE COLONY. As early as 1819 Kaffirland, or Kaffraria, was held not to extend west beyond the Keiskamma River. The region east of that river as far as the Kei River became in 1847 the Crown colony of British Kaffraria, and was annexed to Cape Colony in 1865. The Transkeian territories remained in nominal independence until 1875, when the Tembu sought British protection. An inter-tribal war in 1877 between Fingo and Gcaleka resulted in the territory of the Gcaleka chief Kreli being occupied by the British. It was not, however, till 1879 that Fingoland and the Idutywa Reserve, together with the district then commonly called Noman's-land, were proclaimed an integral part of the Cape. About this time most of the rest of Kaffraria came under British control, but it was 1885 before Gcalekaland, the coast region of Transkei, and the various districts comprising Tembuland--Bomvanaland on the coast, Tembuland Proper and Emigrant Tembuland--were annexed to the colony. By the annexation, the frontier of the colony was carried to the Umtata River, so that by 1885 only Pondoland, fronting on the Indian Ocean, separated the Cape from Natal. In Pondoland, Port St John, proclaimed British territory in 1881, was, along with the lower reaches of the St John's River, incorporated with Cape Colony in 1884; in 1886 the Xesibe country (Mount Ayliff) was annexed to the Cape and added to Griqualand East; and in the following year Rhode Valley was included within the boundary line. The rest of Pondoland, chiefly in virtue of a British protectorate established over all the coast region in 1885, was already more or less under British control, and in 1894 it was annexed to the Cape in its entirety. Thus the whole of Kaffraria was incorporated in Cape Colony, with the exception of some 1550 sq. m., then part of Noman's-land, annexed by Natal in 1866 and named Alfred county. To the wise administration of Major Sir Henry G. Elliot, who served in Kaffraria in various official capacities from 1877 to 1903, the country owes much of its prosperity.
Particulars concerning each of the four divisions of Kaffraria follow.
_Griqualand East_ (area, 7594 sq. m.), so called to distinguish it from Griqualand West, a district north of the Orange River, lies between Basutoland (N.W.), Natal (N.E.), Tembuland (S.W.) and Pondoland (S.E.). It occupies the southern slopes of the Drakensberg or the fertile valleys at their feet. It includes most of the region formerly called Noman's-land, and afterwards named Adam Kok's Land from the Griqua chief who occupied it in 1862 with the consent of the British authorities, and governed the country till his death in 1876, establishing a _volksraad_ on the Dutch model. The Griquas are still ruled by an officially appointed headman. The majority of the inhabitants are Basutos and Kaffirs (Pondomisi, Ama-Baka and other tribes). The Griquas number about 6000. Since its annexation to Cape Colony Griqualand East has made fairly rapid progress. The population rose from 121,000 in 1881 to 222,685 in 1904, of whom 5901 were whites. Stock-breeding on the uplands, tillage on the lower slopes of the Drakensberg, are the chief industries. On these slopes and uplands the climate is delightful and well suited to Europeans. There is considerable trade with Basutoland in grain and stock, and through Kokstad with Port St John and Port Shepstone, Natal. Much of the best agricultural land is owned by Europeans.
_Tembuland_ (area, 4122 sq. m.), which lies S.W. of Griqualand East and comprises the districts of Tembuland Proper, Emigrant Tembuland and Bomvanaland, takes its name from, the Tembu nation, called sometimes Tambookies, one of the most powerful of the Kaffir groups. In the national genealogies the Tembu hold an honourable position, being traditionally descended from Tembu, elder brother of Xosa, from whom most of the other Kaffirs claim descent. The inhabitants increased from about 160,000 in 1881 to 231,472 in 1904, of whom 8056 were whites. The chief town is Umtata.
_Transkei_ (area, 2552 sq. m.) comprises the districts of Fingoland, the Idutywa Reserve and Gcalekaland, this last being named from the Gcaleka nation, who claim to be the senior branch of the Xosa family, the principal royal line of the Kaffir tribes. They still form the chief element of the population, which rose from 136,000 in 1881 to 177,730 in 1904 (1707 whites). Here are some prosperous missionary stations, where the natives are taught agriculture, mechanical industries and a knowledge of letters. The heroic deeds of Hinza, Kreli and other chiefs famous in the wars are still remembered; but witchcraft, rain-making and other pagan practices seem to have died out. Even more advanced in all social respects are the Fingo, who give their name to the district of Fingoland, and also form the bulk of the population in the Idutywa Reserve. They wear European clothes, support their schools by voluntary contributions, edit newspapers, translate English poetry, set their national songs to correct music, and the majority profess Christianity. The industrial institution of Blythswood, about 20 m. N.W. of Butterworth, is a branch of Lovedale (q.v.), and is largely supported by the Fingo.
_Pondoland_ (area, 4040 sq. m.; pop. (1904), 202,757 (including 1113 whites), an estimated increase of 36,000 since 1891) is bounded E. by the sea, N. by Natal, W. by Griqualand East, by S. and Tembuland. In Pondoland the primitive organization of the natives has been little altered and the influence of the chiefs is very great. Land is held almost wholly in tribal tenure, though a number of whites possess farms acquired before the annexation of the country. The Pondo have shown some appreciation of the benefits of education.
See G. McCall Theal's _History of South Africa_ and other works cited under CAPE COLONY; also _The Native or Transkeian Territories_, by C. C. Henkel (Hamburg, 1903), a useful handbook by an ex-official in the Transkeian Territories.
KAFIRISTAN, a province of Afghanistan. Very little of this country was known with accuracy and nothing at first hand until General Sir W. (then Colonel) Lockhart headed a mission to examine the passes of the Hindu Kush range in 1885-1886. He penetrated into the upper part of the Bashgal valley, but after a few days he found himself compelled to return to Chitral. Previously Major Tanner, R.A., had sought to enter Kafiristan from Jalalabad, but sudden severe illness cut short his enterprise. M'Nair, the famous explorer of the Indian Survey department, believed that he had actually visited this little-known land during an adventurous journey which he made from India and through Chitral in disguise; but the internal evidence of his reports shows that he mistook the Kalash district of Chitral, with its debased and idolatrous population, for the true Kafiristan of his hopes. In 1889 Mr G. S. Robertson (afterwards Sir George Robertson, K.C.S.I.) was sent on a mission to Kafiristan. He only remained a few days, but a year later he revisited the country, staying amongst the Kafirs for nearly a year. Although his movements were hampered, his presence in the country being regarded with suspicion, he was able to study the people, and, in spite of intertribal jealousy, to meet members of many of the tribes. The facts observed and the information collected by him during his sojourn in eastern Kafiristan, and during short expeditions to the inner valleys, are the most trustworthy foundations of our knowledge of this interesting country.
Kafiristan, which literally means "the land of the infidel," is the name given to a tract of country enclosed between Chitral and Afghan territory. It was formerly peopled by pagan mountaineers, who maintained a wild independence until 1895, when they were finally subdued by Abdur Rahman, the amir of Kabul, who also compelled them to accept the religion of Islam. The territory thus ill named is included between 34 deg. 30' and 36 deg. N., and from about 70 deg. to 71 deg. 30' E. As the western and northern boundaries are imperfectly known, its size cannot be estimated with any certainty. Its greatest extent is from east to west at 35 deg. 10' N.; its greatest breadth is probably about 71 deg. E. The total area approximates to 5000 sq. m. Along the N. the boundary is the province of Badakshan, on the N.E. the Lutkho valley of Chitral. Chitral and lower Chitral enclose it to the E., and the Kunar valley on the S.E. Afghanistan proper supplies the S. limit. The ranges above the Nijrao and Pansher valleys of Afghanistan wall it in upon the W. The northern frontier is split by the narrow Minjan valley of Badakshan, which seems to rise in the very heart of Kafiristan.
Speaking generally, the country consists of an irregular series of main valleys, for the most part deep, narrow and tortuous, into which a varying number of still deeper, narrower and more twisted valleys, ravines and glens pour their torrent water. The mountain ranges of Metamorphic rock, which separate the main drainage valleys, are all of considerable altitude, rugged and difficult, with the outline of a choppy sea petrified. During the winter months, when the snow lies deep, Kafiristan becomes a number of isolated communities, with few if any means of intercommunication. In the whole land there is probably nothing in the shape of a plain. Much of the silent, gigantic country warms the heart as well as captivates the eye with its grandeur and varied beauty; much of it is the bare skeleton of the world wasted by countless centuries of storms and frost, and profoundly melancholy in its sempiternal ruin. Every variety of mountain scenery can be found: silent peaks and hard, naked ridges, snowfields and glaciers; mighty pine forests, wooded slopes and grazing grounds; or wild vine and pomegranate thickets bordering sparkling streams. At low elevations the hill-sides are covered with the wild olive and evergreen oaks. Many kinds of fruit trees--walnuts, mulberries, apricots and apples--grow near the villages or by the wayside, as well as splendid horse-chestnuts and other shade trees. Higher in elevation, and from 4000 to 8000 ft., are the dense pine and cedar forests. Above this altitude the slopes become dreary, the juniper, cedar and wild rhubarb gradually giving place to scanty willow patches, tamarisk and stunted birches. Over 13,000 ft. there are merely mosses and rough grass. Familiar wildflowers blossom at different heights. The rivers teem with fish. Immense numbers of red-legged partridges live in the lower valleys, as well as pigeons and doves. Gorgeously plumaged pheasants are plentiful. Of wild animals the chief are the _markhor_ (a goat) and the _oorial_ (a sheep). In the winter the former are recklessly slaughtered by hunters, being either brought to bay by trained hounds, or trapped in pits, or caught floundering in the snow-drifts; but in the summer immense herds move on the higher slopes. The _ibex_ is very rare. Bears and leopards are fairly common, as well as the smaller hill creatures.
Passes and Roads.
All the northern passes leading into Badakshan or into the Minjan valley of Badakshan seem to be over 15,000 ft. in altitude. Of these the chief are the Mandal, the Kamah (these two alone have been explored by a European traveller), the Kti, the Kulam and the Ramgal passes. Those to the east, the Chitral passes, are somewhat lower, ranging from 12,000 to 14,000 ft., e.g. the Zidig, the Shui, the Shawal and the Parpit, while the Patkun, which crosses one of the dwindled spurs near the Kunar river, is only 8400 ft. high. Between neighbouring valleys the very numerous communicating footways must rarely be lower than 10,000, while they sometimes exceed 14,000 ft. The western passes are unknown. All these toilsome paths are so faintly indicated, even when free from snow, that to adventure them without a local guide is usually unsafe. Yet the light-framed cattle of these jagged mountains can be forced over many of the worst passes. Ordinarily the herding tracks, near the crest of the ridges and high above the white torrents, are scarcely discoverable to untutored eyes. They wind and waver, rise, drop and twist about the irregular semi-precipitous slopes with baffling eccentricity and abruptness. Nevertheless the cattle nose their way along blunderingly, but without hurt. Of no less importance in the open months, and the sole trade routes during winter, are the lower paths by the river. An unguided traveller is continually at fault upon these main lines of intercourse and traffic.
Rivers.
All the rivers find their tumultuous way into the Kabul, either directly, as the Alingar at Laghman, or after commingling with the Kunar at Arundu and at Chigar-Serai. The Bashgal, draining the eastern portion of the country, empties itself into the Kunar at Arundu. It draws its highest waters from three main sources at the head of the Bashgal valley. It glides gently through a lake close to this origin, and then through a smaller tarn. The first affluent of importance is the Skorigal, which joins it above the village of Pshui. Next comes the noisier Manangal water, from the Shawal pass, which enters the main stream at Lutdeh or Bragamatal, the chief settlement of the Bashgal branch of the Katir tribe. By-and-by the main stream becomes, at the hamlet of Sunra, a raging, shrieking torrent in a dark narrow valley, its run obstructed by giant boulders and great tree-trunks. Racing past Bagalgrom, the chief village of the Madugal Kafirs, the river clamours round the great spur which, 1800 ft. higher up, gives space for the terraces and houses of Kamdesh, the headquarters of the Kam people. The next important affluent is the river which drains the Pittigal valley, its passes and branches. Also on the left bank, and still lower down, is the joining-place of the Gourdesh valley waters. Finally it ends in the Kunar just above Arundu and Birkot. The middle part of Kafiristan, including the valleys occupied by the Presun, Kti, Ashkun and Wai tribes, is drained by a river variously called the Pech, the Kamah, and the Presun or Viron River. It has been only partially explored. Fed by the fountains and snows of the upper Presun valley, it is joined at the village of Shtevgrom by the torrent from the Kamah pass. Thence it moves quietly past meadowland, formerly set apart as holy ground, watering on its way all the Presun villages. Below the last of them, with an abrupt bend, it hurries into the unexplored and rockbound Tsaru country, where it absorbs on the right hand the Kti and the Ashkun and on the left the Wai rivers, finally losing itself in the Kunar, close to Chigar-Serai. Concerning the Alingar or Kao, which carries the drainage of western Kafiristan into the Kabul at Laghman, there are no trustworthy details. It is formed from the waters of all the valleys inhabited by the Ramgal Kafirs, and by that small branch of the Katirs known as the Kalam tribe.
Climate.
The climate varies with the altitude, but in the summer-time it is hot at all elevations. In the higher valleys the winter is rigorous. Snow falls heavily everywhere over 4000 ft. above the sea-level. During the winter of 1890-1891 at Kamdesh (elevation 6100 ft.) the thermometer never fell below 17 deg. F. In many of the valleys the absence of wind is remarkable. Consequently a great deal of cold can be borne without discomfort. The Kunar valley, which is wet and windy in winter, but where snow, if it falls, melts quickly, gives a much greater sensation of cold than the still Kafiristan valleys of much lower actual temperature. A deficiency of rain necessitates the employment of a somewhat elaborate system of irrigation, which in its turn is dependent upon the snowfall.
The Kafirs.
The present inhabitants are probably mainly descended from the broken tribes of eastern Afghanistan, who, refusing to accept Islam (in the 10th century), were driven away by the fervid swordsmen of Mahomet. Descending upon the feeble inhabitants of the trackless slopes and perilous valleys of modern Kafiristan, themselves, most likely, refugees of an earlier date, they subjugated and enslaved them and partially amalgamated with them. These ancient peoples seem to be represented by the Presun tribe, by the slaves and by fragments of lost peoples, now known as the Jazhis and the Aroms. The old division of the tribes into the Siah-Posh, or the black-robed Kafirs, and the Safed-Posh, or the white-robed, was neither scientific nor convenient, for while the Siah-Posh have much in common in dress, language, customs and appearance, the Safed-Posh divisions were not more dissimilar from the Siah-Posh than they were from one another. Perhaps the best division at present possible is into (1) Siah-Posh, (2) Waigulis, and (3) Presungalis or Viron folk.
The Siah-Posh.
The black-robed Kafirs consist of one very large, widely spread tribe, the Katirs, and four much smaller communities, the Kam, the Madugalis, the Kashtan or Kashtoz, and the Gourdesh. Numerically, it is probable that the Katirs are more important than all the remaining tribes put together. They inhabit several valleys, each community being independent of the others, but all acknowledging the same origin and a general relationship. The Katirs fall readily into the following groups: (a) Those of the Bashgal valley, also called Kamoz and Lutdehchis, who occupy eleven villages between Badawan and Sunra, the border hamlet of the Madugal country, namely, Ptsigrom, Pshui or Pshowar, Apsai, Shidgal, Bragamatal (Lutdeh), Bajindra, Badamuk, Oulagal, Chabu, Baprok and Purstam; (b) the Kti or Katwar Kafirs, who live in two settlements in the Kti valley; (c) the Kulam people, who have four villages in the valley of the same name; (d) the Ramgalis, or Gabariks, who are the most numerous, and possess the western part on the Afghan border. Of the remaining tribes of the Siah-Posh, the chief is the Kam or Kamtoz, who inhabit the Bashgal valley, from the Madugal boundary to the Kunar valley, and its lateral branches in seven chief settlements, namely, Urmir, Kambrom or Kamdesh, Mergrom, Kamu, Sarat, Pittigal and Bazgal. The next Siah-Posh tribe in importance is the Muman or Madugal Kafirs, who have three villages in the short tract between the Katirs and the Kam in the Bashgal valley. The last Siah-Posh tribe is the Kashtan or Kashtoz, who in 1891 were all located in one greatly overcrowded village, their outlying settlement having been plundered by the Afghan tribes of the Kunar valley. One colony of Siah-Posh Kafirs lives in the Gourdesh valley; but they differ from all the other tribes, and are believed to be descended, in great part, from the ancient people called the Aroms.
The Waigulis.
Our exact knowledge of the Waigulis is scanty. They seem to be related in language and origin with a people fierce, shy and isolated, called the Ashkun, who are quite unknown. The Wai speak a tongue altogether different from that spoken by the Siah-Posh and by the Presungalis. The names of their ten chief villages are Runchi, Nishi, Jamma, Amzhi, Chimion, Kegili, Akun or Akum, Mildesh, Bargal and Prainta. Of these Amzhi and Nishi are the best known.
The Presungalis.
The Presungalis, also called Viron, live in a high valley. In all respects they differ from other Kafirs, in none more than in their unwarlike disposition. Simple, timid, stolid-featured and rather clumsy, they are remarkable for their industry and powers of endurance. They probably represent some of the earliest immigrants. Six large well-built villages are occupied by them--Shtevgrom, Pontzgrom, Diogrom, Kstigigrom, Satsumgrom and Paskigrom.
The Slaves.
The slaves are fairly numerous. Their origin is probably partly from the very ancient inhabitants and partly from war prisoners. Coarse in feature and dark in tint, they cannot be distinguished from the lowest class of freemen, while their dress is indistinctive. They are of two classes--household slaves, who are treated not unkindly; and artisan slaves, who are the skilled handicraftsmen--carvers, blacksmiths, bootmakers and so forth; many of the musicians are also slaves. They live in a particular portion of a village, and were considered to a certain extent unclean, and might not approach closely to certain sacred spots. All slaves seem to wear the Siah-Posh dress, even when they own as masters the feeble Presungal folk.
Women.
Little respect is shown to women, except in particular cases to a few of advanced years. Usually they are mistresses and slaves, saleable chattels and field-workers. Degraded, immoral, overworked and carelessly fed, they are also, as a rule, unpleasant to the sight. Little girls are sometimes quite beautiful, but rough usage and exposure to all weathers soon make their complexions coarse and dark. They are invariably dirty and uncombed. In comparison with the men they are somewhat short. Physically they are capable of enormous labour, and are very enduring. All the field-work falls to them, as well as all kinds of inferior occupations, such as load-carrying. They have no rights as against their husbands or, failing them, their male relations. They cannot inherit or possess property.
Language.
There are certainly three tongues spoken, besides many dialects, that used by the Siah-Posh being of course the most common; and although it has many dialects, the employers of one seem to understand all the others. It is a Prakritic language. Of the remaining two, the Wai and the Presun have no similarity; they are also unlike the Siah-Posh. Kafirs themselves maintain that very young children from any valley can acquire the Wai speech, but that only those born in the Presungal can ever converse in that language, even roughly. To European ears it is disconcertingly difficult, and it is perhaps impossible to learn.
Religion.
Before their conquest by Abdur Rahman all the Kafirs were idolaters of a rather low type. There were lingering traces of ancestor-worship, and perhaps of fire-worship also. The gods were numerous; tribal, family, household deities had to be propitiated, and mischievous spirits and fairies haunted forests, rivers, vales and great stones. Imra was the Creator, and all the other supernatural powers were subordinate to him. Of the inferior gods, Moni seemed to be the most ancient; but Gish, the war-god, was by far the most popular. It was his worship, doubtless, which kept the Kafirs so long independent. In life as a hero, and after death as a god, he symbolized hatred to the religion of Mahomet. Every village revered his shrine; some possessed two. Imra, Gish and Moni were honoured with separate little temples, as was usually Dizani goddess; but three or four of the others would share one between them, each looking out of a small separate square window. The worshipped object was either a large fragment of stone or an image of wood conventionally carved, with round white stones for eyes. Different animals were sacrificed at different shrines: cows to Imra, male goats and bulls to Gish, sheep to the god of wealth; but goats were generally acceptable, and were also slain ceremonially to discover a complaisant god, to solemnize a vow, to end a quarrel, to ratify brotherhood. The ministers of religion were a hereditary priest, a well-born chanter of praise, and a buffoon of low station, who was supposed to become inspired at each sacrifice, and to have the power of seeing fairies and other spirits whenever they were near, also of understanding their wishes. The blood of the offering, together with flour, wine and butter, was cast on the shrine after the animal and the other gifts had been sanctified with water sprinkled by the officiating priests, while he cried "Such, such!" ("Be pure!"). Dense clouds of smoke from burning juniper-cedar, which crackled and gave forth pungent incense, added to the spectacle, which was dignified by the bearing of the officials and solemnized by the devout responses of the congregation. There was no human sacrifice except when a prisoner of war, after a solemn service at a shrine, was taken away and stabbed before the wooden tomb of some unavenged headman. Kafirs believed in a kind of Hell where wicked people burned; but the Hereafter was an underground region entered by a guarded aperture, and inhabited by the shapes which men see in dreams. Suicide was as unknown as fear of dying. Melancholy afflicted only the sick and the bereaved. Religious traditions, miracles and anecdotes were puerile, and pointed no social lesson or any religious law. Music, dancing and songs of praise were acceptable to the gods, and every village (_grom_) had its dancing platform and dancing house (_grom ma_), furnished with a simple altar. No prayers were offered, only invocations, exhortative or remonstrant.
Tribal Organization.
The great majority of the tribes were made up of clans. A person's importance was derived chiefly from the wealth of his family and the number of male adults which it contained. The power of a family, as shown by the number and quality of its fighting men as well as by the strength of its followers, was the index of that family's influence. Weak clans and detached families, or poor but free households, carried their independence modestly. The lowest clan above the slaves sought service with their wealthier tribesmen as henchmen and armed shepherds. By intricate ceremonial, associated with complicated duties, social and religious, which extended over two years, punctuated at intervals by prodigious compulsory banquets, rich men could become elders or _jast_. Still further outlay and ostentation enabled the few who could sustain the cost to rank still higher as chief or _Mir_. Theoretically, all the important and outside affairs of the tribe were managed by the _jast_ in council; actually they were controlled by two or three of the most respected of that class. Very serious questions which inflamed the minds of the people would be debated in informal parliaments of the whole tribe. Kafirs have a remarkable fondness for discussing in conclave. Orators, consequently, are influential. The internal business of a tribe was managed by an elected magistrate with twelve assistants. It was their duty to see that the customs of the people were respected; that the proper seasons for gathering fruit were rigidly observed. They regulated the irrigation of the fields, moderating the incessant quarrels which originated in the competition for the water; and they kept the channels in good repair. Their chief, helped by contributions in kind from all householders, entertained tribal guests. He also saw that the weekly Kafir Sabbath, from the sowing to the carrying of the crops, was carefully observed, the fires kept burning, and the dancers collected and encouraged. Opposition to these annual magistrates or infraction of tribal laws was punished by fines, which were the perquisites and the payment of those officials. Serious offences against the whole people were judged by the community itself; the sentences ranged as high as expulsion from the settlement, accompanied with the burning of the culprit's house and the spoliation of his goods. In such cases, the family and the clan refusing to intervene, the offender at once became cowed into submission.
Houses and Villages.
Habitations are generally strong, and built largely of wood. They are frequently two or more storeys high, often with an open gallery at the top. Wealthy owners were fond of elaborate carving in simple designs and devices. A room is square, with a smoke-hole when possible; small windows, with shutters and bolts, and heavy doors fastened by a sliding wooden pin, are common. The nature of the ground, its defensible character, the necessity of not encroaching upon the scanty arable land, and such considerations, determine the design of the villages. Specimens of many varieties may be discovered. There is the shockingly overcrowded oblong kind, fort-shaped, three storeys high, and on a river's bank, which is pierced by an underground way leading to the water. Here all rooms look on to the large central courtyard; outwards are few or no windows. There is also the tiny hamlet of a few piled-up hovels perched on the flattish top of some huge rock, inaccessible when the ladder connecting it with the neighbouring hill-side or leading to the ground is withdrawn. Some villages on mounds are defended at the base by a circular wall strengthened with an entanglement of branches. Others cling to the knife-edged back of some difficult spur. Many are hidden away up side ravines. A few boldly rely upon the numbers of their fighting men, and are unprotected save by watch-towers. While frequently very picturesque at a distance, all are dirty and grimed with smoke; bones and horns of slaughtered animals litter the ground. The ground floor of a house is usually a winter stable for cows and the latrine, as well as the manure store for the household; the middle part contains the family treasures; on the top is the living-place. In cold valleys, such as the Presungal, the houses are often clustered upon a hillock, and penetrate into the soil to the depth of two or more apartments. Notched poles are the universal ladders and stairways.
Characteristics.
In height Kafirs average about 5 ft. 6 in. They are lean; always in hard condition; active jumpers, untiring walkers, expert mountaineers; exceptionally they are tall and heavy. With chests fairly deep, and muscular, springy legs, there is some lightness and want of power about the shoulder muscles, the arms and the hand-grasp. In complexion they are purely Eastern. Some tribes, notably the Wai, are fairer than others, but the average colour is that of the natives of the Punjab. Albinos, or red-haired people, number less than (1/2)% of the population. As a rule, the features are well-shaped, especially the nose. The glance is wild and bold, with the wide-lidded, restless gaze of the hawk; or the exact converse--a shifty, furtive peer under lowered brows. This look is rather common amongst the wealthier families and the most famous tribesmen. The shape of a man's head not uncommonly indicates his social rank. Several have the brows of thinkers and men of affairs. The degraded forms are the bird-of-prey type--low, hairy foreheads, hooked noses with receding chin, or the thickened, coarse features of the darker slave class. Intellectually they are of good average power. Their moral characteristics are passionate covetousness, and jealousy so intense that it smothers prudence. Before finally destroying, it constantly endangered their wildly cherished independence. Revenge, especially on neighbouring Kafirs, is obtained at any price. Kafirs are subtle, crafty, quick in danger and resolute, as might be expected of people who have been plunderers and assassins for centuries, whose lives were the forfeit of a fault in unflinchingness or of a moment's vacillation. Stealthy daring, born of wary and healthy nerves and the training of generations, almost transformed into an instinct, is the national characteristic. Ghastly shadows, they flitted in the precincts of hostile villages far distant from their own valleys, living upon the poorest food carried in a fetid goatskin bag; ever ready to stab in the darkness or to wriggle through apertures, to slay as they slept men, women and babies. Then, with clothing for prize, and human ears as a trophy, they sped, watchful as hares, for their far-away hills, avenger Pathans racing furiously in their track. Kafirs, most faithful to one another, never abandoned a comrade. If he were killed, they sought to carry away his head for funeral observances. As traders, though cunning enough, they are no match for the Afghan. They were more successful as brigands and blackmailers than as skilled thieves. In night robbery and in pilfering they showed little ingenuity. Truth was considered innately dangerous; but a Kafir is far more trustworthy than his Mahommedan neighbours. Although hospitality is generally viewed as a hopeful investment, it can be calculated on, and is unstinted. Kafirs are capable of strong friendship. They are not cruel, being kind to children and to animals, and protective to the weak and the old. Family ties and the claim of blood even triumph over jealousy and covetousness.
Dress, Weapons, Utensils, &c.
The national attire of the men is a badly-cured goatskin, confined at the waist by a leather belt studded with nails, supporting the I-hilted dagger, strong but clumsy, of slave manufacture, sheathed in wood covered with iron or brass, and often prettily ornamented. Women are dressed in a long, very dark tunic of wool, ample below the shoulders, and edged with red. This is fastened at the bosom by an iron pin, a thorn, or a fibula; it is gathered round the body by a woven band, an inch wide, knotted in front to dangle down in tassels. On this girdle is carried a fantastically handled knife in a leather covering. The woman's tunic is sometimes worn by men. As worn by women its shape is something between a long frock-coat and an Inverness cape. Its hue and the blackness of the hairy goatskin give the name of Siah-Posh, "black-robed," to the majority of the clans. The other tribes wear such articles of cotton attire as they can obtain by barter, by theft, or by killing beyond the border, for only woollen cloth is made in the country. Of late years long robes from Chitral and Badakshan have been imported by the wealthy, as well as the material for loose cotton trousers and wide shirts. Clothing, always hard to obtain, is precious property. Formerly little girls, the children of slaves, or else poor relations, used to be sold in exchange for clothes and ammunition. Mahommedans eagerly bought the children, which enabled them in one transaction to acquire a female slave and to convert an infidel. Men go bareheaded, which wrinkles them prematurely, or they wear Chitral caps. Certain priests, and others of like degree, wind a strip of cotton cloth round their brows. Siah-Posh women wear curious horned caps or a small square white head-dress upon informal occasions. Females of other tribes bind their heads with turbans ornamented with shells and other finery. Excellent snow gaiters are made of goat's hair for both sexes, and of woollen material for women. Boots, strongly sewn, of soft red leather cannot be used in the snow or when it is wet, because they are imperfectly tanned. For the ceremonial dances all manner of gay-coloured articles of attire, made of cheap silk, cotton velvet, and sham cloth-of-gold, are displayed, and false jewelry and tawdry ornaments; but they are not manufactured in the country, but brought from Peshawar by pedlars. Woollen blankets and goat's-hair mats cover the bedsteads--four-legged wooden frames laced across with string or leather thongs. Low square stools, 18 in. broad, made upon the same principle as the bedsteads, are peculiar to the Kafirs and their half-breed neighbours of the border. Iron tripod tables, singularly Greek in design, are fashioned in Waigul. A warrior's weapons are a matchlock (rarely a flintlock), a bow and arrows, a spear and the dagger which he never puts aside day or night. The axes, often carried, are light and weak, and chiefly indicate rank. Clubs, carefully ornamented by carving, are of little use in a quarrel; their purpose is that of a walking-stick. As they are somewhat long, these walking-clubs have been often supposed to be leaping-poles. Swords are rarely seen, and shields, carried purely for ostentation, seldom. Soft stone is quarried to make large utensils, and great grim chests of wood become grain boxes or coffins indifferently. Prettily carved bowls with handles, or with dummy spouts, hold milk, butter, water or small quantities of flour. Wine, grain, everything else, is stored or carried in goatskin bags. Musical instruments are represented by reed flageolets, small drums, primitive fiddles, and a kind of harp.
Peculiar Customs.
Isolated and at the outskirts of every village is a house used by women when menstruating and for lying-in. Children are named as soon as born. The infant is given to the mother to suckle, while a wise woman rapidly recites the family ancestral names; the name pronounced at the instant the baby begins to feed is that by which it is thereafter known. Everybody has a double name, the father's being prefixed to that given at birth. Very often the two are the same. There is a special day for the first head-shaving. No hair is allowed on a male's scalp, except from a 4-in. circle at the back of the head, whence long locks hang down straight. Puberty is attained ceremoniously by boys. Girls simply change a fillet for a cotton cap when nature proclaims womanhood. Marriage is merely the purchase of a wife through intermediaries, accompanied by feasting. Divorce is often merely a sale or the sending away of a wife to slave for her parents in shame. Sexual morality is low. Public opinion applauds gallantry, and looks upon adultery as hospitality, provided it is not discovered by the husband. If found out, _in flagrante delicto_, there is a fiscal fine in cows. There is much collusion to get this penalty paid in poor households. Funeral rites are most elaborate, according to the rank and warrior fame of the deceased, if a male, and to the wealth and standing of the family, if a woman. Children are simply carried to the cemetery in a blanket, followed by a string of women lamenting. A really great man is mourned over for days with orations, dancing, wine-drinking and food distribution. Gun-firing gives notice of the procession. After two or three days the corpse is placed in the coffin at a secluded spot, and the observances are continued with a straw figure lashed upon a bed, to be danced about, lamented over, and harangued as before. During regular intervals for business and refreshment old women wail genealogies. A year later, with somewhat similar ritual, a wooden statue is inaugurated preliminary to erection on the roadside or in the village Valhalla. The dead are not buried, but deposited in great boxes collected in an assigned place. Finery is placed with the body, as well as vessels holding water and food. Several corpses may be heaped in one receptacle, which is, rarely, ornamented with flags; its lid is kept from warping by heavy stones. The wooden statues or effigies are at times sacrificed to when there is sickness, and at one of the many annual festivals food is set before them. Among the Presungal there are none of these images. Blood-feuds within a tribe do not exist. The slayer of his fellow, even by accident, has to pay a heavy compensation or else become an outcast. Several hamlets and at least one village are peopled by families who had thus been driven forth from the community. The stigma attaches itself to children and their marriage connexions. Its outward symbol is an inability to look in the face any of the dead person's family. This avoidance is ceremonial. In private and after dark all may be good friends after a decorous interval. The compensation is seldom paid, although payment carries with it much enhancement of family dignity. All the laws to punish theft, assault, adultery and other injury are based on a system of compensation whenever possible, and of enlisting the whole of the community in all acts of punishment. Kafirs have true conceptions of justice. There is no death penalty; a fighting male is too valuable a property of the whole tribe to be so wasted. War begins honourably with proper notice, as a rule, but the murder of an unsuspecting traveller may be the first intimation. Bullets or arrow-heads sent to a tribe or village is the correct announcement of hostilities. The slaying of a tribesman need not in all cases cause a war. Sometimes it may be avoided by the sinning tribe handing over a male to be killed by the injured relations. Ambush, early morning attacks by large numbers, and stealthy killing parties of two or three are the favourite tactics. Peace is made by the sacrifice of cows handed over by the weaker tribe to be offered up to a special god of the stronger. When both sides have shown equal force and address, the same number of animals are exchanged. Field-work falls exclusively to the women. It is poor. The ploughs are light and very shallow. A woman, who only looks as if she were yoked with the ox, keeps the beast in the furrows, while a second holds the handle. All the operations of agriculture are done primitively. Grazing and dairy-farming are the real trade of the Kafirs, the surplus produce being exchanged on the frontier or sold for Kabul rupees. Herders watch their charges fully armed against marauders.
_History._--The history of Kafiristan has always been of the floating legendary sort. At the present day there are men living in Chitral and on other parts of the Kafiristan frontier who are prepared to testify as eye-witnesses to marvels observed, and also heard, by them, not only in the more remote valleys but even in the Afghan borderland itself. It is not surprising therefore that the earlier records are to a great extent fairy tales of a more or less imaginative kind and chiefly of value to those interested in folk-lore. Sir Henry Yule, a scientific soldier, a profound geographer and a careful student, as the result of his researches thought that the present Kafiristan was part of that pagan country stretching between Kashmir and Kabul which medieval Asiatics referred to vaguely as _Bilaur_, a name to be found in Marco Polo as _Bolor_. The first distinct mention of the Kafirs as a separate people appears in the history of Timur. On his march to the invasion of India the people at Andarab appealed to Timur for help against the Kator and the Siah-Posh Kafirs. He responded and entered the country of those tribes through the upper part of the Panjhir valley. It was in deep winter weather and Timur had to be let down the snows by _glissade_ in a basket guided by ropes. A detachment of 10,000 horse which he speaks of as having been sent against the Siah-Posh to his left, presumably therefore to the north, met with disaster; but he himself claims to have been victorious. Nevertheless he seems quickly to have evacuated the impracticable mountain land, quitting the country at Khawak. He caused an inscription to be carved in the defiles of Kator to commemorate his invasion and to explain its route. Inside the Kafir country on the Najil or Alishang River there is a fort still called Timur's Castle, and in the Kalam fort there is said to be a stone engraved to record that as the farthest point of his advance. In the _Memoirs_ of Baber there is mention of the Kafirs raiding into Panjhir and of their taste for drinking, every man having a leathern wine-bottle slung round his neck. The _Ain-i-Akbari_ makes occasional mention of the Kafirs, probably on the authority of the famous _Memoirs_; it also contains a passage which may possibly have originated the widespread story that the Kafirs were descendants of the Greeks. Yule however believed that this passage did not refer to the Kafirs at all, but to the claims to descent from Alexander of the rulers in Swat before the time of the Yusufzai. Many of the princelings of the little Hindu-Kush states at the present day pride themselves on a similar origin, maintaining the founders of their race to be Alexander, "the two-horned," and a princess sent down miraculously from heaven to wed him.
Benedict Goes, travelling from Peshawar to Kabul in 1603, heard of a place called _Capperstam_, where no Mahommedan might enter on pain of death. Hindu traders were allowed to visit the country, but not the temples. Benedict Goes tasted the Kafir wine, and from all that he heard suspected that the Kafirs might be Christians. Nothing more is heard of the Kafirs until 1788, when Rennell's _Memoir of a Map of Hindostan_ was published. Twenty-six years later Elphinstone's _Caubal_ was published. During the British occupation of Kabul in 1839-1840 a deputation of Kafirs journeyed there to invite a visit to their country from the Christians whom they assumed to be their kindred. But the Afghans grew furiously jealous, and the deputation was sent coldly away.
After Sir George Robertson's sojourn in the country and the visit of several Kafirs to India with him in 1892 an increasing intimacy continued, especially with the people of the eastern valleys, until 1895, when by the terms of an agreement entered into between the government of India and the ruler of Afghanistan the whole of the Kafir territory came nominally under the sway of Kabul. The amir Abdur Rahman at once set about enforcing his authority, and the curtain, partially lifted, fell again heavily and in darkness. Nothing but rumours reached the outside world, rumours of successful invasions, of the wholesale deportation of boys to Kabul for instruction in the religion of Islam, of rebellions, of terrible repressions. Finally even rumour ceased. A powerful Asiatic ruler has the means of ensuring a silence which is absolute, and nothing is ever known from Kabul except what the amir wishes to be known. Probably larger numbers of the growing boys and young men of Kafiristan are fanatical Mahommedans, fanatical with the zeal of the recent convert, while the older people and the majority of the population cherish their ancient customs in secret and their degraded religion in fear and trembling--waiting dumbly for a sign.
See Sir G. S. Robertson, _Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush_ (London, 1896). (G. S. R.)
KAGERA, a river of east equatorial Africa, the most remote headstream of the Nile. The sources of its principal upper branch, the Nyavarongo, rise in the hill country immediately east of Lake Kivu. After a course of over 400 m. the Kagera enters Victoria Nyanza on its western shore in 0 deg. 58' S. It is navigable by steamers for 70 m. from its mouth, being obstructed by rapids above that point. The river was first heard of by J. H. Speke in 1858, and was first seen (by white men) by the same traveller (Jan. 16, 1862) on his journey to discover the Nile source. Speke was well aware that the Kagera was the chief river emptying into the Victoria Nyanza and in that sense _the_ headstream of the Nile. By him the stream was called "Kitangule," _kagera_ being given as equivalent to "river." The exploration of the Kagera has been largely the work of German travellers.
See NILE; also Speke's _Discovery of the Source of the Nile_ (Edinburgh, 1863); R. Kandt's _Caput Nili_ (Berlin, 1904); and map by P. Sprigade and M. Moisel in _Grosser deutscher Kolonialatlas_, No. 16 (Berlin, 1906).
KAHLUR, or BILASPUR, a native state of India, within the Punjab. It is one of the hill states that came under British protection after the first Sikh war in 1846. The Gurkhas had overrun the country in the early part of the 19th century, and expelled the raja, who was, however, reinstated by the British in 1815. The state occupies part of the basin of the Sutlej amid the lower slopes of the Himalaya. Area, 448 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 90,873; estimated gross revenue, L10,000; tribute, L530. The chief, whose title is raja, is a Chandel Rajput. The town of Bilaspur is situated on the left bank of the Sutlej, 1465 ft. above sea-level; pop. (1901), 3192.
KAHN, GUSTAVE (1859- ), French poet, was born at Metz on the 21st of December 1859. He was educated in Paris at the Ecole des Chartes and the Ecole des langues orientales, and began to contribute to obscure Parisian reviews. After four years spent in Africa he returned to Paris in 1885, and founded in 1886 a weekly review, _La Vogue_, in which many of his early poems appeared. In the autumn of the same year he founded, with Jean Moreas and Paul Adam, a short-lived periodical, _Le Symboliste_, in which they preached the nebulous poetic doctrine of Stephane Mallarme; and in 1888 he became one of the editors of the _Revue independante_. He contributed poetry and criticism to the French and Belgian reviews favourable to the extreme symbolists, and, with Catulle Mendes, he founded at the Odeon, the Theatre Antoine and the Theatre Sarah Bernhardt, matinees for the production of the plays of the younger poets. He claimed to be the earliest writer of the _vers libre_, and explained his methods and the history of the movement in a preface to his _Premiers poemes_ (1897). Later books are _Le