Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/871

K A N K A N 837 Kandahar has a stormy history. Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni tool it in the llth century from the Afghans who then held it. In tho beginning of the 13th century it was taken by Jenghiz Khan, and in the 14th by Timur. In 1507 it was captured by the empero Baber, but shortly afterwards it fell again into Afghan hands, to bt retaken by Baber in 1521. Baber s son, Humayun, agreed to cede Kandahar to Persia, but failed to keep his word, and the Persians besieged the place unsuccessfully. Thus it remained in the posses sion of the Moghuls till 1625, when it was taken by Shah Abbas Aurungzebe tried to take it in 1649 with 5000 men, but failed Another attempt in 1652 was equally unsuccessful. It remained ir Persian possession till 1709, when it was taken by the Afghans, bu: was retaken after a two years siege by Nadir Shah. Nadir Shal was assassinated in 1749, and immediately on hearing the news o his death Ahmed Shah (Abdalli) seized Nadir Shah s treasure ai Kandahar, and proclaimed himself king, with the consent, not only of the Afghans, but, strange to say, of the Hazaras and Baluchis as well. He at once changed the site of the city to its present position, and thus founded the Afghan kingdom, with modern Kandahar as its capital. Ahmed Shah died in 1773, and was succeeded by his son Taimur, who died in 1793, and left the throne to his son Zamdn Shah. This prince was deposed by his half brother Mahmud, who was in his turn deposed by Shah Suja, the full brother of Zaman Shah. After a short reign Shah Suja was compelled to abdicate from his inability to repress the rising power of Fatteh Khan, a Barakzai chief, and he took refuge first with Runjit Singh, who then ruled the Punjab, and finally secured the protection of Britisli power. _ Afghanistan was now practically dismembered. Mahmud was reinstated by Fatteh Khan, whom he appointed his vizier, and whose nephews, Dost Mahommed Khan and Kolm dil Khan, he placed respectively in the governments of Cabul and Kandahar. Fatteh Khan was barbarously murdered by Kamran (Mahmud s son) near Ghazni in 1818 ; and in retaliation Mahmud himself was driven from power, and the Barakzai clan secured the sovereignty of Afghanistan. While Dost Mahommed held Cabul, Kandahar became temporarily a sort of independent chiefship nnder two or three of his brothers. In 1839 the cause of Shah Suja was actively supported by the British. Kandahar was occupied, and Shah Suja reinstated on the throne of his ancestors. Dost Mahommed was defeated near Cabul, and after surrender to the British force, was deported into Hindustan. The British army of occupation in southern Afghanistan continued to occupy Kandahar from 1839 till the autumn of 1842, when General Nott marched on Cabul to meet Pollock s advance from Jalalabad. The cantonments near the city, built by Nott s division, were repaired and again occupied by the British army in 1879, when Shere Ali was driven from power by the invasion of Afghanistan, nor were they finally evacuated till the spring of 1881. (T. H. H.*) KANDf, a town in Murshidabad district, Bengal, India, in 23 58 N. lat., 88 5 1" E. long., with a population in 1872 of 12,016, viz., Hindus, 10, 452; Mahometans, 1516; " others," 48. It is the residence of the rajas of Pdikpara, a wealthy and devout Hindu family. The founder of this family was Ganga Govind Sinh, the bania of Warren Hastings, who was born at KAndf, and retired thither in his old age with an immense fortune, His name has acquired celebrity for the most magnificent sraddha, or funeral obsequies, ever performed in Bengal, celebrated in honour of his mother, at a cost, it is said, of 200,000. KANDY, a town of Ceylon, formerly the capital of a kingdom of the same name, situated towards the heart of the island, at a height of 1713 feet above the sea, 74| miles by rail from Colombo. It lies round the margin of an artificial lake constructed by the last king of Kandy in 1806, and is beautifully surrounded by hills. The most striking objects of interest are the temples (of which twelve are Buddhist and four Brahman), the tombs of the Kandian kings, and the various buildings of the royal residence, partly allowed to fall into disrepair, partly utilized by the Government. Of the temples the Dalada Malagawa is worthy of particular mention ; it claims, as the name indi cates, to be in possession of a Buddha tooth. Kandy is the seat of a Government agent and of a district judge, and regular sessions of the criminal court are held in the town. As a municipality (constituted in 1865, and divided into five wards in 1871) it is governed by a body of eight coun cillors. Among the public buildings and institutions are the Government house or pavilion, erected in 1824, the planters association, two libraries, an industrial school, and Trinity College, established in 1857, and reopened in 1871 after being closed for six years. The Church Missionary Society, to which the college owed its existence, began its labours in 1818. Kandy was occupied by the Portuguese in the 16th century and by the Dutch in 1763 ; but in both instances the native kings suc ceeded in shaking oil the foreign yoke. The British got possession of the place in 1803, but the garrison afterwards capitulated and were massacred, and it was not till 1814-15 that the king was defeated and dethroned. The British authority was formally estab lished by the convention of March 2, 1815. In 1848, owing to an attempt at rebellion, the town was for a time under martial law. KANE, ELISHA KENT (1820-1857), American traveller, scientist, and arctic explorer, was born in Philadelphia, on February 3, 1820, the eldest of seven children. His father was judge of the eastern district of Philadelphia, and through both parents he inherited a mixture of Irish, English, Scotch, and Dutch blood. In his boyhood, in spite of feebleness of body, he was remarkable for his activity, vivacity, and energy. While still at school he showed a fondness for out-door pastime and enterprise, and a decided leaning towards scientific pursuits. Having chosen civil engineering as a profession, he entered the university of Virginia, where he continued to show his taste for science, especially chemistry, mineralogy, and physical geography. A violent attack of heart disease, however, which stuck to him to the end of his life, induced him to abandon engineering and devote himself to the study of medicine. He obtained his doctor s degree in 1842, having already acquired a reputation in physiological research. In 1843 Kane entered the U.S. navy as surgeon, and was appointed to the " Brandywine," commissioned to carry Mr Webster as U.S. minister to China. While the vessel remained at Rio Janeiro the restless and eager Kane made a journey to the skirts of the Andes and explored their geology. Leaving the ship again at Bombay, he indulged his irrepressible exploring proclivities by a journey up country, rejoining his ship at Ceylon. On his arrival at his destination, Macao, he provided a substitute for his post in the embassy, crossed and explored the island of Luzon, visited the mysterious volcano of Tael, and, amid many difficulties, descended its steep crater, bringing up with him specimens of its lava. Finally resigning his position on the embassy, he practised for a time at Whampoa, where he was stricken down by rice fever. In August 1844 he left China, and, returning by India (where he visited the Himalayas), Persia, Syria, Egypt, Greece, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, reached home in 1846. In May of that year he was ordered to the west coast of Africa, where he visited the kingdom of Dahomey, and caught the African fever, which told severely on his constitution. On his re turn in April 1847, he exchanged the naval for the military service, and was sent to join the U.S. army in Mexico, where he had some extraordinary adventures in endeavour ing to reach his destination, and where he was again laid down with fever. In February 1849 he was presented with a sword by the city of Philadelphia, and in the same year made a visit to the Mediterranean and afterwards to the West Indies. On the fitting out of the first Grinnell ex pedition, in 1850, to search for Sir John Franklin, Kane was appointed surgeon and naturalist under Lieutenant De Haaven, who commanded the two ships, the " Advance " and "Rescue." The expedition left New York on May 22d; and after an absence of sixteen months, during nine of which the ships were ice-bound, they returned without laving found any trace of the missing vessels. Kane was n feeble health, but worked on at his narrative of the sxpedition, which was published in 1854, under the title )f The U.S. Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin. He also read a paper at the American Geo graphical Society on an " Open Polar Sea," a chimaera