Kannur

“ The Kangra Valley of the southern Punjab is in itself of great interest — a district of small broken hills usually well clothed with jungle and of rich cultivation, and presenting a great contrast to the deadly plains of the true Punjab, so close to it. The average elevation of the valley is about 2000 feet above the sea, though there are, of course, small points which exceed this by 1000 feet or so; but the feature which gives special character to this district is the great wall of the Dhaoli Dhar range, which bounds the valley on the north, and may best be called the outer Himalaya. ”

“ CONCAN, n.p. Skt. konkaṇa, [Tam. konkaṇam] , the former in the Pauranic lists the name of a people; Hind. Konkan and Kokan. The low country of Western India between the Ghauts and the sea, extending, roughly speaking, from Goa northward to Guzerat. But the modern Commissionership, or Civil Division, embraces also North Canara (south of Goa) . In medieval writings we find frequently, by a common Asiatic fashion of coupling names, Kokan- or Konkan-Tana; Tana having been a chief place and port of Konkan. ”

“ The hour to enter Kano by one of these gates is in the cool of the late afternoon, for at that time you will find that the somnolence which the excessive heat of noonday lays upon the easy-going inhabitants has lifted and that there is a great stir of joyous life about the city. The earth streets and lanes are filled with natives bent on one occupation or another, for Kano is at heart a regular hive of industry—“the great emporium of Central Africa,” as Dr. Barth described it on his travels in 1850. ”

“ In Kano itself is a great market for livestock: camels, horses, oxen, asses and goats being on sale.
Besides Hausa, who represent the indigenous population, there are large colonies of Kanuri (from Bornu) and Nupians in Kano. The Fula form the aristocratic class. The population is said to amount to 100,000. About a mile and a half east of Kano is Nassarawa, formerly the emir’s suburban residence, but since 1902 the British Residency and barracks. ”

“ But not the Kano people alone. For many centuries, for nearly 1000 years probably, the Kanawa have been famed throughout the great region comprised between the bend of the Niger and the ocean as the expert cotton manufacturers of Africa; the most interesting region in all the Dark Continent, where divers races have ceaselessly intermingled, attracted thither by its fertile soil and abundant pastures ”

“ The district of Kangra extends from the Jullundur Doab far into the southern ranges of the Himalaya. Besides some Rajput states, annexed after the Sikh wars, it includes Lahul, Spiti and Kulu, which are essentially Tibetan. The Beas is the only important river. Area, 9978 sq. m., of which Kangra proper has only 2725. Pop. (1901) , 768,124; average density 77 persons per sq. m., but with only one person per sq. m. in Spiti. Tea cultivation was introduced into Kangra about 1850. ”

“ It was nearly noon when Kanana and those who were with him went to sleep in the goat's-hair tents, leaving the whole tribe at work, packing the grain-sacks, loading the camels, and cleaning their weapons for war.
Kanana performed his mission faithfully, little dreaming that Kahled's one design in placing it in his hands was to keep him with the army for services of much greater importance. ”

“ In her presence the roughest of mankind feels softened, and his better nature seems brought to the front.
Kankan is a large town of 12,000 inhabitants. It owes its importance to its position in the centre of the rubber-growing district of Guinea. Moreover, before the appearance of the white man and the consequent development of the rubber trade, Kankan had for many years been a large native market. Probably the reason of this is that it lies on the Milo River, one of the few tributaries on this bank of the Niger which are navigable to any extent. ”

“ The lower reaches of the Kunar are wide and comparatively shallow, the river meandering in a multitude of channels through a broad and fairly open valley, well cultivated and fertile, with large flourishing villages and a mixed population of Mohmand and other tribes of Afghan origin. Here the hills to the eastward are comparatively low, though they shut in the valley closely. ”

“ Kangra is strictly a Himalayan district, but the elevation is moderate, if I remember right, about 3,000 feet, and the land is so slightly sloping it may almost be called level. A great advantage this over the steep lands, on which most of the Himalayan gardens, many in Cachar, and some in Assam and Chittagong, are planted.
Kangra is not the best place for a man who wants to make money by Tea; but for one who would be content to settle there, and content to make a livelihood by it, a more desirable spot with a more charming climate could not be found. Land, however, is not easily procured. ”

“ Kano rose to importance only after the fall of Katsena, when traders were obliged to remove the centre of their operations to this place. Inside the walls it occupies at least 10 square miles, peopled by immigrants of every race, each residing in its own quarter. Kano carries on an active trade, especially in cotton fabrics woven and dyed by the people themselves with the cotton and indigo raised on the surrounding plain, which has been called the "Garden of Sudan." ”

“ The Sapudi and Kangean archipelagoes are eastward continuations of Madura. The former, thirteen in all, with an area of 58 sq. m. and 53,000 inhabitants, export cattle, dried fish and trepang; and many of the male population work as day labourers in Java or as lumbermen in Sumbawa, Flores, &c. The main island of the Kangians has an area of 19 sq. m.; the whole group 23 sq. m. It is best known for its limestone caves and its buffaloes. Along the south coast the islands are few and small—Klapper or Deli, Trouwers or Tingal, Nusa Kembangan, Sempu and Nusa Barung. ”

“ Kano is a centre of strenuous trade, there is no dallying and chattering and laughter, no sign of the ubiquitous hawker of trifling curios, who haunts an Indian bungalow, and even squats below the verandah of a Lokoja house to-day. The wares that have been brought across the Great Desert amid perils and hazards innumerable are not to be lightly disposed of, and the fierce-eyed swaggering Arabs do most of their bartering privately within the square, dark, low buildings, over much coffee and many cigarettes. ”

“ In the bushes near this city there are many large and very venomous serpents, which destroy men by means of their breath. There are bats likewise as large as kites, which have heads like a fox and similar teeth, and the natives often eat these animals. The city of Cananore abounds in fish, flesh, and fruits, but has to import rice from other places. The king or rajah is a bramin, being one of the three kings of Malabar, but is not so rich and powerful as the zamorin, or even as the rajah of Coulan. ”

“ The extensive forests have recently been made profitable by the opening of a branch railway. The residence of the raja, who is of an old Rajput family though ruling over Gonds, is at Kanker (pop. 3906) .
KANO, one of the most important provinces of the British protectorate of Northern Nigeria. It includes the ancient emirates of Kano, Katsena, Daura and Kazaure, and covers an area of about 31,000 sq. m. The sub-province of Katagum was incorporated with Kano in 1905, and is included within this area. The population of the double province is estimated at about 2,250,000. ”

“ As the Kandahari rupee is worth about 8 annas (half an English rupee) the government thus realizes a profit of 1%. Government accounts are kept in “Kham” rupees, the “Kham” being worth about five-sixths of a Kandahari rupee; in other words, it about equals the franc, or the Persian “kran.”
Immediately to the south and west of Kandahar is a stretch of well-irrigated and highly cultivated country, but the valley of the Arghandab is the most fertile in the district, and, from the luxuriant abundance of its orchards and vineyards, offers the most striking scenes of landscape beauty. ”

“ So also the coast of Canara seems meant in the following:—
c. 1760.—"Though the navigation from the Carnatic coast to Bombay is of a very short run, of not above six or seven degrees...."—Grose, i. 232. ⁠"⁠ "The Carnatic or province of Arcot ... its limits now are greatly inferior to those which bounded the ancient Carnatic; for the Nabobs of Arcot have never extended their authority beyond the river Gondegama to the north; the great chain of mountains to the west; and the branches of the Kingdom of Trichinopoli, Tanjore, and Maissore to the south; the sea bounds it on the east."—Ibid. ”

“ The other sides of this hill and the plain leading down to the river on the east are covered with farms of Guinea corn, rice and millet. Kangaba is divided into three villages. The main one is the market for all the trade following the Bamako-Siguiri road. Between it and the Niger there are two other smaller villages. The nearest of these is the farming village, in which live many of the cultivators of the local crops. The third village is almost on the Niger banks, at least three miles from the market, and here the fisherfolk live. ”

“ And as from the Ghauts to the sea on the west of the Decan all that strip is called Concan, so from the Ghauts to the sea on the west of Canará, always excepting that stretch of 46 leagues of which we have spoken [north of Mount Dely] which belongs to the same Canará, the strip which stretches to Cape Comorin is called Malabar."—Barros, Dec. I. liv. ix. cap. 1.
1552.—"... The Kingdom of Canará, which extends from the river called Gate, north of Chaul, to Cape Comorin (so far as concerns the interior region east of the Ghats) ... and which in the east marches with the kingdom of Orisa ”

“ On the day after sailing from Cannanore we put into Mangalore, where the town, like that of Calicut, is completely hidden from the sea, the lighthouse and a few bungalows being visible on a hill in the rear. This was the dry season, and the coast of Canara was not nearly so pretty as that of Malabar, looking parched and dried up. North of Mangalore is the port of Compta, with a lighthouse on a steep conical hill, but no town visible. Compta is now the port of shipment for the cotton of Dharwar, and there were several pattamars in the anchorage, with their decks piled up with bales of cotton. ”

“ Ka-reng, [a word of which the meaning is very uncertain. It is said to mean 'dirty-feeders,' or 'low-caste people,' and it has been connected with the Kirāta tribe (see the question discussed by McMahon, The Karens of the Golden Chersonese, 43 seqq.) ] . A name applied to a group of non-Burmese tribes, settled in the forest and hill tracts of Pegu and the adjoining parts of Burma, from Mergui in the south, to beyond Toungoo in the north, and from Arakan to the Salwen, and beyond that river far into Siamese territory. They do not know the name Kareng, nor have they one name for their own race ”

“ Thus, a Malabar Tiyan, travelling to the celebrated temple at Gokarnam in South Canara, is at once asked “What is your illam and kiriyam?” He has heard these terms used in the foregoing formula during his own or another’s marriage ceremony, but attached no meaning to them. To the man of South Canara they have genuine meaning. One should be able to answer the question satisfactorily, and thus give a proper account of himself. If he cannot, he gets neither food nor water from the [43] South Canara Tiyan. ”

“ Kanyā-kubja [217] is the Sanskṛit name for the ancient city of Kanouj; (often spelt Kanoj) , once the capital of Northern India, and said to be the oldest city in India, next to Ayodhyā.
When Hiouen Thsang visited this place it was the capital of the celebrated monarch Harsha-vardhana, also called Ṡilāditya (see p. 167 of this volume) , whose kingdom extended from Kashmīr to Assam and from the river Narbadā to Nepāl. When he carried off a tooth-relic of the Buddha from Kashmīr, his procession back to his capital was attended by a large number of tributary kings. ”

“ The province of Kanó, which comprises a very fertile district of considerable extent, contains, according to my computation, more than two hundred thousand free people, besides at least an equal number of slaves; so that the whole population of the province amounts to more than half a million; though it may greatly exceed this number. The governor is able to raise an army of seven thousand horse, and more than twenty thousand men on foot. In the most flourishing state of the country, the governor of Kanó is said to have been able to bring into the field as many as ten thousand horse. ”

“ KÁNHPUR, LAKHNAO, AND ALLAHÁBÁD.
Kánhpur was the centre station in that weak middle piece of which I have written as causing so much anxiety to Lord Canning. It lies on the right bank of the river Ganges, 270 miles south-east from Dehlí, and 120 above the confluence of the Jamnah and Ganges at Allahábád. From Calcutta it is distant by rail 684 miles, somewhat more by the river route. The station is long and straggling, the houses having been erected more with the view to secure pleasant and healthy situations than for military defence. ”

“ The province of Kano is generally fertile. For a radius of 30 m. round the capital the country is closely cultivated and densely populated, with some 40 walled towns and with villages and hamlets hardly half a mile apart. Kano district proper contains 170 walled towns and about 450 villages. There are many streams, but water is chiefly obtained from wells 15 to 40 ft. deep. The principal crops are African grains, wheat, onions, cotton, tobacco, indigo, with sugar-cane, cassava, &c. The population is chiefly agricultural, but also commercial and industrial. ”