New volumes of the Encyclopædia Britannica > Volume 30, K-MOR

37
KHAIBAR PASS — KHAIREDDIN
:nected by rail with Vladivostock (469 miles), a' branch
railway being built from this main trunk to Port Arthur.
The thick forests surrounding the town, now cleared to
some extent, offer no facilities for agriculture, but its
position at the junction of two great rivers makes of it an
important entrepot for goods coming from the Usuri and
its tributary the Sungacha, as well as a centre of trade
.and administration. The town is built of wood, and has
a great cathedral, barracks, a corps of cadets, a monu¬
ment to Count Muravieff-Amurskiy, and large storehouses.
It has also a branch of the Russian Geographical Society,
a good museum, and a rich library, a technical railway
school, a gymnasium for girls, various primary schools, and
two philanthropic institutions. Population (1897), 15,082.
Khaibar Pass, the most important of the passes
which lead from India to Afghanistan. The mountain
barrier which separates the Peshawur plains from the
Afghan highlands differs in many radical respects from
the mountain barrier which intervenes between the Indus
plains and the plateau farther south. To the south this
barrier consists of a series of flexures folded parallel to the
•course of the river, through which the plateau drainage
breaks down in transverse lines forming gorges and clefts
as it cuts through successive ridges. West of Peshawur
the strike of the mountain systems is roughly from west
to east, and this formation is maintained with more or less
regularity as far south as the Tochi river and Waziristan.
Almost immediately west of Peshawur, and stretching
.along the same parallel of latitude from the meridian of
Kabul to within 10 miles of the Peshawur cantonment, is
the great central range of the Safed Koh, which forms
throughout its long, straight line of rugged peaks the
southern wall, or water-divide, of the Kabul river basin.
About the meridian of 71 E. it forks, sending off to
the north-east what is locally known as a spur to the
Kabul river, but which is geographically only part of that
stupendous water-divide which hedges in the Kunar and
’Chitral valleys, and which, under the name of the Shandur
range, unites with the Hindu Kush near the head of
the Taghdumbash Pamir. The Kabul river does not
really terminate this northern spur of the Safed Koh; it
breaks through it, and in breaking through it is forced
to the northward in a curved channel or trough, deeply
sunk in the mountains between terrific cliffs and preci¬
pices, where its narrow waterway affords no foothold to
man or beast for many miles. To reach the Kabul
river in the Afghan territory it is necessary to pass over
this water-divide ; and the Khaibar stream, flowing down
from the pass at Lundi Kotal to a point in the plains
opposite Jamrud, 9 miles to the west of Peshawur, affords
the opportunity.
From its commencement amongst the foothills opposite
Jamrud to the Lundi Kotal, the road (now a driving road)
follows much the same alignment as that adopted in the
first Afghan war of 1839-43. It winds amidst mountains,
and is flanked by cliffs and dominating hills throughout
its course. About half-way between Jamrud and Lundi
Kotal the hill fortress of Ali Masjid, perched on a com¬
paratively isolated spur, absolutely bars the way. It is
the key to the Khaibar; but as the road approaches, it
reaches to a height which very considerably reduces the
command of the fort, which is not quite so formidable as
it appears. From Ali Masjid to the fortified position at
Lundi Kotal the road is more open, but it is everywhere
a road of the mountains and not of the plains. At Lundi
Kotal (3600 feet) the Khaibar ends, and the drop north¬
wards to Lundi Khana and by the Okha Khwar nullah
•to Dakka and the Kabul is through Afghan territory.
The Khaibar has been adopted by the British as the main
road to Kabul, but its difficulties, before they were overcome
by British engineers, were such that it was never so re¬
garded by former rulers of India. The old road to India
left the Kabul river near its junction with the Kunar, and
crossed the great divide between the Kunar valley and
Bajaor; then it turned southwards to the plains. The
difficulty which the British authorities experienced with the
Khaibar was chiefly in maintaining and guarding it against
tribal attack. The tribes occupying the mountains which
flank it and the villages in its immediate neighbourhood are
the Zakka Khel Afridis. Farther to the north, within the
Kabul bend, and clustering in the open spaces and uplands
which lie beyond the dominating peaks of Torsappa (5350
feet), are the Mohmands, a tribe of Afghan extraction,
who as a rule give little trouble, as they possess com¬
mercial and agricultural relations in the Peshawur valley.
Of late years the Khaibar has been held by Afridi levies
drawn chiefly from other clans than the Zakka, and officered
by natives. The failure in 1896 to retain the command
of the pass, when the Zakka Afridis combined to attack
these other Afridi levies (who were unsupported by British
troops), induced the Government of India to alter this
system. The Afridi levies who defended the pass with
great courage and determination against their fellow tribes-
people were still retained as guardians of the Khaibar, but
they were commanded by British officers.
See Sir R. Warburtox. Eighteen Years in the Khaibar. London,
1900. H> H* ^
KHttiF£lg«irh, a feudatory state of India, in the
Chhattisgarh division of the Central Provinces. Area,
940 square miles; population (1881), 166,138; (1891),
181,184; average density, 199 persons per square mile.
In 1901 the population was 137,542, showing a decrease
of 24 per cent., due to the results of famine. The
estimated revenue was Rs.2,25,000; tribute, Rs.70,000.
The chief, who is descended from the old Gond royal family,
received the title of raja as a hereditary distinction in
1898. The state includes a fertile plain, yielding rice
and cotton. Its prosperity has been promoted by the
Bengal-Nagpur railway, which has a station at Dongar-
garh, connected by road with Khairagarh town, the resi¬
dence of the raja.
Khaireddin (Khair-ed-Din = “Joy of Religion”)
( 1890), Turkish statesman, was of Circassian race,
but nothing is known about his birth and parentage. In
early boyhood he was in the hands of a Tunisian slave-
dealer, by whom he was sold to Hamuda Pasha, then bey
of Tunis, who conceived a great affection for the lad, and
gave him his freedom and a French education. When
Khaireddin left school the bey made him steward of his
estates, and from this position he rose to be minister of
finance. When the prime minister, Mahmud ben Ayad,
absconded to France with the treasure-chest of the prin¬
cipality, Hamuda despatched Khaireddin on a mission to
the French Government to obtain the extradition of the
fugitive. The mission failed ; but the six years it occupied
enabled Khaireddin to make himself widely known in
France, to become acquainted with French political ideas
and administrative methods, and, on his return to Tunis,
to render himself more than ever useful to his Government.
Hamuda died while Khaireddin was in France, but he was
highly appreciated by the three beys — Ahmet (1837),
Mohammed (1855), and Sadok (1859) — who in turn
followed Hamuda, and to his influence was due the
sequence of liberal measures which distinguished their
successive reigns. But although Khaireddin’s protracted
residence in France had imbued him with liberal ideas, it
had not made him a French partisan, and he strenuously
opposed the French scheme of establishing a protectorate