Sea. Only part of this surface is covered with sand. There are broad expanses (takyrs) of clay soil upon which water accumulates in the spring; in the summer these are muddy, but later quite dry, and merely a few Solanaceae and bushes grow on them. There is also shor, similar to the above but encrusted with salt and gypsum, and relieved only by Solanaceae along their borders. The remainder is occupied with sand, which, according to V. Mainov, assumes five different forms. (1) Barkhans, chiefly in the east, which are mounds of loose sand, 15 to 35 ft. high, hoof-shaped, having their gently sloping convex sides turned towards the prevailing winds, and a concave side, 30° to 40° steep, on the opposite slope. They are disposed in groups or chains, and the winds drive them at an average rate of 20 ft. annually towards the south and south-east. Some grass (Stipa pennata) and bushes of saksaul (Haloxylon ammodendron) and other steppe bushes (e.g. Calligonium, Halimodendron and Atraphaxis) grow on them. (2) Mounds of sand, of about the same size, but irregular in shape and of a slightly firmer consistence, mostly bearing the same bushes, and also Artemisia and Tamarix; they are chiefly met with in the east and south. (3) A sandy desert, slightly undulating, and covered in spring with grass and flowers (e.g. tulips, Rheum, various Umbelliferae), which are soon burned by the sun; they cover very large spaces in the south-east. (4) Sands disposed in waves from 50 to 70 ft., and occasionally up to 100 ft. high, at a distance of from 200 to 400 ft. from each other; they cover the central portion, and their vegetation is practically the same as in the preceding division. (5) Dunes on the shores of the Caspian, composed of moving sands, 35 to 80 ft. high and devoid of vegetation.
A typical feature of the Kara-kum is the number of “old river beds,” which may have been either channels of tributaries of the Amu and other rivers or depressions which contained elongated salt lakes. Water is only found in wells, 10 to 20 m. apart—sometimes as much as 100 m.—which are dug in the takyrs and give saline water, occasionally unfit to drink, and in pools of rain-water retained in the lower parts of the takyrs. The population of the Kara-kum, consisting of nomad Kirghiz and Turkomans, is very small. The region in the north of the province of Syr-darya, between Lake Aral and Lake Chalkarteniz, is also called Kara-kum. (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
KARAMAN (anc. Laranda, a name still used by the Christian
inhabitants), a town in the Konia vilayet of Asia Minor, situated
in the plain north of Mount Taurus. Pop. 8000. It has few
industries and little trade, but the medieval walls, well preserved
castle and mosques are interesting, and the old Seljuk medresse,
or college, is a beautiful building. Karaman is connected with
Konia by railway, having a station on the first section of the
Bagdad railway. Little is known of its ancient history except
that it was destroyed by Perdiccas about 322 B.C., and afterwards
became a seat of Isaurian pirates. It was occupied
by Frederick Barbarossa in 1190; in 1466 it was captured by
Mahommed II., and in 1486 by Bayezid II.
KARAMANIA, formerly an independent inland province in
the south of Asia Minor, named after Karaman, the son of an
Armenian convert to Islam, who married a daughter of Ala
ed-Din Kaikobad, the Seljuk sultan of Rum, and was granted
Laranda in fief, and made governor of Selefke, 1223–1245. The
name Karaman is, however, Turkoman and that of a powerful
tribe, settled apparently near Laranda. The Armenian convert
must have been adopted into this. On the collapse of the Seljuk
empire, Karaman’s grandson, Mahmud, 1279–1319, founded a
state, which included Pamphylia, Lycaonia and large parts of
Cilicia, Cappadocia and Phrygia. Its capital, Laranda, superseded
Konia. This state was frequently at war with the kings
of Lesser Armenia, the Lusignan princes of Cyprus and the
knights of Rhodes. It was also engaged in a long struggle for
supremacy with the Osmanli Turks, which only ended in 1472,
when it was definitely annexed by Mahommed II. The Osmanlis
divided Karamania into Kharij north, and Ichili south, of
the Taurus, and restored Konia to its metropolitan position. The
name Karamania is now often given by geographers to Ichili
only; but so far as it has had any exact significance in modern
times, it has stood for the whole province of Konia. Before the
present provincial division was made (1864), Karamania was
the eyalet of which Konia was the capital, and it did not extend
to the sea, the whole littoral from Adalia eastward being under
the pasha of Adana. Nevertheless, in Levantine popular usage
at the present day, “Karamania” signifies the coast from
Adalia to Messina.
(D. G. H.)
KARAMNASA, a river of northern India, tributary to the
Ganges on its right bank, forming the boundary between Bengal
and the United Provinces. The name means “destroyer of
religious merit,” which is explained by more than one legend.
To this day all high-caste Hindus have to be carried over without
being defiled by the touch of its waters.
KARA MUSTAFA (d. 1683), Turkish vizier, surnamed “Merzifunli,”
was a son of Uruj Bey, a notable Sipahi of Merzifun
(Marsovan), and brother-in-law to Ahmed Kuprili, whom he
succeeded as grand vizier in 1676, after having for some years
held the office of Kaimmakam or locum tenens. His greed and
ostentation were equalled by his incapacity, and he behaved
with characteristic insolence to the foreign ambassadors, from
whom he extorted large bribes. After conducting a campaign
in Poland which terminated unfortunately, he gave a ready
response to the appeal for aid made by the Hungarians under
Imre Thököly (q.v.) when they rose against Austria, his hope
being to form out of the Habsburg dominions a Mussulman empire
of the West, of which he should be the sultan. The plan
was foiled in part by his own lack of military skill, but chiefly
through the heroic resistance of Vienna and its timely relief by
John Sobieski, king of Poland. Kara Mustafa paid for his
defeat with his life; he was beheaded at Belgrade in 1683 and
his head was brought to the sultan on a silver dish.
Another Kara Mustafa Pasha (d. 1643), who figures in Turkish history, was by birth a Hungarian, who was enrolled in the Janissaries, rose to be Kapudan Pasha under Murad IV., and after the capture of Bagdad was made grand vizier. He was severe, but just and impartial, and strove to effect necessary reforms by reducing the numbers of the Janissaries, improving the coinage, and checking the state expenditure. But the discontent of the Janissaries led to his dismissal and death in 1643.
KARAMZIN, NIKOLAI MIKHAILOVICH (1765–1826), Russian
historian, critic, novelist and poet, was born at the village of
Mikhailovka, in the government of Orenburg, and not at Simbirsk
as many of his English and German biographers incorrectly
state, on the 1st of December (old style) 1765. His father was an
officer in the Russian army, of Tatar extraction. He was sent
to Moscow to study under Professor Schaden, whence he afterwards
removed to St Petersburg, where he made the acquaintance
of Dmitriev, a Russian poet of some merit, and occupied
himself with translating essays by foreign writers into his native
language. After residing some time at St Petersburg, he went
to Simbirsk, where he lived in retirement till induced to revisit
Moscow. There, finding himself in the midst of the society of
learned men, he again betook himself to literary work. In 1789
he resolved to travel, and visited Germany, France, Switzerland
and England. On his return he published his Letters of a Russian
Traveller, which met with great success. These letters were first
printed in the Moscow Journal, which he edited, but were afterwards
collected and issued in six volumes (1797–1801). In the
same periodical Karamzin also published translations of some of
the tales of Marmontel, and some original stories, among which
may be mentioned Poor Liza and Natalia the Boyar’s Daughter.
In 1794 and 1795 Karamzin abandoned his literary journal, and
published a miscellany in two volumes, entitled Aglaia, in which
appeared, among other things, “The Island of Bornholm” and
“Ilia Mourometz,” a story based upon the adventures of the well-known
hero of many a Russian legend. In 1797–1799 he issued
another miscellany or poetical almanac, The Aonides, in conjunction
with Derzhávin and Dmitriev. In 1798 he compiled
The Pantheon, a collection of pieces from the works of the most
celebrated authors ancient and modern, translated into Russian.
Many of his lighter productions were subsequently printed by
him in a volume entitled My Trifles. In 1802 and 1803 Karamzin
