KHULNA, a town and district of British India, in the Presidency division of Bengal. The town stands on the river Bhairab, and is the terminus of the Bengal Central railway, 109 m. E. of Calcutta. Pop. (1901), 10,426. It is the most important centre of river-borne trade in the delta.
The District of Khulna lies in the middle of the delta of the Ganges, including a portion of the Sundarbans or seaward fringe of swamps. It was formed out of Jessore in 1882. Area (excluding the Sundarbans), 2077 sq. m. Besides the Sundarbans, the north-east part of the district is swampy; the north-west is more elevated and drier, while the central part, though low-lying, is cultivated. The whole is alluvial. In 1901 the population was 1,253,043, showing an increase of 6% in the decade. Rice is the principal crop; mustard, jute and tobacco are also grown, and the fisheries are important. Sugar is manufactured from the date palm. The district is entered by the Bengal Central railway, but by far the greater part of the traffic is carried by water.
See District Gazetteer (Calcutta, 1908).
KHUNSAR, a town of Persia, sometimes belonging to the province of Isfahan, at others to Irak, 96 m. N.W. of Isfahan, in 33° 9′ N., 50° 23′ E., at an elevation of 7600 ft. Pop., about 10,000. It is picturesquely situated on both sides of a narrow valley through which the Khunsar River, a stream about 12 ft. wide, flows in a north-east direction to Kuom. The town and its fine gardens and orchards straggle some 6 m. along the valley with a mean breadth of scarcely half a mile. There is a great profusion of fruit, the apples yielding a kind of cider which, however, does not keep longer than a month. The climate is cool in summer and cold in winter. There are five caravanserais, three mosques and a post office.
KHURJA, a town of British India, in the Bulandshahr district of the United Provinces, 27 m. N.W. of Aligarh, near the main line of the East Indian railway. Pop. (1901), 29,277. It is an important centre of trade in grain, indigo, sugar and ghi, and has cotton gins and presses and a manufacture of pottery. Jain traders form a large and wealthy class; and the principal building in the town is a modern Jain temple, a fine domed structure richly carved and ornamented in gold and colours.
KHYBER PASS, the most important of the passes which lead from Afghanistan into India. It is a narrow defile winding between cliffs of shale and limestone 600 to 1000 ft. high, stretching up to more lofty mountains behind. No other pass in the world has possessed such strategic importance or retains so many historic associations as this gateway to the plains of India. It has probably seen Persian and Greek, Seljuk, Tatar, Mongol and Durani conquerors, with the hosts of Alexander the Great, Mahmud of Ghazni, Jenghiz Khan, Timur, Baber, Nadir Shah, Ahmed Shah, and numerous other warrior chiefs pass and repass through its rocky defiles during a period of 2000 years. The mountain barrier which separates the Peshawar plains from the Afghan highlands differs in many 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 river, through which the plateau drainage breaks down in transverse lines forming gorges and clefts as it cuts through successive ridges. West of Peshawar 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 Peshawar, and stretching along the same parallel of latitude from the meridian of Kabul to within ten miles of the Peshawar 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, under the name of the Shandur Range, unites with the Hindu Kush near the head of the Taghdumbash Pamir. The Kabul River breaks through this northern spur of the Safed Koh; 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 precipices, where its narrow waterway affords no foothold to man or beast for many miles. To reach the Kabul River within Afghan territory it is necessary to pass over this water-divide; and the Khyber stream, flowing down from the pass at Landi Kotal to a point in the plains opposite Jamrud, 9 m. W. of Peshawar, affords the opportunity.
Pursuing the main road from Peshawar to Kabul, the fort of Jamrud, which commands the British end of the Khyber Pass, lies some 11 m. W. of Peshawar. The road leads through a barren stony plain, cut up by water-courses and infested by all the worst cut-throats in the Peshawar district. Some three miles beyond Jamrud the road enters the mountains at an opening called Shadi Bagiar, and here the Khyber proper begins. The highway runs for a short distance through the bed of a ravine, and then joins the road made by Colonel Mackeson in 1839-1842, until it ascends on the left-hand side to a plateau called Shagai. From here can be seen the fort of Ali Masjid, which commands the centre of the pass, and which has been the scene of more than one famous siege. Still going westward the road turns to the right, and by an easy zigzag descends to the river of Ali Masjid, and runs along its bank. The new road along this cliff was made by the British during the Second Afghan War (1879-80), and here is the narrowest part of the Khyber, not more than 15 ft. broad, with the Rhotas hill on the right fully 2000 ft. overhead. Some three miles farther on the valley widens, and on either side lie the hamlets and some sixty towers of the Zakka Khel Afridis. Then comes the Loargi Shinwari plateau, some seven miles in length and three in its widest part, ending at Landi Kotal, where is another British fort, which closes this end of the Khyber and overlooks the plains of Afghanistan. After leaving Landi Kotal the great Kabul highway passes between low hills, until it debouches on the Kabul River and leads to Dakka. The whole of the Khyber Pass from end to end lies within the country of the Afridis, and is now recognized as under British control. From Shadi Bagiar on the east to Landi Kotal on the west is about 20 m. in a straight line.