KAFIR CORN 



3198 



KAISER WILHELM CANAL 



to the tribes inhabiting Zululand, a part of 

 Portuguese East Africa, and the whole of 

 Natal. Kaffirs live in conical-shaped huts, with 

 a ground plan from fifteen to twenty feet in 

 diameter and one opening two feet high by 

 eighteen inches wide, which serves as door, 

 window and chimney. Their food is corn 

 meal mush (mealie), with an occasional addi- 

 tion of fresh beef. The men raise cattle and 

 engage in hunting, while the women of the 

 tribes do the garden and field work. Kaffirs 

 are lighter in color than the negroes, and their 

 heads are shaped more like those of Europeans. 

 See ZULULAND. 



KAFIR CORN, or KAFFIR CORN, kah'fer 

 .or kaj'ir, is a variety of sorghum, belonging 

 to the grass family. It contains no saccharine, 

 or sweetening principle, and is called grain 

 sorghum to distinguish it from the sweet sor- 

 ghums from which syrup is 

 extracted. Kafir corn was 

 first raised in the south-cen- 

 tral part of Africa, in Kaf-i 

 fraria, a region inhabited by 

 the tribe known as Kafirs. It 

 reaches a height of from five 

 to ten -feet, and bears' a heavy 

 head full of grain. It has been 

 raised in the dryer portions of 

 the United States with great 

 success and is now a staple 

 product in the West. The 

 yearly crop from American 

 farms is worth $12,000,000. 

 Kafir corn contains a large 

 percentage of starch, and is 

 desirable as a fattening food 

 for live stock. KAFIR CORN 



KAISER, ki'zer, from the Latin Caesar, in 

 reference to Caius Julius Caesar, is the German 

 word for emperor. The custom of adding Cae- 

 sar to the name of the ruling Roman sovereign 

 was legalized by Diocletian and spread to Ger- 

 many after the division of the Roman Empire. 

 Thereafter the custom languished, but was 

 revived by Charlemagne in 800. When Wil- 

 liam I of Prussia became German emperor in 

 1871 he assumed the title, which has passed 

 to his successors. In point of present-day 

 interest the most remarkable of the German 

 kaisers is William II, who came to the throne 

 in 1888. The Russian title czar comes from the 

 same root word. 



KAISER-BLUME, ki'zer bloo me, CORN- 

 FLOWER or BATCHELOR'S BUTTON, an an- 

 nual plant whose long, slender stem, from two 



to two and a half feet high, bears a shaggy, 

 ragged-looking flower, usually - a shaded-blue 

 color. In Central Europe this flower is a weed, 

 and infests the wheat fields. 



The Kaiser-blume has many stories told of 

 it. When Louise of Prussia was escaping from 

 Berlin at the advance of Napoleon's army, she 

 kept her children quiet and comfortable by 

 making chains of cornflowers for them. One 

 of the children afterward became Wilhelm I, 

 and he, in remembrance of the day, proclaimed 

 the cornflower the national flower of Germany; 

 from this incident it gets its name Kaiser- 

 blume, or Kaiser's flower. 



It is also sometimes called Centaurea, from 

 the legend that Chiron, the Centaur, healed the 

 wounds of Hercules with it. 



KAISER WILHELM, ki'zer vil' helm, 

 CANAL, more popularly known as the KIEL 

 CANAL, is a notable German waterway. It 

 extends in a southwesterly direction across the 

 lower part of the peninsula of Schleswig-Hol- 

 stein, connecting the Baltic and the North 

 seas. The length of the canal is a little over 

 sixty miles, and it shortens by 200 miles the 

 trip around Denmark. At the eastern end, 

 on the Baltic Sea, is Schonberg, close to Kiel; 

 the latter was the naval station of the former 

 German Empire. At the western end, which 

 opens into the mouth of the Elbe River, i* 





KAISER WILHELM CANAL 



Brunsbiittel, near a newer naval base at 

 Wilhelmshaven. The ports are connected by 

 rail with the large manufacturing cities of the 

 country. 



The first work on the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, 

 whose great advantage was foreseen by Bis- 



