KISHM (also Arab. Jazirat ut-tawilah, Pers. Jazarih i daraz, i.e.

See also:

• LONG, GEORGE (1800-1879)
• LONG, JOHN DAVIS (1838– )

Long

See also:

• ISLAND (O.E. ieg =isle, +land')

Island)  , an island at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, separated from the Persian mainland by the Khor-i-Jafari, a strait which at its narrowest point is less than 2 M. broad . On British Admiralty charts it figures as " Clarence Strait," the name given to it by British surveyors in 1828 in honour of the duke of Clarence (William IV.) . The island is 70 M. long, its main axis running E.N.E. by W.S.W . Its greatest breadth is 22 M. and the mean breadth about 7 M . A range of hills from 300 to 600 ft. high, with strongly marked escarpments, runs nearly parallel to -the southern coast; they are largely composed, like those of Hormuz and the neighbouring mainland, of rock salt, which is regularly quarried in several places, principally at Nimakdan (i.e. salt-cellar) and Salakh on the south coast, and forms one of the chief products of the island, finding its way to Muscat, India and Zanzibar . In the centre of the island some hills, consisting of sandstone and marl, rise to an elevation of 1300 ft . In its general aspect the island is parched and barren-looking, like the south of Persia, but it contains fertile portions, which produce grain, dates, grapes, melons, &c . Traces of naphtha were observed near Salakh, but extensive boring operations in 1892 did not lead to any result . The town of Kishm (pop . 5000) is on the eastern extremity of the island . The famous navigator, William Baffin, was killed here in January 1622 by a shot from the Portuguese castle close by, which a British force was then besieging . Lafit (Laft, Leit), the next place in importance (reduced by a British fleet in 1809), is situated about midway on the northern coast in the most fertile part of the island .

There are also many flourishing villages . At Basidu or Bassadore (correct name Baba Sa'idu), on the western extremity of the island, the British

government maintained until 1899 a sanatorium for the crews of their gunboats in the gulf, with barracks for a company of sepoys belonging to the marine battalion at Bombay, workshops, hospital, &c . The village is still British property, but its occupants are reduced to a couple of men in charge of a coal depot, a provision store and about 90 villagers . In December 1896 a terrible earthquake destroyed about four-fifths of the houses on the island and over moo persons lost their lives . The total population is generally estimated at about 15,000 to 20,000, but the German Admiralty's Segelhandbuch fur den Persischen Golf for 1907 has 40,000 . Kishm is the ancient Oaracta, or Uorochla, a name said to have survived until recently in a village called Brokt, or Brokht . It was also called the island of the Beni Kavan, from an Arab tribe of that name which came from Oman . (A . H.-S.) KISKUNFELEGYHAZ'A, a town of Hungary, in the county of Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun, 8o m . S.S.E. of Budapest by rail . Pop . (1900), 33,242 .

Among the

principal buildings are a fine town hall, a Roman Catholic gymnasium and a modern large parish church . The surrounding country is covered with vineyards, fruit gardens, and tobacco and corn fields . The town itself, which is an important railway junction, is chiefly noted for its great cattle-market . Numerous Roman urns and other ancient relics have been dug up in the vicinity . In the 17th century the town was completely destroyed by the Turks, and it was not recolonized and rebuilt till 1743 .