KEYS, POWER OF THE, power claimed, according to Matt. xvi. 19, by the authorities of the Church to admit or exclude from church membership, a power the Roman Catholics allege conferred at first on St. Peter and afterwards on his successors in office.

KHAMSIN (fifty), a hot sand wind which blows in Egypt from the desert for fifty days, chiefly before and after the month of May.

KHAN, the title of a Tartar sovereign or prince; also an Eastern inn or caravansary.

KHANDESH, a district of Bombay in the valley of the Tapti; a great cotton-growing centre; Dhulia, the capital.

KHARKOFF (194), important town in Little Russia, 350 m.  NE. of Odessa; has immense horse and wool fairs, and manufactures sugar, soap, felt, and iron; it is a Greek bishopric, a university seat, and has various schools of learning.

KHARTOUM (60), a caravan depot in the Soudan, just above the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, 1100 m.  S. of Cairo; was an active slave-trade centre, and commercially important; was captured by the Mahdists in 1885, when General Gordon fell; retaken by Lord Kitchener in 1898; lately has been superseded by Omdurman on the opposite bank of the Nile.

KHATMANDU (50), the capital of Nepal, India, at the confluence of the Baghmati and Vishnumati Rivers, 60 m.  N. of the British frontier; is the centre of a considerable trade.

KHEDIVE, the official title of the Viceroy of Egypt since 1867, the first to hold it being Ismail, the son of IBRAHIM PASHA (q. v.), by grant of the Sultan, his suzerain.

KHERSON (62), on the Dnieper, 19 m. from the sea and 60 m.  E. of Odessa; capital of the Russian government of Kherson; has been surpassed in importance by Odessa; its trade is in timber, and industries are soap-making, brewing, and wool-cleansing.

KHINGANS, THE, a range of volcanic mountains on the E. of the desert of Gobi.

KHIVA (500), a Turkestan province or khanate in Central Asia, S. of the Sea of Aral; is under Russian protection since 1873; a sandy desert with many oases, and in some parts well irrigated from the Oxus; it produces wheat, rice, cotton, and fruit; climate subject to extremes.  KHIVA, the capital (20), on a canal connected with the Amu, some distance from the left bank of the Oxus, and 300 m.  NW. of Merv, is a town of earth huts; it was at one time one of the chief slave-markets in Asia till the traffic was put a stop to by Russia.

KHORASSAN, the largest province of Persia; is on the Afghan border, mountainous, and fertile only in the N. among the valleys of the Elburz range; grain, tobacco, and medicinal plants are grown; gold and silver, turquoises, and other gems found.  The capital is Meshed (50), a sacred Moslem city, with carpet, jewellery, and silk manufactures.

KHYBER PASS, a narrow defile 33 m. long, in one place only 10 ft. wide, through not lofty but precipitous mountains; lies to the NW. of Peshawur, and is the chief route between the Punjab and Afghanistan; was the scene of a British catastrophe in the war of 1839-42, but has been repeatedly forced since, and since 1879 has been under British control.