KISTNA, India, a river which separates the Deccan from southern India. It rises among the Western Ghats, 4,500 feet above sea-level, in the province of Bijapur, 42 miles from the Malabar coast, passes through Hai darabad, where it receives the Bhema on its left, and the Tungabudra on its right bank, both flowing, like it, from the Western Ghats. Previous to the junction it is commonly called the Krishna, a name which is frequently given to the whole river. The united river falls into the Bay of Bengal. Its course is estimated at 700 miles. A canal 90 miles long connects it with the Godavari River, and numerous chan nels make its waters available for irrigation purposes. The Kistna is, perhaps, richer in gems than any other river of India. In the dry season, diamonds, cat's eyes, onyxes and chalcedonies are found along its course as well as minute portions of gold.
KIT, originally that which contained tools or necessaries; hence the tools or necessaries themselves. The term, which was probably derived from the Dutch, "kit° or Middle Dutch akittie," a large bottle, beaker or decanter, has to-day various significations, among them a large bottle, wooden tub for milk, fish, butter and other household articles, a soldier's kit, a sailor's chest and contents and a shoemaker's kit; and is also used in the sense of the whole outfit, the whole amount, the whole company, as in the expression °the whole kit of them.*
Used in this way it is often employed in a deprecatory sense. As a military term kit generally signifies the more intimately related articles of a soldier such as shoes, boots, socks, shirts, undershirts, brushes, combs. The sol dier's kit weighs from 50 pounds upward, the weight depending upon whether the soldier is under ordinary or heavy marching orders. The heavy marching outfit of the British in fantry soldier is a knapsack containing shirts, extra uniform, boots, socks, brushes and a few other personal articles, mess tin, bread, rations for a certain time, generally of short duration, coat, cap, rifle, bayonet, ammunition and cart ridge belt. This outfit, however, varies, ac cording to the work for which a detachment of troops is destined for the moment. The German, Austrian and Italian soldiers are often more heavily laden than the British, they being frequently required to carry a part of a tent, and a great coat. The German, too, carried, before the outbreak of the European War, a ground sheet. But the latter war has tended to considerably change the kit of the infantry soldier under heavy marching orders and to make it somewhat more variable than it was formerly.