The largest town is Tarikere (pop. 10,164); the headquarters are at Chikmagalur (9515): The staple crop is rice, chiefly grown on the hill slopes, where the natural rainfall is sufficient, or in the river valley, where the fields can be irrigated. Coffee cultivation is said to have been introduced by a Mahommedan saint, Baba Budan, more than two centuries ago; but it first attracted European capital in 1840. The district is served by the Southern Mahratta railway. KAEMPFER, ENGELBRECHT (1651-1716), German traveller and physician, was born on the 16th of November 1651 at Lemgo in Lippe-Detmold, Westphalia, where his father was a pastor. He studied at Hameln, Luneburg, Hamburg, Lubeck and Danzig, and after graduating Ph.D. at Cracow, spent four years at Konigsberg in Prussia, studying medicine and natural science. In 1681 he visited Upsala in Sweden, where he was offered inducements to settle; but his desire for foreign travel led him to become secretary to the embassy which Charles XI. sent through Russia to Persia in 1683. He reached Persia by way of Moscow, Kazan and Astrakhan, landing at Nizabad in Daghestan after a voyage in the Caspian; from Shemakha in Shirvan he made an expedition to the Baku peninsula, being perhaps the first modern scientist to visit these fields of "eternal fire." In 1684 he arrived in Isfahan, then the Persian capital. When after a stay of more than a year the Swedish embassy prepared to return, Kaempfer joined the fleet of the Dutch East India Company in the Persian Gulf as chief surgeon, and in spite of fever caught at Bander Abbasi he found opportunity to see something of Arabia and of many of the western coast-lands of India. In September 1689 he reached Batavia; spent the following winter in studying Javanese natural history; and in May 1690 set out for Japan as physician to the embassy sent yearly to that country by the Dutch. The ship in which he sailed touched at Siam, whose capital he visited; and in September 1690 he arrived at Nagasaki, the only Japanese port then open to foreigners. Kaempfer stayed two years in Japan, during which he twice visited Tokyo. His adroitness, insinuating manners and medical skill overcame the habitual jealousy and reticence of the natives, and enabled him to elicit much valuable information. In November 1692 he left Japan for Java and Europe, and in October 1693 he landed at Amsterdam. Receiving the degree of M.D. at Leiden, he settled down in his native city, becoming also physician to the count of Lippe. He died at Lemgo on the 2nd of November 1716.