A great variety of races inhabit these countries of southern Ethiopia. The Kaficho (people of Kaffa proper) are said to be of the same stock as the northern Abyssinians and to have been separated from the rest of the country by the Mahommedan invasion of the 16th century. Thus Jimma, immediately north of Kaffa proper, is peopled by Mahommedan Gallas. The Kaficho, though much mixed with Galla blood, retained their Christianity and a knowledge of Geez, the ecclesiastical tongue of Abyssinia. The ordinary language of the Kaficho has no outward resemblance to modern Abyssinian. Their speech was, however, stated by Dr C. T. Beke (c. 1850) to be cognate with the Gonga tongue, spoken in a portion of Damot, on the northern side of the Abai. Kaffa, after having been ruled by independent sovereigns, who were also suzerains of the neighbouring states, was about 1895 conquered by the Abyssinians. The first European explorer of Kaffa was Antoine de'Abbadie, who visited it in 1843. Not until the early years of the 20th century was the country accurately mapped. KAFFIR BREAD, in botany, the popular name for a species of _Encephalartos_ (_E. caffra_), one of the cycads, a native of South Africa, so called from the farinaceous food-stuff which is found at the apex of the stem (Gr. [Greek: en], in, [Greek: kephale], head, and [Greek: artos], bread). It is a tree reaching nearly 20 ft. in height, with very stiff, spreading pinnate leaves 3 to 4 ft. long and recurving at the tip. The species of _Encephalartos_, which are natives of tropical and South Africa, form handsome greenhouse and conservatory plants; some species are effectively used in subtropical gardening in the summer months. KAFFIRS (Arabic _Kafir_, an unbeliever), a name given by the Arabs to the native races of the east coast of Africa. The term was current along the east coast at the arrival of the Portuguese, and passed from them to the Dutch and English, and to the natives themselves under the form of _Kafula_. There are no general or collective national names for these peoples, and the various tribal divisions are mostly designated by historical or legendary chiefs, founders of dynasties or hereditary chieftaincies. The term has no real ethnological value, for the Kaffirs have no national unity. To-day it is used to describe that large family of Bantu negroes inhabiting the greater part of the Cape, the whole of Natal and Zululand, and the Portuguese dominions on the east coast south of the Zambezi. The name is also loosely applied to any negro inhabitant of South Africa. For example, the Bechuana of the Transvaal and Orange Free State are usually called Kaffirs.