of a great
Hindu kingdom. It has found climate a more potent instrument of ruin
than the sword of Mahmud of Ghazni, who sacked it in 1014. It still on
the occasion of Eclipse fairs attracts enormous crowds of pilgrims.
Pihowa is another very sacred place. Naraina, a few miles to the
north-west of Karnal, was the scene of two famous fights[11], and three
times, in 1526, 1556, and 1761, the fate of India was decided at
Panipat.

[Sidenote: Area, 1851 sq. m.
Cultd area,
1174 sq. m.
Pop. 689,970.
Land Rev.
Rs. 11,47,688
= L76,513]

~Ambala~ is a submontane district of very irregular
shape. It includes two small hill tracts,
Morni and Kasauli. There is little irrigation,
for in most parts the rainfall is ample.
Wheat is the chief crop. The population
has been declining in the past 20 years.

[Illustration: Fig. 89.]

The only town of importance is Ambala. Jagadhri is a busy little place
now connected through private enterprise by a light railway with the N.
W. Railway. The district consists of two parts almost severed from one
another physically and wholly different as regards people, language, and
agricultural prosperity. The Rupar subdivision in the north-west beyond
the Ghagar has a fertile soil, and, except in the Nali, as the tract
flooded by the Ghagar is called, a vigorous Jat peasantry, whose native
tongue is Panjabi. The three south-eastern _tahsils_, Ambala,
Naraingarh, and Jagadhri, are weaker in every respect. The loam is often
quite good, but interspersed with it are tracts of stubborn clay largely
put under precarious rice crops. The Jats are not nearly so good as
those of Rupar, and Rajputs, who are mostly Musulmans, own a large
number of estates.

[Sidenote: Area, 101 sq. m.
Cultd area,
15 sq. m.
Pop. in Feb.
1911, 39,320.
Land Rev.
Rs. 17,484
= L1166.]

Simla consists of three little tracts in the hills known as Bharauli,
Kotkhai, and Kotgarh, and of patches of territory forming the
cantonments of Dagshai, Subathu, Solon, and Jutogh, the site of the
Lawrence Military School at Sanawar, and the great hill station of
Simla. Bharauli lies south-west of Simla in the direction of Kasauli.
Kotkhai is in the valley of the Giri, a tributary of the Jamna. Kotgarh
is on the Sutlej and borders on the Bashahr State. The Deputy
Commissioner of Simla is also Superintendent or Political Officer of 28
hill states.

[Sidenote: Area,
19,934 sq. m.
Cultd area,
7762 sq. m.
Pop. 3,967,724.
Land Rev.
R