precarious nature, for in this part of the district the rainfall is both scanty and capricious, and well cultivation is only possible in the north. The introduction of canal irrigation has effected an enormous change. Wheat and gram are the great crops. Historically Karnal is one of the most interesting districts. The Nardak is the scene of the great struggle celebrated in the Mahabharata. The district contains the holy city of Thanesar, once the capital 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. Rs. 61,64,172 = L410,945.]