UMBALLA, properly. spelt Ambala, a British district in tho Lieutenant-Governorship of the Panjab,.lying between lat. 29° 49' and 31° 12' N., and between long. 76° 22" and 77°,39' E. Area, 2627 square miles ; population in 1881, 68,238. Umballa and its neighbourhood are intimately associated with the earliest dawn of Indian history. The strip of country included between the Sarsuti (Saraswati) and the Gbaggar is the holy land of the Hindu faith, the first permanent home of the Aryans in India and the spot where their religion took shape. Its' banks are everywhere lined with shrines, but the towns of Thanesar and Pihoia form the chief centres of attraction, and a tank filled by tbe Sarsuti at the former place is annu ally bathed in, as a religious purificatory rite, by some 300,000 persons. The country teems with traditions of the great conflict between tho Pandava and the Kaurava, whose exploits are detailed in the 3fahabbarata. Hiwen Thsang, the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim of the 7th century, found it the seat of a flourishing and civilised dominion, having its c.apital at Srugna. Srug,na continued to be occupied down to the tirne of the Muhammadan conquest of the country. In 1872, Jat numbered 175,335, of whom 161.967 are Hindus or Sikhs, and 13,368 Musalmans. In the N. parganas the Jat form the chief proprietary body, and keep up their usual reputation for industry and frugality. The Chamars, 125,638, Hindus ; its members may be found in all menial positions. The Gnjars (48,695) are almost equally divided between Hinduism and Islam. As elsewhere, they are fonder of cattle-breeding than of agriculture, and show the ancestral tendency towards a wild, lawless life. The Other leading tribes are 'the
Banyas, 39,093; Kambolis, 9847 •, Syuds, 8190 ; Kliattris, 7893 ; and Pathans, 7377. The inhabit ants of tho Kotaha pargana, in tho hill country, aro a simple, quiet race, clinging almost without exception to tho Hindu faith of their forefathers, deeply devoted to their homes, and seldoin visiting the plains. A family may be absent for a hundred years, yet their name will be held in remembrance and their descendants may return at any time to reclaim their possessiona without a remonstrance.
U3IBELLIPERzE. Ass. The Apiacem of Lindley, the celery tribe of plants, were called Umbelliferm from the arrangen]ent of the flower stalks in head or urnbels. There are about 1500 species, all herbaceous and abounding in temperate climates. The prOducts of the group vary much in character. Celery, fennel, parsnip, carrot, and parsley are all familiar esculents belonging to the order. Upwards of a hundred species occur in the mountains and plains of India. Some are acrid and virulently poisonous ; some abound in resins, containing a large quantity of an essential aromatic oil, and act as aromatics and stimulants ; others yield fcetid gum-resins.
The laser or silphion of the ancients is secreted by plants belonging to this order ; and asafcetida, galbanum, gain -arnmoniacum, oppoponax and sagapenum are much used as stimulant medicines in nervous diseases at the present day.—Voigt.