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UKRAINE ULFILAS 103 between its centre and N. extremity, bounded N. by the district of Urundi, E. by Ubuha, S. by Ukaranga, and W. by the lake. The surface is hilly, the soil exceedingly fertile, and the climate humid. It is one of the most productive districts in the region. The princi- pal crops are ground nuts, peas, beans, haricots, and holcus ; but sugar cane, tobacco, and cot- ton are sometimes raised. Among the fruits are the Guinea palm and the plantain, and among the vegetables are the sweet potato, yam, egg plant, manioc, and cucumber. The inhabitants, the Wajiji, are a large, strong race, with dark skins, which they tattoo, woolly hair, and large flat feet and hands. What is generally called the town of Ujiji, or Kawele, is a collection of huts and mud hovels on the shore of the lake (lat. 4 58' 3" S., Ion. 30 4' 30" E.), around a raised plot of ground called the bazaar, where the coast Arabs come to trade. It was here that Stanley found Livingstone, Nov. 10, 1871. UKRAINE (Pol. Ukraina, border land), for- merly the name of a S. E. province of inde- pendent Poland, on both sides of the Dnieper, and bordering on the Tartar territories. In later times it was divided into Polish and Rus- sian Ukraine. Since 1793 it has wholly be- longed to Russia, and it is now identical with Little Russia, comprising the governments of Kiev, Tchernigov, Poltava, and Kharkov. (See COSSACKS.) CLEABORG. I. The northernmost Ian of Fin- land, Russia, bordering on Norway and Swe- den ; area, 63,955 sq. m. ; pop. in 1872, 185,- 890. It is mountainous, and contains a vast number of lakes and marshes, including Lake Enar'e. On account of its high latitude, it is little fitted for agriculture. The chief product is berries. The main pursuits are fishing and bird catching. II. A town, capital of the Ian, on a peninsula at the mouth of the Ulea (Swed. UUd] in the gulf of Bothnia, 330 m. N. of Helsingfors ; pop. in 1867, 7,602. It has a lighthouse, a fine church, and much industry and trade, in which it ranks next to Abo. On an adjacent island is the old castle of Ulea- borg. In 1854 an English fleet destroyed much national Russian property at Uleaborg, as well as at Brahestad, in the same province. ULEMA (the Arabic plural of alim, a learned man), the collective name of the body of learned men in Turkey. In a general sense ulema are persons who are learned in both law and di- vinity. They form a distinct body in Constan- tinople, whose office is to watch over the cor- rect interpretation of the Koran and the right application of its teachings to law and polity. The head of the ulema is the grand mufti or sheikh ul-islam; next to him come the kazia- skiers, of whom there is one for Europe and one for Asia ; the third class are the mollahs, the superior judges in the provinces ; and after them are the cadis and the common muftis. (See CADI, and MXJFTI.) The kaziaskiers have a voice and vote in the divan, and all cadis are appointed by and subject to them. IXEX, a genus of much branched, very thorny shrubs of the leguminosce, popularly called furze and gorse, and sometimes whin. The simple leaves are mostly reduced to mere prickles, and the numerous short branches terminate in spines ; the axillary, yellow flowers have a calyx deeply divided into two lips, and colored like the petals ; the stamens are united to form a complete tube ; the pod is few-seeded. There are about a dozen species, natives of Europe and northern Africa ; two are found in Great Britain, and others are sometimes cultivated. The common furze (U. Europceus) is a very social plant, often covering large tracts, form- ing a feature in the landscape, and when in flower is very attractive. In exposed situa- tions it is a straggling bush, but in the shelter of woods it grows 10 ft. high, and in southern Europe 18 ft. ; it is sometimes seen in collec- tions of shrubbery in this country, but it is difficult to keep in the northern states ; in Eng- land, though a native, in severe winters it is killed to the ground. The principal use of the plant is as a food for cat- tle ; it has long been the cus- tom in Norman- dy to cut the tops, and, after passing them through a mill to crush the spines, to feed them in the green state; it is there culti- vated for this purpose, as it has been in parts of Eng- land, but its in- trinsic value as food does not warrant the cost of its cultivation and prepara- tion ; its growth is encouraged in England as a game cover. There is a double-flowered vari- ety, and another form with compact and erect branches called Irish furze. Some regard the dwarf or French furze as a variety of the pre- ceding, while others consider it distinct (V. nanus) ; it is much smaller, and has deeper yellow flowers, which appear from August to December, while the other blooms in spring. ULFILAS, Ophites, Ulfila, or Wulfila, a Gothic bishop, born among the Goths in 310 or 311, died in Constantinople about 381. He is be- lieved to have belonged to a family of Cappa- docian Christians, whom the Goths had carried into captivity about 267. He was master of the Gothic, Greek, and Hebrew languages, be- came bishop of the Goths in 341, and in 348, at the head of the Christian minority of his people, and with the permission of the empe- ror Constantius, he settled in Mcesian territory, near Nicopolis. He persuaded his followers Furze or Gorse (Ulex Europeans).