KISHENOV— BENDER. 317 



the empire, with 48 professors and 344 students in 1877, and a library of 85,000 

 volumes. 



Khoiin, in the Dniester basin, formerly the most advanced Genoese settlement 

 in this district, still contains the remains of an Italian fortress. It lies to the south 

 of Kamenciz-Fodohhhj, which occupies a position not unlike that of Luxemburg 

 on a high terrace furrowed by a deep ravine, here crossed by a magnificent 

 viaduct. Another bridge, dating from the Turkish occupation of the place in 

 1672, connects Kamenetz with an old fortress, at one time of great strategical 

 importance, and whose round towers and pinnacles now form a picturesque feature 

 in the landscape. The Armenian settlement, which enjoyed great privileges under 

 the Polish kings, has almost disappeared, and now about half the population are 

 Jews, largely engaged in a contraband trade with the Galician districts across the 

 border. Other towns in the Upper Dniester basin are Novaya Vclniza, on one of 

 the numerous ravines intersecting the plateau, and Mogilov-Podohliiy, pleasantly 

 situated amidst orchards and vineyards. 



Lower down the Dniester basin is Kichinov, capital of Bessarabia, which, with 

 a population of 100,000, has more the appearance of an overgrown village than of 

 a town. Its broad roads, muddy or dusty according to the seasons, are lined by 

 about 7,000 houses, not fifty of which have two stories, and its chief building is a 

 huge prison, commanding the whole place and the neighbouring gardens, 

 cultivated by Bulgarian colonists. Bender, or Benderi, the old Tagin of the 

 Cossacks, on the right bank of the Dniester, though far less important than 

 Kichinov, is better known in the West as the place whither Charles XII. withdrew 

 after the battle of Poltava. A little farther down, but on the opposite bank, lies 

 Tiraspol, w^hose name recalls the old Greek colony of Tiras, and which during the 

 last century afforded refuge to a large number of Great Russian Paskolniks, who 

 are still recognised by their customs, and especially hy the physical beauty of their 

 women. Farther south the village of Oloneshti perpetuates the memory of the 

 Alans, who, jointly with the Nogai Tatars, formerly peopled this district. On the 

 right side of the Dniester liman stands the village of Ovidiopol, which, notwith- 

 standing its name, does not occupy the site of the banished poet's residence, but 

 ■which at one time possessed a certain importance as a bulwark of the Russian 

 frontier, over against the Turkish fortress of Akkerman, on the opposite side of 

 the liman. This is probably the true site of the old Tiras, which afterwards 

 became the Alba Julia of the Latinised Dacians, the Leucopolis of the Byzantines, 

 the Citate Alba of the Rumanians, the Bel-Gorod of the Slavs, and the Ak-Kerman 

 of the Turks. Under these various names, all meaning " White Town " or 

 " White Fort," it long guarded the passage of the Dniester, as the " Black Fort " 

 did that of the Dnieper, and in the neighbourhood are yet to be seen the remains 

 of a Genoese fort and of Rumanian and Turkish walls. It still retains some 

 importance from the fisheries of the liman, and as the centre of an agricultural 

 district. Some 3 miles south of it is Shaba, peopled by Rumansh and German- 

 Swiss colonists. 



The Russo-Turkish war of 1877-8 gave to Russia the fertile plains of Budjak, 



