The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

KISHENOY— BENDER. 317the empire, with 48 professors and 344 students in 1877, and a library of 85,000volumes.Klwtin, in the Dniester basin, formerly the most, advanced Genoese settlementin this district, still contains the remains of an Italian fortress. It lies to the southof Kamenetz-Podohkiy, which occupies a position not unlike that of Luxemburgon a high terrace furrowed by a deep ravine, here crossed by»a magnificentviaduct. Another bridge, dating from the Turkish occupation of the place in1672, connects Kamenetz with an old fortress, at one time of great strategicalimportance, and whose round towers and pinnacles now form a picturesque featurein the landscape.The Armenian settlement, which enjoyed great privileges underthe Polish kings, has almost disappeared, and now about half the population areJews, largely engaged in a contraband trade with the Galician districts across theborder. Other towns in the Upper Dniester basin are Novaya Uckitssa, on one ofthe numerous ravines intersecting the plateau, and Mogilov-Podolskiy, pleasantlysituated amidst orchards and vineyards.Lower down the Dniester basin is Kichinov, capital of Bessarabia, which, witha population of 100,000, has more the appearance of an overgrown village than ofa town. Its broad roads, muddy or dusty according to the seasons, are lined byabout 7,000 houses, not fifty of which have two stories, and its chief building is ahuge prison, commanding the whole place and the neighbouring gardens,cultivated by Bulgarian colonists. Bender, or Benderi, the old Tagin of theCossacks, on the right bank of the Dniester, though far less important thanKichinov, is better known in the "West as the place whither Charles XII. withdrewafter the battle of Poltava. A little farther down, but on the opposite bank, liesTiraspol, whose name recalls the old Greek colony of Tiras, and which during thelast century afforded refuge to a large number of Great Russian Paskolniks, whoare stillrecognised by their customs, and especially by the physical beauty of theirwomen. Farther south the village of Oloneshti perpetuates the memory of theAlans, who, jointly with the Xogai Tatars, formerly peopled this district. On theright side of the Dniester liman stands the village of Oridiopol, which, notwithstandingits name, does not occupy the site of the banished poet's residence, butwhich at one time possessed a certain importance as a bulwark of the Russianfrontier, over against the Turkish fortress of Akkerman, on the opposite side ofthe liman. This is probably the true site of the old Tiras, which afterwardsbecame 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-Kermanof the Turks. Under these various names, all meaning " White Town " or" "White Fort," it long guarded the passage of the Dniester, as the " Black Fortdid that of the Dnieper, and in the neighbourhood are yet to be seen the remainsof a Genoese fort and of Rumanian and Turkish walls. It still retains someimportance from the fisheries of the liman, and as the centre of an agriculturaldistrict. 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,