BESSARABIA, a government in the S.W. of European Russia, on the borders of Austria and the Danubian principalities, with an area, since the cessions of the Paris peace in 1856, of 14,577 English square miles. Till the last Eastern war Bessarabia occupied the whole space between the Dniester and the Pruth from the Austrian frontier to the Black Sea. The northern portion of Bessarabia is mountainous, the southern flat and low,—the limit between the two being marked by the so-called upper Trajan wall, an artificial elevation executed, according to some, in the end of the 2d century ad., under Trajan, but, according to others, in the 3d century, under Probus. This wall extends from the.confluence of the Botna with the Dniester to the Pruth. In northern or mountainous Bessarabia two systems of elevations may be distinguished. The first is an immediate offshoot of the Carpathians, and occupies the whole of Khoteen, or the north-western district of the government. It rises about 450 feet above the valley of the Dniester, and consists of strata of Palaeozoic formation, sandstones, schists, and limestones. The second system is especially extended in the very middle of Bessarabia, and may be called the Yassa-Orgievian range. It consists of limestone of secondary formation, and its highest point is Mount Megura, about 20 miles S. of Bielitz, between Bakhmut and Poltava. The low portion of Bessarabia stretches south from the Trajan wall, with a length of 133 miles and a breadth of 33, and is well known as the Budjak steppes. The surface is perfectly level; and the soil, except in the region along the shore, consists of a thick bed of loam. The province is washed on its eastern parts by the Black Sea only for the distance of 20 miles to the south of the estuary of the Dniester. ...Its only seaport is that of Akerman, situated on the estuary of the Dniester. This river divides Bessarabia from Kherson and Podolia for a distance of almost 600 miles. The shores of the Dniester are in general high and steep, and numerous bare obstruct its channel, particularly at Yampol and Bakat. On the Bessarabian bank are situated the towns Khoteen, Cosoka, and Bender; and thirteen natural harbours for ships are counted along this side of the river. Among the principal tributaries are the Reuth, the Ikel, the Buik, and Botna. Another important stream is the Pruth, of which the left shore skirts the province for a distance of more than 140 miles. The navigation on the Pruth is not important; its course 13 impeded by bars and falls. The only important lakes in the government lie along the coast of the Black Sea in the Akerman district. Marshes extend along the Reuth and its tributaries, and there are also some along the Botna; they offer no great obstacles, however, to free communication. Bessarabia up to 1856 possessed great quantities of sedimental salt; but after the cessions of the Black Sea coast and the salt lakes, the quantity obtained, which formerly exceeded 60,000 tons, almost came to nothing. The climate of Bessarabia is temperate. The medium annual temperature of Keesheneff, 230 feet above the sea-level, is 50° Fahr.; the temperature of the warmest month, about 73°; of the coldest, about 20°. In the valley of the Dniester the climate is in general much healthier than in that of the Pruth; the climate of the north-west is much colder, and spring commences there ten days later.
In all the upper part there are forests, consisting principally of beech, oak, and sorb, besides small quantities of birch. The chief forest region lies along the heights of the Orgieff and Yassa districts about the Megura Mountains, and extends thence east to the Dniester and south-west tσ Keesheneff. The Khoteen hills are almost all covered with timber. The three northern districts, Khoteen, Bielitz, and Soroka, are especially suited for agriculture, and may be regarded as the granary of Bessarabia. The two intermediate districts of Orgieff and Keesheneff, though possessing a sufficiently fertile soil, are pre-eminently woodland; while the two southern, Bender and Akerman, although also fertile, have a steppe-like character, and are better adapted to the rearing of cattle.
Bessarabia, in keeping with its position near the Danube, played an important historic part in ancient times, especially in the beginning of our era, when it served as a key to the eastern approaches of the Byzantine empire. And thus, from immemorial times, nations were ceaselessly alternating with nations within its borders. The original inhabitants were the Cymri, succeeded by the Scythians. Herodotus, who had been in the Greek colonies of the Black Sea, relates that near the mouth of the Dniester (Tyras) there lived the Tyritians, possessing on the estuary of that river the town of Tyras (Oxeia or, according to Pliny, Ophiusa). In the 2d century after Christ Bessarabia was occupied by the Geti and offshoots from the Bastroni, and in 106 a.d., the Geti were conquered by Trajan. After this subjugation of the land by the Romans, the present Bessarabia went along with Walachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania, to compose Dacia. In the 3d century appeared the Goths, recently converted to Christianity. In the 5th century Bessarabia was overrun by the Huns; after the Huns, in the end of the 5th century, arrived the Avars and the Bulgarians; and last of all came the Slavonians (Lutichi and Tevertzi), who built themselves the town of Bielgorod. In the 7th century appeared the race of the Bessi from whom the country acquired its present name. In the 9th century arrived the Ugrians; in the 10th the Pechenegs; in the 11th the Kumans, the Uses, and the Polovtzians; and in the 13th the Mongolians, under the leadership of Batia. In this last century, also, the Genoese founded their colonies on the shores of the Dniester. In 1367 Bessarabia formed a part of Moldavia. In 1503 the south·
arn portion of the country, or Budjak, fell under the power of the Turks; and in 1560 there settled in that district 30,000 Nogaitzians, who had devastated northern Bessarabia, then inhabited by Roumanians. These Nogaitzians acquired the name of the Bielgorod horde. Russian armies occupied Bessarabia during all the Turkish wars in the 18th century, and again in 1806-12, when it was united to Russia by the Bukharest treaty. By the Paris convention of 1856, Russia ceded the districts of Ismael and the greater part of the Cagul to Turkey, and these now form a part of Roumania. At present the government is divided into seven districts, those of Keesheneff, Akerman, Bender, Orgieff, Soroka, Khoteen, and Vassa. Bender and Akerman are subdivided into five cantons, each of the others into four. In 1860 the population numbered 988,431, and had a very varied ethnographical character. The principal portion consisted of Moldavians, descendants of the ancient Dacians. The Russnayks or Galicians and Raeyani (that is, those who have inhabited the raeyas provinces of the Turkish empire), amounted to 130,000, mostly found in the districts of Khoteen, Soroka, Yassa, and Orgieff. Malo-Russians (or Little Russians) began to settle in the country in the 17th century, and now number 70,000. The Bulgarians began their immigration from the Turkish provinces in 1806-12, afterwards in 1830-34, and finally after 1856; they number 60,000. These colonies are administratively divided into three circles :—theUpper Budjak, consisting of 19, the Lower Budjak of 19, and the Ismael of 5. The Germans began to settle in Bessarabia in 1814. Their colonies, to the number of 25, are situated n the Akerman district, along the River Cogalnika. The Jews, who number 70,000, live partly in the cities Keesheneff, Khoteen, &c., but arc also settled in 16 agricultural colonies. The Gypsies, or Zigan, amount to 10,000. They live a wandering life; but in the Akerman district two villages, Pharaonofo and Kaera, are permanently inhabited by them. A considerable number of Arme nians and Greeks have also settled in the country during the present century.
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