[83] Hitherto the Tatars have been exempted from military service; they are merely required to furnish one squadron to the imperial guard, to be discharged every five years. As for the taxes imposed on them they amount to the illusory sum of 8s. 4d. for every male individual, not including duty work on roads, transports, &c.
[84] The total population of the Crimea is about 200,000, including Russians, Greeks, Armenians, Karaïtes, Germans, and other foreigners.
CHAPTER XLIII.
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF BESSARABIA.
TOPOLOGY—ANCIENT FORTRESSES—THE RUSSIAN POLICY IN BESSARABIA—EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS—COLONIES—CATTLE—EXPORTS AND IMPORTS—MIXED POPULATION OF THE PROVINCE.
To complete our account of the southern regions of Russia, it remains for us to speak of Bessarabia, the most remote province which the tzars possess on the shores of the Black Sea, and the country which formed, down to the commencement of the present century, one of the most valuable possessions of the principality of Moldavia. We will not now endeavour to withdraw the veil that covers the history of past ages, or discuss the effects produced upon this province by the expeditions of Darius and of Alexander, the Roman conquests, the Tatar invasions, and the Mussulman dominion: we will confine ourselves to contemporaneous facts, the only ones which can have some chance of exciting, if not interest, at least curiosity.
Bessarabia is bounded on the south by the Danube, north and east by the Dniepr and the Black Sea, and west by the Pruth, which separates it from Moldavia, and by Bukovine, a dependency of Austria. It thus forms between two rivers which might easily be rendered navigable, a strip of more than 375 English miles in length, with an average breadth not exceeding fifty. This strip, which expands gradually as it approaches the sea, is divided into two regions, totally distinct both in population and in topographical character. The southern part, to which the Tatars have given the name of Boudjiak, consists of the flat country which extends to the sea between the mouths of the Danube and lower part of the Dniestr. It has all the characteristics of the Russian steppes, possesses but a few insignificant streams, and is chiefly fitted for rearing cattle; it yields little to tillage, except in some localities along the watercourses, where numerous colonies of Germans and Bulgarians are settled. The northern part adjoining Austria is, on the contrary, a hill country, beautifully diversified, covered with magnificent forests, and rich in all the productions of the most favoured temperate climates.
At the period when the Russians appeared on the banks of the Dniestr, the Boudjiak steppes were occupied by Nogai Tatars, nomades for the most part, who after having been at first tributary to the khans of the Crimea, had placed themselves under the protection of the Porte; whilst the northern region was possessed by a numerous Moldavian population, essentially agricultural, subjected to the laws of serfdom, and acknowledging the authority of the hospodars of Jassy. The Ottoman power was represented solely by military garrisons holding peaceful possession of the two fortresses of Ismael and Kilia on the Danube, and those of Khotin, Bender, and Ackerman, on the Dniestr.