Rumania

or Roumania, a kingdom of southeastern Europe. It includes the old provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia. It extends from Hungary, that is to say, the Carpathian mountains, to the Black Sea. It lies chiefly on the north bank of the Danube, by which it is separated from Servia and Bulgaria. The Pruth forms a considerable part of the boundary between Rumania and Russia.

The surface consists in the main of extensive agricultural plains. The foothills of the Carpathians are covered with forests of oak, fir, and beach that still shelter the stag, wild boar, wolf, fox, and Carpathian goat. The hare and the marten are hunted for fur. The Danube and the Pruth abound in food fishes. The mountains yield copper and rock salt. Some gold is found. There are deposits of sulphur, asphalt, and petroleum.

Aside from the forest region, which comprises possibly a sixth of the surface, and saline lakes near the mouth of the Danube, Rumania is fertile. The climate is continental. The summer is dry and hot. The winter is severe for that latitude, the Danube being frozen over for a month or two. The chief productions are wheat, maize, rye, barley, oats, tobacco, hemp, and flax. The grape flourishes on the sunny slopes of the Carpathians. Cattle, horses, sheep, and swine are the important domestic animals.

Trade is largely in the hands of Jews. Corn, meat, timber, and fruits are the chief exports, most of which go by way of the Danube and the Black Sea. There are important lines of railway. The country is covered well by telegraph and telephone lines. The monetary unit is the leu, plural lei, about five to our dollar.

The government is a limited monarchy. The legislature consists of two houses. A senator must be forty years of age and have an income of virtually $2,000. Voters are divided into three colleges, according to income and education. All must be of full age and pay taxes. Those who cannot read and write and have an income of less than sixty dollars a year are grouped into fifties. Each fifty is entitled to select a representative to cast one vote and only one for the entire fifty. Over nine-tenths of the people belong to the Orthodox Greek Church. Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Armenians, and Mohammedans are tolerated. The Orthodox clergy are paid by the state. A system of public education is gathering headway. Military service is compulsory. The government monopolizes the sales of salt and tobacco,--this as a source of revenue. Bucharest is the capital.

Rumania is a part of the old Roman province of Dacia formed by Trajan in 106 A. D. The name signifies Roman. Although the region has been overrun by Goths, Huns, Bulgarians, Magyars, Slavs, Tartars, and Turks, the Rumanian language is half Latin to this day. The next language element in importance is the Slavic or Russian. The people were converted to Christianity during the eleventh century. Hungary, Russia, and Turkey have striven for the possession of Rumania. In the sixteenth century the Turks took the Rumanians under their protection. In 1802 the Russians interfered. Insurrections and revolutions without number resulted finally in shaking off the last vestige of Turkish rule, and the independence of Rumania was proclaimed in 1878.

STATISTICS. The following statistics are the latest to be had from trustworthy sources:

See Turkey; Hungary; Russia