Note 288 — Chapter XXXIV · PEACE AND PARLIAMENT.

When the frontier was drawn, Count Orloff said to Lord Clarendon that he should take it as a favour if he would draw it a little farther south so as to include Bolgrad, which was the capital of some Russian military colonies in which the Czar was greatly interested. This was done as a matter of courtesy to the Czar, Orloff pointing to the position of Bolgrad on the map—a French map—and showing that it was such a long way from Lake Jalpuk, that the concession did not give Russia access to a Moldavian lake on which she might, perchance, one day build a threatening flotilla. After the Treaty was signed, it turned out that the place marked as Bolgrad on the French map was really Tabak, and that Bolgrad was actually far to the south of it, on the northern shore of Lake Jalpuk. The Russians therefore, insisting on the letter of the Treaty, claimed Bolgrad, on the left shore of the lake, leaving the right shore to Moldavia.