1895] A Visit to the Ukraine 181 



from the setting sun on the gilt cupolas, and a rainbow in the east, was 

 unimaginably grand. Kiev is a very ancient and holy city, with fine 

 churches, undergoing restoration, alas, in view of the Emperor's com- 

 ing visit. The Petchersk is especially interesting, an immense Convent 

 in the Citadel, thronged just now with pilgrims from distant places in 

 Russia, and beneath it a catacomb to which one descends by a long stair 

 towards the river — a fine old-world place, hardly yet ruined by the 

 villainous modern taste. 



" At the inn I made acquaintance with Count Ladislas Branicki, who 

 has arranged that I am to go to stay with his Aunt, Countess Branicka, 

 at Biela-Tzerkov to-morrow, also with Count Pothofski, who has a 

 stud of Arab horses, and other friends of Joseph's. Our inn the 

 Grand Hotel. 



" igth Sept. — By early train to Biela-Tzerkov, changing at Fastov. 

 There I was met by Prince John Sapieha, who had come with his niece, 

 Mile, de Branicka, to see another niece away by the train, both the 

 girls very pretty in their different ways. We then drove with four 

 horses, handsome bays, to Alexandrie, Countess Branicka's country 

 house, a very fine place with beautiful woods and pleasure grounds 

 where presently, after I had been entertained with tea and peaches, 

 we went walking to see a pond netted. There is a large family party 

 gathered here for Countess Branicka's birthday. Her married daugh- 

 ter, Princess Radowitz, with her children, her nephew, Prince John 

 Sapieha, and his wife, her unmarried daughter, the pretty one, Sophie, 

 a Countess Zeilern and her daughter, an old Count Diodati, a Swiss in 

 attendance on Princess Radowitz, and a few others whose names I 

 have not quite learned. It is rather perplexing to find oneself so com- 

 plete a stranger among so many. 



" 2Qtli Sept. — With Sapieha to Uzin, a stud belonging to Count 

 Xavier Branicki, a nephew of the Countess, lying about sixteen miles 

 away. We drove with four common horses, and on the road Sapieha 

 explained to me the Branicki family history. Biela-Tzerkov was the 

 capital of the Ukraine, and in former times the headquarters of 

 Mazeppa. According to tradition the wild horse brought him here 

 from Warsaw. The steppe was then all grass, but hardly anything of 

 this remains now, all being under cultivation. In the latter part of the 

 eighteenth century an immense territory of about a million and a half 

 acres was given to the Branicki of the day — I fancy the same as the 

 Branicki of the Lauzun Memoirs — in lieu of a long-standing claim he 

 had against the Polish Government for the raising and maintenance of 

 troops. He was called the Hetman. The territory was worth very 

 little in those days, but is now a principality, bringing in about Js. an 

 acre, the current rent. On the death of the late Count, however, it was 

 divided into four, the Countess's share as widow and for her children 



