PART III. 



THE UKRAINE OR LITTLE RUSSIA. 



To the district embracing the governments of Tchernigov 

 and Kiev, with those of Poltava and Kharkov, are given 

 the designations Little Russia, and the Ukraine. 



The name Ukraine is said to signify frontier, a name 

 not inappropriate to the country, which lies on the borders 

 of European Turkey, Poland, Russia, and Little Tartary. 

 It was acquired by Russia at different periods from 

 Poland, a large portion having been seized by Catherine 

 II. in 1793. 



Of the Ukraine M. Marny writes : ' In the Ukraine 

 the black earth, called by the Russians stepnoi-ezernozem, 

 which constitutes the soil of a part of South Russia, gives 

 rise to forests of a special nature, of which the principal 

 constituents are oaks, limes, and elms. These trees 

 grow with uncommon vigour, and are associated with an 

 immense number of large pear trees of a magnificent 

 aspect. Nevertheless, this beautiful forest mantle is 

 desolated under the pernicious action of drought, which 

 causes the destruction of thousands of trees, more 

 especially of hazels, ashes, and elms ; only the spruce with 

 deep roots escape its devastating influence.' 



In Little Russia, and in the old Polish country to the 

 south and the west, we find the villages of the north built 

 of timber logs, and laid out as graphically portrayed in 

 the quotation I have given from Hepworth Dixon's Free 

 Itussia, in Forest Lands and Forestry of Northern Russia 

 (pp. 53-55), in illustration of forest scenes in the government 

 of Archangel, have given place to villages of a different 



