DISCOVERY 



71 



them. Many of the children are covered with sores, 

 while their features are hidden in masses of filth. 

 Their eyes are encrusted with dried pus, so that they 

 are almost blind, and flies apparently unnoticed 

 settle on the pupils of their eyes. Sanitation is non- 

 existent. Pits are dug in the ground and used as cess- 

 pits. Wlien full they are not covered in, but new ones 

 are dug near by. Flies, during the summer, breed in 

 these places in millions, and the stench throughout 

 the neighbourhood is intolerable. Round the camp 

 refugees have constructed queer shelters of boughs, 

 reverting to the ways of their ancestors of thousands 

 of years ago. A typical hut which I entered was built 

 of fir boughs and measured about six feet square. 



From Baranovitchi I made my way through various 

 places to Porzece, where the people are endeavouring 

 to Uve under almost indescribable conditions of misery. 

 The state of affairs in this part is chiefly due to the last 

 few years of war, for the area was fought over and 

 shelled both by Russians and Germans, prior to the 

 Russian collapse, and afterwards ravaged b}' the 

 Bolshevists and Poles in turn during the recenth'- 

 concluded war between these two nations. Three 

 times the Poles fought over this zone, and twice the 

 Bolshevists conquered the territory. On each occasion 

 more of the inhabitants fled and more damage was done, 

 until at last almost the whole population had been 

 driven awav, most of them back into Russia, and all 



PrSSK AFTER TIIE FIRE- 

 As seen from the roof of the Cathedral. 



In this eleven people were sleeping the sleep of 

 exhaustion. As I entered a cloud of flies rose from the 

 sleeping men and women, and the stench drove me 

 outside. 



There is little to prevent one from crossing the 

 frontier into Russia. Most roads, railways, and 

 bridges are guarded by Bolshevists and Polish troops, 

 but there are hundreds of miles of unguarded frontier 

 which it is possible to cross mthout trouble. Once 

 over the boundary conditions become even worse. 

 Upon the roadside one encounters many skeletons 

 of horses and human-beings who have died on their 

 way out of Russia, and have been left by their fellow- 

 sufferers, who were powerless to help them. Birds 

 and dogs finish off the flesh and the bones alone remain, 

 marking the path of this great trek. 



the houses had been destroyed, cultivated land 

 returning to a state of nature for miles on either side 

 of Porzece. The old German and Russian trenches 

 are populated by hundreds of refugees from the regions 

 of Samara and Saratoff, who have made their journey 

 right across Russia to this spot. At the time that I 

 saw these places during the autumn the drought was 

 still holding, and every dug-out sheltered a family of 

 from three to twelve people. Even the trenches 

 themselves were occupied as dwelling-places. Roofs 

 of boughs were thrown over the top and the people 

 burrowed in the ground hke troglodj'tes. The dug- 

 outs are, of course, unventilated and unhghted. In 

 one case a family was fortunate enough to own a cow, 

 but so great was the fear that it would be stolen that 

 the animal was kept in the dug-out with the family. 



