UNIQUE EAILWAY TRAVELLING. 15 



the ruins of a massive old Dominican church 

 and a feudal castle of many hundred years ago, 

 which look down from a height on Oswiecin 

 and its river. 



The last twelve hours of the journey into 

 Russia, if performed at night, are unique in 

 railway travel. About every hour and a half 

 the train pulls up at a pointsman's hut, 

 situated in a forest or on a steppe, far from 

 any village or town. Here the guard gets 

 down, and, if one may be allowed to judge 

 from appearances, goes to wake up the 

 slumbering pointsman. Having got him up, 

 the pointsman performs his office, and then 

 we move slowly on to wake the next, 

 another thirty miles off — how slowly may be 

 gathered from the fact that for the first verst 

 or so a pack of curs, who seem to depend 

 mainly on the liberality of railway passengers 

 for subsistence, follow the train like gulls in 

 the wake of a ship. 



