6 FORESTRY IN POLAND. 



instance, you should happen in awaking to notice a few 

 black or brown beetles running about your pillow, restrain 

 your murderous hand ! If you kill them you commit an 

 act of unnecessary bloodshed ; for though they may play- 

 fully scamper around you, they will do you no bodily 

 harm. 



'The best lodgings to be found in some of the small 

 provincial towns are much worse than the ordinary post- 

 stations. To describe the filthiness and discomfort of 

 some rooms in which I have had to spend the night 

 would require a much more powerful pen than mine ; and 

 even a powerful writer in entering on that subject would 

 involuntarily make a special invocation for assistance to 

 the Muse of the Naturalistic school. 



' In the winter months travelling is in some respects 

 pleasanter than in summer, for snow and frost are great 

 macadamisers. If the snow falls evenly there is for some 

 time the most delightful road that can be imagined. No 

 jolts, no shaking, but a smooth, gliding motion, like that 

 of a boat in calm water, and the horses gallop along as if 

 totally unconscious of the sledge behind them. Unfortu- 

 nately, this happy state of things does not last long. The 

 road soon gets cut up, and deep transverse furrows are 

 formed. How these furrows come into existence I have 

 never been able clearly to comprehend, though I have 

 often heard the phenomenon explained by men who 

 imagined they understood it. Whatever the cause and 

 mode of formation may be, certain it is that little hills 

 and valleys do get formed, and the sledge, as it crosses 

 over them, bobs up and down like a boat in a chopping 

 sea, with this important difference, that the boat falls into 

 a yielding liquid, whereas the sledge falls upon a solid 

 substance, unyielding and unelastic. The shaking and 

 jolting which result may readily be imagined. 



' There are other discomforts, too, in winter travelling. 

 So long as the air is perfectly still, the cold may be very 

 intense without being disagreeable ; but if a strong head 

 wind is blowing, and the thermometer ever so many 



