PART I. 



POLAND, 



CHAPTER I. 

 ST. PETERSBURG TO POLAND. 



IN journeying from St. Petersburg by railway towards 

 Poland, for some 200 miles we pass over ground which is 

 of a dead level, or almost such, being varied, not by rising 

 grounds, but by marshes and bogs, the dry land being to 

 some extent covered with trees of apparently no great age : 

 a stranger would say trees of some twenty or thirty years 

 growth ; and I might say the same, but passing over the 

 ground at distant periods, I have found them always 

 apparently of the same age as they were when I first saw 

 them ; and this may be really the case, these having dis- 

 appeared, and those now there being trees by which they 

 have been replaced. They are apparently the scraggy 

 representatives of extensive forests of a former day. 



Nowhere are seen forests such as may be seen in travel- 

 ling in the Governments of Olonetz and Archangel in 

 Northern Russia, and of Moscow, Orel, and others in 

 Central Russia. 



Passing on, between Pskoff and Dunsburg, the country 

 is found to present more of an undulating aspect ; instead 

 of stagnant waters, brooks and rivulets and other forms of 

 running waters are seen. In this district great quantities 

 of flax are grown ; and the water is turned to account in 

 preparing the produce for the market. There are two 

 qualities of flax prepared, each in its own way, The one 



