4 FORESTRY IN POLAND. 



wheels, rather than a phaeton. An armful of hay spread 

 over the bottom of the wooden box is supposed to play 

 the part of cushions. You are expected to sit under the 

 arched covering, and extend your legs so that the feet 

 lie beneath the driver's seat ; but you will do well, unless 

 the rain happens to be coming down in torrents, to get 

 this covering unshipped, and travel without it. When 

 used, it painfully curtails the little freedom of movement 

 that you enjoy, and when you are shot upwards by some 

 obstruction on the road, it is apt to arrest your ascent by 

 giving you a violent blow on the top of the head. 



1 It is to be hoped that you are in no hurry to start, 

 otherwise your patience may be sorely tried. The horses, 

 when at last produced, may seem to you the most 

 miserable screws that it was ever your misfortune to 

 behold ; but you had better refrain from expressing your 

 feelings, for if you use violent, uncomplimentary language, 

 it may turn out that you have been guilty of gross 

 calumny, I have seen many a team composed of animals 

 which a third-class London costermonger would have 

 spurned, and in which it was barely possible to recognise 

 the equine form, do their duty in highly creditable style, 

 and go along at the rate of twelve or fourteen miles an 

 hour, under no stronger incentive than the voice of the 

 Yemstchik. Indeed, the capabilities of these lean, 

 slouching, ungainly quadrupeds are often astounding 

 when they are under the guidance of a man who knows 

 how to drive them. Though such a man commonly 

 carries a little harmless whip, he rarely uses it except by 

 waving it horizontally in the air. His incitements are 

 all oral. He talks to his cattle as he would to animals of 

 his own species now encouraging them by tender, cares- 

 sing epithets, and now launching at them expressions of 

 indignant scorn. At one moment they are his "little 

 doves," and at the next they have been transformed into 

 " cursed hounds." How far they understand and 

 appreciate this curious mixture of endearing cajolery and 

 contemptuous abuse it is difficult to say, but there is no 



