102 FORESTRY IN LITHUANIA. 



windlass on either side of the river. The Niemen is not 

 hal f so broad at this point as the Rhine, or this mode of 

 making the bridge swing to and fro would not be prac- 

 ticable. The platform, which composes the floor of the 

 bridge, is laid over two strong barges, like those upon 

 the Rhine, and large enough to carry, at each trip, carts 

 and horses and foot passengers. Upon the present 

 occasion there could not have been less than a hundred 

 passengers and fourteen or fifteen carts and waggons, 

 besides our own. This motley assemblage, packed of 

 course very closely together, presented a scene of hope- 

 less confusion. Not much inconvenience, indeed, was 

 suffered by our own party, for precedence was given to 

 the post-waggon in which we were carried. But those 

 who followed could only gain the bridge by a general 

 scramble; men, women, and children, soldiers and pea- 

 sants, pushing and quarrelling, swearing, screaming 

 each striving to reach it first. Two of the party 

 especially attracted my attention, a peasant boy, and a 

 Jew woman about fifty years old, each leading a horse 

 and a four-wheeled market cart down towards the bridge. 

 The woman was rather in advance at first, but the boy, 

 whilst she was wrangling with the manager of the bridge, 

 contrived to get his horse and cart in front of hers. 

 Whereupon the woman, as soon as she perceived it, 

 beat his horse savagely about the head, and then turned 

 with equal fury upon the boy himself, scratching his 

 face and kicking him. The boy was not slow to pay 

 her in her own coin, and a regular pounding-match 

 followed, to the amusement, apparently, of the lookers*- 

 on. But, in the midst of the scuffle, the boy was still 

 mindful of his main purpose, and, watching his oppor- 

 tunity, succeeded in making good his stand upon the 

 bridge. The woman, too, followed, and would fain 

 have renewed the contest; but, finding this impracti- 

 cable, contented herself with pouring out an incessant 

 torrent of abuse upon the object of her rage. The 

 so-called management of the bridge, as indeed is the 



