CHAPTER II. 



ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY. 



THERE is little to strike the eye or arrest the attention of 

 a traveller in passing from Poland into Lithuania, which 

 is conterminous with it throughout its eastern boundary, 

 though extending much further both to the north and to 

 the south. All that is seen of forest lands from the rail- 

 way in both countries is alike. The forests are not 

 continuous in either, nor confined to any well defined 

 localities. Nor is there anything remarkable to be seen 

 in the one or in the other. 



The surface of the country is very flat, generally sandy, 

 intersected by vast marshes and bogs, and covered with 

 forests abounding in bears, wolves, wild boars, and other 

 animals, amongst which is the urus, or wild ox, but this is 

 now rarely met with, and it seems to be diminishing both 

 in size and strength. The most common trees are the 

 pine, the oak, and the elm. A considerable quantity of 

 potash and pearl ash is prepared in the forests ; honey is 

 also collected in great abundance. But the people 

 generally are indolent. The best lands lie fallow, the hay 

 is allowed to rot on the meadows, and whole forests are at 

 times destroyed by fire. 



My journey took me through the governments of Godno, 

 Vilna, and Vitebsk. In the government of Grodno is the 

 celebrated forest of BialowiSga, which extends over the 

 district of Bialistock, and which still serves, or did some 

 years ago, as a refuge for the last descendants of the urus 

 of Oriental Europe. This forest is one pre-eminently 

 suggestive of the expression primeval forest. 'It looks as 

 if no provision had been made for its management, and 

 it had been abandoned to the uncontrolled operations of 



