CHAPTER VII. 



GALICIA AND BUKOVINA. 

 (Austrian Poland and Ruthema.) 



General Aspects, Mountains, and Climate. 



ALICIA and Bukovina, lying outside the rampart of the Carpathians, 

 form part of the Austrian Empire, in spite of the great boundaries 

 determined by geographical features. Climate and the general slope 

 of the soil attest that these countries form an integral portion of 

 the vast plain which stretches from the Sudetes to the Altai. 

 They also differ ethnologically from the remainder of the empire, which has 

 held them for hardly more than a century. By annexing them Austria did 

 violence not only to geographical landmarks, but also to national susceptibilities. 

 Maria Theresa herself, when she signed the treaty partitioning Poland, avowed 

 that she " prostituted her honour for the sake of a paltry bit of land." Cracow, 

 the last remnant of Poland, was occupied by Austria in 1846, in defiance of a 

 treaty dictated b}^ herself 



The outer slope of the Carpathians is steeper as a rule than the inner one, 

 and constitutes a very formidable natural frontier. The boundary-line, however, 

 neither follows the watershed nor the crest of the mountain range. Hungary 

 has secured possession of the great central group, the Tâtra, as well as of the 

 upper basin of the Poprad, which flows north towards the Vistula. Only a few 

 summits in Galicia exceed a height of 6,500 feet, but to a spectator standing in 

 the plain to the north of them, the Carpathians, with their steep scarps and 

 barren summits, rising above forests and pastures, and covered with snow during 

 a great part of the year, present a grand sight. The Eastern Carpathians are 

 still clad with their ancient forests. In the vicinity of the Cserna Gora, or 

 " Black Mountains," in the Bukovina, these forests extend uninterruptedly for many 

 miles, and the Bukovina is fairly entitled to its Slav name of Land of Beeches, or 

 " Buckingham." In the south, towards the frontiers of Moldavia, a few trachyte 

 peaks enhance the beauty of the scenery. Elsewhere, and more especially in 

 the districts of Stanislawow and Kolomyja, the valleys are without running 

 streams, the rain disappearing in the fissures of the limestone. 



