POrAND: WARSAW. 



253 



and Wieprz, the fortress of Ivangorod, formerly Demblin, covers the approach to 

 Warsaw from the south-west. 



Warsaw, or Warszaira, is in every respect the first city in Pohmd, ranking in 

 the empire immediately after St. Petersburg and Moscow. Yet it is not an old 

 place, the name first occurring in the beginning of the thirteenth century. But 

 after the incorporation of Lithuania it was chosen in 1569 as the seat of the Diet, 

 because it was " neither Polish nor Lithuanian, but stood in the neutral land of 

 Mazovia." Having thus become the rallying-point of the united states, it soon 

 profited by the geographical advantages of its position on a large navigable river 



Fig. 119.— Warsaw. 

 Scale 1 : 200,000. 



E. of Paris 



. 2 Miles. 



in the centre of a fertile plain stretching from Eastern Prussia to the Lysa Gora 

 uplands. It lies at the point where most of the large tributaries converge — the 

 AVieprz and Pilica from the south and south-west, the Bug and Narev from the 

 east and south-east — thus giving easy access by water to the farthest limits of the 

 land. It also faces eastwards towards the low water-parting between the Niémen, 

 Dvina, and Dnieper basins, continued like a great highway of trade and migrations 

 far in the direction of Moscow. This was also the military route often followed by 

 the Poles in their expeditions against Russia, and in their turn by the Russians, 

 when they overran Poland and laid waste its capital. 



