LITHUANIA. 



2G7 



interior. It was visited in the fourteentli century by Gorman and even English 

 traders, and althougli afterwards ruined by the wars, it has since recovered. 

 More than halt' of the popvdation are Jews, whose synagogues are here as numerous 

 as churches in an Italian city. 



Vitebsk, capital of the government of Vitebsk, occupies the site of an old 

 pagan sanctuary at the junction of the Dvina and Vitba. It was at one time 

 the residence of the independent Lithuanian rulers, and carried on a large trade 

 with the Ilanseatic towns. Although lying in a poor district, it still does a local 

 traffic in agricultural produce. Lower down the Dvina, at its confluence with the 

 Polota, stands Polotzlc, at one time the independent centre of the Krivichi Slavs, 

 and the rival of Kiev and Novgorod. After its incorporation in the Lithuanian 



Fig. 127. — DiJNABURG. 



Scale 1 : 180,000. 



E oF P 94° 5 



24-20' 



"E of G 26° 25 



2B°40' 



2 Miles. 



principality in the thirteenth century it continued to flourish as one of the 

 advanced Hanseatic entrepôts towards the interior of Russia. When the Jesuits 

 were suppressed in the west of Europe during the latter half of the eighteenth 

 century, they selected Polotzk as the capital of the order. Here resided their 

 general, and their academy enjoyed University privileges. 



Below Polotzk follow the towns of Bisna, Brissa, and Biinahurg, the last men- 

 tioned commanding the course of the Middle Dvina, and the junction of the main 

 lines of railway connecting Warsaw and St. Petersburg, Ptiga and Libau, with 

 Moscow and Samara. In 1582 Stephen Bathory, King of Poland, built a castle 

 12 miles higher up the river, and the fortress of Duuaburg, on the right bank, is 

 at present one of the chief strategical points in West Russia. 



