THE WHITE EUSSIANS. 



285 



and schools have remained picturesque ruins in the landscape. In the revival of 

 prosperity the Jews were the chief agents, and since the *'Iluin" this is the 

 essential point in the history of White Russia. During the present century many 

 old Polish proprietors have heen replaced by Russian nobles, and serfdom has been 

 abolished, but the revolution is far from complete. Large estates are still more 

 common than in Central Russia ; the nobles have retained 63 per cent, of the 



Fig. 141. — Hui.NS OF THE Castle of Ostkog. 



arable land ; and thousands of the peasantry have either received nothing, or only 

 allotments too small or too unproductive to yield a living. On an average these 

 holdings are sufficient to supply the bare necessaries of existence, the rest being 

 procured either by badly paid labour on the large estates, or by advances from the 

 Jews, who have thus in many places gradually become the owners of the land itself. 

 This again has driven many to seek work elsewhere, and, in the language of 

 Nekrasov, "the Russian railways are laid with the bones of White Russian navvies." 



