28 
WHERE THREE EMPIRES 
MEET— POLAND. 
By SAMUEL WELLS, F.R.G.S. November 2nd, 1915. 
The lecturer at the outset stated that his purpose was to 
discuss Poland and its peoples as they were in normal times 
and not Poland and the part it has played and is playing in 
the present European War. 
Poland consists of two geographically distinct areas. In 
the north are found enormous windswept plains with here 
and there ruined towers — reminders of troublous times long 
ago. To the south, in the Carpathian area, lies a rocky and 
mountainous region and a land of almost illimitable forest 
through which the lecturer on one occasion travelled for 
sixty-four miles without meeting with so much as a simple 
hamlet. Many of the roads which traverse Poland can only 
be described as execrable and this in the lecturer’s opinion 
was one of the reasons for the lack of civilization and advance- 
ment in the areas remote from the larger towns. Moreover 
the country is practically isolated and considerable difficulty 
is put in the way of travellers seeking entry. All round 
the frontiers a triple line of guards is posted and no unauthor- 
ised person is allowed to cross the border. 
In the middle ages Poland was of much greater extent 
than it is now and it formed for many centuries a barrier 
between the civilized west and the savage hordes of the 
east. Then came the period when the greater part of the 
country was snatched from its rightful ruler and shared by 
the Russians, the Prussians and the Austrians. The Poles 
in their defensive warfare were led by the great patriot 
Kosciusko, who was honoured in after years by a monument 
unique in its nature, a huge mound of earth on the outskirts 
of Cracow, to which people from every part of the original 
Poland contributed each a handful of local soil. Poland 
has passed through many anxious periods and to this day 
many of the churches are surrounded by fortifications — for, 
in ages long past, they formed sanctuaries for stricken people 
harassed by the terrors of invasion. 
