~ 
but the beft fort is of a light colour. 
The higheft price 1s not more than a 
filling a bottle. This laft is frequently 
kept a great number of years, I have 
myfelf drunk wine of this fpecies, which 
had been kept a hundred years. It is 
then very ftrong ; and no liquor can be 
more fine, mellow, and delicious. When 
new, itis fomewhat hari. The French 
wines, too, are not uncommon, though 
not in ordinary ufe. Englith bottled- 
porter, likewife, is to be had in all the 
jiarge towns, and even at the beft public- 
houfes on the moft frequented roads ; 
at the high price, however, of about one 
and twenty pence a bottle, in Englifh 
money; and, from having pafied the fea, 
it is commonly even of a fuperior flavour 
to bottled-porter in England. 
The mott abundant fruits_are perhaps 
rafpberries and ftrawberries. There are 
few apples or pears, and no cyder nor 
perry. ‘The genuine liquors of the coun- 
try are beer, and a fort of {pirit refem- 
bling whifky more than any other. fpirit, 
and is ufually converted into a cordial 
hy the infufion of hot fpices. The beer 
met with at the public-houfes, is always 
fo weak and flat as to be fcarcely drink- 
able. ‘The fpirit is alfo wretched ftuff ; 
but the digueurs, which are common and 
of various forts, are very fine. On the 
roads we fometimes get a little mead, 
which is always very bad; as well as an 
ordinary French wine. 
The climate of Poland, in the differ- 
ent feafons, paffes through a wide range 
ot temperature. In the depth of win- 
ter, the thermometer of Fahrenheit fluc- 
tuates between 16 and 24 degrees below 
the freezing point. I fpeak of a fituation 
about 70 Enelifh miles to the fouth-eaft of 
Warfaw, but the fiatement is alfg ap- 
plicable, or nearly, to that city. The 
winter of the latter end of 1804, and 
the beginning of 1805, which I fpent in 
Poland, was unufually long and fevere. 
Is lafled for feven months ; during fix of 
which, the whole face of the country— 
land, water, trees, and houfes—was 
completely covered with fnow. It is 
curious and wonderful to behold all 
nature thus literally a blenc—thus robed, 
fo many months, in a fheet of univérfal 
whitenefs! If there be any wind, it blows 
keenly, not forcibly, from the porth or 
north-eafl ; more commonly, it is pers 
feéily ftill, and fo clear, that one can 
almott fee the cold: the fun, the while, 
pours his gliftening glory on the fubject 
jnow, impenetrable as a rock to his 
1807.] Particulars of the present State of Poland, 115 
beams. This is the fort of feafon which 
the Poles admire; this is the time for 
the diverfion of the fledge. In this 
weather, they will travel hundreds of 
mules, undaunted either by the cold or 
the wretched accommodations fometimes 
to be met with; and even with lefs ce- 
remony than Englifhmen occafionally 
make to travel a hundred miles, at the 
fame feafon of the year, im our mild. 
climate. When on a journey, the 
{ledges go at the rate of feventy or 
eighty miles a day; and often proceed 
by night, as wellas by day. All forts of 
carriages are fo contrived as to he placed 
on fledges, as oceafion requires. A 
feries of coaches, chariots, and other 
carriages thus fituated (as when a fa- 
mily travels), furnifhes a very odd fpec- 
tacle to a perfon unnaccuftomed to tuch 
things ; and what feems ill more ftrange, 
is the very circumftance of mecting 
a number of handfome carriages and 
genteel travellers in fuch a dreary wil- 
dernefs of froft and fnow.as a Polith win- 
ter exhibits! The view of any traces 
of the elegant arts, or of any appear-— 
ances of polifhed fociety, is fo little in 
unifon with furrounding objects, that 
it is like the effect of enchantment ! 
The winters moft dreaded by the 
Poles are rainy winters, or thofe in which 
rain alternates with froft, The roads, 
whether from the melting of the abun- 
dant fnow, or from their being glazed with. 
fubfequent f-ofi, become almott unpafla- 
ble. Imyielf witnetted the general thaw 
at the commencement of fpring; and can 
aver, without hazard of eontradiction, that 
even Poland is at no time fo little detfire 
ableas a place of retidence. We are 
told, that during the prefent winter the 
rains have been continual. ‘Tome, who 
know what muft be the phyfical condi- 
tion of things in fuch a feafon, the 
grievous mortality which is faid to have 
atili¢ied the French army, can be mat- 
ter neither of aftonifhment nor doubt. 
Nor can I well conceive, how two fuch 
vaft armies as the ituffian and French 
can be at all fubfifted in winter, for any 
length of time, in this wild region: at 
leait, within fuch a diftance of each 
other as to be capable of any extenfive 
and effective cperatious, They muft 
{peedily produge a famine throughout a 
circumference of fpate, a hundred miles 
diameter. The wretchednefs, and rela- 
tive diftances of the towns and villages ; 
the habitually coarfe and meagre fare of 
their inhabitants, fach as would half- 
sail gy’: itarve 
