rospect of no inconsiderable influence
over the destinies of the Russian Empire, the old spirit of national
independence began to manifest itself, and in 1862, not without
encouragement from Napoleon III., an insurrection broke out at
Warsaw.

Outside Warsaw and its immediate vicinity there is little in Russian
Poland to interest the tourist. The country is generally level
and monotonous, with wide expanses of sand, heath, and forest,
and it is only towards the north and east that the ground may be
said to be heavily timbered. Dense forests stretch down from the
Russian, anciently Polish, province of Grodno, and now form the
last retreat in Europe of the _Bison Europeans_, the survivor of
the Aurochs (_Bos primigenius_), which is supposed to have been
the original stock of our horned cattle. Although much worried by
the wolf, the bear, and the lynx, the bison is strictly preserved
from the hunter, and are not therefore likely to disappear like the
_Bos Americanus_, or buffalo, which has so long been ruthlessly
slaughtered in the United States.

Interspersed among these barren or wooded tracts are areas containing
some of the finest corn-bearing soil in Europe, supplying from
time immemorial vast quantities of superior grain for shipment
from ports in the Baltic. It is produced on the larger estates of
two hundred to fifteen hundred acres, belonging to more than eight
thousand proprietors. The peasantry, who hold more than 240,000
farms--seldom exceeding forty acres--contribute next to nothing
towards exportation, their mode of agriculture being almost as
rude as that of the Russian peasantry, and their habits of life but
little superior, especially in the matter of drink. Towns, large
and small, occur more frequently than in Russia, and while some are
rich and industrial, others--we may say the great majority--are
poor and squalid, affording no accommodation that would render
possible the visit of even the least fastidious traveller.

Consequently we confine ourselves to Warsaw, which we take on our way
by rail to or from St. Petersburg or Moscow. Founded in the Twelfth
Century, and, during the Piast period, the seat of the appanaged
Dukes of Masovia, Warszawa, replaced Cracow as the residence of the
Polish kings and therefore as the capital of Poland, on the election
of Sigismund III. (1586). It has now a population of about 445,000,
not including the Russian garrison of 31,500 officers and men. The
left bank of t