ssarabian border and about twenty miles northwest of the
fortress of Chotin. Although the amount of territory gained by the
Austro-Germans in the period beginning with the fall of Warsaw was
smaller in that section than in any other on the eastern front, it was
still of sufficient size to leave now in the hands of the Russians only
a very small part of Galicia, little more than forty miles wide at its
greatest width and barely eighty miles long at its greatest length.

CHAPTER XXIV

IN THE PRIPET MARSHES

A Great deal of the fighting after the fall of Brest-Litovsk, August
27, 1915, occurred in and near the extensive swamp lands surrounding
the city of Pinsk and located on both sides of the River Pripet. To
the Russians this part of the country is known as the Poliessie; its
official name is the Rokitno Marshes, after the little town of that
name situated slightly to the west, but it is usually spoken of as the
Pripet Marshes. Parts of this unhealthy and very difficult region are
located in five Russian governments: Mohileff, Kieff, Volhynia, Minsk,
and Grodno, and these swamps therefore are the border land of Poland,
Great Russia, and Little Russia. A comparatively small section of them
has been thoroughly explored and their exact limits have never been
determined. In the west and east the Rivers Bug and Dniester
respectively form a definite border, which is lacking in the south and
north, while to the northwest the famous Forest of Bielovies may be
considered its boundary. According to a very rough estimate the Pripet
Marshes are approximately one-half as large as the kingdom of Rumania;
only one river of importance runs through them, the Pripet, from
which, indeed, the marshes take their popular name. On both of its
sides the Pripet has a large number of tributaries, among which on the
right are: the Styr, the Gorin, the Usha, and on the left the Pina,
the Sluch, and the Ptych. A large number of small lakes are
distributed throughout the entire district. Quite a large number of
canals have been built, one of which connects the Pina with the Bug,
another the Beresina, of Napoleonic fame and a tributary of the
Dnieper, with the Ula and through the latter with the Dvina. In this
manner it is possible to reach the Baltic Sea by means of continuous
waterways from the Black Sea.

It is very difficult to conceive a clear picture of this region
without having actually seen it. In a way one may call it a gigantic