which was already begun,
became general.

CHAP. VI.

The king of Westphalia then went along the Niemen at Grodno, with a view
to repass it at Bielitza, to overpower the right of Bagration, put it to
the rout, and pursue it.

This Saxon, Westphalian, and Polish army had in front of it a general
and a country both difficult to conquer. It fell to its lot to invade
the elevated plain of Lithuania: there are the sources of the rivers
which empty their waters into the Black and Baltic seas. But the soil
there is slow in determining their inclination and their current, so
that the waters stagnate and overflow the country to a great extent.
Some narrow causeways had been thrown over those woody and marshy
plains; they formed there long defiles, which Bagration was easily
enabled to defend against the king of Westphalia. The latter attacked
him carelessly; his advanced guard only three times encountered the
enemy, at Nowogrodeck, at Myr, and at Romanof. The first rencontre was
entirely to the advantage of the Russians; in the two others,
Latour-Maubourg remained master of a sanguinary and contested field of
battle.

At the same time, Davoust, proceeding from Osmiana, extended his force
towards Minsk and Ygumen, behind the Russian general, and made himself
master of the outlet of the defiles, in which the king of Westphalia was
compelling Bagration to engage himself.

Between this general and his retreat was a river which takes its source
in an infectious marsh; its uncertain, slow, and languid current, across
a rotten soil, does not belie its origin; its muddy waters flow towards
the south-east; its name possesses a fatal celebrity, for which it is
indebted to our misfortunes.

The wooden bridges, and long causeways, which, in order to approach it,
had been thrown over the adjacent marshes, abut upon a town named
Borizof, situated on its left bank, on the Russian side. This bank is
generally higher than the right; a remark applicable to all the rivers
which in this country run in the direction of one pole to the other,
their eastern bank commanding their western bank, as Asia does Europe.

This passage was important; Davoust anticipated Bagration there by
taking possession of Minsk on the 8th of July, as well as the entire
country from the Vilia to the Berezina; accordingly when the Russian
prince and his army, summoned by Alexander, to the north, pushed forward
their piquets, in the first instance upon Lida, a