Some additional information relative to the opinions entertained by Polish exiles in Siberia and others in regard to advantages which they enjoy in Siberia is supplied by Mr Michie (pp. 337-342). I believe it to be a fair representation of the case; and it is in accordance with everything stated by Dr Lansdell in his volume entitled Through Siberia, published in 1882, in which he gives details of arrangements of almost every prison in Siberia, to visit which, with a view to supplying the prisoners with copies of the New Testament was the design of his journey. A review of what he says I embodied in a companion volume to this, entitled Forestry in the Ural Mountains in Eastern Russia*
* Forestry in the Mining Districts of the Ural Mountains in E<istern Russia. In which are given details of a journey from St Petersburg thither, and of forest exploitation in the government of Ufa; an account of the Ural Mountains and the population of metallurgy works creating a demand for forest products j an account of the forests of the district; of the exploitation of these; and of abuses connected with this, with a parting glimpse at the life of the people; and the conquest of Siberia by Russia.
PART II. LITHUANIA.
CHAPTER T.
ACCORDING to a Gazeteer published in the last century (1798), Lithuania is ' a large country between Poland and Russia. It is about 300 miles long, and 250 in breadth. It is watered by several rivers, the principal of which are the Dneiper, the Dwina, the Nieman, the Pripeez, and the Bog. It is a flat country like Poland, and the lands are well adapted for tillage. The soil is not only fertile in corn, but it produces heavy wood, pitch, and vast quantities of wool. They have also excellent little horses which they never shoe, because their hoofs are very hard. There are vast forests, in which are bears, wolves, elks, wild oxen, lynxes, beavers, gluttons, wild cats, &c., and eagles and vultures are very common. In these forests large pieces of yellow amber are dug up frequently. The country abounds with Jews, who, though numerous in every other part of Poland, seem to have fixed their head quarters in this duchy, and this is perhaps the only country in Europe where Jews cultivate the ground. The peasants are in a state of the most abject vassalage. The religion was formerly Romish, but now there are Lutherans, Calvinists, Socinians, Greeks, and even Turks, as well as Jews/
As it was then, so is it still. In a later Gazeteer published by Fullarton, it is stated: — ' Lithuania, called in German Littauen, is a very ancient division of Europe,
lying between Courland, Russia, Poland, and Prussia. In the eleventh century the country was tributary to Russia; in the thirteenth it became a grand duchy under Ringold. The Grand Duke Jagellan, having married the Polish princess Hedwig, united his duchy to the crown of Poland about the year 1386. At the first partition of Poland in 1773, a considerable portion of Lithuania was assigned to Russia, and the governments of Mobile v and Polozk, or Vitebsk, were formed out of the newly acquired territory; while the remainder of Lithuania, forming the territories of Vilna, Troki, Polozk, Novogrodek, Brzesc, and Minsk, remained attached to the Polish monarchy. By the partition of 1793 and 1795, Russia further acquired those portions of Lithuania which now form her governments of Vilna, Grodno, and Minsk, while Prussia acquired that portion which constituted her regency of Gumbinnan.' It is the Russian portion, exclusive of this, upon which I now report.
Lithuania, like Poland, has played an important part in the development of Russia, in so far at least as modification of political government is concerned. In Russia at the present time, we have, in combination with absolute monarchal power in all that relates to national matters, what looks like absolute democratic power in all that relates to communal matters, and in a former day there was in Russia in one district a democratic republic side by side with an absolute monarchy. According to one legend the real founders of the Russian monarchy were Normans who found their way to the district in which is situated the city of Novgorod, either coming thither by invitation or in the prosecution of their personal pursuits.