'Taking leave of my Vilna friends I directed my course towards Troki, the ancient residence of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, which lies about twenty miles to the north-west of Vilna, We reached this district town, which is beautifully situated on the lake Bressal, in the evening. This lake has a communication with the river Villia by a canal. The ruins of an ancient ducal palace are still prominent on one of the little islands which spot the bosom of this extensive lake, whose waters are clear as crystal. Troki is said to have been founded by the Grand Duke Gusdemin in 1321. It was burned down in 1390, and ruined by the Russians in 1655. The present town is divided into three parishes. In one of the churches is an image of the Virgin, which occasionally attracts a number of pilgrims from the surrounding country. The houses are built of wood. The scenery around the lake is remarkably fine in a country like this, where the eye is so seldom relieved from the sameness of prospect — of extensive plains and woods; and the evening being fine, I greatly enjoyed it.'
Conterminous with the government of Vilna on the north-west is the government of Kovno. In the government of Kovno the area of forests is 768,000 desatins, of which 243,765 desatins belong to the crown, equivalent to 21*9 desatins of forests, or 6'9 desatius of crown forests per square verst, and to 0*7 desatins of forests, or 0'2 desatins of crown forests per inhabitant. The annual felling in the crown forests yield 147 cubic feet, and the revenue is 16'9 kopecs per desatin.
Kovno, the capital, is an ancient town, finely situated for commerce at the confluence of the Villia and the Niemen, bears numerous marks of depopulation, poverty, and decay. The pavement of the market place is overgrown with grass, and many of the public buildings seem hastening to ruin. The population does not exceed four thousand, of whom a great proportion are Jews, and the rest Roman Catholics.
This statement I make on the authority of Dr Pinkerton. In an account of his journeying in this district, he writes: — ' From Kovno we continued to travel down the banks of the Niemen for about twelve versts, when we changed horses at a village swarming with Jews, with whom I left a Testament and a few tracts. At Svedrick, another populous Jewish town, I conversed with the people for an hour, and gave them two Hebrew Testaments and a Hebrew tract. We prosecuted our journey all night northward till about four in the morning, when we arrived at the district town of Rossiena. With some difficulty I obtained a room at the house of a Jew, where I attempted to get a few hours rest; but the place was so cold and so uncomfortable that I felt not at all refreshed by it.
c Rossiena is chiefly inhabited by Jews; and is now but an insignificant looking place, though formerly the residence of a Voivod under the Poles. It looks more like a village than a town; the houses are mere wooden huts, and most of the streets not even paved. The Samogatian population of the district of Rossiena amounts to about 90,000.
' The Bishop of Samogatia has his residence here. It was a great holiday when I was there — St. John's day — and the peasantry were flocking towards it from all quarters. The general aspect of the country from Kovni to Rossiena is level, the soil sandy and clayey by turns.
' Leaving Rossiena about midday, 1 took the road for the district town of Shawel. At a village called Titifian there was a fair similiar to what we had left at Rossiena. In the evening we found the roads filled with country people returning from it, among whom I was pained to observe a great number intoxicated; I even became doubtful of my safety in travelling by night through extensive and little frequented roads; yet we continued our course in the rain, along very bad roads, for about fifteen miles, and then halted about midnight at a Samogatian village, where I purposed resting a few hours, but the heat and vermin in the hut was so annoying, even though I merely stretched myself on a bare bench by the side of the wall, that I could not sleep.
' We arrived in the district town of Shawel about eight the next morning. It consists of 280 dwellings, mostly wooden huts of different dimensions, the rest of brick. I found the Jews, who form the majority of the inhabitants, extremely shy, and averse to conversation on religious subjects.......
1 On leaving Shawel I took the road to Telsh, another district town of Samogatia, at which I arrived about one in the morning. On approaching Telsh the level and uninteresting aspect of the country undergoes a favourable change, becoming undulating, and in some parts even hilly.