The surface of the country is very flat, generally sandy, intersected by vast marshes and bogs, and covered with forests abounding in bears, wolves, wild boars, and other animals, amongst which is the urus, or wild ox, but this is now rarely met with, and it seems to be diminishing both in size and strength. The most common trees are the pine, the oak, and the elm. A considerable quantity of potash and pearl ash is prepared in the forests; honey is also collected in great abundance. But the people generally are indolent. The best lands lie fallow, the hay is allowed to rot on the meadows, and whole forests are at times destroyed by fire.
My journey took me through the governments of Godno, Vilna, and Vitebsk. In the government of Grodno is the celebrated forest of BialowiSga, which extends over the district of Bialistock, and which still serves, or did some years ago, as a refuge for the last descendants of the urus of Oriental Europe. This forest is one pre-eminently suggestive of the expression primeval forest. 'It looks as if no provision had been made for its management, and it had been abandoned to the uncontrolled operations of nature. It is among those aged woods which overshadow the source of the Narova that the urus found safety; and there wander also the elk and the buffalo. And amid those scenes of primitive nature subsists a distinct population— the Ruskes, almost as savage as the animals which surround them/
The area of forests in the government of Grodno is 958,000 desatins, of which 557,440 desatins belong to the crown, equivalent to 28'1 desatins of forests, or 15'7 desatins of crown forests per square verst, and to 1 desatin of forests, or 0'6 desatins of crown forests per inhabitant. The annual fellings in the crown forests yield 12* 2 cubic feet, and the revenue is 23*1 kopecs per desatin.
The area of forests in the government of Vilna is 1,156,000 desatins, of which 387,145 desatins belong to the crown, equivalent to 33'9 desatins of forests, or 10*4 desatins of crown forests per square verst, and to 1*3 of forests, or 0'4 desatins of crown forest per inhabitant. The annual fellings in the crown forests yield 15'4 cubic feet, and the revenue is 16'4 kopecs per desatin.
Of the town of Vilna, Dr Pinkerton, who travelled through this district in the early part of the present century as agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society, writes: — 'The town of Vilna is built among sand hills at the confluence of the two streams Villia and Vilika. It was founded in 1305 by Guedemin, Grand Duke of Lithuania, of which it afterwards became the capital. Many remains of ancient public buildings, both in and near the town, bear ample testimony to its former grandeur. In 1748 it was burned down; and it is recorded that at that time thirteen churches and synagogues, about one hundred and forty-six shops, twenty-five palaces, and four hundred and sixty-nine store houses, &c., &c., were reduced to ashes. Still there are at the present time many fine churches and public and private buildings in Vilna, and daily improvements are still making. The present number of inhabitants is about 40,000, of whom one half are Jews. 'The Jewish population seem all engaged in buying and selling; the men hawking their goods about the public places, and the women seated before their shop doors knitting stockings, and loquaciously inviting the passers by to purchase of their wares. They all dress in the fashion of the Polish Jews; the men with black silk or stiff long robes, in eastern style, girt upon them, and round caps turned up with fur, with bushy beards and long hair, shining with oil and curled; the females are somewhat more European in their attire, with rich head dresses, ornamented with mock or real gems, according to their ability. The great majority of them look dirty and