'A village built without a plan, in which every house is surrounded by a garden, covers an immense extent of ground. Some of the Kozack villages are as widely spread as towns. Of course there is a church, with its glow of colour, and of poetic charm.
' From Kiev, on the Dnieper, to Kalatch, on the Don, you find the villages all of this type. The points of difference [between these and those further to the north] lie in the house and in the garden; and must spring from difference of education, if not of race. The Great Russians are of a timid, soft, and fluent type. They like to huddle in a crowd, to club their means, to live under a common roof, and stand or fall by the family tree. The Little Russ [or inhabitants of Little Russia], are of a quick, adventurous, and hardy type, who like to stand apart, each for himself, with scope and range enough for the play of all his powers. A Great Russian carries his bride to his father's shed; a Little Russian carries her to a cabin of his own/
Conterminous with the government of Voronetz, on the south-west, is the government of Kharkov, in which the area of forests is 620,000 desatins, of which 308,883 desatins belong to the crown, equivalent to 12'9 desatins of forests, or 6 '5 desatins of crown forests, to the square verst; and to 0'42 desatins of forests, or 0*2 desatins of crown forests, to each inhabitant. The annual fellings in the crown forests yield 37'8 cubic feet, and the revenue is 148'8 kopecs per desatin.
The government of Poltava lies immediately to the west of the government of Kharkov. In this government the area of forests is 310,000 desatins, of which 39,142 desatins belong to the crown, equivalent to 7 desatins of forests, or 08 desatins of crown forests, to the square verst; and 0'2 desatins of forests, or 0'02 desatins of crown forests, to each inhabitant. The annual fellings in the crown forests yield 105'1 cubic feet, and the revenue is 228 2 kopecs per desatin.
In the government of Tchernigov, which lies to the north of Poltava, there are 928,000 desatins of forests, of which 261,697 desatins belong to the crown, equivalent to 20' 1 desatins of forests, or 5*6 desatins of crown forests per square verst; and to 0'6 of forests, or 02 desatins of crown forest per inhabitant. The annual fellings in the crown forests yield 21 cubic feet, and the revenue is 30*1 kopecs per desatin.
In the government of Kiev, which lies to the west of the government of Poltava, the area of forests is 1,555,000 desatins, of which 272,739 desatins belong to the crown, equivalent to 26'2 desatins of forests, and 6'1 desatins of crown forests, per square verst; and to 0'6 desatins of forests, or 01 desatins of crown forests, per inhabitant. The annual fellings in the crown forests yield 21*2 cubic feet, and the revenue is 50'8 kopecs per desatin.
In the government of Tchernigov is the town of Baturin, a beautifully situated and well-built town on the banks of the Segma, named after its founder, Etienne Batori, King of Poland. It was formerly the residence of the Hetmen of the Ukraine. In 1703 it was the rendezvous of the famous rebel Mazeppa, by whose overthrow it suffered greatly, until, with the surrounding villages, containing, with the town, a population of 20,000 souls, it was given by the Empress Elizabeth to the last pet ward of the Ukraine, Count Cyril RazumofTsky, who rebuilt it, and in whose family it still continues.
Of Kiev Mr Dixon writes: — ' The first towns of Russia are Kiev and Novgorod the Great; her capitals and holy places long before she built herself a Kremlin on the Moskva, and a Winter Palace on the Neva. Kiev and Novgorod are still her pious and poetic cities: one the tower of her religious faith, the other, of her Imperial power. From Vichgorod at Kiev springs the dome which celebrates her conversion to the Church of Christ. In the Kremlin stands the bronze group which typifies her empire of a thousand years. Kiev, the oldest of Russian sees, is not in Russia proper, and many historians treat it as a Polish town. The people are Ruthenians, and for hundreds of years the city belonged to the Polish crown. The plain in front of it is the Ukraine steppe; the lands of Hetman and Zaparogue; of stirring legends and nations song. The manners are Polish, and the people Poles. Yet here lies the cradle of that church which has shaped into its own likeness every quality of Russian political and domestic life.