The manner of drinking, amongst the Ukrainian people, with each other, strongly resembles the usages known on such occasions in England. A man who intends to drink a glass of brandy with another, takes a glass, rises, bows to him, and when the bow is returned he makes a speech and drinks his health, while the others are standing. His friends return the compliment, and all the guests follow in rotation with speeches, in which they all fehcitate themselves till they lose their senses and become inebriated. (It is called byczek,)
Land in the Ukraine has greatly increased in value since the foundation of the port of Odessa; but as the roads are bad, and there is not any railroad yet completed, this port has not given that extension which it would otherwise have given to the trade of this province. The roads of the Ukraine, from the nature of the soil, are bad only during the rains of spring and latter autumn; at other seasons they are most excellent. The nobility of the Ukraine lately proposed to the Russian government to construct at their own expense, some good common roads, as well as railroads to the Black Sea for facilitating the export of grain; but this project incurred the displeasure of the Emperor Nicholas, and it was abandoned. There exists in the Ukraine a superstitious belief that, according to the prophecy of Vernyhora, the principal attack upon Russia will be made by the Ukraine, and that Poland will be restored by the Ukraine. The Russian government appears by no means disposed to favour any undertaking which might augment too much the revenues of the Ukrainian nobles, facilitate their communication, and give them access to the Black Sea, whence in case of war they may derive resources and reinforcements.
If the lover of his country should perchance stray among the Steppes of the Ukraine, when the sun casts its setting glories over the plains, wherein the bones of ancient warriors have become dust, and drunk of Bokudo's blood; the Ukraine will present to his imagination an indefinable something between love and hatred, between civilisation and barbarism, between the past and the future, between the darkness of night and the brightness of day, between poetical fiction and reality, between Europe and Asia, between modern and ancient days; the nations whose names have perished; the nations whom tradition has preserved, — the Scythians, the Huns, the hordes of Ghengiskan, of Tamerlane, those of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, the Russic chieftains, the Turks, the Poles, the Cossacks, the Swedes, the Kussians, — will pass before his eyes as a phantasmagoria on this arena of blood, on which Poland repelled during several ages the invasions of the barbarians, which were especially directed against civilised Europe.
That Poland now, alas! lies prostrate, bathed in her tears and moaning in the dust. Shall she perish? No, she shall yet rise again. I see the Pole, the Cossack, and the Mahometan in a friendly embrace. I see a dazzling light in the west and in the east. I see a splendid cradle drawing forth from her imaginary tomb.