Iwankow, scenes were enacted, a parallel for which can only be found in the bloodiest days of the French revolution. Not content with wreaking their vengeance on the living, bands of military and peasants forcibly entered the churches in the four above-named villages, and under the pretence of searching for arms broke open the resting-places of the dead. So inflamed were they with the lust of plunder, that they did not scruple to despoil the corpses of whatever rich apparel and jewelry had been interred with them. As soon as the tidings of this outrage reached M. Borowski, the Bishop of Zitomir, he at once addressed a remonstrance to General Annenkoff, the governor of the three provinces. A few days afterwards Annenkoff replied to the bishop, expressing his regret at what had happened, and enclosing him a copy of the reproof which he had forwarded to Prince Druckoy-Sokolinski. This latter, after the receipt of the reprimand of his chief, by way of showing how much regard he paid to it, published an order of the day, in which he thanked the peasants and military for their activity in putting down the insurrection, and conveyed his entire approval of the means to which they had resorted.

In the neighbourhood of Winniça, a district town in the northern division of Podolia, numbers of persons had their noses, ears, and lips cut off, and then, spitted through the cheeks, were driven to prison in herds at the point of goads and pitchforks before the infuriated peasantry. So fearful were the sufferings of all, that the survivors could only envy those, whom death had placed beyond the brutality of their tormentors. Plucking the eyes out of some, the peasants poured vitriol and spirits of wine

into the bleeding sockets, and then set fire to them. Others they took and scalped, and, folding the skin down over the eyes and nose, left their victims exposed to the broiling sun.

An eye-witness of the entrance of the train of prisoners into Zitomir, himself half a Russian, and educated at St. Petersburg, assured me that he should never forget, to his dying day, the frightful spectacle, adding, "On my word of honour, I don't believe that Christ himself suffered more than those miserable creatures." This gentleman had been up to that time full of Russian sympathies, and therefore his testimony is all the more worth.

Bound hand and foot, so tight that the ropes cut the flesh almost to the bone, with their faces horribly mutilated, and their bodies covered with gaping wounds, to the number of some two hundred, on foot or strapped to jolting carts, the unfortunate prisoners were conveyed thirty miles, exposed to the broiling sun, and continually pricked and goaded by the lances and pitchforks of the Cossacks and peasants, who escorted them. Arrived at Zitomir, they were cast into filthy dungeons, and all access to them forbidden by order of the governor. In the cases of those who were conveyed to the hospitals, it was days before their friends could obtain permission to supply them with a change of linen.

With these scenes enacting, almost before one's eyes, it seemed bitter mockery to find Lord Napier writing from St. Petersburg, and Lord Brougham speaking in his place in the House of Lords, to the effect "that from their acquaintance with the benevolent disposition of the Emperor Alexander, they were convinced he would

do his utmost to put a stop to the sad state of things," &c. But, even admitting the benevolent disposition of the Emperor, the establishment of that fact would not convey the smallest guarantee of the proximate suspension of bloodshedding in the kingdom of Poland and the eastern provinces. The Emperor was probably as ignorant as Lord Brougham himself of the horrid details of the massacres, to which the peasants were excited in his name.

In the course of my journey through the Ruthenian provinces, I was repeatedly arrested by the peasantry, and only escaped, whenever I did escape, by fast driving. In parties of four or six, sometimes with, sometimes without the accompaniment of a couple of soldiers, the peasants were encamped in huts on the roadside throughout the length and breadth of the Ruthenian provinces.

The Government had given them instructions to demand the passport of every traveller; and, in order to enable them to enforce compliance, had armed them with hatchets, ox-goads, and pitchforks, and in some cases with guns.

CHAPTER XIII.

KIEV.

IN the three Ruthenian provinces there is but a single road which is passable at all seasons of the year. Once off the great highway which leads from Warsaw to Kiev-a distance of some 500 English miles-you are subject to notices of this sort: "Travellers are informed that the next stage is a very severe one, and that in spring and autumn the road is almost impassable. The soil consists of black mud, into which carriages sink over the wheels." There is such an air of naïveté in the wording of the notice, that you cannot help being amused, in the midst of your indignation, at a Government which is not ashamed to impose a very heavy highway rate, without spending a penny of it on the roads. The terrible monotony of the one great high road is almost more painful than the constant sticking in the mud to which you are liable in the country roads. Imagine the Long Walk at Windsor multiplied by 150, and you can form an idea of the sort of impression a journey from Warsaw to Kiev makes on the unfortunate traveller. That the idea of a diligence has only here and there as yet penetrated into Russia will give some notion of the state of civilization in that country. During its whole course from Warsaw to Kiev, the road does not make a single bend, only here and there, at intervals of 100 miles, taking a sharp turn

to right or left. One post station is exactly the counterpart of the other: the same yellow walls, with brown facings and rust-coloured roof, occur over and over again. Inside, exactly the same articles of furniture almost kill you with their fearful regularity; in the front room, two sofas, two tables, four chairs, a looking-glass, and two thermometers, one in the room, one outside the window; in each of the back rooms, one sofa, two chairs, one table, and a looking-glass. A little painting in a gold frame, representing the Saviour, in the front room, and the Virgin and child in the back, both placed very high up out of the reach of thieves, on a little ledge in a corner, remind the traveller that he is in a country where at any rate the spiritual welfare of the people is not neglected. I am persuaded that the only thing which kept me alive during my journey along this road was the constant expectation of falling among thieves. It was exciting enough, from time to time, to find oneself in the middle of a regiment of Cossacks on the march, which was my fate on four or five occasions. If there is comparatively little order and military discipline in the insurgent ranks, there is certainly none at all among the Cossacks. A more disorderly rabble I never witnessed in my life, and the hopelessness-on any but homoeopathic principles of putting down an insurrection with such troops became at once evident to me. It was an intense relief to arrive at Kiev, and I felt as one does at the end of a long voyage, when one has been very sea-sick, very much inclined to avoid the return-journey by settling in the place for life.

I had now traversed the whole breadth of the ancient Kingdom of Poland, having throughout enjoyed very