for answer that he was well known to the authorities, and had a job in the next field, which rendered his passing to and fro necessary. This explanation did not satisfy the official mind, and accordingly the peasant was seized and ordered to strip. Nothing suspicious, however, was found about him, and it only remained to search his boots, which the official ordered him to pull off. Without a moment's hesitation the peasant complied, beginning with the left boot. Finding it to contain nothing whatever, the employé told the peasant that that would do, and he might go about his business. In the right boot were fourteen copies of the Czas.

It not unfrequently happens that the peasants on either side of the frontier are very differently disposed towards the Poles. Not long since an insurgent of considerable calibre, after successfully escaping the Russian peasants, fell into the hands of those on the Austrian side. As it was of importance to get the prisoner released at once, night as it was, the nearest proprietor, mounting his horse, and taking with him a smartly dressed groom, rode to the spot. There he found the peasant guard sitting round their watch-fire, and they absolutely refused to allow him even a sight of the captive, whom they had shut up in a hut. However, while the guard was occupied with his master, the groom made the best use of his time. By skilful manoeuvring he succeeded in getting into the hut unobserved, and effected a change of clothes with the prisoner, who quietly rode off with the proprietor, while the groom remained in durance. At daylight the peasants proceeded to reconnoitre their prisoner, and were completely dumbfounded to find the wrong man. The groom was perfectly well known to

them, having himself only lately emerged from his peasant existence. "What! Michael, it isn't you? It wasn't you we shut up." Michael, however, persis

tently stuck to his identity.

The peasants were by this time in a great fright, firmly believing the devil to have a hand in the matter. As is their wont in such cases they proceeded piously to cross themselves, which had the desired effect of composing them a little. Then sitting down they placed Michael in the midst, and began to interrogate him. From him they learnt that as he was passing that way the previous evening, they had violently set upon him, and finally locked him up. More puzzled than ever, and distrusting the evidence of their last night's senses, they again proceeded to cross themselves. They were only certain of one thing, that Michael was there in the flesh among them, and how he got there, unless they had locked him up, they could not for the life of them tell. Only too glad to be rid of him, the peasants allowed the prisoner to take himself off, who related the story with great glee to his master.

CHAPTER XV.

THE VOLHYNIAN EXPEDITION.

SOON after my return to Lemberg from Kamieniec Podolski, it was announced to me that the Volhynian expedition, under General Wysocki, would be ready to start in a few days. Accordingly, I set forth once more in the direction of Brody, near which town the passage of the insurgents across the frontier was to be effected.

The difficulties which had been overcome in getting up the expedition were almost inconceivable, for, short of shutting up the whole of the proprietors in prison, the Austrian Government had resorted to every means in their power to stop the preparations. There was no sacrifice which the Poles of Eastern Galicia had not made in order to render nugatory the vigilance of the authorities. High and low, rich and poor, men and women alike had been straining their utmost efforts, and it was owing to that alone, that the whole thing did not break down. It is no exaggeration to say that many persons were brought to the brink of ruin, while almost every landed proprietor had so seriously compromised himself with the Government, that in case of need, a handle had been provided against him. For the previous two months, some two thousand insurgents had been secreted on the estates of the proprietors of Eastern Galicia, while cases of arms had lain buried in their

woods, and their residences been turned into manufactories of every sort of gear for man and horse. There was scarcely a house where the strictest revisions had not taken place, where the smallest ground of suspicion existed, whether in town or country. Sleeping here to-night and there to-morrow-hunted like escaped convicts from place to place-the insurgents had led a most nomadic existence during these two months. Persecuted in every way by the Austrian authorities while forming in Galicia, and fired upon by the Austrian outposts while in the act of crossing the frontier, the Polish detachments were, as a rule, set upon by an overwhelming mass of Russians in less than twenty-four hours from the time they set foot on Russian territory. Is it not a proof of the extraordinary determination of the Poles, that in the face of these well-known facts they still continued the desperate struggle for the liberty which they prize beyond everything else in the world? It is, in fact, only in the camp that they are truly free, and to enjoy this intoxicating draught of freedom they are content to endure the frightful hardships, to which their mode of warfare exposes them. Each camp is to them a miniature Poland, where no Russian or German is mixed with the pure Polish element, where the Polish white eagle once more floats on the breeze. In these woodland republics one was constantly reminded of scenes from As You Like It; nor were Rosalinds in male attire wanting to complete the picture. "Under the shade of melancholy boughs" the Pole can dream out his delicious dream, and, Jaques-like, moralise over the worldly heartlessness of the Western powers; or, like the banished Duke, become enamoured of his exile; and for venison,

go and kill him Russians. Until you put it to the test, this As You Like It aspect of the insurrection is very attractive; but one good drenching, and the absence of food, soon determines a practical Englishman that he does not like it.

After two days' pursuit, I came upon the first traces of the insurgents, in the heart of a forest, some ten miles from the Volhynian frontier. The insurgents had decamped; but the trodden appearance of the ground and the débris strewed about gave unmistakable signs of recent occupation. I was at first surprised to find a case containing bread and sugar, and a cask of spirits left behind; but I am now inclined to believe that at this spot a sort of permanent restaurant had been established in the woods for the benefit of all comers. The insurgents themselves were not far off, as we discovered by their replying to our signal-whistle. Striking into a side path leading out of the main track, we soon caught sight of human heads and shoulders projecting out of the long grass and underwood, in which they were crouching. For the Austrians, not content with making revisions in the proprietors' houses and on their estates, extended their search for arms and insurgents into the inmost recesses of the forests, scouring the country far and wide, and finding a willing guide in every peasant, who was handsomely rewarded for his services. If any one could have written an account of the adventures of a rifle on its way to the Russian frontier, his narrative would have been a most exciting one. Purchased at double the cost price, because of the risk incurred by the contractors in selling to the agents of a revolutionary government, the arms destined for the insurgents had so perilous a