CHAPTER III.

ON TRAVELLING IN POLAND, AND THE NATIONAL CHARACTER OF THE POLES.

AT Berlin in the north, and Vienna in the south of Germany, the ordinary British tourist may be said to have come to the end of his tether. All beyond is clouded in thick darkness. The land of guide-books ends, and the region of find-out-for-yourself begins. Henceforth churches, palaces, and picture-galleries will fail us, and our mental food will consist of the study of human nature-a highly refreshing diet after being bored to death with a long dose of sight-seeing. In Poland, in the guide-book sense of the term, there is nothing to see, and you feel thankful for it, after steadily working your way through the sights of Western Europe. But if there is nothing to see in Poland, there is a great deal to feel and to study. For the benefit of future tourists, finding themselves with a little spare time on hand at Berlin or Vienna, I may observe that in the space of twelve hours, and for the sum of something like thirty shillings, they may from Berlin reach Posen, or from Vienna, Cracow, and find themselves transported into the midst of an entirely different civilization. Then, for the first time, they will feel the

refreshing sensation of travelling, as opposed to touring. Who ever escaped from Murray's leading-strings without rejoicing in his liberty, and feeling the bracing effects of being thrown for once on his own resources? In Poland, even Baedeker fails you. Your swimmingcorks are gone, and you must strike out for your life, or sink. Refreshing misgivings come over you as to what sort of a bed you will get for the night. You will henceforth have to take and be thankful for what accommodation you find, instead of daintily picking and choosing between half a dozen equally good hotels, weighing carefully the difference between Murray's words of praise" excellent," "first-rate," "much to be recommended," and so forth. In my day, I have done a good deal of touring, but only travelled once, and that in Poland.

Even in Syria and Egypt, where directly you land you are taken in and done for by a dragoman at so much a day, you can hardly be said to travel, if you mean by travelling getting anything like a real knowledge of the inhabitants of the country. A good dinner is, no doubt, an excellent thing in its way; but to be accompanied by a professed cook and an enormous plate-chest through Palestine and Syria, as was my lot in common with my fellow-travellers, undoubtedly takes off, to a great extent, from the bracing sensation of travelling. Now-a-days, the dinner, with which his dragoman provides the traveller in the desert, is hardly inferior to that to which he sits down at a first-rate hotel in Europe. The best plum-pudding I ever ate in my life was served up to us by our chef in our tents, which were pitched on the high bank of the brook,

I

upon by Cossacks while quietly driving with a Polish lady, and maltreated in the most horrible manner. myself saw this gentleman some ten days after the occurrence, and found him so faint and weak from the loss of blood, that he could hardly speak. His head, chest, and legs were one mass of wounds, and the doctors from the beginning had despaired of his recovery. Thanks, however, to an extraordinarily robust constitution, I found him still alive, in spite of the thirty-seven wounds which he had received.

On visiting him a second time, he was sufficiently recovered to give me a partial account of the circumstances of the occurrence; but as the case of Mr. Finkenstein made so much noise at the time, and was given in detail by all the newspapers, I need not dwell upon it here.

One incident, however, is worth mentioning, and as the account of it is drawn from Mr. Finkenstein's own lips, its truth may be depended upon.

When Mr. Finkenstein was lying on the ground, wallowing in his own blood, and stripped almost naked, he heard his assailants exclaim, "See, he has got a ring on his finger. We will cut that off." Here I may observe, en passant, that the Cossacks would seldom take the trouble to detach any bit of jewellery from the body; but if it was a ring, earring, or necklace (the Poles seldom went into action without some charm suspended round their necks), would cut the finger, ear, or head off, as the case might be, in order to get possession of the coveted article.

Mr. Finkenstein, knowing this habit of theirs, had only just strength left to slip the ring over his finger

and hand it to his spoilers, who were astonished to find he was not killed outright. Happily at this moment the Cossacks were disturbed at their work by the advance of some Poles, and thus Mr. Finkenstein's life was saved by a miracle.

which flows past the tower of Zacchæus-all that now remains to mark the site of Jericho. Although I felt more or less like a criminal all the time we were eating that pudding, I remember that we found it so good, that we finished it at breakfast next morning at five A. M.

Of the countries within easy reach of England, Poland is one of the few where it is still possible to travel, in the true sense of the word. In France, Germany, Italy, and other highly civilized countries, you may see something of the towns, and make the acquaintance of any number of hotel-keepers, housemaids, and waiters; but what does any tourist see of the real life of the people, among whom he is sojourning? In Poland there are no hotels to speak of, and you pass the night, as a matter of course, at the house of the nearest proprietor.

It being a notion generally prevalent all over Europe, that there is nothing whatever attractive in the country, Poland is visited about twice in a century by foreigners whose sole object is to study the people. Even the Poles have begun to believe that there is nothing to be found among them, which can possibly interest a stranger, and more than once expressed unfeigned astonishment at the trouble, to which I put myself to learn something of their national institutions and customs. The consequence is, that no preparations whatever are made for the reception of foreigners, and it is just this very circumstance which renders real travelling possible. It is true, that in every village you find a miserable hovel, audaciously called an inn by the Jew who keeps it, where the traveller may get as much execrable potato brandy as he can drink, and a bed without any sleep, but were it not for the hospitality of the inhabitants,