e H A P. VII.
Continuation of the tour through the duchy o f Lithuania-.—
Number- of Jews..— Badnefs of the roads and wakt of
accommodations.— Clofe o f the dietine at Minik.— Poverty
and wretcbednefs o f the natives,.— Comparative view of
the Swifs and PoMx pea/ants.— Remarks on. the Plica.:
Polonica,.
b o o k T n our route through Lithuania we could not1 avoid Being:
. U' , J- {truck.with the {warms of Jews, who, though very numerous
in every part of Poland,, feem to have fixed their
head-quarters in. this duchy. I f you- aik for an interpreter,
they bring you a Jew i f you. come to an inn, the landlord
is a J ew ;. i f you want poft-hories,, a. Jew procures them,
and a Jew drives them.; if you. wiih to purchafe, a Jew is
your agent: and this pefhaps is the only country in.Europe
where Jews cultivate the ground ; in paffing through Lithuania,
we frequently faw them* engaged in fowing, reaping,
mowing, and other works of Huibandry.
The roads in this country are quite- negledbed, being,
fcarcely fuperior to by-paths winding through the thick foreft
without the leaft degree of artificial direction t they are frequently
fo narrow as fcarcely to admit a carriage and are
continually fo ohftru£ted by flumps and roots of trees, and
in many parts fo exceedingly iandy, that eight fmall hones
eould fcarcely drag us along. The poftiltons were frequently
boys of ten or twelve years of. age, hardy lads, who rode
i, ■ polls
polls of twenty and even thirty Engliih miles without a faddle, chap.
and with fcarcely any covering except a ihirt and a pair of.— .— >
linen drawers. The bridges aorofs the rivulets were fo
weakly conllrufted and fo old, that they feemed ready to
crack with the weight of the carriage, and we thought our-
felves fortunate in getting over them without an accident.
Some travellers have remarked, that the forefts, through
which our route lay, are fet on fire by lightning or other
natural caufes, and blaze for a confiderable time. At firft
we conceived this reprefentation to be well-founded, as we
difcovered in many parts evident traces of extenfive conflagrations.
Upon inquiry, however, we were informed, that
the peafants, being obliged annually to furnifh their landlords
with a certain quantity of turpentine, fet fire to the
trunks of the pines while Handing, and catch it as it oozes
from the items. We could obferve few trees without marks
of fire upon them: fome were quite black, and nearly
charred to cinder; fome half-burnt; others confiderably
fcorched, but continuing to vegetate.
Auguft 15. After twenty hours inceflant travelling we
arrived late in the evening at Bielitza, which is diftant about
ninety Engliih miles from Grodno; and fat out before the
break of day, anxious to reach Minfk on the morning o f the
17th, when a dietine for the election of nuntios was to be
affembled. We flopped a ihort time at Novogrodec, which
is all built of wood, except two or three ruinous brick-
houfes, a convent that belonged to the Jefuits, and fome
mouldering ftone-walls iurrounding a fmall eminence, upon
which are the remains of an old citadel. Near Novogrodec
we patTed a large number of barrows, which the peafants call .
Swediih burying-places. In this part the country was lefs
fandy, of a richer'foil, and ibmewhat diverfified with hill and
G g a dale :