The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

1'OLAND : WARSAW. 253and TVieprz, the fortress of Icangorod, formerly Demblin, covers the approach to"Warsaw from the south-west.Warsaw, or Warszaica, is in every respect the first city in Poland, ranking inthe empire immediately after St. Petersburg and Moscow. Yet it is not an oldplace, the name first occurring in the beginning of the thirteenth century. P>utafter the incorporation of Lithuania it was chosen in 1569 as the seat of the Diet,because it was " neither Polish nor Lithuanian, but stood in the neutral land ofMazovia." Having thus become the rallying-point of the united states, it soonprofited by the geographical advantages of its position on a large navigable riverFig. 119.—Warsaw.Scale 1 : 200,000.in the centre of a fertile plain stretching from Eastern Prussia to the Lysa Gorauplands. It lies at the point where most of the large tributaries converge—the"Wieprz and Pilica from the south and south-west, the Bug and Narev from theeast and south-east—thus giving easy access by water to the farthest limits of theland. It also faces eastwards towards the low water-parting between the Niemen,Dvina, and Dnieper basins, continued like a great highway of trade and migrationsfar in the direction of Moscow. This was also the military route often followed bythe Poles in their expeditions against Russia, and in their turn by the Russians,when they overran Poland and laid waste its capital.