The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

2G4 RUSSIA IX BUEOPE.labourers received nothing, while the rest obtained lots of from 113 to 270 acres.The Chincheriki, or farmers, nearly all of them petty Polish nobles, did not becomeowners of the lands leased by them, and many, unable to pay the increasedrents, were forced to abandon the farms held by their families for generations.The Catholic element, already affected by the suppression of the Uniates, has alsodiminished in importance. The passage of the Uniates to orthodoxy was facilitatedby the strange custom which in Vilna endows the land with the religionof its owner. On land held by Jews the Christians keep the Sabbath (Saturday),and on Christian lands the Jew observes the feasts of the calendar. But most ofthe lands being " Russian," the feasts and observances of the cultivators mustalso be Russian, whatever may have been their original religion.But with partial ruin general improvement is evident. The old serfs, havingbecome landowners, have changed in many respects, and need no longer repeat theold proverb, " The lords are at once shepherds and wolves." Progress is evenFig. 124.—Xilsl.Scale 1 : 500,000.C of P ga'A Q- £5«£ of Gapparent in the unproductive government of Vitebsk. But besides agricultureno industries have yet been developed. The towns are few and small, and theirtrade and handicrafts are in the hands of others than the Lithuanians.Topography.Following the right or Grodno side of the Bug, the first town we meet isthe old Russian colony of Brest-Litovskiy, or simply Brest, at the junction of theMukhavetz, the second in importance of the fortresses forming the Polishquadrilateral, but also a busy mart and a main centre of the Russian railwaysystem. The Jews, here very numerous, have an academy, or high school,formerly noted throughout the East, and an Armenian bishop at one time residedin the place. The Protestants printed the first Polish Bible here in 1596.Beloslok (Bialystok), the most Polish of all the Lithuanian towns, lies in