The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

THE WHITE RUSSIANS. 283possessions torn from the Muscovites, it was afterwards used in a more restrictedsense. Catherine II. gave the name of "White Eussia to the present provinces ofVitebsk and Moghilov, and Nicholas abolished the expression altogether, sincewhen it has lost all its political significance, while preserving its ethnical value.Distinct in speech from the Poles, Little and Great Russians, theWhite Russiansstill betray striking analogies with all, and amongst them may possibly yet bediscovered the fundamental features by which the degrees of kinship between thevarious branches of the Eastern Slav family may be definitely determined. Theterm " White " is generally supposed to refer to the colour of their dress incontradistinction to the " Black Russians," between the Pripet and Nieinen, whoform the ethnical transition from the Little to the White Russians.The "White Russians.Although occupying a highly advantageous geographical position, the domainof the "White Russians was not otherwise favourable for the development of agreat Slav state. Largely covered with swamps, lakes, and half-submergedforests, this region, described as a land in which mud formed " the fifth element,"was probably uninhabited when the great waves of migration passed to theright and left, on the one hand by the Lovat and the Vistula, on the otherby the Bug and Dniester. The ethnical frontier is even now in many placesdetermined by the marsh lands, although in the south the Malo-Eussians havepenetrated far into these swampy wastes.Barrows and camping grounds (gorodishtcha) are very numerous in WhiteEussia, along the Dnieper, and the natural highways leading to the Baltic. Asmany as 3,931 small tumuli have been reckoned in the Bobruisk district alone ofthe government of Minsk, and in the whole province 15,000 mounds and over200 fortified camps. In the south-west of Smolensk a barrow, partly destroyedfor its stone, consisting entirely of erratic boulders, was surmounted by a largerblock, on which enthusiastic antiquaries fanciedthey had discovered a Phoenicianinscription in honour of Baal. Nevertheless the contents of many imply a considerableantiquity, although the camps are said to have been still occupied downto the seventeenth century, and only abandoned during the terrible wars betweenthe Poles and Muscovites, by which the land was then wasted.But whatever be the date of these burial-places, most of this region was tooinaccessible to have been very early peopled.The geographical names seem to showthat the Slav colonisation spread gradually northwards along the Dnieper and itsaffluents. Thus the Desna, although joining the main stream on the left bank,received the name of " Eight," because it lay on the right of their migratorymovement, and others joining on the right, for the same reason, received the nameof Shuya, or Shuika ; that is, " Left." The close resemblance of the White Eussiansto the Poles shows that there must also have been a migration from the west ; butthere are no Finnish names, as there are farther north and east. Hence White