It is a fact that, while for ages a deadly hatred has existed between the Russians and the Poles, and while the Russians are at this day lording it over the Poles with the most arbitrary insolence and tyranny, beauty still asserts its lawful supremacy, and the Polish women bring to their feet the conquerors of their fathers, and husbands, and brothers. The first posthouse at which we stopped confirmed all that my companion had said; for the postmaster's daughter was brilliantly beautiful, particularly in the melting wildness of a dark eye, indicating an Asiatic or Tartar origin; and her gentle influence was exerted in soothing the savage humour of my friend, for she sympathized in his misfortunes, and the more sincerely when she heard of the combs, and rings, and slippers, and other pretty little ornaments for sisters and female friends at home; and my Pole could not resist the sympathy of a pretty woman.
We had scarcely left the postmaster's daughter, on the threshold of Poland, almost throwing a romance about the Polish women, before I saw the most degrading spectacle I ever beheld in Europe, or even in the barbarous countries of the East. Forty or fifty women were at work in the fields, and a large, well-dressed man, with a pipe in his mouth and a long stick in his hand, was walking among them as overseer. In our country the most common labouring man would revolt at the idea of his wife or daughter working in the open fields. I had seen it, however, in gallant France and beautiful Italy; but I never saw, even in the barbarous countries of the East, so degrading a spectacle as this; and I could have borne it almost anywhere better than in chivalric Poland.
We were now in the territory called Poland Proper, that is, in that part which, after the other provinces had been wrested away and attached to the dominions of the colossal powers around, until the revolution and conquest of 1830 had retained the cherished name of the kingdom of Poland. The whole road is Macadamized, smooth and level as a floor, from the banks of the Bug to Warsaw; the posthouses and postmasters are much better, and posting is better regulated, though more expensive. The road lay through that rich agricultural district which had for ages made Poland celebrated as the granary of Europe; and though the face of the country was perfectly flat, and the scenery tame and uninteresting, the soil was rich, and, at that time, in many places teeming with heavy crops. As yet, it had not recovered from the desolating effects of the war of the revolution. The whole road has been a battle-ground, over which the Poles had chased the Russians to the frontier, and been driven back to Warsaw; time after time it had been drenched with Russian and Polish blood, the houses and villages sacked and burned, and their blackened ruins still cumbered the ground, nursing in the conquered but unsubdued Pole his deep, undying hatred of the Russians.