When I was on the road to Warsaw, I saw the large army that Russia was sending through Poland to the south and the Principalities; as nearly as I could calculate there were about sixty thousand men, chiefly infantry of the line, in three divisions, perhaps at the distance of fifty versts apart. It was not without a feeling of sincere compassion that I gazed on the poor people’s faces, and thought how few, how very few, of all those would ever return again. One division of many thousands was bivouacked on the plains _à la belle étoile_; most of them were fast asleep on the bare ground, their arms piled up near them, with sentinels guarding different points; videttes were stationed at a distance, looking in their dark coats like bronze statues, with the twilight sky in the background. Here and there were watch-fires, with a few soldiers sitting around; scores of ammunition-waggons and gun-carriages were at a little distance further on, with men standing under arms, and the horses grazing on the scanty grass of the fields close by. I came up with the second division early on the next morning; the soldiers were all marching merrily along to the voices of those in the van of each regiment, who were singing the war-song of the Russian army; and they really seemed, in the excitement of the moment, to have forgotten the scanty rations and infamous treatment they receive, and for which they are compensated by the munificent pay of _nine shillings per annum_! I remarked that the officers were dressed precisely the same as the privates; a small piece of twisted gold lace, from the neck to the shoulder, was the only distinguishing mark by which they were known. The reason of their being so attired was because so many had been shot by the enemy, who, it was affirmed, took aim at their more showy uniforms; but from all that I was told, the rifles of the Turks are not the only ones of which they need stand in fear, nor are the Turks their only enemies; their oppression has caused them to find both among their own ranks.
At one of the stations an officer belonging to this division got into the mail-coach; he was evidently in a deep decline, and was so extremely ill that he could scarcely stand: it was truly sad to hear him talk. He informed me that he had received orders to join his regiment, living or dead, and that he was obliged to obey, although he feared it would only be to leave his corpse on the route, as he could be of very little service to his country in the state in which he was. It was plain enough that he would never again be able to bear arms in the field; but he was going to the war, nevertheless, although he must have perished not many days after I saw him. His brother officers appeared very kind to him, and rode several miles by the side of the diligence, cheering him with their conversation, and endeavouring to instil some hope into his heart, but in vain; he smiled faintly, and shook his head with mournful significance, for he felt that his march in life was over, and that ambition and a soldier’s name had found an early grave. But he seemed resigned to his fate; and when we stopped at the wretched village in which his company was to rest for the night, I doubt whether he ever quitted it again, and most likely rose no more from the miserable bed in the peasant’s isba to which he was supported. We were all very grieved to see him, yet perhaps some of his gay companions have ere this met a worse fate still; for they may now lie with thousands of their poor fellow-soldiers in their dismal graves amid the pestilent marshes of the Danube, or in the ghastly trench that forms the grave of thousands on the heights of Alma—a horrible sacrifice made to the hateful ambition of their imperial master. The third division was crossing the Vistula in flat boats and rafts at the time we were doing so; indeed many of the men and horses were on the same raft with us: their cannon, and ammunition-waggons were drawn up in a long line on the opposite bank. I asked some of them whither they were going, but I met with the usual answer of the Russian boor—“Ya nisnaiu” (I don’t know); on listening, however, to the conversation of a group of officers who stood near me, I concluded that a part were to remain in Poland, and the remainder to proceed further south.