villages are spacious and plastered white, with sometimes a certain amount of decoration, usually in blue. At Lowicz there were some marks of war. My host for the night, an old soldier from Orenburg who had served under Skobelev, spoke with indignation of the recent German occupation; they had taken all the supplies that they could find. But there were no signs of any permanent occupation, and the German requisitions could not have been very thorough, as one saw many geese, pigs and, above all, very fine horses in this part, and the inhabitants had quite settled down again to their ordinary occupations. From such accounts as I have read of the conditions in Germany, I should think that one would see there fewer young and middle-aged men and less field work going on than in this no-man's land that has lain between the two hostile lines of defence and has been traversed by each army in turn. From Lowicz to Skiernewice there runs south-westward a _chaussée_ and also a more direct road that passes through an area of sand and mud. Napoleon used to say that in his campaign of Poland (1807) he had discovered a fifth element--mud. There is no other obstacle, the broad undulating plains suggesting parts of the north of France; combining lights and shades, they offer scope for the artist, and the long lines of well-to-do villages have a pleasing effect that is enhanced by the graceful local costumes. The peasants are well built and good featured, often with a military air and carriage; their manners are excellent, and their intercourse with the Russian soldiers is both courteous and cordial. They were at any time ready to come and help in the frequent breakdowns of our motors, and I noticed, to my surprise, after experiences of other years in Warsaw, that they felt no difficulty in understanding Russian and in making themselves intelligible to us. At some points on our road there were marks of rearguard fighting, and as we were told, two or three wounded, but we saw hardly any prisoners, except a body of Landwehr men, and no trophies. At the village of Mokra (which means "damp") the houses still bore the ordinary German chalk marks assigning the billets to given numbers of men. At Skiernewice the coal stores at the station had been fired and were still burning: but the town was comfortably held by the Russians, and we found no difficulty in the matter of supplies and quarters. Skiernewice will be remembered as one of the last stopping places in the Russian empire on the road from Moscow to Berlin, and also as a former meeting place of the three emperors. It has great preserves for pheasants, which are only touched during the visits of the Sovereign. There is the usual central square of Polish houses, and here, as in Sochaczew, the Jews were in evidence, though they have been removed from some military centres where they have given assistance to the enemy. From Skiernewice we travelled a considerable distance south-westwards,