Such was the state of the country shortly before the Prussian occupation. Dantzic, which was indispensable to the Poles, kept itself, through this century of decay, from the rest of the country; it remained a free State under Sclavonian protection, and was long adverse to the great King. But the country and most of the German cities energetically helped to preserve the King from destruction. The Prussian officials who were sent into the country were astonished at the wretchedness which existed at a few days' journey from their capital. Only some of the larger cities, in which German life was maintained by old trading intercourse within strong walls, and protected strips of land exclusively occupied by Germans,--like the low countries near Dantzig,--the villages under the mild government of the Cistercians of Oliva, and the wealthy German districts of Catholic Ermland, were in tolerable condition. Other cities lay in ruins, as did most of the farms on the plains. The Prussians found Bromberg, a city of German colonists, in ruins; it is not possible now accurately to ascertain how the city came into this condition;[21] indeed the fate of the whole Netze district, in the last ten years before the Prussian occupation, is quite unknown. No historians, no records, and no registers give any account of the destruction and slaughter with which that country was ravaged. Apparently the Polish factions must have fought amongst themselves; bad harvests and pestilence may have done the rest. Kulm has from ancient times preserved its well-built walls and stately churches, but in the streets the covered passages to the cellars projected over the rotten wood and the fragments of brick from the dilapidated buildings; whole streets consisted of such cellars, in which the miserable inhabitants dwelt. Twenty-eight of the forty houses of the great market-place had no doors, no roofs, no inhabitants, and no proprietors. In a similar condition were other cities.