Of the three former capitals of Poland the city of Cracow, the last of Polish territory to lose its independence, is now an Austrian fortress. One day, shortly after my arrival, I was driving in the suburbs of the city when my attention was directed to a number of low, grass-covered mounds scattered about at regular intervals in the level plain outside the city. To all appearances these mounds were nothing more than slight elevations of land sinking, in a direction away from the city, almost imperceptibly into the surrounding landscape. In all probability, if it had not been for a certain regularity in the positions which they occupied, I should not have noticed them. I had never seen a modern fortified city and I was therefore considerably surprised when I learned that these gentle elevations were fortifications and that beneath these grass-grown mounds enormous guns were concealed, powerful enough to keep a vast army at bay. These facts served to remind me that Cracow was a border city, guarding a frontier which divides, not merely two European countries, but two civilizations--I might almost say, two worlds. Cracow is, as a matter of fact, ten miles from the Russian frontier, and, although the people in Russian Poland are of the same race or nationality as those who live in the Austrian province of Galicia, speaking the same language and sharing the same traditions, the line which divides them marks the limits of free government in Europe. Now, there were several things that made this frontier, where eastern and western Europe meet, peculiarly interesting to me. In the first place, I knew that thousands of people, most of them Poles and Jews, who were unwilling or unable to pay the high tax which Russia imposes upon its emigrants, were every year smuggled across that border in order to embark at some German or Austrian port for America. I knew at the same time that Jews and, to a lesser extent, perhaps, Poles, outside of Russia were making use of this same underground railway to send back, in return for the emigrants who came out, another kind of contraband--namely, books and bombs. In fact, I had heard that a few years ago, when Russian Poland was all aflame with civil war, it was from Cracow that the Jews, who were the leading spirits in that movement, directed the revolution. Naturally all this served to increase my natural curiosity in this border country. So it was that one cool, clear day in September I rented a little droske for the day and started, in company with my companion, Doctor Park, for the Russian border.