There has been fighting of more or less acuteness, especially where German troops have been engaged, but taken on the whole this portion of the Russian front cannot be considered a serious one and their withdrawal has been forced by the greater strategy. I found many of the younger officers of the opinion that they could advance at any time if they only had the permission from the powers that be. As for the soldiers--a single look into those set swarthy faces was enough to satisfy one that they would willingly advance in any event regardless of policy or orders either. I have never seen such fierce looking men in my life. Many of them do not speak Russian, and to them the war is a real joy. Heretofore they have had to be content to fight among themselves for nothing in particular; now that they have a chance to fight for something really great they are in their element. I question how valuable troops of this character would be under different conditions, but here in this rough Bukovina country they are nearly ideal for their work, as is manifest from the manner in which they have swept the enemy before them. On leaving Tarnopol we came directly to the head-quarters of one of these corps, where we spent three extremely interesting days. The position which this army was holding is, in a rough way, from the junction of the Zota Lipa and the Dniester, down that river to a point perhaps 20 versts west of Chocin, and thence in an irregular line 40 or 50 versts through Bukovina in the direction of the Roumanian frontier. The Dniester itself is a deep-flowing river lying between great bluffs which for miles skirt the river bank on both sides. These bluffs are for the most part crested with heavy timber. In a general way the Russians are holding one bank, and the Austrians the other, though here and there patches of Russians have clung to the South side, while in one or two spots Austrians backed by Germans have gained a foothold on the north bank. The first afternoon I arrived, I went out to a 356 metre hill from where I could look over the whole country. I discerned easily the lines of the Austrian and Russian positions between which was the valley through which flowed the Dniester. There are any number of young Petrograd swells here who have left their crack cavalry corps, many of which are dismounted and fighting in the trenches in Poland and on other fronts, to put on the uniform of the Cossack and lead these rough riders of the East in their romantic sweeps towards the Hungarian plains. I have been in some armies where I found hardly any one who spoke English, but in this one corps I found nearly a score who spoke it, many as well as I did, which indicates pretty clearly the type of young men that Russia has here, and is one reason, no doubt, why the army has done so well. [Illustration: Stanley Washburn, Prince Oblensky, Count Tolstoy, Count Keller.]