The overwhelming majority of Ukrainian highways are unpaved. All that the Russian geographer, Krassnov, [298]has said in general about the highways of Russia, applies in its fullest extent to the unpaved, unmacadamized roads of the Ukraine. These roads are among the worst in the world. In the summer they are enveloped in clouds of dust; in the spring and fall, as well as in rainy weather, they are strips of bottomless mud, in which even the light farm-wagon sinks to its axles. Wherever it is at all possible, vehicles drive across the fields along the roadway. Worst of all are the ways in the vicinity of and within villages and small towns. Drains and bridges are either unknown, or else there are not enough of them. The kind of roads just described are known in the entire right half of the Ukraine by the traditional name of “Polish roads.” Still worse are the cane and corduroy roads of the Polissye; riding over these a long time becomes a positive torture to the traveler. In the Hutzul country most of the roads are ordinary bridle-paths (plai), accessible only to foot passengers and bridle-horses. In Galicia, only villages and hamlets are connected by unpaved roads; in the Russian Ukraine even large cities. Not a single macadamized road leads to cities like Poltava, Kreminchuk, Katerinoslav, Rostiv, Kherson. That such negligence of the government should cause the Ukrainian peasantry incalculable damage, and actually hinder trade and commerce, is obvious at once. Macadamized roads are very scarce in the Ukraine as a whole. The Austro-Hungarian part of the Ukraine, altho in this respect it is far behind the cultural countries of Europe, possesses a greater absolute number of macadamized roads than the Russian Ukraine, which is ten times as large in area. All cities and towns of the Austrian Ukraine are connected by macadamized roads. Eight such roads meet at Lemberg, seven in Czernowitz, six each in Peremishl, Ternopil, Kolomia, Buchach, Horodenka, etc. In the Russian Ukraine, on the other hand, the only macadamized [299]roads that deserve the name, are the road from Homel to Kiev, the road from Kiev to Berestia (by way of Zitomir, Novhorod-Volinsky, Rivne, with branches to Dubno and to Kremianetz, Lutzk, Kovil), the road from Tomashiv to Lublin, the road from Starokonstantiniv to Kamenetz, the road from Kursk to Kharkiv, and the mountain-road in the Yaila Mountains in Crimea. The remaining “great tracts” and “post-roads” (altho they sometimes figure as macadamized roads) are in such a miserable condition, that even in the large cities they look more like moraines than streets in a civilized city.