Lublin, a town of eminence, is the capital of the pala tinate of that name, is the see of a bishop, and can boast of a citadel. It is, however, particularly remarkable for three great annual fairs, each lasting a month, which are frequented by merchants from all the neighboring nations. —Sandomir, on the Vistula, between Cracow and War saw, is delightfully situated on a hill, was once the resi dence of the Polish kings, and contains several colleges. But the most agreeable and lively town of Poland is Plock, surrounded with orchards, and washed by the Vistula, which is here animated with crowds of fishermen, and with boats which convey into Dantzick the exports of Po land.* Poland, though a level country, is not deficient in mi neral productions. Almost all the morasses and meadows, according to Malte-Brun, abound in iron. Podolia pro duces various species of marble. That large district ly ing between the Vistula and its tributary stream Pilica, famous for its mines, contains lead, iron, copper, calamine, marble, and slate. In various provinces is found a kind of clay, peculiarly well adapted for earthen-ware. Poland, though not remarkably abundant in stone, produces gra nite, and several other kinds well fitted for building ; yet the houses are for the most part constructed of wood, an article neither so durable nor so comfortable, but which the ignorance and laziness of the Poles cause them to prefer.
There is nothing, however, very important or peculiar in the mineral" kingdom of Poland, excepting the salt mines of Wielitska, near Cracow, the most productive and the most celebrated in Europe. According to some historins, these mines were unknown so early as the thirteenth century. It is ascertained, however, that they have been wrought since the fifth, since which period they have formed one of the richest sources of revenue which Poland ever enjoyed. The entrances to the pits are a few miles from Cracow, but the city is completely undermined, and is suspended, as it were, on pillars of salt. The vaults are uncommonly large and spacious ; some of them contain chapels, of which, that of St. An thony, is 30 feet high, and contains images of saints cut out of the solid rock ; some of them are used as maga zines for depositing the salt when put in barrels, &c. while others are set apart respectively for stables, and for keeping hay for the horses, of which a great number are in daily use. " Many of the excavations, or chambers from whence the salt has been dug," says Mr. Cox, "are of an immense size ; some are supported with timber, others by vast pillars of salt, which are left standing for that purpose. Several of vast dimensions are without any support in the middle. I remarked one of this latter sort in particular, which was certainly 80 feet in height, and so extremely long and broad as almost to appear, amid the subterraneous gloom, without limits. The roofs of these vaults are not arched, but flat." " We found these mines as dry as a room, without the least damp or mois ture ; observing only, in our whole progress, one small spring of water, which is impregnated with salt, as it runs through the mine." (Vol. I. p. 246.) The air is bracing and salubrious ; and the miners, of whom there are regu larly about 700 employed, and who work, as in most other mining countries, about six or eight hours at a time, en joy good health, and attain to the ordinary length of hu man life.
The salt, at the various stages of its depth, presents different appearances. At its highest elevation, it is found in large irregular rocks, from which are frequently cut masses of the size of 400 or 500 cubic feet. Here, also, it exhibits the greatest impurity, being intermingled with various kinds of stone; and it assumes a grey, dark, or green colour, according to the nature of the marl in which it may be imbedded. At this stage, also, is found the crystal salt, which is generally dug up in the shape of a cube or rectangular prism. The purest and most close is at the bottom of the pit, and is sparry ; and the quality of all is found to improve in the direction of the Carpathian ridge, which, it is not improbable, lies on beds of salt ; a fact the more likely, as the salt mines on the opposite side of these mountains are of a similar kind and exhibit similar appearances.
"Such an enormous mass of salt," says the accurate traveller just quoted, "exhibits a wonderful phenomenon in the natural history of this globe. Monsieur Guetard, who examined these mines with great attention, and who has published a treatise upon the subject, informs us, that the uppermost bed of earth, at the surface immediately over the mines, is sand ; the second clay, occasionally mixed with sand and gravel, and containing petrifactions of marine bodies ; the third calcareous stone. From all these circumstances, he conjectures that this spot was formelv covered by the sea, and that the salt is a gradual deposit formed by the evaporation of its waters." Vol I. p. 246 The Poles, as has been incidentally mentioned before, continue still to be divided into four classes : those of the nobles or gentlemen, of clergy, of citizens or burghers, and peasants. The Poles set no value on titles of honour : all who possess a rechold estate, or can trace their descent fi om ancestors ft), merly possessing a freehold estate, and who have engaged in no trade or commerce, are, what ever be their tides, equal in point of rank ; they are term ed brothers, and the appellation of a gentleman of Poland is regarded as the highest name by which they can be distinguished. The clergy are possessed of as great civil as well as professional influence, as at any former period, and enjoy various immunities and privileges. The privi leges of the citizens were formerly few, and these few, in many instances, were undermined and wrested from them ; while the peasants, born slaves, attached to the soil, were doomed to unavailing toil and misery, and treated by their cruel masters as belonging to an inferior species of be ings. The condition of the peasantry and citizens, how ever, are now highly meliorated ; and are, as rapidly as their late bondage and exclusion will allow, advancing to that state of freedom and refinement which the same classes enjoy under the most enlightened governments of Europe. Every disability has now been removed from them.—The richer inhabitants of the cities, as well as the nobles, have all their chateaus or country houses, with parks and gardens, which rival in beauty and in the works of art which adorn them, those of France and Germany.
The peasantry in particular, so long sunk in a state of iron depression, but declared free by the constitutions of 1791, 1807. and 815, though not far advanced in civili zation, abound in good qualities, and are daily rising in importance and respectability. " Every peasant,' we are told on the authority of a Polish writer, " may quit his landlord if injured or dissatisfied. In some districts the peasants rise to be farmers, both hereditary and for terms of years." " The houses of the better order of peasants," says the same author, " contain spacious and commodious apartments. Of late years houses of stone are often met with." In giving an account of the different classes of society among the Poles, however, the Jews, a peculiae race of men, and in this country extremely numerous, must not be overlooked. In Poland, indeed, the Jews are supposed to he more numerous than in Palestine, and amount to about a seventh part of the whole population. They were introduced into this country in the time of Casimir the Great, whose favourite mistress was a Jewess, and who was thus induced to confer upon them privileges, many of which they still enjoy. The nobility, too, encouraged their settlement in their respective dominions, because it was soon discovered' that, through their instrumentality alone, they could obtain the comforts, the luxuries, and even some of the necessaries of life. They hence soon became people of importance ; and while, with great re luctance, the Poles allowed the rank of nobility to the most distinguished strangers, a converted Jew was regarded by them as virtually a gentleman ; and if he possessed wealth el ough to purchase property in land, he was capable of being elevated to the highest situation in the republic. Such an event has sometimes taken place, though, in spite of this inducement, few Jews have been found inclined to abandon the religious princip es of their forefathers. In Poland, they were for ages the only persons who engaged in any thing like commerce, or who seemed to appreciate the value of money or of pro,perty. , Almost all the rent coin of the realm was in their hands ; the nobility have often been known to mortgage to them a great pro portion of their lands ; they have sometimes taken a lease of Christian baptisms, and have had in their possession the baptismal fonts, for the use of which they took care that they were liberally remunerated. But with all their enterprise, they were fraudulent, avaricious, and immoral. The great object of their existence was to acquire wealth, but whether honestly or otherwise, they seemed' not to care. Seldom has a law-suit occurred in Poland in which a Jew was not a party, or a theft in which a Jew was not more or less directly concerned. Such indeed is their love of money, and such the baseness of their principles, that, for a pecuniary compensation, they have been known to submit their wives and their daughters to the embrace of strangers With the character of the Poles the reader must al ready be well acquainted ; the following account of their mode of salutation and of their dress, related on the au thority of a late accurate traveller, will not prove unin teresting. " The Poles seem a lively people, and use much action in their ordinary conversation. Their com mon mode of saluting is to incline their heads, and to strike their breast with one of their hands, while they stretch the other towards the ground ; but when a com mon person meets a superior, he bows his head almost to the earth, waving at the same time his hand, with which he touches the bottom of the leg near the heal of the per son to whom he pays his obeisance. The men of all ranks generally wear whiskers, and shave their heads, leaving only a circle of hair upon the crown. The summer dress of the peasants consists of nothing but a shirt and drawers of coarse linen, without shoes or stockings, with round caps or hats. The women of the lower class wear upon their heads a wrapper of white linen, under which their hair is braided, and hangs down in two plaits. I observed several of them with a long piece of white linen, hanging round the side of their faces, and covering their bodies below their knees ; this singular kind of veil makes them look as if they were doing penance. The dress of the higher order, both men and women, is uncommonly ele gant. That of the gentlemen is a waistcoat with sleeves, over will& they wear an upper robe of a different colour, which reaches down below the knee, and is fastened round the waist with a sash or girdle ; the sleeves of this upper garment are in warm weather tied behind the shoulders ; a sabre is a necessary part of their dress as a mark of no bility. In summer, the robe, bee. is of silk ; in winter, of cloth, velvet, or stuff edged with fur. They wear fur caps or bonnets, and buskins of yellow leather, the heels of which are plated with iron or steel. The dress of the ladies is a simple polonaise or long robe, edged with fur." This account, though written forty years ago, is almost in its most literal acceptation applicable to the Poles of the present day, and will, it is likely, be applicable in a greater or less degree for ages to come. The natural and una voidable consequences of a revolution ; their subjection to a foreign power ; their freedom from a state of op pression and slavery ; and their intermixture with stran gers, all tend to render the Poles of the present day more refined and civilized than at any former period, and to ap proach more nearly to the manners and hanits of the va rious nations with which they have continual intercourse. But their national character is still sedulously cherished, and will not soon cease to predominate. A people, situate like the Poles, maintain with unshaken tenacity the cus toms, even the prejudices, of their ancestors, as affording them no inconsiderable consolation for the ruin and deso lation in which their country has been involved. It need now merely be added, in reference to the foregoing sub ject, that the personal appearance of the Poles is dignified and prepossessing, that their complexion is fair, and their figure well proportioned. They are lively, hospitable, honest, brave, patriotic. The women are beautiful, mo dest, chaste, and dutiful to their husbands.