ABSTRACT
Towroggen 1 Friday 13 August Left Königsberg at 7 o’clock this morning in an extra post courier in company with one of Mr. Adelson’s clerks whom he kindly sent with me across the Russian frontier. […] The country as we came near to the Russian frontier seemed more overspread with detached farm houses, generally thatched; the peasants were busy with the harvest, & they trotted their light waggons about with spirited horses to the corn fields & along their bye-roads in a dashing way. My companion who is a Pole and a Russian subject, &, as he terms himself, an Israelite, gives me a poor picture of the Polish nobility:- making a comparison between them & the Russians, he remarked that the latter are barbarians, but the former are civilized scamps;- there is some respect for truth in the Russian, but none in the Pole;- he was educated in a school at Mitau, in Russia; says there is no difference between Jews & Christians at School – but the former are excluded from all government offices unless they be baptised – he says he would not be allowed to go to Moscow on business unless he were to purchase admission into the first Guild which would cost him £120 a year. Crossed the Niemen at Tilsit; were detained upon the bridge of boats for half an hour whilst several long rafts of timber passed – the men who were upon them, & who live for months upon the voyage down from Volhynia to Memel on these floats had a wild savage appearance reminding me of the Irish.
