of the
power and authority of the proprietary classes, absenteeism has been
largely on the increase, to the advantage solely of the principal
provincial towns, and of certain capitals and watering-places in
Western Europe. Thus, while Kursk and Kharkof owe much of their
riches and progress to the immigration of landed proprietors from
the northerly and eastern districts of the "Black Soil Zone," Kief is
the resort of more princely landlords of the south-western districts,
strongly and favourably affected by Polish culture.

Kharkof, to the east of Kief, is the principal seat of trade in
South Russia, being a centre from which the products and manufactures
of Northern and Central Russia are spread throughout the provinces
to the east and south, down even to the Caucasus.

Sugar, largely produced in this part of Russia from beet-root and
"bounty-fed," and corn, brandy, wool and hides from the central
provinces, are largely sold at the five fairs held each year at
Kharkof, which has also reason to be proud of its university with
upwards of six hundred students, and of its connection by rail with
the shores of the Baltic and those of the Black and Azof Seas.
In 1765, Kharkof became the capital of the Ukraine, after having
been a Cossack outpost town since 1647, when Poland finally ceded
the province to Muscovy. Anciently, this was the camping-ground of
nomadic tribes, particularly of the Khazars, and later the high
road of the Tartar invaders of Russia, whether from the Crimea or
the shores of the Caspian. In the province of Kharkof are found
those remarkable idols of stone which we have seen in the Historical
Museum at Moscow, and a vast number of tumuli, which have yielded
coins establishing the fact of an early intercourse both with Rome
and Arabia.

Poltava, also a place of extensive trade, principally in wool,
horses, and cattle, is familiar to us in connection with the defeat
of Charles XII. by Peter the Great in 1709. The centre of the field
so disastrous to the Swedes is marked by a mound which covers the
remains of their slain. Two monuments commemorate the victory.

At Ekaterinoslaf we are again on the great Dnieper. It was only
a village when Catherine II., descending the river from Kief in a
stately barge accompanied by Joseph II. of Austria, King Stanislaus
Augustus of Poland and a brilliant suite, raised it to the dignity
of a town bearing her own name. On that occasion she laid the first
stone of a cat