Opalowch under the command of Okinsky, entered
the forest, where they were attacked by three
thousand Russians. The Cossacks begun by
plundering the waggons, of which the insurgents
took advantage to put a certain distance
between themselves and their adversaries.
Pursued by the Russians for more than four miles,
they lost six men, one of whom, Thaddeus
Pikulski, was only nineteen years of age. This
unhappy lad was tied to the foot of a
Cossack's horse, and so dragged for another couple
of miles. His skull was soon fractured by
stones and the roots of trees. A monk of
the order of the Bernadins was also wounded in
this encounter. The insurgents wanted to carry
him off with them, but the brave ecclesiastic said,
" Leave me here, my children, to die in peace,
looking the enemy full in the face." The
Russians put him to death, and cut off his head.

Four " mowers," who had taken refuge in a
hut, were burnt alive by the Cossacks. They
several times tried to force their way out, but
at every attempt were thrust back into the
flames again.

A young man named Krasusky, the son of a
landowner of the village of Plesnia- Wola, and
one of his friends named Breconowski, were
arrested by the Russians near Radzyn. They
each received two hundred blows of the stick,
to make them confess their intention of joining
the insurgents. The confession once obtained,
they were shot. At the time of writing this,
accounts are coming in of the Russian treatment
of prisoners, too dreadful to detail in these
columns.

Horrors of persecution call forth horrors of
self-sacrifice. A young man attached to the
Court of Appeal at Posen, had both his legs
carried away by a cannon-ball, in a recent
encounter between the insurgents and the Russians
at Powiedz. His brother persisted in remaining
with him and in making every effort to save
him. The wounded man then blew his own
brains out, in order to leave his brother at liberty
to escape.

Now and then adventures occur, in which
dramatic justice prevails. Two young Poles, on
their way to Posen to join the insurgents, and
pursued by a couple of mounted Prussian
gendarmes, hid themselves in a wayside cottage.
The gendarmes, certain that they had tracked
their prey, coolly fastened their horses to the
garden-hedge, and, sabre in hand, forced their
way into the cottage. The Poles, to escape,
climbed on to the roof. Thence, lightly dropping
into the garden, they unfastened the gendarmes'
horses, mounted them, and so reached the frontier
and the insurgents' camp, which was close at
hand. Twenty-four hours afterwards, a couple
of letters, addressed to their parents, informed
them of the lucky escape, and also enclosed
forty thalers, which they found in the
gendarmes' pistol-holsters, and which they felt it a
duty to return. Whether Russians, under
similar circumstances, would have been equally
polite to their complaisant Prussian allies, may
be allowed to remain a matter of doubt. We
know, however, that the Polish insurgents sent
back, with apologies, the Grand-Duchess
Constantine's letters ; whilst the Russian generals
returned the compliment with massacre, fire,
and extermination.

Langiewicz, the recent dictator of Poland, is a
man of the middle height, or rather short, but
with broad shoulders and a full face, light
brown hair, long yellow moustaches, very restless
and piercing eyes. His head is thrown back
with a martial and decided air; his motions are
abrupt. He looks about thirty years of age.

His aides-de-camp are almost all very young.
One in particular appears extremely juvenile
and singularly graceful, and is, in fact, no other
than a Russian young lady, Polonised,
Mademoiselle Poustowojtoi, who has hitherto taken
part in all the insurrectionary demonstrations.
She was originally an orthodox Greek, but is
now a Catholic, which conversion procured her
eleven months' lodgings in a dungeon in the
citadel of Krzemieniec. Being removed to
Zamors on the 24th of January, she was
released on the way by a band of insurgents, who
brought her to General Langiewicz. He
appointed her adjutant at Malogoszcw, of which
office she is perfectly capable; being as brave as
beautiful. All the aides-de-camp wear a carbine
slung across their shoulders and a revolver at
their girdle. Their distinctive mark is a scarf
of red wool. It should be added that their post
is extremely dangerous, and that not a few of
them get killed.

They have need, indeed, of stout hearts, both
the aides-de-camp and their general. But if ever
foreign rule was unbearable, it is surely the
Russian government of Poland; and if ever
insurrection was justifiable, it is that which resists
the kidnapping of a nation's sons and fathers.
The Italian potentates, now dethroned, did
nothing, on an extensive or general scale, to
compare in blackness with the deeds permitted by
Alexander the Second, and of which William of
Prussia is so ready an accomplice. The giving
up to Russia of prisoners who sought an
asylum in Prussia, unasked, is an instance of
officious and atrocious treachery which has sent
a shudder throughout every fibre of European
civilisation.

SPRING.

I KNOW a wood to which the darling Spring
Comes early with the blessing of her smile,
And sets the pale wood-flowers blossoming —
Ah me, ah me! how many a weary mile
I leave that little wood behind — yet still
As Spring advances once more I behold
The rustic bridge that spans the singing rill
Of hill-born water, crystal-clear and cold.

I cross the bridge, pass thro' the swinging wicket,
The path, still damp, its quiet course pursues
'Mid mottled beech-boles, sunny brake and thicket,
And deep-struck roots, where, nourish'd by the dews,
Nestling the little violets whose blue eyes
Just peep at me askant through heart-shaped leaves,
Fragile wood-sorrel, with its pearly dyes
All iridescent as the skies the eves
Lengthening, rejoice us with. Wind-fiowers white