The fighting forces in the northeast, where the plain slopes gradually
into the Suwalki Province, must pass over a country dotted with lakes
and lagoons, which farther on take on the character of marshes,
stagnant ponds, peat bogs, with small streams flowing lazily from one
to the other. Here and there are patches of stunted pine forests,
with occasional stretches of fertile, cultivated soil. Throughout
this section many rivers flow along broad, level valleys, separating
into various branches which form many islands and, during the rainy
seasons, flood the surrounding country.
Farther west the armies pass through broad valleys or basins, once
the beds of great lakes, whose rich, alluvial soil give forth abundant
crops of cereals. Here, too, flows the Niemen, 500 miles in length,
watering a basin 40,000 square miles in area and separating Poland
from Lithuania. It advances northward in a great, winding pathway,
between limestone hills covered with loam or amid forests, its
banks rising to high eminences in places, past ruined castles built
in the Middle Ages. In the yellowish soil along its banks grow
rich crops of oats, buckwheat, corn, and some rye. Naturally such
a section would be thickly populated, not only on account of the
fertile soil, but because the Niemen, like the Vistula, is one of
the country's means of communication and transportation. As many
as 90,000 men earn their livelihoods in navigating the steamers
and freight barges passing up and down this great waterway.
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