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Page:Julian Niemcewicz - Notes of my Captivity in Russia.djvu/84

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56
ITINERARY OF THE PRISONERS.

those ladies shed over our situation were the sweetest consolation we had enjoyed since the beginning of our captivity. Major Titow, the most stupid fellow that ever existed, was so much enchanted with the charms of our beautiful Polish ladies, that he told me seriously: “Your ladies are almost as pretty as those of Tobolsk!”–“Oh! I am sure you flatter us,” replied I.–“Not at all,” said he, “but ours have handsomer and fatter feet.” It was at General Razumowski’s that I heard, for the first time, the famous horn music, called Roghi. The orchestra, when complete, consists of sixty musicians; it is like an organ entirely decomposed, each pipe of which is blown by a different person, every musician playing one single note. What precision! what attention they were obliged to pay, especially in allegros, in order to produce the effect, and to agree altogether! They agreed, however; thanks, very likely, to the magic power of a cane!

We stopped two days to take a rest at Ostrog. Before our departure in the morn-