related to me by the Lord Palatine, Albert Gastol, who was the King of Vilna's viceroy in Lithuania.
Thirty miles from Kiev, going up the Dnieper, we come to Mosier, on the river Prepetz, which flows into the Dnieper twelve miles above Kiev. The Prepetz itself receives the waters of the river Thur, which abound in fish. The distance of Mosier from Bobranzko is thirty miles. Twenty miles above the latter place is Mohilev, which is six miles distant from Orsa. Such of the above-mentioned towns upon the Dneiper as lie upon its western shores are subject to the King of Poland, and those on the eastern to the Prince of Muscovy, except Dobrovna and Mistislav, which appertain to the dominions of Lithuania. After crossing the Dneiper, four miles bring us to Dobrovna, and tAventy more to Smolenzko. Our route lay from Orsa to Smolenzko, and thence to Moscow.
The town of Borisov lies twenty-two miles west of Orsa, and is washed by the river Beresina, which flows into the Dnieper below Bobranzko. The Beresina, as I have seen with my own eyes, is even broader than the Dnieper at Smolenzko. I certainly am of opinion, that this Beresina, judging from the sound of the word, was what the ancients call the Borysthenes; for if we look to the description of Ptolemy, the sources of the Beresina agree more [with his account?] than those of that Borysthenes which they call Dnieper.
I have already, at the commencement of my work, spoken at sufficient length of the princes who ruled over Lithuania at the time when Christianity was first introduced into the country. The affairs of this nation were always prosperous up to the time of Vitold. If a foreign war threatened them, and they had to defend themselves against the forces of an enemy, when summoned they came forth with a great appearance of warlike demeanour, but more from ostentation than from any readiness to go to war; and when the selec-
