Page:Julian Niemcewicz - Notes of my Captivity in Russia.djvu/41

Rh with the Cossacks in the plain which stretches from the dike, before the house of Macieiowice, to the Vistula. After some of the Cossacks had fallen, a large body of them, formed according to custom in semi-circle, attacked us suddenly, and we were obliged to fall back.

I do not know, indeed, how it happened that we were not taken, being twice surrounded along with the General. At last, Kaminski's Light-dragoons drove them back; at about five o'clock, everything was calm, and the whole of our little army arrived on the spot. On coming out of the wood the village of Macieiowice, situated on a piece of level ground, was in view; at a little distance is an elevated table-land partially cultivated, and covered here and there with brambles; a large brick house, before which is a slope leading to the dike, bordered with willows, commands the view of the Vistula; to the right, a river; the remaining part of the table-land is surrounded with marshes.