The Poles are a Slavonic race; a branch of the great Slavonic family whose possessions once stretched from the Baltic to the Adriatic and from the Elbe to the Borysthene, or Dnieper. The Slavs are an Indo-Germanic family and their cradle stood in Asia. For 2000 years they inhabited the countries bounded by the Carpathians, the Baltic, and the Black Sea, and washed by the Oder, the Vistula, the Niemen, the Dvina, the Bug, the Dnieper, the Dniester, and the Danube.