The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

THE BALTIC PROVINCES. 233composed the Kalevipoeg, "Sons of Kalevi," a poem, however, which containsnothing hut simple traditions put into modern verse—no original songs, such asthose of the Karelian Kaleva. At present six or eight journals appear in Revel,Dorpat, and St. Petersburg, in which social and political questions are discussedin the national tongue.The people who give their name to Livonia, or Lieflaud, have nearly ceased tobe, and scarcely any traces of them remain in the province itself. In the twelfthcentury the German invaders found the Lives on both banks of the Dvina, andgeographical names enable us to verify their former presence in the regionstretching from the coast to Sebej, in the government of Vitebsk. But in 1840the language had so far disappeared that it was found barely possihle to composea short grammar and dictionary hy taxing the memory of a few aged persons.In this way the Livonian dialect, like the Ehste of Finnic stock, was preserved toscience. The only Lives still surviving as a distinct nationality occupy some ofthe coast forests not in Livonia, but in the peninsula of Kurland, terminating atCape Domesnaes. They number about 2,000, but their speech is so mixedwith Lettish words and phrases, that it is little better than a jargon. On theother hand, the Lettish itself betrays in Livonia decided Finno-Livonianinfluences.The Krevinian, another Finnish dialect also spoken in Kurland by a fewthousand individuals near Bauske, south of Mitau, has completely disappearedsince the beginning of the century, leaving nothing behind it except an incompleteglossary. In 1846 Sjogren could discover no more than ten Krevinians whoretained a faint recollection of their national speech. The same fate has overtakenthe Kurs, the Kors of Russian records, who gave their name to Kurland.They are supposed to have been originally Finns, but in the twelfth century hadalready been assimilated to the Letts, as have nearly all the descendants of theLives. There are still a few families between Goldingen and Hasenpoth, northeastof Libau, who claim descent from the " Kur Kings." These " Kino-s,"mentioned for the first time in 1320, were free peasants, exempt from statutelabour, taxes, and military service. They are generally believed to descend fromKur princes who had voluntarily submitted to the Germans. They marry onlyamongst themselves, but lost their privileges in 1854, and in 1865 had beenreduced to about 400 in seven villages.The Letts.The Letts, who have supplanted the Lives, are of Aryan speech, akin to theLithuanians and to the old Borussians, or Prussians, now assimilated to theGermans. They call themselves Latvis—that is, Lithuanians—and their oldRussian name, Letgola, evidently the same word as Latwin-Galas, means "endof Lithuania."Their purest and formerly most warlike tribe is that of the Semigalians,or Jeme-Galas ;that is, Men of the " Land's End." They occupy an extensivetract, including South Livonia, nearly all Kurland, the right bank of the Dvina