The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

THE BALTIC PK0YENCE8. 235vessels, and attributed to Seaman or Norse immigrants of the first period of theMiddle Ages, anterior to the Danish invaders who overran Esthonia in thebeginning- of the thirteenth century. Their presence is also revealed by numerousScandinavian graves and the Norse names of several places, notably the islandsof Dago, "Worms, Odcnsholm, Nucko, Mogo, Kuhno, Runo. They arrived instill greater numbers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centimes, when Esthoniaand Livonia formed temporarily a part of the Swedish domain. But they arenow reduced to a few thousands in Dago and other Esthonian islands, where theycall themselves Eibofolket, or "Islanders." In Runo they remained free, allequally owners of land and sea.The Slav elements are still more strongly represented than the Norse in theselands. Thousands of Poles settled, especially in Kurland while it was incorporatedwith Poland, from 1561 to 1765, and there are still about 15,000 in thethree provinces. The Russians began their invasions early in the eleventhcentury, when they founded Dorpt (Dorpat) and other towns. But their militarycolonisation was arrested by the German conquest. Later on, the religiouspersecutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries drove hither manyRaskolniks from Muscovy. There are 8,000 in one of the suburbs of Riga, andover 20,000 in all the country, besides about 30,000 other Russians settled mostlyin towns, and especially in Riga.Some 80,000 Ehstes and 50,000 Letts profess the Orthodox Greek religion,mostly converted since the great famine of 1840 and 1841. The peasantryhoped, by adopting " the religion of the Czar," to recover the lands of which theyhad been deprived by the German nobles. In the years 1845 and 1846 alone60,000 conformed, but this having in no way bettered their prospects, theirzeal abated, and was even partly followed by a reactionary movement.The Germans were long the political rulers, and even when they had ceasedto rule with the sword, they continued to do so with their wealth, for they hadusurped all the lands and monopolized the trade of the country. Their firstappearance at the mouth of the Dvina in 1159 was as shipwrecked mariners :being well received, they returned as traders, and finally assumed the role ofproselytizers and masters. Strongholds and fortified convents of cloisteredknights crowned every summit, completely commanding all the land, whiletrading places were founded in favourable spots for the development of intercoursebetween the Baltic and Central Russia. Thus arose above the enslaved nativestwo almost exclusively Germanic classes, the landed aristocracy and the burgesses,who after seven hundred years still retain much of their former power. They builtcities, laid down highways, officially converted the Letts and Ehstes first tothe Roman, then to the Reformed religion. They imposed tithes and taxes, butthey failed utterly to Teutonise the people, and they do not at present number,probably, more than one-fifteenth of the population. They are even relativelydiminishing, the birth rate being lower in the urban than the rural districts.The discrepancies in the statistical returns are probably due to the fact that theJews, upwards of 40,000, are frequently included amongst the Germans. The