Mitau is the capital of Courland, and lies on its most important navigable river, the Aa, in a sandy yet fruitful district. Eight or nine small streams flow from different sources into the Aa at this point. The surrounding country is free from forests and marshes, and towards the south is partlcidarly adapted for the growth of wheat. The situation of IVIitau is another cii-cumstance favorable to its prosperity. The province has somewhat the form of a snake, with a very large head, and small tapering tail ; JMitau is situated nearly in the centre of this figure, alike distant from tail and head, in the heart of the country, in its most fertile district, on its most navigable river ; and it is not to be wondered at, that first the grand masters of the kniglits, and afterwards the dukes and nobles, shoiild have selected it for the capital, the residence of the court, and the rendezvous of society and refinement, and that under the Russian dominion, it should have remained the seat of government, and the residence of the highest authorities of Courland. Mitau is consequently the most important and best knoAvn town in the province. Any one who hears Mitau mentioned by a petty proprietor of the interior, who, Hvuig in his wooden castle, takes Httle part in the doings of the fashionable world, would imagine Versailles or Paris was spoken of. Its social circles are the highest objects of ambition to the young gentlemen and ladies of Comland, and the Lettes speak of Yelgava, as they call it, as if it was the capital of the world.
Mitau is only five miles from Riga, yet essentially different in almost every respect. Riga has high Gothic houses and narrow crooked old streets, the whole compact, and built of stone ; Mitau has broad regular streets, and low, one-storied, wooden houses. Riga was built by genuine citizens, whose birth and death, whose whole file, ambition, and sphere of action, were confined within the walls of the city ; IVIItau, by dukes and nobles, who inhabited it only during a few months of the winter season. Riga keeps itself clear of Jews ; Mitau swarms with them. Riga is a real commercial city, depending upon civic activity, and a moneyed aristocracy ;
Mitau is a capital of nobles, with an aristocracy of birth and polished manners. Even the Livonian families of distinction, therefore, often spend the winter at Mitau, to escape the bourgeoisie of Riga ; and the two towns, though such near neighbours, carry on little intercourse with each other.
The population of Mitau amounts to 15,000, but it is difficult to say what part of this population can be described as permanent residents, the noble families inhabiting the town only in the winter, and many of them only for three or four weeks. About ten thousand inhabitants may, however, be reckoned as belonging to or dependent on the nobility, and half as many as independent citizens and officers of government. The merchants, officers, advocates, tradespeople, artists, and men of letters of Mitau, are all Germans. The lower classes, including male and female domestics, &c., are almost all Lettes ; and those who raise themselves from their low station by the help of their masters are so Germanized that a stranger would hardly know them from Germans. The beggars of Mitau, the scum of the population, are Jews ; other Jews, however, have rendered themselves necessary to all classes, as artists, brokers, merchants, and bankers. Mitau contains also a few Poles. Some Polish noblemen lead a retired life in Mitau, in order to escape the melancholy aspect of the degradation of their native country, or to afford their children a better education, in the neighbourhood of German schools and German society. The Russians also form a part of the population of Mitau, as of other towns in the Baltic provinces. They are active labourers, gardeners, carpenters, masons, and traders in Russian wares ; they are always preferable, as workmen, to the weak and unenergetic Lettes, and often supplant the Jews as brokers and traders.
" We Mitauers," said a Mitau patriot to me once, " flatter ourselves that our city, though it contains less inhabitants than many German capitals, is yet superior to most German towns of the same size, in hospitality, refinement, and distinguished society. At all events there is no town from St. Petersburg to Berlin, which gives such refined, such lively, such social reunions ^ as Mitau." Whether this be true in its full extent or not, it is worth recording as a circumstance totally unnoticed by geographers and travellers. There are many kinds of celebrity in the world, and most of them are diffused through the medium of the press. There are some, however, which have quite escaped its Argus eye, and of such is the celebrity of Mitau, which has been overlooked by geographers, and exists not in books, but is well known to those who have participated in the enjoyment of its social circles.