The length of the coast from Narva to Libau is 150 German miles. This whole line is now filled with merry, social circles. Bands of music from Germany, and ballad-singers from Riga, travel along the shore to enliven the merry-makings of the bathers ; and the above-mentioned class, who, in winter, travel incessantly from mansion to mansion, now drive about among the bathing-huts to visit their good friends and relatives.
Sea-bathing wonderfully stiengthens the health and spirits, and especially the appetite. The dwellings and accommodation of the bathers are very confined, and many ludicrous difficulties arise, the wealthy and luxurious gentry having to put up with all sorts of expedients. A merry, careless, frolicsome disposition prevails everywhere. Twice a day the bathers march to the battle-field against the foaming waves, and twice a day they celebrate their victory with dripping locks at the social board. The close, crowded manner of living, and the scanty accommodation, excite confidence and familiarity among them, and the excellent health of all makes them full of fun and frolic. Sociable games, dances, music, masquerades, tableaux vivants, private theatricals, &c., follow one another in close succession, and the days of the bathing season roll away like the waves of the sea that tumble and dash over one another in wild sport and revelry.
As all sorts of benefits for the coming year are expected from seabathing, and every one determines to lay in a stock of health, from which he may supply himself at will during the winter, they are very conscientious in the exact number of baths, and would as little think of neglecting a single dip, while on the coast, as of neglecting to go to church on a great festival day. The exact number of baths necessary for returning with a proper stock of health, has been fixed at fifty. This is called the Smaller Cure. The Larger Cure is from sixty to seventy baths, and much envied is he who takes as many. Every one keeps his bath account in his bathing-hut, by drawing a line with chalk upon the v/all each time that he emerges from the briny flood, red as a crab, dripping with seawater, and trembling all over with cold.
The inhabitants of the Baltic provinces have such confidence in seabathing that their physicians reconunend it for almost every kind of illness. On that account, although the actual bathing season ceases with the 1st of August, many continue it during August, in which month it Is already so cold that the bathers go down to the shore wrapt in thick wadded cloaks, and the bathing-rooms are well-heated. Nevertheless, bathing Is even then considered healthy, and it has been settled that all ailments contracted by cold-bathing must be cured by more cold bathing ; so that no coughs, colds, rheumatisms, or toothache are allowed to interrupt it, but are all to be washed away again in the salt flood.
No amusements are so popular in the bathing season as riding, driving, and walking. Immediately after breakfast in the morning, and inmiedlately after tea at night, every one wanders out, either on foot, on horseback, or In a carriage. The Baltic sea-coast offers but little, indeed, tiiat can be called beautiful or attractive. It is everywhere so sandy and bare, so gloomy and treeless, as lo be a real desert. But in these sociable countries, beauty Is less admired in trees and smiling landscapes than in cheerful social circles; and, besides, the coast must always possess the glorious and untiring spectacle of the boundless expanse of waters and the glittering fall of billows and waves on the sands. The gray waves of the Baltic cast on the beach a very beautiful and prized production — amber. The beach is consequently a favourite promenade, and amberseeking one of the established social amusements. This amber is found in the greatest perfection on the Prussian coast, and is most abundant near Konigsberg and Pillau ; but the Baltic Sea casts it up also along the whole Couriand coast. It is even sometimes found on the southern strand of Oesel, though seldom, and sometimes at Riga ; but, with these exceptions, never north of Pernau. As the Jews are everywhere attracted by any thing glittering and costly, and in other countries trade mostly in gold, silver, and jewellery, so here they are the principal dealers in the golden - hued amber. They not only sell it, but work and mould it into various ornamental forms ; and on the boundaries, between Russia and Prussia, the Jews always offer travellers a number of pretty fancy articles cut in amber, at very low prices. This delicate production is very popular among the social circles of the north ; the wealthy and idle gentry amuse themselves by cutting and working the golden fragments very tastefully. Every one lays in a store of amber on the coast, and during the rest of the year they metamorphose the raw masses into different elegant and glittering little presents.