The increase of refinement and luxury has increased the wants of the nobility, and narrowed their old sources of income. Increase of revenue has become, therefore, an object of attention; and in Livonia agricultural societies of landowners have been formed, after the pattern of those in Germany. Many books and pamphlets have been written upon the means of adapting foreign improvements to tlie circumstances and condition of this country. The young nobles, more than they ever did before, study the science of agriculture now at the German universities ; agricultural books and journals are much read, and improvements in the management of land are the current subject of conversation. New threshingmachines are imported and invented ; food and shelter are beginning to be prepared for cattle. The cattle of Holstehi and Switzerland are imported to improve the domestic breed. Some enlightened landowners employ German veterinary surgeons, and German foresters. Notwithstanding all this, liowever, the reform prog-resses very slowly. From no branch of human industry is it so difficult to banish old prejudices and habits, as from the agricultural arts. They are generally followed exclusively by those most blindly ignorant and prejudiced. " Our ixtthors always did so — why should we cio otherwise ?" is the saying of the Lettish and Esthonian, as of every other peasant in the world.
The remote history of these countncs is completely hidden from us modern sages, historians, and incjuirers. Neither Tacitus, who teUs us of the Ileruli, the Goths, and the Veneti ; nor Secretary Hyer, Pastor Watson, or Tlmnmann, who quarrel about what Tacitus tells us; nor Ileinrich der Lette, nor the Historical Society of Riga, can giA e us any clear ideas concerning the early inhabitants of these countries, their condition, or their oriffin.
Wlien the conquering and chronicle-writing Germans subdued and colonized this country, they found the aboriginal nations distributed in precisely the same manner as we now see them. The Lettes hihabited Courland and the southern part of Livonia ; the Esthonians the northern half of Livonia and Esthonia. In primeval ages, the Lettes and Esthonians may have enjoyed political independence, but the races seem little adapted for forming regular political comnumlties ; and accordingly, as early as we have any record, we find them living in greater or less dependance on neio-hbourin"" nations.
The land was successively overrun by Russian, Pollsli, Swedish, Danish and German tribes; but of all these different conquests, none was of so much importance to the destinies of the country as that of the Germans
366 ELEMENTS OF THE POPULATION.
They did not direct their efforts merely at the poUtical supremacy, but at the actual possession of the country ; and they associated armed priests, merchants, and mechanics, with their soldiers in the task of conquest, who forced their language, their arts, and their religion, upon the conquered nations, at the same time that they despoiled them of their rights.
Of all modern conquests of these countries, however, the Russian has been the most important, and is to us of the greater interest, on account of its influence over the present and the future. The provinces, as we see them at present, are inhabited by Esthonians, Lettes, Lives, Koors, Swedes, Jews, Poles, Germans, and Russians. We will endeavour to describe the different geographical, and afterwards the social relations of these various races, beginning with the original inhabitants.
The peninsula of Courland, and the country round the mouth of the Dwina, and that bordering on the Aa, are the districts inhabited by the Lettes. A line drawn through Livonia from the south point of the Peipus lake, through Verro and Valk to the gulf of Riga, would be about the boundary between the two races. The Esthonians occupy the whole of Esthonia, the Oesel Archipelago, and the northern part of Livonia. Always more bold and manly than the Lettes, they were, and still are, far more enterprising at sea. They have, therefore, not oidy taken away from them the islands in the neighbouring seas, but have also driven them back from their own coasts into the interior, and they inhabit tlie shores of the gulf of Riga, which belongs entirely to the country of the Lettes.