The Russians have a greater genius and predilection for the trade of pedler and itinerant merchant, than for any mechanical art. They travel about the country in little one-horse carts, vending Russian books, pictures, and fancy wares, as well as earthenware, tobacco, &c. But the Russians of these provinces do not confine themselves to mechanical pursuits ; they often engage in speculations of various kinds. In spring they will buy up the future produce of the gardens from the lords of the soil, to sell the fruit afterwards by retail in St. Petersburg. Sometimes they form companies, and undertake for certain sums the erection of bridges, public buildings, &c. Sometimes they hire large pieces of land in the neighbourhood of towns, where they grow vegetables for the use of the citizens. A Russian who yesterday entered the service of a merchant to pack hemp and flax in the harbour, will to-day turn coachman to a nobleman who wishes to cut a figure, with a fine, handsome, long-bearded Russian on his coachbox, and to-morrow will return home with what he has earned. The Russians domesticated in the proAances either live in the villages as peasants, or in the suburbs of the towns as citizens. The former chiefly employ themselves in fishing. The Russians are the most expert fishermen in the world on rivers, and their nets generally sweep the pond or stream into which they are thrown, completely clear of all living creatures ; so much so, indeed, that when ponds are hired for a certain time, a stipulation will often be made by their owners that no Russians shall fish in them.
The Russians who inhabit the suburbs of the towns are almost without exception of low origin, but many of them have in some way managed to free themselves from slavery, and some have raised themselves to considerable rank and wealth, particularly those ^ho trade between Riga, Reval, &c., and the interior of Russia, in wood, flax, hemp, taUow, &c. 1 hey Inhabit the daily spreading and rising subm'bs, demanding, with ever increasing loudness and impatience, an equality of rights with the German burghers within the cities.
THE LETTES — THEIR ORIGIN. 371
The veo-etable gardeners in the environs of tlie towns are exclusively Russians ; they spread themselves all round the cities with their cabbage and asparagus gardens. None know better than they do how to turn CA-ery warm ray of sunshine to the advantage of their plants, and how to Tirotect them from the severity of the northern chmate. The Russians are also frequently masons, carpenters, smiths, &c., in the great cities.
If we cast a summary glance over the whole population of the Baltic provinces we find :
The original Inhabitants, the Lettes and Esthonians, are agricultural labourers, with a very few exceptions.
The Germans are the aristocracy of the country, and consist of the nobility, living on their own estates, of the merchants and tradesmen iu the towns, and of the Litcraten.
The most rising and Industrious class are the Russian settlers and travelling mechanics and tradesmen. The Jews are scattered through the provinces as innkeepers, small shopkeepers, and beggars, and the gipsies as thieves and horse-dealers.
The whole population of the Baltic provinces Is about a million and a half, and the population decreases in density towards the north. Of 1000 inhabitants about 900 are Lettes and Esthonians, fifty Germans, thirty Russians, five Swedes, and fifteen Jews.
The regular strata, the pointed rocks, the chains of mountains, the deep valleys and chasms on the surface of the earth, point out clearly enough to the geologist the mighty revolutions and changes that have taken place on that surface ; but to point out how and whence they came is beyond him. It is the same with the historian. He knows that revolutions have taken place — that some races have branched off in different directions, and that others have merged into one another — that powerful repelling and attracting principles have agitated masses that have smce become compact ; but how these compact masses arose, and why they formed and kept together, are questions to which he is unable to return any reply.
The interesting but almost unnoticed races of the Lettes and Lithuanians are a perpetual and puzzling enigma. Lonely and unconnected with any of the surrounding nations, they occupy their httle nook of northern land, evidently unslmllar and unrelated to any Emopean nation, and bear afhnlty only to the tribes that Inhabit the far East, at the foot of Dawalaglrl, or on the shores of the Ganges.