The uncultivated Germans in this country entertain the greatest contempt for the unfortunate Lettes, forgetting that it is they who liavc made them what they are. '• No Lette is to be trusted," they avHI tell you. " Mildness never does with them ; you are sure to rc)ent of any kindness you show them. The whip is the best argument you can use with tliem ; you should rufe them by means of brandy and flogging. The promise of a dram will make any traitor among them betray Ills accomplices, and discover a plot or a tiieft."
One quality which the Lettes share with all enslaved tribes, is a great disposition to thieving. Jt is remarkable, liowever, and very diaracterislicofthem, that the Lettes never commit great n^bbcrics, and never cteal any thing of considerable value, even when tliey liave the opportunity. A sack of gold mig-ht be left outside a door night and day, Avitliout being touched by a Lette ; but there is hardly one of them, v/ithin whose reach needles, pi)es, knives, ribbons, and other such trllles, can be safely trusted. A Lette who would return a piece of gold which he found, would not scruple to steal a copper copeh, if he could.
The same style of architecture, common througPiout the whole of Europe north of Prussia, prevails among the Lettes. Throughout Sweden, Finland, Lithuania, northern Russia, and the Baltic provinces, we find long, low, one-storied buildings ; for in this severe climate the higher regions of the air are avoided, on account of their gi-eater cold. The material is always the wood of the fir-tree, the trunks of which are laid horizontally upon one another. Tlie gaps left between the logs are stuffed u) with moss and oakum, and sometimes the whole is thickly covered, first with cow-skin, and afterwards with dung. Wood is always preferred to stone for building, because it is easier to work and repair, and because it is drier and warmer in winter, and cooler in summer.
A Lettish Bauerhof, consists of the dwelling-house, the stables, the cowhouses, the batliing-house, the kleete, and the rige. These buildings lie together in a circle or square, with a court in the centre, with g'eneially some picturesque birch-trees grouped around, of which there is always at least one in the middle of the comtyard. On account of their passion for bathing, and for other reasons, these Gehqfte are always on the bank of some stream or liver. Two or more Gchbfte sometimes stand together, but never enough to form any thing like a village, and they are oftener single. This isolation of each family, must of course make the progress of civihzation very slow among them.
A narrow little passage, with high wooden walls on each side, leads to a little low wooden door, the only entrance into the GcJtqfte. All the other doors and windoAvs open into the courtyard. The dwelling-house may easily be distinguished by its size, and its number of little windows. On entering it by its low wooden door, a little hall presents itself, in the centre of which is a fire with the porridge kettle susjiended over it. On the right-hand side is the sitting-room of the principal family, and on the left another room used for various purposes, principally for the dwelhng of the serving men and maids. In the room on the right the pater J'amilias, and his wife and children, eat, sleep, spin, weave, and in short, spend nearly their whole time. The oven is the most important article of furniture, the seat of honour, and the most favourite resting-place. It is built of Dutch tiles, around it are placed benches, and over it are sleeping-places, where the poor Lettes enjoy their greatest luxury, that of baking themselves, and at the same time indulging in the delights of the dolcefar niente.
The other buildings are partitioned into an endless number of little divisions. There is one stable for the horse of the father of the family ; another smaller one, hardly larger than a henroost, for those of the men ; a stall for the cows, one for the shecji, a little building called a hJcete, containing the clothes, linen, butter, flax, and corn of the family; another for those of the servants ; a building for the carts and sledges, another for ploughs and agricultural instruments, another for the dr^dng of cheese, which is one of the principal dishes of the Lettes, a rige for the thrcshin"- and drying of grain, and finally a bath-room.