When the hour for leaving her maternal house arrives, the grief of the bride attains its highest pitch. She avoids every one, runs away and hides herself. The relations in the mean time prepare her sledge, and when they find her she is placed in it, sitting on her mother-in-law's lap, with her bridesmaid by her side. The sledge is covered with white handkerchiefs, confined by gay-coloured ribbons. Bright bunches of feathers and Httle bells, announce to every passer by that it is a bridal sledge they see.
On the second day the bride is decorated with an elegant hood, and then receives a box on the ear from her mother-in-law, which the young lady duly passes on to her husband. The bridal bed is generally placed in the kleetc, or provision-house, and the bridal feast held there. Curdled milk, with salt and leeks, cheese mixed with eggs, and their beloved pork, are the favourite dishes, and the table is decorated with poppies, mint, and sage.
If the Lettish brides celebrate the greatest festival of their lives amid tears, the old Lettes, on the other hand, meet the bitter hour of death with remarkable cheerfulness and calmness. Perhaps the many evds and hardships they have to bear on earth, contribute as much as their hopes of futurity to make them regard with satisfaction the repose which terminates their weary lives. Whoever has stood by the deathbed of an old Lette, will have beheld an example of pious and philosophical resignation, such as is rarely seen on earth.
The night-watches of the Lettes by the coi'pses of their dead, resemble strikingly those of the Irish ; the mourning women, the songs, the drinking, the mingled merriment and sorrow, are the same.
The Lettes have, like some other nations, a day set apart in remembrance of departed souls. On this day they set out a feast for the dead, and place torches by their graves to light them to the banquet. They do no work, but sit cowering together, and fancy every noise they hear to bo caused by the ghosts of the dead.
The superstitions of the Lettes are more childish and absurd, than gloomy and terrible. In many places the snake is held sacred, and lis skin used as an amulet. The wafers distributed to them by the priest at the sacrament, instead of swallowing, they will often keep in the moutli, and afterwards fasten them on their granaries, beehives, houses, t^c, in the expectation that this will act as a charm, and draw down upon them the blessing of Heaven.
THEIR ORIGIN AND BOUNDARIES.
Few great European races have played so unimportant a part in the history of the world, as that of the Finns. With the exception of the Magyars, no sing-le civilized nation has sprung from them. There is now no Finnish race which is not subject to the Russian sceptre ; many of them, such as the Ingrians and Karelians, are utterly extirpated ; and others have been so mixed with neigbouring nations, as quite to lose their Finnish character. Two only, the Esthonians and the Finlanders, having been subject to the Swedes and Germans before they were conquered by Russia, have become known to us. Those which fell at an early period under Russian servitude, have all either disappeared entirely, or been absorbed into the general mass of the Russian nation. Of the latter class are the Mordvines, Tsheremisses, &c. The whole province of Esthonia, as far as the Narova and the Pcipus lake ; the Oesel island, and the islands of Mon, Dagoe, Kin, &c. ; and the whole northern half of Livonia, including the Dorpat and Pernau districts, are inhabited by the Esthonians. Tlieir territory contains about 700 square miles, and they amomit to about half a million of souls.