260 FORESTKY IN LITHUANIA. 



previous to the settlement within its bounds of the 

 dominating German population. 



Three, if not four, or more distinct tribes resident 

 here are represented by these Ests, while a fourth allied 

 family or tribe the Fins are found on the northern shores 

 of this arm of the Baltic, inhabiting still the whole land 

 between Russia and the Gulf of Bothnia, and giving 

 their name to that territory. The Ests, or a large portion of 

 them, and their territory constituted from the thirteenth to 

 the fifteenth century a federal state, acknowledging the 

 Roman Emperor and the Pope as its paramount lords and 

 supreme heads. And the people differ as manifestly 

 from the Lithuanian and Polish people of the adjacent 

 provinces as they do from the Russians, whose empire 

 extends over all. 



Lithuania is frequently spoken of as a Polish colony, and 

 I have no reason to doubt the correctness of the supposition 

 that many of the more energetic Polish people penetrated 

 into the country, contiguous as it is to their own, and in 

 course of time became the dominant race. Something 

 similar has occurred here the dominant race is com- 

 posed of the descendants of German emigrants, who, 

 in turn, are being dominated by Russia. 



Including the outlying islands, these provinces cover 

 an area of 1,754 German miles, and comprise a population 

 numbering about 1,850.000. 



Courland is described as a flat country, interspersed with 

 sand hills, extensive heaths and marshes, and patches of 

 cultivated land, intersected by two ranges of hills running 

 east and west. About two-thirds of the surface are 

 covered with noble forests of pine and fir, interspersed 

 occasionally with groves of oak. Game is abundant ; and 

 deer, bears, wolves, lynxes, and martins, haunt the 

 forests. Agriculture and the rearing of cattle are the 

 leading branches of industry. 



According to official returns, which I obtained some 

 years ago, in Courland the total area of forests is 851,000 



