PLAINS OF THE ELBE AND WESEE, ETC. 



279 



InIIA15ITANTS. 



The dwellers in the plains stretching away to the west of the Elhe are upon 

 the whole of homogeneous origin, and anthropologists search amongst them for 

 the purest representatives of the Germanic type. Yet until quite recently men 

 of foreign speech and origin occupied a part of Hanover. The Slavs, who in the 

 '• March " of Brandenburg became quickly merged in the Germans whose 

 speech they adopted, maintained themselves much longer in the so-called Wend- 

 land of Hanover, a district irrigated by the river Jeetze. Even in the beginning 

 of this century most families there spoke Wendish, and their descendants still make 



Fig. 160. — Heligoland. 

 Scale 1 : 150,000. 



^7°5o 



ZiFat/tuiiis'Liin; 



Depth k'ss lima Ù Fitllioii 



S'lo 1 1 Fatliums 



- 2 Miles. 



Oter II Eat/tuins 



use of nearly a thousand words incomprehensible to the Germans in the surround, 

 ing districts. This persistence of Slav speech in the midst of Germans is 

 accounted for by the geographical configuration of the country. The " Land of 

 the Wends " is bounded on the one side by the Heath of Liineburg, on the other 

 by the swamps and lakes of the Altmark, both presenting more formidable 

 obstacles than a river would have done. These Slavs, unfortunately for themselves, 

 were but a small tribe, unable to cope with the German barons of the neighbour- 

 hood, whose subjects they became, and at whose hands they had to suffer all 

 those indignities which a conquering race usually inflicts upon its victims. 



Other tribal associations have maintained their ground in swampy districts 



