310 



GEEMANY. 



into tlie Kurisclie HafF, is a region of picturesque hills, known as the " Prussian 



Paradise." 



A tongue of sandy dunes separates the Baltic from the Frische Haff, which is 

 accessible only through a narrow gap at Pillau, almost facing the mouth of the 

 Preo-el at Konio-sberg. The forest which formerly covered the dunes aroused the 

 cupidity of Frederick William I., who had it cut down ; but no sooner had this 

 been done than the dunes began to move, overwhelming several villages, and 

 fiUino- up the small ports on their interior slopes. They have never been replanted. 



The Kurische Ilaf is the largest of these Prussian lagoons, covering no less 

 than 625 square miles. The Memel, which flows into it, has a delta of 545 square 

 miles. The Nehmng, a term equivalent to the Italian Lido, which separates this 

 HafF from the Baltic, is the longest met with on the coast of Prussia, and its dunes 



Fig. 178. — Samland and the Delta of the Pkegel. 



Scale 1 : 800,000. 



Aticttnt Fitnnatia 



Herein fXii-mati» 



10 Miles. 



rise to a height of 206 feet. Up to the beginning of last century these dunes were 

 covered with forests, and they afforded shelter to flourishing villages which 

 occupied their interior slope. At that time the high-road from Konigsberg to 

 Memel followed their exterior slope, and the Sandkrug inn, at its spit, was 

 frequently crowded b}^ storm or ice-bound travellers. When the forests had been 

 destroyed in the course of the Seven Years' War, the dunes began to travel, over- 

 whelming villages and fields, and the inhabitants fled from the Nehrung. Only 

 a shred of the ancient forest survives near Sohwarzort, a small village of fishermen ; 

 but that, too, is gradually being destroyed, the sands of the dunes travelling right 

 over it, so that trees which originally grew on the interior slope reappear, after 

 the lapse of years, on the exterior one — dead of course. The village itself is 

 threatened with destruction, for on an average the dunes travel annually 16 feet 



