PLAINS OF THE ELBE, ODER, AND VISTULA. 



317 



the same time it may be assumed that German statisticians exhibit some bias in 

 their enumerations, and put down every one as a German who is able to speak 

 their language, irrespective of his origin.* The Poles are intelligent and skilled 

 in handicrafts, but they are poorer than the Germans, and furnish the largest 

 contingent of labourers and factory hands. 



The least civilised section of the Poles are the Mazovians, or Masures, who inhabit 

 the lake district to the east of the Vistula. Forty years ago they still lived in 

 thatched log-huts, half buried in the ground. They subsist almost solely upon 

 potatoes, and unfortunately are much addicted to potato spirits, or tcodka. One of 

 their most esteemed dishes (knipnik) is made of honey mixed with spirits. 



The dark forests of Johannisberg, and the shores of the Lake of Spirding, to 

 the east of the Masures, are inhabited by Russians. They are raskolniks, and sought 

 a refuge in Prussia from religious persecution. They have brought under 

 cultivation the lands which were ceded to them in the district of Sensberg, and 

 their villages bear testimony to their well-being. 



Fig. 183. — Eelative Increase of Germans and Poles in Posen (Poznania). 



1815 1C20 



1867 



Of the two banks of the' Lower Vistula the western is more Slav than the eastern. 

 The less fertile tracts on the former were allowed to remain in possession of the 

 Poles, whilst Germans settled in the rich alluvial delta of the river, which was 

 drained by Flemish and Saxon colonists, brought thither by the Teutonic Knights. 

 The descendants of these Low Germans have fair hair, blue eyes, and broad 

 shoulders ; they are of somewhat heavy gait, but resolute. The descendants of 

 Polish serfs, who sought a refuge from the oppression of their masters, live 

 amongst them, being for the most part employed as labourers. 



This German colony on the delta of the Vistula almost separates the Poles of 

 Western Prussia from the bulk of their compatriots. No Poles whatever live to the 

 east of the Lower Vistula, the whole of the country stretching from Marienburg 

 and Elbing to the delta of the Memel being occupied by Germans. It was here 

 that the Teutonic Knights founded their state, exterminating the pagan natives of 

 the country, and repeopling it with German colonists. When, after a dominion of 



* In -1815 615,000 iBliabitants (79-4 per cent, of the total population) of the province of Posen spoke 

 Polish ; in 1867, 840,000 (54'7 per cent.). 



