318 GERMANY. 



two hundred and forty years, the knights were forced to cede one half of their 

 state to Pohmd, retaining the other half as a fief, the country had become so 

 thoroughly German that no attempt even was made to introduce the Polish 

 language. The diocese of Ermeland (Warmia), to the south of the Kurische 

 HafF, remained German too, whilst in Eastern Prussia the Poles only occupy 

 a narrow strip of territory. Amongst the colonists introduced into the north- 

 easternmost corner of Germany there were Salzhurgers and Swabians, whose 

 descendants can still be recognised. 



The northern portion of the Polish territory, to the east of the Vistula, is known 

 as Cassubia, from the Slav tribe of the Kassubes, or Cassubians (Kaszuby), which 

 lives there. These Cassubians, however, are now outnumbered by Germans and 

 Poles,* and are only met with in a few poor villages. But even in those districts 

 which have become completely Germanised a few Slav words and expressions 

 have maintained their ground. The Cassubians, though for the most part 

 miserably poor, are all born gentlemen, and as such they are very vain. The 

 oldest son inherits the whole of his father's property, the younger children 

 receiving merely small sums of money. It results from this that many servants 

 are able to lay claim to noble birth. Their position has nothing humiliating, for 

 the master of the household never undertakes anything without having first con- 

 sulted them. 



As to the Borussi, or Prussians, whose name has been assumed by the leading 

 people of Germany, they have ceased to exist as a separate nation, and their 

 language has completely disappeared since the middle of the seventeenth century. 

 Lithuanian, however, a kindred dialect, is still spoken in the extreme eastern 

 portion of Germany, on both banks of the Memel, and on the Kurische Nehrung. 

 The towns of the whole of that region are thoroughly German, Lithuanian only 

 maintaining its ground in the country districts. It is well known that that idiom 

 is the most primitive of all Aryan languages, and that its ancient songs are full 

 of poetry. t 



Amongst the German-speaking inhabitants of Prussia there are many whose 

 ancestors belonged to foreign races. When Louis XIV. revoked the Edict of 

 Nantes thousands of French Huguenots found an asylum in the Protestant states 

 of Northern Germany, and they gave a wonderful impetus to commerce, industry, 

 and intellectual life. The Elector of Prussia appreciated the importance of 

 repeopling his dominions, wasted and impoverished by war. He called Dutch 

 settlers into the province of Brandenburg, where they drained marshes and 

 improved the breeding of cattle. Calvinists persecuted by Lutherans, and 

 Lutherans persecuted by Calvinists, met with the same welcome, and colonists 



* In 1867 Cassubia had 150,000 inhabitants, 54 per cent, being Germans, 18 per cent. Poles, and 

 28 per cent. Cassubians. Of these latter, however, hardly more than a third were able to speak their 

 native language. 



t Population of the Eastern Provinces of Prussia (Brandenburg, Pomerania, Prussia, Posen, and 

 Silesia), according to languages, in 1875 : — 



Germans ■ 10,29.3,000 



Slavs (86,000 Wends, 64,000 Chechians and Moravians, 2,675,000 Poles, 12,000 Cassubians) 2,SS7,000 

 Lithuanians 150,000 



