INHABITANTS. 193 



groups, Uralo-Finnic in ttie north, Mongolo-Tûrkic in the south. Further west 

 other Finns, Tavastians and Karelians in the north, Ehstes (Esthonians) and 

 Ingrians in the south, still hold the shores of the very gulf where stands the new 

 capital of the empire. South of the Ehstes stretches the domain of another 

 nationality, that of the Aryan Letto-Lithuanians, akin to, though yet distinct 

 from, the Slavs. Still farther south the Crimea is partly peopled by Tatars, 

 while Rumanians, Latinised Dacians, occupy the south-west corner of Russia 

 between the Pruth and the Dniester, about the lower course of the latter river, 

 and I'eaching in some places as far as the Bug. The Jews also have established 

 trading colonies in all the western towns of the empire. 



Nevertheless all the central region comprised between the Volga and Oka, the 

 great northern lakes and the Euxine, is occupied by the Slavs, who have advanced 

 in a compact mass westwards far beyond the frontiers of the eraj)ire, between the 

 Letto-Lithuanians of the Niémen and the Rumanians of the Pruth. Those of the 

 Slavs forming the Russian family, by far the most numerous, are themselves 

 divided into three groups, which may be regarded as distinct nationalities. These 

 are the White Russians of the forest-covered lowlands stretching from the left 

 bank of the Dvina to the Pripet marshes ; the Little Russians, or Ukranians, 

 occupying the vast region comprised between the Donetz in Russia, the San in 

 Galicia, and the sources of the Theiss in Hungary ; the Great Russians, or Mus- 

 covites, spread over the rest of Russia, and especially in the centre. From this 

 diversity the Czar takes the title of " Autocrat of all the Russias." 



The two western branches are allied to the Polish Slavs, a sister nationality 

 with whom they were for a long time politically united in one state. The 

 numerous Polish communities still found between the Narev and Dnieper are 

 evident traces of that old political union of Poland with White and Little Russia, 

 all now absorbed in the empire of the Great Russians. 



Polish patriots, vanquished on the battle-field, have sought an ethnological 

 revenge by driving their conquerors from the Slav, and even from the Aryan 

 world. For them, as well as for their enthusiastic western friends, the two Western 

 Russian or Ruthenian nationalities are merely provincial varieties of the Polish 

 stock, while the Muscovites are Mongolians, Tatars, Finns, masked under a 

 borrowed name, since the twelfth century speaking an alien tongue, appropriating 

 the name of Russian by command of Catherine II., and thus, as it were, usurping 

 a place amongst the peoples of Europe. Recent historical and ethnographic 

 research proves that both assertions are equally erroneous. The Little Russians 

 are undoubtedly Slavs, distinct in speech from the Poles and the Great Russians 

 alike. But the White Russians are most commonly classed linguistically amongst 

 the subdivisions of the Great Russians, although in its phonetics their language 

 betrays Polish, and in its vocabulary Little Russian influences, so that its exact 

 position among the sister tongues remains still undetermined. As to the difference 

 assumed to have existed between Russia and Muscovy, the authentic witness of 

 coins, diplomas, and other documents shows that the Muscovites never ceased 

 to call themselves and be called Russians or Russines, or, according to one of the 

 158 



