The third separate branch of the Vendish stem were the Ukrians, or Border-Vendes, Germ. _Ukern,_ from _Ukraina_, border. They lived in the territory which afterwards became the margravate of Brandenburg, and were divided into several tribes, as the Hevelli on the banks of the Havel, the Retarians, etc. Their situation was such, that constant conflicts between them and the guardians or watch of the German frontiers, the Saxon margraves on the other side of the Elbe, were unavoidable. These served gradually to extend the German _marches_ or frontiers further and further, until in the year 1134 Albert the Bear, count of Ascania, finally conquered the Vendes. The Slavic inhabitants of this region were cruelly and completely destroyed; the country was repeopled by German and Dutch colonists, and given as a fief by the emperor to Albert the Bear, the first margrave of Brandenburg. Brandenburg was the German form for _Brannibor_, the most considerable of the Vendish cities, after which the country was called. The names of places, many of them altered in a similar manner, are indeed the only weak traces of the Vendish language once spoken in this part of Germany. No tribe of the Vendes seems to have been so completely extinguished; the present inhabitants of Brandenburg being of as pure a German origin, as those of any other part of Germany. The descendants of only two Vendish tribes have preserved their language; and even these, from powerful nations spread over the surface of at least 4800 geographical square miles, have shrunk into the comparatively small number of scarcely two hundred thousand individuals, now inhabitants of Upper and Lower Lusatia. Nearly all of them are peasants; for the higher classes, even if Slavic blood perhaps runs in their veins, are completely Germanized. These tribes are the Sorabians, Lat. _Sorabæ_, Germ. _Sorben_, in Lusatia, divided into two different branches. They call themselves to this very day _Servians_, or rather (as also their brethren on the Danube) _Serbs_; their language, the _Serbish_ language. Although in fact two distinct tribes, and speaking different dialects, yet their early history cannot well be separated. After the dissolution of the great kingdom of Thuringia by the Francs and Saxons in the year 1528, the Sorabians, or Sorbæ, took possession of the countries left by the Hermunduri, viz. the territory between the Harz mountains, the Saale, and the Erzgebirge, and extended their dominion in a northern direction to the seats of their brethren, the Ukrians, and towards the east as far as to the region in which their near relations, the Lekhes. about the same time had settled. They made slaves of the few German inhabitants whom they found scattered through this country; and according to their industrious habits, began immediately after their arrival to cultivate the soil, to build cities, and to trade in the productions of the country. Although not strictly a warlike people, they were able for