In the forest, on the other hand, where, in fact, dwell the bulk of the not yet denationalised race, you still see Wends as they were many centuries ago. It is a curious country, that easternmost stretch of what once was the great forest of Miriquidi, almost touching Bautzen and Görlitz with its southernmost fringe, and extending northward far into the March of Brandenburg. At first glance you would take it to be intolerably prosaic. It spreads out at a dead level, flat as a rink, for miles and miles away, far as the eye can see, with nothing to break the straight sky-line--except it be clouds of dust whirled up by the wind from the powdery surface of this German Sahara. The villages lie far apart, divided by huge stretches of dark pine forest, much of it well-grown, not a little, however, crippled and stunted. The roads are, often, mere tracks of bottomless sand, along which toils the heavy coach at a foot pace, drawn by three horses at least, and shaking the passengers inside to bits by its rough motion across gnarled pine-roots which in the dry sand will never rot. But look at it a little more closely, and you will find a peculiar kind of wild romance resting upon it. If you take the trouble to inquire, you will find that all this forest is peopled with elves. There are stories and legends and superstitions attaching to almost every point. Hid away among it are the sites of ancient Wendish villages--you may see where stood the houses, you may trace where were the ridged fields, you may feel, Wends will have it, by a creeping sensation coming over you as you pass, where were the ancient grave-yards. Here is an ancient haunted Celtic barrow. There is a cave in which are supposed to meet, at certain uncanny hours, the ghosts of cruel Swedish invaders, barbarously murdered in self-defence, or else Wendish warriors of much older time. Yonder, again, is a mound beneath which lies a treasure. Here "spooks" this spirit, there his fellow. By the Wends the forest is regarded with peculiar awe. It is to them a personality, almost a deity, exacting, as they will have it, every year at least one victim as a tribute or sacrifice. Every now and then you will come upon a heap of dry branches, on which you may observe that every passer-by religiously lays an additional stick. That is a "dead man," a Wendish "cairn," raised up in memory of some person who on that spot lost his life. Between the forest and dry fields picturesquely stretch out sheets of water, some of them of large size. And where there is water, the scenery at once assumes a hue of freshness and verdure which is most relieving. Dull and bare as this country generally is, no Switzer loves his own beautiful mountain home more fervently, or admires it with greater appreciation, than do the Wends their native patch of sand and peat and forest; nor does he miss it, when away, with more painful home-sickness.