The second existing group of this family, the Letts, crossed probably with Finns, number more than a million souls; they inhabit chiefly Courland, Vitetesk and Livonia; but, converted, subjected, and made slaves of by the Teutonic knights, they still live under the dominion of the German barons of the Baltic provinces, with whom they have nothing in common but their religion--Lutheranism. Like the Finnish tribes outside of Finland, the Letts and Lithuanians, scanty in number and widely scattered, are incapable of forming by themselves a nation or a state. Out of this intermixture of races by the assimilation of the ruder by the more civilised, was formed a new people--a homogeneous nation. In fact, contrary to popular prejudice there is in Russia something more than an intermixture of diverse races--there is what we to-day call a “nationality”--as united, as compact, and as self-conscious as any nation in the world. Russia, notwithstanding all her various races, is yet no incoherent mass, no political conglomeration or mosaic of peoples. She resembles France in her national unity rather than Turkey or Austria. If Russia must be compared to a mosaic, let it be to one of those ancient pavements whose scheme is a single substance of solid color edged with a border of diverse forms and shades--most of Russia’s original alien populations being relegated to her borders and forming around her a sort of belt of uneven width. It is in the centre of Russia that is found that uniformity of much more marked among the Russians than among all other peoples of Europe; from one end of the empire to the other the language presents fewer dialects and less localisms than most of our western languages. The cities all look alike; the peasants have the same customs, the same manner of life. The nation resembles the country, having the same unity, almost the same monotony as the plains which it peoples. _The Great Russians and the Little Russians_