C H A P . VI.
Mem met—'Yourney to Konigjlerg—Sketch o f the Hi/lory of Prtifia
—JFarfcw— General Remarks on the prefcnt Situation of Poland.
I .''ROM Mittau we traverfed the dutchy o f Courland, a coun-
try iwelling into gentle hills, and fertile in corn, hemp, and
flax. The inhabitants export thofe commodities from the port
o f Libau on the Baltic, the only commercial town of Courland j
and import in return, coffee, tea, wines, cloth, fait, and other
foreign merchandize, which fupply the interior confumption.
The country is moftly open; but in fome parts clothed with
forefts o f pine and fir, dotted with occafional groves o f fine oak,
and iprinkled with much underwood. The villages are neat,
the icattered cottages and gentlemen’s feats prettily fituated amid
clumps of trees, and the inns provided with beds, a great luxury
to travellers juft come from Ruifia. The roads aré extremely
indifferent, and in this feafon o f the year fcarcely paffable.
We quitted Courland, near Polangen, a fmall town of Poland,
and, croffing over a narrow flip o f Poland, entered Pruflia, and
foon reached Memmel, an ill-built town with narrow dirty ftreets,
but remarkable for its extenfive commerce.
Memmel is provided with the fineft harbour in the Baltic.
In
In 1784, 996 fhips, amongft which were 500 Englifh, arrived
here. The imports are chiefly fait, iron, and felted herring®;
the exports, which greatly exceed the imports, are amber, corn,
hemp, flax, and particularly timber. An Englifh conful refides
here. The trade is daily incrcafing, on account of the high
duties which the court of Ruifia has laid on the imports of
Riga.
Memmel is fituated on the northern extremity of the Curifcbe
Haf, an inlet of the fea about feventy miles in length, which it
here joined to the Baltic by a narrow ftrait. Having ferried over
the Haf, we purfued our route along a fpit of land, or a narrow
peninfula enclofed between the Curifche Haf and the Baltic. This
fpit of land is a fandy beach, about eighty miles long, and
fcarcely three broad, and almoft folely inhabited by fiffter-
men, who build their huts on the other fide o f the fendy eminence
which forms the beach; and we fcarcely few a Angle
houfe from the time we quitted Memmel, till we eimp to a
fmall village encircled with a few corn fields and Rubbed pines,
about forty-four miles from Memmel, where we breakfafted the
next morning.
During our route, one wheel of our carriage ran clofe to the
edge of the water; and as the weather was mild and the tea
calm the waves did not pafs their bounds, and force us to drive
along the deep and Hoping fand-hills which bound the fhcre.
As the rate at which we travelled fcarcely exceeded two
and a half in the hour, we amufed ourfelves during the «reared
V o l. III. R r p «