Page:Glimpses of Bohemia by MacDonald (1882).pdf/15



OHEMIA, as shown on the modern maps, usually includes only the territory forming the present Austrian province of that name, but I take the name as including the Austrian provinces of Moravia and Silesia, which also belonged to the Bohemian Crown. Lusatia and Prussian Silesia having now been fully Germanised, need not longer be kept in view, although they too were Bohemian 250 years ago. The Bohemians, or Czechs, are, as is well known, a Slavonic race, although perhaps not without an admixture of the Celtic blood. Their language is so closely allied to Russian and Polish, that educated Bohemians have no difficulty in making themselves understood in these tongues. Bounded as Bohemia is on the north by Saxony, on the west by Bavaria, and on the south by the Duchy of Austria, all German countries, and governed by the House of Hapsburg for more than three centuries and a-half, it is not surprising to find a large German element in the population. In the 9