OLD WALL TOWERS, REVEL.

About fifty miles from Dorpat we entered the province of Esthonia, which is about half the size of Switzerland. It is nearly a level plateau of Silurian limestone, presenting to the Gulf of Finland a coast from 50 to 120 feet high, and gradually sloping inland toward the south. The western coast is rocky and rises in cliffs, forming, with the adjacent islets, a perilous shore. A cruel advantage was taken of this in former times by the inhabitants to exhibit false lights, in order to obtain wrecks. It is told of one nobleman at Dagöe that he was convicted of lighting fires on his castle tower on stormy nights, and deservedly punished by banishment to Siberia.

We arrived at Revel late in the evening, after a somewhat uninteresting journey from Dorpat. The upper part of the town is picturesquely situated on the Domberg, or hill of the cathedral, where are situated also the Governor’s palace and many houses of the nobility. Revel is supposed to have been founded about the thirteenth century, when Valdemar II., King of Denmark, built a castle on the Domberg. In less than ten years the castle and town fell into the hands of the Livonian knights, who, however, within the next decade restored it to the Danes. About the same time merchants from Lubeck and Bremen began to settle in the vicinity, and soon gave to Revel the German character it has since retained. Toward the close of the thirteenth century Revel became one of the most important of the Hanse towns, for the protection of whose trade a part of the city was walled.

(Continued...)
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