Latin or Romance Races. A name often given to the modern races which speak a Romance language derived from Latin, and belong in whole or part to the Italic stock of the Aryan family. They include Italians, French (including Provençals), Spaniards, Portuguese, and Roumanians.
Latin Americans. The white inhabitants of South America, of Spanish or Portuguese descent, and speaking these languages.
Lazes. See [GEORGIANS].
Lencan. A group of semi-civilised Central American Indian tribes, including Chontals, Ramas, Payas, Wulwas, and Guatusas.
Lepchas. Natives of Sikkim and Bhutan, belonging to the Tibetan stock of the Southern Mongolic family.
Lesghians. A branch of the Eastern stock of the Caucasian family, inhabiting the Eastern Caucasus. Wild mountain tribes, who long offered an unavailing resistance to the Russian arms under Shamyl (1859). Their chief tribes are the Avars (the most cultivated and powerful), Andis, Dargos, Didis and Kurinis.
Lettic. A stock of the Aryan family, including Letts, Lithuanians and the extinct Pruczi, Borussians, or Old Prussians, from whom modern Prussia takes its name. The Letts and Lithuanians in the fifteenth century formed a united people, inhabiting the south-west of Russia, from Courland to Odessa. Afterwards they passed under Polish and then Russian dominion. They are now mostly peasant agriculturists. They are fair and well-built, with fine features and blue eyes.
Letts. See [LETTIC].
Liberian Group. Sudanese Negro tribes, inhabiting the Grain Coast of West Africa. The Krus or [Krooboys] (q.v.), Queahs and Bassas are their chief tribes.
Liberians. Natives of the negro republic of Liberia on the Guinea Coast, partly descended from freed slaves of all races, but mainly belonging to the Liberian group.