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By Root 21185 0

near the mouth of the river, they repaired their shattered vessels for the longer and more perilous voyage of the Black Sea. If they steered along the coast, the Danube was accessible; with a fair wind they could reach in thirty-six or forty hours the opposite shores of Anatolia; and Constantinople admitted the annual visit of the strangers of the North. They returned at the stated season with a rich cargo of corn, wine, and oil, the manufactures of Greece, and the spices of India. Some of their countrymen resided in the capital and provinces; and the national treaties protected the persons, effects, and privileges, of the Russian merchant. ^55

[Footnote 49: The original record of the geography and trade of Russia is produced by the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, (de Administrat. Imperii, c. 2, p. 55, 56, c. 9, p. 59 - 61, c. 13, p. 63 - 67, c. 37, p. 106, c. 42, p. 112, 113,) and illustrated by the diligence of Bayer, (de Geographia Russiae vicinarumque Regionum circiter A. C. 948, in Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom. ix. p. 367 - 422, tom. x. p. 371 - 421,) with the aid of the chronicles and traditions of Russia, Scandinavia, &c.]

[Footnote 50: The haughty proverb, "Who can resist God and the great Novogorod?" is applied by M. Leveque (Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p. 60) even to the times that preceded the reign of Ruric. In the course of his history he frequently celebrates this republic, which was suppressed A.D. 1475, (tom. ii. p. 252 - 266.) That accurate traveller Adam Olearius describes (in 1635) the remains of Novogorod, and the route by sea and land of the Holstein ambassadors, tom. i. p. 123 - 129.]

[Footnote 51: In hac magna civitate, quae est caput regni, plus trecentae ecclesiae habentur et nundinae octo, populi etiam ignota manus (Eggehardus ad A.D. 1018, apud Bayer, tom. ix. p. 412.) He likewise quotes (tom. x. p. 397) the words of the Saxon annalist, Cujus (Russioe) metropolis est Chive, aemula sceptri Constantinopolitani, quae est clarissimum decus Graeciae. The fame of Kiow, especially in the xith century, had reached the German and Arabian geographers.]

[Footnote 52: In Odorae ostio qua Scythicas alluit paludes, nobilissima civitas Julinum, celeberrimam, Barbaris et Graecis qui sunt in circuitu, praestans stationem, est sane maxima omnium quas Europa claudit civitatum, (Adam Bremensis, Hist. Eccles. p. 19;) a strange exaggeration even in the xith century. The trade of the Baltic, and the Hanseatic League, are carefully treated in Anderson's Historical Deduction of Commerce; at least, in our language, I am not acquainted with any book so satisfactory.

Note: The book of authority is the "Geschichte des Hanseatischen Bundes," by George Sartorius, Gottingen, 1803, or rather the later edition of that work by M. Lappenberg, 2 vols. 4to., Hamburgh, 1830. - M. 1845.]

[Footnote 53: According to Adam of Bremen, (de Situ Daniae, p. 58,) the old Curland extended eight days' journey along the coast; and by Peter Teutoburgicus, (p. 68, A.D. 1326,) Memel is defined as the common frontier of Russia, Curland, and Prussia. Aurum ibi plurimum, (says Adam,) divinis auguribus atque necromanticis omnes domus sunt plenae .... a toto orbe ibi responsa petuntur, maxime ab Hispanis (forsan Zupanis, id est regulis Lettoviae) et Graecis. The name of Greeks was applied to the Russians even before their conversion; an imperfect conversion, if they still consulted the wizards of Curland, (Bayer, tom. x. p. 378, 402, &c. Grotius, Prolegomen. ad Hist. Goth. p. 99.)]

[Footnote 54: Constantine only reckons seven cataracts, of which he gives the Russian and Sclavonic names; but thirteen are enumerated by the Sieur de Beauplan, a French engineer, who had surveyed the course and navigation of the Dnieper, or Borysthenes, (Description de l'Ukraine, Rouen, 1660, a thin quarto;) but the map is unluckily wanting in my copy.]

[Footnote 55: Nestor, apud Leveque, Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p. 78 - 80. From the Dnieper, or Borysthenes, the Russians went to Black Bulgaria, Chazaria, and Syria. To Syria, how? where?