ogress in the arts of society; a new breed of cattle was imported
from the southern provinces; and the spirit of commercial enterprise
pervaded the sea and land, from the Baltic to the Euxine, from the mouth
of the Oder to the port of Constantinople. In the days of idolatry and
barbarism, the Sclavonic city of Julin was frequented and enriched
by the Normans, who had prudently secured a free mart of purchase
and exchange. [52] From this harbor, at the entrance of the Oder, the
corsair, or merchant, sailed in forty-three days to the eastern shores
of the Baltic, the most distant nations were intermingled, and the
holy groves of Curland are said to have been decorated with Grecian and
Spanish gold. [53] Between the sea and Novogorod an easy intercourse
was discovered; in the summer, through a gulf, a lake, and a navigable
river; in the winter season, over the hard and level surface of
boundless snows. From the neighborhood of that city, the Russians
descended the streams that fall into the Borysthenes; their canoes, of a
single tree, were laden with slaves of every age, furs of every species,
the spoil of their beehives, and the hides of their cattle; and the
whole produce of the North was collected and discharged in the magazines
of Kiow. The month of June was the ordinary season of the departure of
the fleet: the timber of the canoes was framed into the oars and benches
of more solid and capacious boats; and they proceeded without obstacle
down the Borysthenes, as far as the seven or thirteen ridges of rocks,
which traverse the bed, and precipitate the waters, of the river. At
the more shallow falls it was sufficient to lighten the vessels; but the
deeper cataracts were impassable; and the mariners, who dragged their
vessels and their slaves six miles over land, were exposed in this
toilsome journey to the robbers of the desert. [54] At the first island
below the falls, the Russians celebrated the festival of their escape:
at a second, 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