ming there. His latter years seem to
have been devoted to the arts of peace, for he secured to an unusual
degree the love, as well as the admiration, of his subjects. Ancient
annalists record that all Russia moaned and wept when he died. He is
regarded, as more prominently than any other man, the founder of the
Russian empire. He united, though by treachery and blood, the northern
and southern kingdoms under one monarch. He then, by conquest,
extended his empire over vast realms of barbarians, bringing them all
under the simple yet effective government of feudal lords. He
consolidated this empire, and by sagacious measures, encouraging arts
and commerce, he led his barbarous people onward in the paths of
civilization. He gave Russia a name and renown, so that it assumed a
position among the nations of the globe, notwithstanding its remote
position amidst the wilds of the North. His usurpation, history can
not condemn. In those days any man had the right to govern who had the
genius of command. Genius was the only legitimacy. But he was an
assassin, and can never be washed clean from that crime. He died after
a reign of thirty-three years, and was buried, with all the displays
of pomp which that dark age could furnish, upon one of the mountains
in the vicinity of Kief, which mountain for many generations was
called the Tomb of Oleg.

Igor now assumed the reins of government. He had lived in Kief a
quiet, almost an effeminate life, with his beautiful bride Olga. A
very powerful tribe, the Drevolians, which had been rather restive,
even under the rigorous sway of Oleg, thought this a favorable
opportunity to regain their independence. They raised the standard of
revolt. Igor crushed the insurrection with energy which astonished all
who knew him, and which spread his fame far and wide through all the
wilds of Russia, as a monarch thoroughly capable of maintaining his
command.

Far away in unknown realms, beyond the eastern boundary of Russia,
where the gloomy waves of the Irtish, the Tobol, the Oural and the
Volga flow through vast deserts, washing the base of fir-clad
mountains, and murmuring through wildernesses, the native domain of
wolves and bears, there were wandering innumerable tribes, fierce,
cruel and barbarous, who held the frontiers of Russia in continual
terror. They were called by the general name of Petchenegues. Igor was
compelled to be constantly on the alert to defend his vast frontier
from the irruptio