e Varangian chief, were a portion
of the Fennic race. With the emigration, union, or dissolution, of
the wandering tribes, the loose and indefinite picture of the Scythian
desert has continually shifted. But the most ancient map of Russia
affords some places which still retain their name and position; and the
two capitals, Novogorod and Kiow, are coeval with the first age of the
monarchy. Novogorod had not yet deserved the epithet of great, nor the
alliance of the Hanseatic League, which diffused the streams of opulence
and the principles of freedom. Kiow could not yet boast of three hundred
churches, an innumerable people, and a degree of greatness and splendor
which was compared with Constantinople by those who had never seen the
residence of the Caesars. In their origin, the two cities were no
more than camps or fairs, the most convenient stations in which the
Barbarians might assemble for the occasional business of war or trade.
Yet even these assemblies announce some progress 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. 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. 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 Borysthen