ASIA CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE CHARLES WILLIAM WASON COLLECTION ON CHINA AND THE CHINESE Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023035177 THE AECHER MD.THE STEPPE; oc, THE EMPIRES OF SCYTHIA : A HISTOET OF RUSSIA AND TARTAHY, FEOM THE EARLIEST AGES TILL THE FALL OF THE MONGUL POWEK IN EUROPE, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. BY F, K. GEAHAME. The seat Of mlgbtiest empire, from the destined walla Of Cambala, seat of Cathaian khan, And Saraarcand by Oxas, TImur's throng To Pekin. by Slndean kings, and thence To Agra and Lahore of great Mogul, Down to the golden Chersonese, or where The Persian in Ecbatan sat, or since In Hi^ahan, or where the Busslan czar In Moscow, or the Sultan In ByzEUice, Turkestan boviL-~Para4ise Lost, LONDON^ JAMES BLACKWOOD, PATEENOSTEE EOW. [TKe Eight of Translation is Reserved.^ W^^is" CONTENTS. EOOK I. Fa05I THE EAELIEST AUTHENTIC HISTORY OF SCTTHIA TO THE CONQUESTS OF THE MONGUL TAKTABS. CHAPTEK I. Introduction . ... CHAPTER n. Russia and iier Earliest Inhattitants CHAPTER IIL Ttie Asiatic ScytMans—Tlie Hans— Attila ... CHAPTER IV. Ttie Igours— Avars— Bulgarians— fSlavonians—Cliazars CHAPTEK V. The Cancasus— Georgia . CHAPTER VI. Tlie Finns— Russians— Novogorod and KioC-Burik— Oieg— Igor— Oiga CHAPTER VIL Europe In the Nlntli Century— Blarmaland—tlie Crimea ... CHAPTEK VIIL— FEOM 056 TO 071. Sviatozlaf— He subdues the Chazars— Invades the Greeit Empire— The Principalities —Defeat and Death of 8 viatozlaf . . ... ... 4 CONTENTS. Pace CHAPTEK IX.— FEOM 971 TO lOlS. Vladimir the Great^Tlie Riisaiana are converted to Cliristianity ■ WS CHAPTEK X— FeOM 1015 TO 1053. Svlatopolk— The Poles Invade Bnssia— Jaroslaf . . . 123 CHAPTER Xr.— Fbom'4bOOT 800 to 1070. The AvaraorTurks— MahmoudofGhiznl— He invades India— The SeljuS Turks— Togrul Beg— Alp Arslan-Malek Shall— The Polotzl . .... 136 CHAPTEE XII.— Feom loss TO 1078. Iziaslaf— The Poles invade Kussia—SviatozIafII.—Vyzevold—irovogorod . . .152 CHAPTEE XIII.— Fkom 1078 TO 1126. Vyzevold Jaroslafovitz— Svlatopolk Iziaslafovitz— Vladimir Monomachns . . ,160 CHAPTER XIV.— Feom 1125 to U57. The Poles invade Russia- Yonrii Dolgoronki — ^Moscow founded — Kingdom of Halich 167 CHAPTEK XV.— Feosi 1157 TO 1214. Continuation of the History of Russia— Invasion of the Poles— State of Society . . 175 CHAPTEK XVX Affairs of Poland— Esthonia—Llvouia-Courland— The Teutonic Knights— Lithu- ania— Tlie Ottoman Turks— The Origin of the Monguls 184 BOOK n. FROM THE CONQUESTS OF THE MOHTGUIS TO THE RISE OF TIMUE. CHAPTER I._FS0M 1175 TO 1227. ZlngisKhan— The Conqnests of the Monguls . CHAPTEK n.— Feom 1214 TO 1246. The Princes of Kiof— Batti Khan— He conquers Russia, and ravages Poland and Hungary-^Embassy sent by the Pope to the Grand Khan — ^Election of Couynk — Karacorum— Camp of BatU at Serai 214 CHAPTER III.— Feom 1246 TO 1263. Yaroslaf of Novogorod— Mangou Khan— Kublai conquers China— Holagou conquers Persia— The Monguls Of China— Khans of Kipzak . . 233 CONTENTS. 5 CHAPTEE IT.— FnOM 1240 TO 1302. EeienofAlexanderNCTskolinKussla—Noghai'sEebellloil— The Mongols of Persia— Abaga— Argun— yoyage ofthe Chinese Princess to Persia— Kazan . . 249 CHAPTEE v.— Fedm 12n TO 1340. Continnation of the History of Enssla- Reigns of Taroslaf, DemeWns, and Andrea— Lithuania— The Genoese Colonies— Uzbek Khan— Executions of Michael, Deme- trius, and Alexander— Ivan L .'."". . . . . . . 264 CHAPTER VI— FKOJHS40 TO 1352. l-'iiaracterof the Rnssiang— The Black Death . . . .275 CHAPTER VII,— Feom 1352 to 1392. Eeign of Demetrius Donskol—Klpzak—Lithnanla— Battle of the Don— Moscow burned— Monasteries— Literature— Poland— The Teutonic Knights . . .281 BOOK III. THE HISTORY OP TIMUE AKD HIS SUCCESSOES. CHAPTER L— Fkom 1336 TO 1404. Timnr Bek or Tamerlane— His Conquests— Toktamish . CHAPTER n.— rEOM 1398 To 1400. Tiniur invades India— The Gipsies .... CHAPTEE III.— Fkom 1399 TO 1403. Timur marches against Georgia, Syria, and the Ottomans — Captures Bajazet CHAPTEE IV.— Feom M08 To 1530. Timur returns to Samarcand — Sets out for China — His Death — Troubles in the Em- pire—His Successors— The Emperor Baber . . . . BOOK IV. CONTINUATION OF THE HISTORY OF RUSSIA, TO THE FINAL EXTINCTION OF THE MONGUL POWER IN EUROPE. CHAPTER L TheFifleenthCenttiry-FallofConstnntlnople-TheMonguls— Their Conquerors and Descendants— The Cossacks ... ... . . 357 CHAPTEE IL The Horde of Tonshi— Eelgnof Vassill,or Bazll the Blind— Manners and Customs of the Russians . . .368 CONTENTS. CHAPTER IIL ThcEeignOflvanVassilovitz— His Conquests— Marriage with Sopliiaof Byzantiam —State of the Churoli— A new Code of laws— War -witli Kipzak— Embassies to Moscow . . 382 CHAPTER IV. Embassy to Vienna and Copenhagen— War with Finland . 413 CHAPTER V. .Survey of Russia- Siberia— Its Conquest— The Crimea— Her Khan submits to the Tnrl£s . . . . . . 4ir CHAPTER VI. War between Moscow and Poland— Coronation of Demetrius— Death of Ivan III.— Accession of Bazil IV.— Prince Ghnski— Pillage of Moscow— War with Kazan- Death of Bazil— Accession of Ivan the Terrible— Capture of Kazan and Astralshan- Extinctionof the Mongul power in Europe ... . 437 APPENDIX. Poems describinq the Places and Manners of the People, and the Country op Russia, bt Master George Turbervtu^, 1568 .471 PcsHKiH's Lay of the Wise Oleg . . 477 BOOK I. FEOM THE EAELIEST AUTHENTIC HISTOEY OF SCTTHIA TO THE CONQUESTS OF THE MONGUL TAETAES. First then from henoe Turn to the orient sun, and pass the height Of these ancultored mountains ; thence descend To where the wandering Scythians, tradn'd to beat The distant wounding bow, on wheels aloft Eoll on their wattled cottages. Poitek's " Translation of Eschylus.' THE ARCHER AND THE STEPPE. CHAPTER I. |:rfnjbjtdicrn. Oft o'er the trembling nations from afar, Has Scythia breathed the llvhig cloud of war.^GEAT. Cubing the century before, and that succeeding the Chris- tian era, the whole power, influence, and civilisation of the entire known world were centred in one proud and despotic militaiy state. Eome, by conquest and intimidation, had rendered herself mistress of all the explored and most favoui-ed parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe; heriegions held in obedience every nation, from the extremities of Greece to the British isles and the Atlantic ocean ; her eagles were borne and dreaded from the sands of Egypt and Arabia, to where the barbarous Teuton, on the shores of the Baltic, encountered the rough weapons of the Goth ; the wide wastes of Scythia alone were to her unknown and untrodden plains, and from Scythia her final invaders and conquerors came. This name was the vague and general appellation bestowed by the Greeks and the Romans upon aU the countries that extended from the banks of the Dnieper to the borders of the almost fabulous Cathay.* In those days they were divided by the ancients into European and Asiatic Scythia; to modern geographers they are known as Russia and Tartary. The former, as the barrier between Asia and Europe, the theatres of present action and civilisation, and past grandeur and fame, has been agitated from time to time by the revolu- tions with which both have been convulsed ; and over her has the first fury of every tempest rolled, that has so frequently burst forth from the centre of the greater con- tinent, and rushed like a whirlwind over half the earth. • The ancient name of China. 10 THE ARCHER AND THE STEPPE. From the depths of Tartary, or Asiatic Scythia, has ori- ginally issued every torrent of invading barbarians that have overrun Eastern Europe for the last nine hundred years. Ci-adled on the gloomy steppes of Mongolia, where the earth for nine mohtTia remains buned under a thick bed of siiow, and where the Sole vegetation consists of short grass, and a few scanty tufts of heath, these hordes of martial shepherds have periodically poured down in search of a richer country and more grateful soil, and, spreading over the barren plains of Tartary and Eussia, have formed themselves into moving empires, who for a few years have domineered over the sur- rounding trembling nations, and then vanished and melted away ; leaving little other trace of their existence than the record of destruction. Such were the monarchies of the Huns, the Igoura, and Avars ; the Chazars, Polotzi,, and Monguls ; while the Ottoman Turks, who. are also Scythian in origin and descent, more fortunate than their pr,edecessors, have maintained a position in one of the finest countries of Europe for the last four hundred years. As the most enduring, most powerful, and the most known, both in ancient ami modern times, of these turbulent nations of the north, -Russia occupies hy far th« most prominent part in the history of the Scythian empires ; amd I shall thSEefore make the. annals of that country my principal subject. Afteu tracing the origin of her people, I shall glance at the progress of the Huns, the Chazars, and the numerous other Tartac tribes, whosei names were only known, by their inroads in the middle ages, to the countries and inhabitants of eastern, Europe. Then, sketching, the rise of the Russian monarchy, I shall proceed to thei conquests of Zingis Khan and the Monguls, and ther wars of his descendant, and still; more formidable cQvuitiymaai Timur, with the short-livedi domination of Samaccand. , The: ancient patrimony of the Tartars is now included in. the empire* of Russia and China ; but, their conquests, which extended qvcb India^ China^ Russia, Siberia, and Greece, have? left upon the inhabitants of both, those corantries a deep impress- of their long and tyrannical sway ; and there is great resemblance in many of their customs * and laws,, their jealousy of foreign nations, dEess, appearance, and character, * AmonggC thpso mny bBmentlbned one which prevails alike In St. Petersburff, Pekin, and Constantinople, which calls on the Emperor or Sultan, whenever a flre breaks out in the capital, to assist personally iU' its extinctJoja.. INTRODUCTION. 1 1 and despotic patriarchal form of government. The same exclusive character, decrees forbidding emigration, rigid ad- herence to ancient usages, and numerous secret societies, political and religious, are alike remarkable in both ; and both empires have been frequently subdued and ruled by- foreign invaders and savage warlike hordes j and, exhibiting a vitality almost unknown to the nations of Europe, have risen again from their ashes, and, emancipating themselves from their conquerors, have flourished again with renewed vigour and prosperity. But the Chinese, who since that time have once more fallen under Tartar rulers, with whom and the natives a war has long been raging, which threatens to tear in pieces the whole Celestial Empire^ appear themselves to have been a Scythian people, and therefore only early settled and civilized Tartars, Their manners, says Dr. Latham, in many respects greatly resemble those peculiar to the' Scythian tribes described by Herodotus ; a German author has pointed out. seventeen different customs which are identical in the Chinese and Turks; their language has been proved to. be by no means so dissimilar to all other nations as has formerly been supposed ; and the dragon, the emblem of Scythia, is used alike by the Slavonians, Chinese, and Tartars.* About six hundred years before Christ, a horde of Scy- thians conquered India ; and one of their tribes, the fair- haired, blue-eyed Getas, returning towards the north, and esta- blishing themselves in the plains to the east of the Caspian, finally settled in Scandinavia, leaving a few who are still called Jits in Hindostau,f while in Europe they became known and celebrated by the name of Goths. *" EncydopdEdia BrUannica"—BT. Latham, f Xod's " AaaaU Had AutiquUesof Ji^astban." CHAPTER II. "^umuiunH ^ex rarlitst Inl^abiiants. Campestres melius Scythie, Quorum plaustras vagas rite trabant dom03, .V-ivuiit et rigidi- Getas, Immetata quibu3 Jugera liberas — Horace. TTntil towards the latter end of the last century, ^when the ambition and conquests of her sovereigns had brought Russia into close contact and opposition with the other more advanced nations of Europe, she had been considered by her contemporaries of the west as rather an Asiatic than a Eui'opean power, too barbarous and remote to contend with their statesmen in the cabinet, or maintain any interest or influence in common with their own ; and shut out by the stormy Poland, her severe and rigorous climate, and the exclusive policy of her government, from trade or intimate connection with the rest of the continent ; she had long been surelyand gradually increasing both in power and extent, though hardly known and unheeded except by a few far- sighted politicians, and the neighbouring states with whom she was continually at war. This isolation may be con- sidered to have commenced in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when a career of prosperit)' and conquest, which might have ended in the subjugation of the then darker.and more ignorant nations of the west, was cut short by the per- petual inroads of the savage Tartar tribes 'who hovered on her eastern border, and the civil discords of her princes ; and later, by the rapid conquests of the Monguls, under whom she was long held in slavery. Neither history nor tradition has left us any positive information when the first colonists from Asia entered Europe ; but it iis generally considered that the Finns were the first inhabitants df Russia, and indeed ofthe whole con- tinent, and that ithey were from .thence driven gradually northwards to the extremities of Norway, Finland, and Lapland, where they now dwell, by the second immigration, RUSSIA, AND HER EARLIEST INHABITAlfTS. ] 3 which was probably that of the Celts. While the Finns retreated towards the north, this last people moved on to the west, being expelled from the Russian steppes by a fresh horde of invaders, the Scythians, who, scattering the in- habitants before them like chaff, precipitated themselves upon Eastern Europe. Their families and cattle encamped upon her extensive plains, which have successively pastured the flocks of the Finns, Celts, Scythians, Goths, Huns, and Monguls, the inhospitable climate denying to a people not skilled in agriculture, any other mode of supporting life than that of wandering shepherds or huntei-s. But since the power of the last of these invaders was overthrown, the Russian empire has continued to increase in extent and power, till it now embraces a sixth of the habitable portion of the globe, and extending from the borders of the Pacific Ocean to those of the Baltic Sea, and from the ice-bound shores of the Arctic to the sunny and fertile lands of Persia and Armenia, the greatest diversity is to be found in the inhabitants, climate, vegetation, and general aspect of the countiy ; the former comprising nearly a hundred diffe- rent nations ; for the handsome Georgian, the swarthy Tartar, the fair Esthoniau, the Persian of Erivan, the small and timid Lapp, the Gheber of Bakii, the fish-eating Samo- yede, and the Boyard of Moscow, all alike own the sway of the Czar. In the north, where gloomy forests of pine and fir, with deep bogs and extensive marshes, cover the face of the country, till they are reduced, on the shores of the White Sea and Frozen Ocean, to scanty woods of the dwarfish birch and larch, the inhabitants are drawn in their sledges by the reindeer, and strong and shaggy Samoyede dog ; while in the south, the arid steppes, overspread with grass, are traversed by the camel and araba, whose drivers, the few nomadic tribes still roaming across these sandy wastes, belong to the horde of Nogay Tartars, the peaceful and insig- nificant descendants of the last and fiercest conquerors of the empire. The only mountains of any extent that break the uni- formity of the level landscape in Russia, are the Urals, known to the ancients as the Ryphean chain, which divide Europe from Asia ; the hills of the Caucasus, whose lofty peaks, famous in Grecian fable and Persian song, rise beyond the steppes of the Doa and the Bla«k Sea; and further 14 THE ARCHES XSB THE STEPPE. soatli, in tlie kingdom of Georgia, nrh&ce the ywe, malbeny, and orange, luxuriantly and uncultivated, gixsw, lies the solitary and snow-capped Mount of Ararat, celebrated as the resting-place of the ark. Her rivers, of which the Volga is the longest in Europe, are navigable almost to their source, and, being connected by canals, form a communication between the Black, Caspian, White, and Baltic Seas, though, from the scarcity of water in these parts, several attempts to unite the Don and Volga,* which approach to within a distance of forty miles, have failed, and they are rendered useless during many mouths of the year by the ice, which annually blocks up every harbour in the empire, with the exception of two or three on the Euxine ; thus forming a great impediment to the commerce of Bussia by sea, and causing her to cairy on a comparatively larger trade by caravans with Siberia, China, and all Central Asia, than with theother nations of Europe. The limits of no empire have so frequently changed as those of Bussia. ; her territories having spread, in the early period of her histoiy, over nearly the same extent of country in Europe that they at present occupy j while in the begiiuaing of the sixteenth century, when she finally emancipated herself from the Tartar rule, they had dwindled down to little more than Moscow, her capital, and a few surrounding provinces, then known as Muscovy. The kingdoHis of Poland, Georgia, Siberia, Kasan, Astrakhan, and the Crimea, with a part of Armenia and the Grand Duchy of Finland, are now included within her frontiers, •where, though the Slavonian is the most considerable and dominant race,t it has probably veiy much intermingled with the Tartar tribes, by whom it has been so frequently subdued, particularly the Monguls, its latest foreign masters, from whom a huadred and thirty noble Bnssian families are descended, besides many of the common people. Numerous words in the Russian language are also derived from the same source ; sevei-al of their names for weights, measures, and coins, the punishment of the knout, variwis legal customs, habits of life, and articles of dress ; with many of the forms and ceremonies at their court. J * They liaye been'ioined within the laet few years toy a tram railway. t Professor Eeteius of Stocliholm, maintains that the Slavonians themselves flo not belong to the Caucasian division of the human family. Dr. .I.atham Gonslders that nine- tenths of the modern Kusslans, and inhabitants of Knssia, are of the Tartar race: or as he denominates It, the Ugrlan, in which category he comprises the Huns, Finns, Kal- macks, and all the Tartartrlbes In the empire except the BiisblUts. t ArtMs "^;aitftr,^'a?euny'CyctopMdia. - ■ ■ - ' - ; , . RUSSIA, AND HER EARLIEST UrHABKANTS. IS The Scythians are the fii'St inhabitants of Russia of whom we have any knowledge. They peopled the north of Asia and the east of Europe, and from the most distant times frequently overthrew the thrones of Southern Asia, pene- trating on one occasion even as far as Egypt, where, before the days of the Pharaohs, they founded a. dynasty called the Hyskos, or Shepherd kings. In the fifth book of the Chronicles of Berosus, the Chaldean, that ancient writer informs us that Nimrod sent Assyrius, Medus, Moscus, and Magog, to found colonies in various parts of Asia and Europe, and that Moscus planted settlements iu both continents. This account has given rise to the supposition, that Moscus came to European Scythia, and that from him the river Moscowa * received ics name ; t while Assyrius was father of the Assyrian, Medus of the Medes, and Magog of the Eastern Scythians, or Tartars, Herodotus describes these people as inhabiting a country to the westward of "the Tanais, from whence they had driven the CimmeriiJ {a Celtic tribe), whom Niebuhr supposes retired towards the west, and emi- grated from Scythia into the countries on the Danube ; and, according to Sir Isaac Newton, both nations must iave spread themselves over Europe and Lesser Asia before the year of the flood 1220, that is, about the time of the IsraeH- tish judges. The Scythian hordes who came into Europe, had been expelled from the eastward of the Caspian by the Massagetse, another of their tribes,|| who had been dis- possessed of their own country by Ninus, king of Assyria ; and they appear to have carried on some commerce with the Greeks, as we learn from the historian that the caravans of Greek merchants, who traded up the Tanais or Doa, towards the Ural mountains, were always accompanied by seven interpreters, speaking as many difierent languages. In the annals of Persia, all the country north of the Caucasus and river Oxus is called Turan, or Land of Darkness, in contra- distinction to Iran, or the Land of the Sun ; and their history transmits the record of perpetual wars carried on * Some historians have coiijectured that this name was derived from Mesech. a son of Japhet, and quote the passage from Kzeklel, which descrlbos Mesech as supplying Tyre with staves and brazen vessels (the Tartar's, from fhe earliest ages, have been sklllulin ■(voritinEr metalH), in support octheir argument. f Sir Jerome Horsey's *' Traveis in Russia." X Herodotus states that in his ttme there were atlU many monuments and bridges, erected by the Cimmerians, m Scythia. 1 Pritchard'a "Satura Hlstorv of Man." 1 6 THE AECHER AND THE STEPPE. between the two nations from the most remote period of antiquity.* The same manners, customs, and mode of living, appear to have prevailed among all the tribes of the Scythians, from the shores of the Euxine to where they encountered the empire of the Huns, on the borders of China, and closely re- sembled those of the modem Tartars. Their plains abounded in wild horses, one of which was possessed by every warrior, whose arms consisted of wooden spears or javelins, a bow and a quiver of poisoned arrows, and in passing a river + they made use of their saddles, consisting of leather sacks stuffed with straw, upon which they sat, causing their horses, whose tails they held, to swim before them, and thus float them across. When two Scythians wished to swear an eterual friendship, they were accustomed to make an incision in their bodies, and, minghng their blood in a cup, first dipped into the vessel the points of their swords, and then sucked the ends. But the geography and history of Scythia appears to have been very imperfectly known to the Greeks, | to whom she gave two philosophers, and who celebrated in their songs, in the days of Homer, the peace and innocence of tlie pastoral life as existed upon her plains, unaware of the savage manners of her people, and the frequency with which those verdant fields were stained with blood. The same custom that pre' vailed among the Huns, ancient Russians, Monguls, and all the Tartar tribes, of sacrificing horses and slaves over the graves of their nobles and chiefs, was also practised in Scythia ; and the principal wife of a sovereign, with his cook> cupbearer, messenger, and fifty native Scythian slaves, and horses, were all strangled over the tomb of their chief, who was usually buried with great pomp and ceremony, jewels •The Persian poets celebrate, In many of their songs, the glories and magnificence of Afrasib, an ancient iiing of tlie Turanians, the numbers of his retinue, and splendid court. He was the rival of their favourite hero, Eoustem, vphose fame has been recorded In an Iranian poem of ten thousand verses. The Turanian Itiugs, lilte the Pharaohs of Esypt, were all known by the name of Afrasib. t In 1240, whcS the Monguls besieged Klof, they crossed the Dnieper In the same manner. t Artemidorus of Ephesus. a geographer, who flourished about the year 100 e.c stated that the country east of the Tanais was unexplored; and so late as after the expedition of Alexander the Great, the Caspian was believed to be a gulf of the Northern Ocean and Pliny informs us that his contemporaries supposed the Palus MsBotis (Sea of Azof) to be connected with the Arctic Sea. The Volga was unknown to the Greeks, and is first mentioned, under the name of Rha, by the Roman writers. It is a common opinion among the most eminent geologists, that till within a comparatively recent period of the world s history, the Caspian and Black Seas were connected, and that the ocean over- flowed the sandy steppes that now lie between them to the north of the Caucasus which are still strongly impregnated with salt and shells. Herodotus speaks of the Sea of Azof as being of about the same extent as the Black Sea. RUSSIA, AND HER EARLIEST INHABITANTS. 1 7 and ornaments being placed in the grave, and a fresh layer of earth raised every year over the sepulchre in which he was interred.* Hippocrates has left us a most accurate account of the Scythians and their country. He says, " The wilderness of the Scythians, as their land is termed, is, for the most part, a plain covered with grass and destitute of trees, and mode- rately watered with streams.! There the Scythians dwell, who are called nomades, because they have no houses, but live in waggons. The women spend most of their time in their waggons, but the men are accustomed to ride on horse- back, followed by their flocks and herds, and horses ; they live on boiled meat, and drink the milk of mares."J The Roman writers also inform us that the Scythians covered themselves with skins, and had no cities, but continually * The tumuli, which are very numerous in Southern Rassia and the Crimea, are sup- posed to contain the tomhs of tlie Scythian kings. Several have been opened, and round to enclose shields, bows, swords, and gold ornaments of very skilful workmanship, some of which are adorned with figures, whose dress wry much resembles that worn by the Russian and Polish peasantry at the present day. In one was discovered the bones of a man of great stature, with the remains of a mitra. or Persian cap on his- brow, round his neck a necklace in massive gold, upon the right arm, above the elbow, a bracelet of gold an inch wide, below the elbows two other bracelets oi mixed gold and silver, one and a half inch b^o^^d, and round the wrists a third pair, finished in Persian winged phinxes, the claws of which held the thick thread of gold that served to close tlie bracelet, which was of very fine workmanship. At the feet was a pile.of little sharp flints, it being the custom in Scythia to tear the face and body with such instruments, and place them in the tombs as a mark of grief. In another part of the sarcophagus was the Iron sword, the handle ofwhich was covered with leaves of gold, and ornamented with figures of hares and foxes, a whip adorned with a leaf of gold, and the shield in fine gold,- besides drinking-cups, lances, and several bundles of arrows; and in the same grave there appeared a second skeleton, which, from the richness ot its ornaments and the mitre which it wore, was supposed to be that of the queen, whom it was the custom in Scythia to strangle over the funeral pile of her husband,— (See H. D. Seymour's V Rus- sia on the Black Sea.") In 1856, a tumulus eighty feet in Height was opened In Southern Russia, and found to contain a travelling car, large quantities of horses' bones, every sort of gold ornament, and vessels of gold, sliver, iron, bronze, and clay. Campenhausen. in his "Travels through the Russian Empire," mentions that in a tumulus he caused to be opened in the Erovince of Ekaterinoslaf, he found the skeletons of seven men and iive horses, some owa and arrows, silver buckles, and clasps of harness. Dr. Clarke conjectured that some of the tumuli might have been antediluvian graves. t The modern traveller Kohl, in his description of the steppes of Southern Russia, which In summer are covered with long grass, in winter witli snow, observes that for hundreds of miles no break appears in these plains, which resemble a verdant ocean, '* where a calf that began to graze at the Carpathian Mountains, miyht eat its way to the Chinese Wall, and arrive there a full-grown ox." No trees break the monotony of the apparent boundlessness of the steppes, except in some few places the acacia; but flowers are numerous, and thistles attain so great a heisht that they appear like trees, and a Cossack on horseback may conceal himself among them. In summer, the atmosphere is of an almost Indian heat, but the winter resembles that of the Arctic regions; and, during the late war, several battalions tiestined to recruit the Russian army in the Crimea, were lost in crossing these formidable plains of snow. The grass teems wiih animal life; spotted earth hares (as the German colonists call them) are every where to be seen, small birds, pigeons, and demoiselles abound, and eagles and vultures float liigh in the air, Scattered over the steppes are numberless flocks of sheep and herds of half-wild horses, who, attended by a few shepherds or herdsmen, wander from place to place over the plains in search of pasture, their attendants passing almost their whole lives on horseback, having no houses, but shelteringintheir waggons, and enlivening their solitude by almost perpetual song. There are also many German colonies in the steppes, who, being allowed to frame their own local government, and exempted from taxes or conscription for a period of fifty yean, are gradually bringing tho steppes luto cultivation. t Pritchard's "Nat. Hist of Man." 18 aHE AKCHEE XND THE STETPS chaaiged their hahitaffcions to procure pastiare for their flocks and herda : their government was monarchical, and tlie deference they paid to their sovereigns was unparalleled. WJien the king died, his body was carried through every pro- vince, wliere it was received in solemn procession, and after- wards buried,* and the tumnli which abound in Southern Russia, and upon the eastern coasts of the Criasaea, are supposed to have been erected by these people over the tombs of their kings. From this account, and the description of their appearance by Hippocrates, whicb so greatly resembles that of the modern Tartars, there appears to be no doubt that these Scythians were the ancestors of that people ; and Niebuhr, in support of this argument, remarks tha.t their custom of burning the bodies of their d«ad, their personal appearance, and their mode of life -and customs, all point to this race of mankind. " Again," says he, " intoxication from the vapour of red-hot stones, and confined under close cover- lets, is Siberian, only Herodotus confounds them with the vapour baths, which the barbarians in these parts enjoyed, and perhaps carried to a luxurious excess ."+ A further proof, if any were wanting, is, that the Scythians were accustomed to shave their heads from infancy, with the exception of one long tail on the crown ; a practice that still prevails among the Chinese and many other tribes of Tartars. The Scythians, in the year B.C. 624, under their king, Macjyes, penetrated in vast numbers through the rocky defiles of the Caucasus, and devastating all the country on their route, overran Asia Minor, where they maintained themselves for twenty-eight .years, having driven out the Medes, its former inhabitants ; they -also attempted to conquer Syria, and advanced as far as Egypt, but were induced to return by presents from its king, Psammetichus, and, being subsequently driven back with great slaughter, the remainder of their army was forced to retrace its steps to their own northern regions ; though, among the border hills of Palestine, more than two-thirds of the invaders had found a grave. About the year 530 B.C., Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, advanced with a large army against the Scythian tribes who dwelt to the north of the Caspian Sea ; • Heroflotns. t For an account of the Kasslan vapour bath, and for the manner In -wlilch they are universally enjoyed by the people, see the Inst chapter of K<)hrs " St. Petershurg," Gustliie's **La Eussie en 1839,"aud many other works on JKuusia, KUSSIA, AHD HER EARLIEST INnABrrANTS. 19 ■but he sustained a terrible defeat from their queen, Tomyris, or Zarina as she is called by Diodorus SiculuSj and was him- self slain in the engagement. In the year 522 B.C., Darius Hystaspes,* king of Persia, collecting an enormous army from all parts of his empire, set out from Susa, his capital, for an expedition against the Scythians, with 700,000 men. His fleet of six hundred ships, which he manned principally with Greeks, sailed up the Danube ; and, throwing a bridge of boats over the river, near the point where the stream divides, he marched his army across it, and penetrated into the wilds of Scythia. The inhabitants, on receiving intelligence of the invasion by which they were menaced, having sent their wives and children into the heart of the country, filled up all the wells, stopped the sprii^s, smd consumed the forage throughout that part of their territories over which the forces of Darius must pass. They then advanced to within sight of the enemy, not designing to come to an engagement with the numerous and well-disciplined army df the Persians, but hoping to draw them in pursuit away from the protection and support of their ships, and in a dry and sandy district, where they would inevitably suffer from want of provisions and water. Darius fell into th* snare ; &r, seeing the Scythians each day within a short distance of his troops, in opposition to the advice of the wisest of his officers, he vainly endeavoured to overtake them, constantly expecting to succeed in giyiug them battle, while they perpetually eluded his pursuit. Being unencumbered with baggage, and all well mounted on their fleet and hardy steeds, the Scythians easily escaped from their more heavily laden enemies, most of whom marched on foot, and who possessed no cluet to guide them through the sandy, trackless deserts. At length fatigue, and the scarcity of forage and provisions, having greatly reduced the Persian army before they had once engaged the enemy, Darius despatched a herald with this message to the Scythian prince Indathyrus.J — " Prince of the Scythians, wherefore dost thou fly before me 1 why dost thou not pause, either to give me battle if thou belifevest thyself able to encounter me, or, • Eollln'8 "Ancient History." Herodotus. t According to Herodotus, this ^expeditltm was -nnaertaken by Darlna to punish the Scythians for their conquest of Asia Minor, which was then a Persian province. I Herodotus states that the Scythian kings were descended from Scythie, a son of Hercules. 20 THE ARCHER AND THE STEPPE. if thou thinkest ttyself too weak, to acknowledge thy master by presenting him with earth and water?"* The Scythian prince immediately returned this answer to the Persian monarch — " If I fly before thee, Prince of the Persians, it is not because I fear thee. What I do now is no more than what I am used to" do in time of peace. We Scythians have neither cities nor lands to defend ; if thou wouldst force us to engage thee, come and attack the tombs of our fathers, and then thou shalt find what manner of men we are." The further Darius advanced upon the barren and wasted plains, the greater hardships he had to encounter, while his army was thi-eatened with famine ; and at length the approach of winter rendering it probable that his troops would soon be reduced to the last extremity from hunger and fatigue, he was forced to commence an unwilling and melancholy retreat. At this juncture he received a second messenger from the chief of his enemies, who presented him with a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows, which were explained in this way by one of the Persian lords, who was familiar with the habits and customs of their foes — " Unless you fly like birds, hide in the earth like mice,- or swim the rivers like frogs, you shall not escape from the arrows of the Scythians." The retreat of Darius, whose original intention appears to have been to march back to Asia round by the Caucasus, was continually harassed by their unexpected and flying attacks ; and the Persians only escaped complete destruction from the Scythians, having been deceived by false intelligence as to the part of the Danube which Darius intended to cross. Accordingly, they assembled in large numbers higher up the river, in order to dispute the passage of his army; while, in the mean time, the Persian king led his followers over by another point, and regained- his ships in safety, vrith the shattered remains of his once overwhelming force. + This expedition of Darius presents a remarkable parallel to that conducted in the same empire by Napoleon in later days — an enterprise undertaken by one of the greatest generals and the finest army of modern times, but which was even more disastrous in its result. In the year b.c. 327, Alexanderthe Great took possession * Herodotus. t Bolllu'a *' Aacient History." EUSSTA, AND HER EARLIEST INHABITANTS. 21 of Sogdiana ; and, having made the river Jaxartes (the Sir) the boundary of his far-spreading dominions, he crossed that river with an army of Macedonians, and invaded the country of the Scythians, who had threatened his newly-founded city of Alexandria Eschate, now known as the town of Khojende. Some of the border tribes submitted to him ; but Arian and Quintus Curtius relate that the renowned dis- cipline and courage of his veterans had so small an effect upon the wild and intractable Scythians, that Alexander was forced to retire precipitately, and to turn his arms against a foe less valiant or less capable of resistance. Indeed, Curtius says that the Macedonians sustained so great a loss in one particular battle, that death was inflicted upon any person who made the least mention of its event, the abrupt manner in which the Scythians attacked, and the rapidity with which they retreated into impenetrable wastes, greatly confusing an invading army.* One of his successors, Seleucus Nicanor, afterwards attempted to unite the Don and Volga by accanal — a project which has been renewed in later times by both the Sultan Selim II. and Peter the Great, though in neither instance was it attended with success. In the year B.C. 250, a tribe of Scythians founded the kingdom of Parthia, which .existed independent and powerful for five hundred years. But though the Scythians, from whom the* country obtained its name, are the first people of Russia who were known to the ancient writers of Greece,+ the Sauromatse or Sarmatians, with whom they appear to have been frequently confounded, were in all probability the oldest inhabitants. J They were undoubtedly the direct ancestors of the modern Slavonians ; yet historians have maintained many different opinions with regard to their origin, some asserting that they were a colony of Medes|| or a. tribe of Celts, and others that they were a remnant of the Canaanites who were driven by Joshua from Palestine. Some have also supposed that they were ^ tiibe of the Scythians, or the descendants of the Scythians, and a nation of Amazons described by Hippo- * Goldsmith's "Hist, of Greece." t Herodotus observes that all the nations beyond the Euxine. except the Scythians, were more than all others barbarous; but these appear in the western parts to have made some progress, and he mentions their town of Borystheintos, which was decorated witti prilBns aud spiilnxes, and was destroyed by lightning in the reign of the Scythian Iting Sciies. I Latham's "Varieties of Man." fl Dlodorus Slculus maintains that they\were Medes 22 THE ABCHEK AND THE STEPPE. crates, whose women rode on horseback, and used the bo-w and the javelin, none being permitted to marry till she had killed three enemies in battle ; and Herodotus, who is the authority for this last theory, relates that the Scythians, finding themselves unable to subdue these female warriors in the field, intermarried with them, and thus the two nations became amalgamated.* But whether or not the Sarmatians were a tribe of the Celts, they appear to have been conquered about the same time by the Scythians, and driven to the west ; and it is probable that the name of Russia is derived from one of their tribes, the Rosolani, whom Strabo places at the north- eastern extremity of European Scythia, having been expelled to that barren region from the banks of the Danube, when, descending from their original home on iike plains between the Volga and Don, they bad invaded the border provinces of the Roman empire. Their manners and customs were very similar to those of the Scythians, perhaps having adopted them from their conquerors ; and they were distinguished from their neighbours, the fair-haired Teutons, by their dark complexions and hair, and loose flowing garments, the pre- valence of slaves among them, the light esteem in which they held their women, their plurality of wives, and cavalry composing their chief military force; whereas the Teutons were principally infantry, they wore clothes fitting tightly to their pex-sons, with them slaves were unknown, and no man was allowed to possess more than one wife. Gibbon says of the former people — " Among the different branches of the human race, the Sarmatians form a very remarkable shaSe^ as they seem to unite the manners of the Asiatic barbarians with the figures and complexion of the ancient inhabitants of Europe. According to the various accidents of peace and war, alliance or conquest, they were sometimes- confined to the banks of the Tanais, and sometimes spread themselves over the immense plains which lie between thfr Vistula and the Volga. The care of their numerous flocks: and herds, the pursuit of game, and the exercise of war, or rather of rapine, directed the vagrant motions of the SarmatiausJ't Like the Scythians, their moveable camps- or cities, the ordi- nary residence of their wives and children, consisted only of large wicker waggons drawn by oxen — a vehicle which is * Herodotus. t Gibbon's " DeoUne and Fall of the Boman Empire." RUSSIA, AND HEH EAKLIEST INHABITANTS. 23" still in common use in Southern Russia, and among most of the Tartar tribes, by whom it is called an araba j and in the Crimea and adjacent country is generally drawn by the small two-humped camel of those parts. Their weapons of war were short daggers, long lances, and a weighty bow and quiver of poisoned arrows ; and, on an expedition, they were accustomed to lead in their hands one or two spare horses,* cavalry composing their whole .military strength, which enabled them to advance and retreat with a rapidity that surprised the security and eluded the pursuit of a distant enemy. From the scarcity of iron in their country, they made cuirasses of horse hoofs that were capable of resisting a javelin or sword, and, with the exception of their chiefs, hurned the bodies of their dead. They possessed immense flocks and herds, and were divided into several tribes — the Eoxolani, Carpi, Jazyges, Metanastoe, and Limigantes, and are first mentioned by the Jiame of Slavonians about .the fourth and fifth centuries. The figure of a Sarmatian on the column of Trajan, is depicted in a high conical cap and full trousers, which bear gi-eat resemblance to the dress of the modern Russian pea- sant ; and Priscus, the Roman ambassador to the court of Attila the Hun, mentions that a Scythian, or Sarmatian noble, whom he saw there, wore his head shaven in a circular form, a fashion that prevailed in Poland so late as the begin- ning of the present century, "fi The Sarmatians worshipped the sun and moon, the air, and many inferior deities. They were a very depraved people, and are accused by their enemies and contemporaries of being the most licentious of the barbarians. They invaded the Roman empire several times duiing the third and fourth centuries, and Marcus Claudius sent eight thousand Jazygian horse to Britain. Besides the Scythians, under which term the ancient writers of Greece appear to have included only the Tartar nations of Scythia, and the Sarmatians or ancestors of the Slavonians, Herodotus mentions several other kingdoms and jieople as in his time existing in Seythia ; and among' many of whom we can trace several manners and customs by which we are enabled to identify them with their descendants, who • A practice that has often been made use of on forced marches by the KUBslan and Cossnck cavalry, t <^oxe'8.*' Travels in Russia and Poland." 24. THE AKCHEK AND THE STEPPE. inhabited the same parts at a more recent period. Tlie Budini, who -were probably Finns, he describes as being among the oldest possessors of the soil, and inhabiting that part of Eussia which is now called Podolia. A Greek colony had established itself in their province, who tilled the ground, and supplied Greece with corn ; and they affirmed that the Budini practised magic, and were in the habit once a-year of changing themselves into wolves, when they prowl- ed about in this shape for a few days, and thMi resumed their human form.* The same charge of sorcery was constantly brought against the Finns in the .niiddle ages; the tale of the wehr-wolf, probably derived from them, is familiar to all, and even now they have many professed magicians. The Issedones, who appear to have been the same with the Igours, Herodotus informs us, were a civilized nation, dwelling ta the far east ; beyond them, to the north, the country was im- passable owing to the white featherst that were continually falling, and to their right was the land of the griffins, who guarded the country of gold. Among the Scythians them- selves, who were divided into many kingdoms or tribes, the same Greek writer particularly remarks upon the Melanchleni, who always clothed in black ; the Agathyrsi, whose province abounded in gold, and who painted themselves, their manners being peculiar for their effeminacy; and the Argippoei, whose name was derived from the wild white horses abounding ia their district, which was situated on the Volga and Don ; and he observes lof -the whole people, that " the Scythians have not only a great abhoi-rence of all foreign customs, but each province seems unalterably tenacious of its own." Anacharsis, the -celebrated philosopher, and the brother of their king, having visited Greece, wished, upon his retiTrn to his native land, to introduce some of her customs among his countrymen; but incurring their displeasure by this endea?- vour, he lost his life by the barbarous chief's own hand, and Scydes, a Scythian prince, having 'been educated by his mother, who was a Greek, experienced soon after his acces- sion a similar fate for a like offence. About this period there were several wise and learned Scythians, whose names were respected even asaong the Greeks, and of whom Ana- charsis, who was a contemporary of Solon and Decimus, appear to have been the chief ; and one of the most beautiful » Herodotus. 1 1' is almost needless to remarl5„that tMs was evidently snow. HUSSIA, AND HER EARLIEST INHABITANTS. 25 of Lucian's works derives its title from the Scythian physi- cian Toxaris.* The Scythians adored several divinities, of whom Mars was the chief, and the only god to whom they offered sacri- fices and oblations ; and, with many of the wilder tribes, he was their sole deity, and was generally represented among them \mder the semblance of a naked sword. * Dr. Karl Neumann, agreeing with Niebuhr, Boekh, and Grote, considers that the Scythians were undoubtedly Turanians, or, as he caJls them, Stongolians. He supposes that, coming from tiie deptlls of Asia, tht-y first settled among tlie Finns, on the Ural; and he has discovered in the traces remaining to us of their language, much resemblauce to that of the Mongolians. CHAPTER III. flje %miu Sigt^isns— S^e f nns— ^Uila- Shew me the rampart where, o'er many a hill, Through many a valley, stretch'd its -wide extent- Raised by that mighty monarch to repel The roving Tartar, when, with insult rude 'Gainst Pefein's towers he bent the unerring bow. — Gltms. Where fhrious Frank and iiery Hun, Shout in their sulphurous canopy Campbell. The general appearance of fixe country throughout Tartarj, or Asiatic Scythia, greatly resembles the bleak and monoto- nous steppes of Russia. High ranges of rugged and almost impassable mountains traverse it indeed in the northern and western districts, which are frequently crowned with tall and extensive forests ; but all the central part is table-land, cover- ed in summer with little but grass and heath, and in the winter with the deep and frozen snow, the severity of the climate, in so comparatively temperate a latitude, being accounted for by its great elevation above the level of the sea. In the land of the Khalkas numerous rivers enliven the rich pastures of the plains ; but in Mongolia water is rarely to be seen, as the streams are lost in the salt lakes in the deserts, and wells are dug along the most frequented routes for the convenience of caravans. Scarcely a tree is visible throughout that province, nothing but creeping briers, a few scanty tufts of heath, and the short and brittle grass ; but the landscape is occasionally varied by deep rents in the earth, and rocky ravines ; immense numbers of wild ani- mals bound across the steppes ; eagles and vultures, pheasants, and a variety of singing-birds, soar in the air; and in the valleys of the Altai mountains lurk the tiger and the wolf, both remarkable in these parts for their ferocity.* The Tartars, or Turanians,t who have inhabited these * Hue's " Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China." t Some ethnologists have designated the Turanian nations collectively as the Turks; but I have generally called them either Tartars or Turanians, both as being move usually applied to them, and also to prevent a conrnsion with the Ottomans, who, with the 'i'ransoxian branches of the same family (including the SeljukB, &c.), are often exclusively termed Turkomans, or Turks. THE ASIATIC SCYTHIANS — THE HUNS — ATTILA. 27 rRgions from the earliest ages, derive their own origin from Turk and Tata, whom they affirm were two sons of Japhet. Okhaus Han, one of their chiefs, and apparently the Madyes of Herodotus, carried his arms into Syria in the early part of the seventh century bef)re Christ, and advanced as far as Egypt ; and the Persian poets celebrate the glories and fame of the Turanian king Afrasib, the rival and enemy of their hero Roustem ; and whose successors carried on many sanguinary wars with the Persians, and other nations of Southern Asia. But their early history is enveloped in the greatest obscurity ; what we know of them in those times is chiefly derived from the half-apocryphal annals of the Chinese ; and, though they have occasionally united in one great empire, and made considerable advances in refine- ment and civilization, they have never proceeded beyond a certain point, and have subsequently returned to their ancient habitations, and their wandering and pastoral life. They early sepurated into many difierent tribes, who were constantly engaged in war with each other and the surround- ing nations, and of whom the most conspicuous were the Huns, Igours, Turks, and Tartars, the name of the latter having been bestowed in the middle ages by the Europeans upon the whole people, merely, from their warriors having marched in the van of the Mongul army, when, iu 1224, the son of the conqueror Zingis Khan, invaded Europe. But before the Christian era, the Hflns,* or Hiangnus, were by far the first and most powerful of the Turanian race. They inhabited an extensive tract of country between the north side of the great wall of China^ and lake Baikal, in Siberia, and, according to the Chinese records, were governed by a sovereign whom they called Tanjou, or the sun of heaven, as early as 1253, BC, the power being hereditary in his family, which derived its source from the Hea dynasty, the third: who ruled China.f The sun was the chief object of the adoration of the Huns, and before it, every morning, the Tanjou and his people pro- strated themselves on the earth ; J and in the evening they paid * Creasy Bays that the Huns were closely allied in origin, language, and habits with the t Gibbon's " Decline anil Fail of the Eonian Empire." " Universal History." Gutslalfs "History of China." , , . j. t They originally made human sacrifices, but observljigone year that an extraordinary oblation was followed by an unusually severe season and deep snovT, tliey concluded tliat such offerings were displeasing to their deity, accordingly they were discontinued for ever The traces that have descended to us of tiie language and writing of tlie Hun^, liear strong resemblance to that of Uie Turks. The Hea dynasty reigned ft-om b o., 3207, to B.C. 1767 28 THE AECHER AND THE STEPPE. the same honours to the moon, regarding her with almost equal veneration and respect. They frequently proved for- midable to the Chinese empire and the surrounding warlike nations, most of whom they subjected to their dominion ; among others the Igours, who were distinguished for their acquaintance with letters, imparted by them to the other Tartar tribes, with whom it is still in use. At last, in the year 213 B.C., after ages of hostility and warfare, the Chinese emperor Hoang Ti, caused the great wall to be constructed as a defence against their perpetual incursions, a barrier of fifteen hundred miles in length, which still bears witness to the necessity that prompted so diffictilt and stupendous a work. They then turned theirarms against the Youei Tchi, or Getse, who were established on the eastern shores of the Caspian, and the Hun Tanjou, Lao, slaying the enemies' chief, made his skull into a drinking-oip, and, wearing it suspended from his girdle, banded it round at the banquets with his chiefs. The Getse, who four hundred years before had been driven by the Huns from the borders of China, again abandoned their country after this defeat, and marched southward to the banks of the Indus. 'Ihey were there attacked by the Parthians, and after a long war established themselves in Baotria and Sogdiana, where they were called by the Greeks Indo- Scythians ;'and Strabo mentions that, instead of burning their dead, they kept dogs, on purpose to devour them, a custom that prevails at this.day among the Tartars in' the cities of Thibet. " Hence it is," says the- Greek author, " that no tombs are visible in the suburbs of the town, while the town itself (speaking of the capital) is filledwith human bones.* But the defence of the Chinese, which had been erected with so much labour and skill, proved of little avail in re- sisting their restless and formidable foes ; and in the year 206 B.C. the Huns again invaded China, and founded the dynasty of Han, which produced several of her most celebrated and learned monarchs. The fifth of these, Vouti, in the end, proved the chief cause of their ruin ; for, arming himself against the comrades of his ancestors, he repelled with dread- ful slaughter a fresh inroad of the Huns, and penetrating far into their country with a well-equipped and well-disci- jilined force, he at length reduced their Tanjou to submission, and compelled him to pay tribute, and own the authority of * Hac'9 "Travels In TartsTy," &c. THE ASIATIC SCYTHIAXS — THE HUNS — ATTILA. 29 the Chinese chief. They were further weakened by the division of their now humbled and impoverished tribe, one of their princes, either from fear of the enemies with wlaom they were surrounded, and who perpetually harassed them, since their power was no longer to be dreaded, or from love of independence and ambition of sovereign power, retiring towards the south at the head of 50,000 families, with whom he founded a separate state, leaving his countrymen to fight for every inch of their native deserts. The northern Huns con- tinued together for about fifty years lunger, when they were oppressed on every side by their enemies ; and their country being exhausted by famine, thfeir power was utterly destroyed in the first century of the Christian era, after having existed, as the Chinese chronicles inform us, for thirteen hundred years. About 200,000 men found an asylum in the empire of China, in whose military service they entered, and where they settled princi[)ally in the province of Shunchi, and 1 00,000 men remained in their own country ; but the most warlike and powerful tribes, preferring a savage freedom in the b.irren and icy regions of the north, rather than submission to any foreign power, retreated beyond the Altai mountains to Siberia.* One division of this nation settled down in the plains to the east of the Caspian, where they were called the Nepthalite or white Huns, and, driving their old enemies the Getse into Europe, founded a kingdom which existed for several hundred years, when it was overthrown by a fresh torrent of Tartar invaders ; and appears at that time to have been considerably advanced in civilization.t They lived under a regular government, and were subject to one prince and a written code of laws. Gorgo, since called Carizme, was their capital, and the residence of their king, whose throne was enriched with emeralds, and his court maintained in the greatest splendour, but they xetained the simple faith of their ancestors till subdued by the arms of the disciples of Ma- homet. They dealt uprightly with one another, and with the neighbouring nations, and respected the faith of treaties in peace, and the dictates of humanity in war, seldom making inroads on the surrounding country except on provocation, when they proved on all occasions that they still retained their ancient valour, and extended their victorious career to • Humboldt supposes that the Totteks or Azteks, who colonized Mexico, were a divi- sion of these people. , _ „ , ,. t GlbUoa'i "Dociine and Fall of the BoAiaU Empire. 30 THE AECHER AND THE STEPPE. the banks of the Indus and borders of Sinde. A most singular custom prevailed among them : each of their great men was in the habit of choosing twenty or more companions to enjoy his wealth and diversions during his life, and on his decease they were all buried alive in the same grave ; this originating with the idea that their self-sacrifice would enable them to attend their patron in another world, where they might divert themselves 'with hunting and feasting, as they had done before in this.* On Perezes, king of Persia laying an unjust claim to their country, which he entered and wasted with a large force, they advanced against him, their cavalry being supported* by two thousand elephants, and defeating the Pertians in a great battle, in which they took prisoner the enemy's king ; they released him upon his consenting to do homage, and prostrate himself before their monarch, whose feet he humbly kissed. But, on regaining his liberty, Perezes again invaded the territory of the Huns, and in this second expedition the Persian sovereign losing both his army and his life, with thirty of his sons and an immense amount of plunder, the victorious warriors overran all Persia, and held it in subjection for two yeai-s, obliging Cabades, the son and successor of Perozes, to pay them tribute. The other division of the Huns settled in the frozen deserts of Siberia, where they soon lost every trace of any of the rudiments of civilization which they had ever possessed. As late as the thirteenth century, the plains on the eastern banks of the Volga were still called Great Hun- gary, and the inhabitants, whose kingdom had endured till at that period it was swept away by the Monguls, still spoke their language. It is supposed that they were prompted to the invasion of Scythia by the oppression of the other Tartar nations on the outskirt of their territories ; and in the year A. d. 376 they advanced with all their flocks and herds beyond -the Volga, and drove out the Alani, a Slavonic nation, the remnants of whom took refuge in the Caucasus, where their descendants under the name of Ossetes still remain.t Several .Gothic tribes had settled down under Christian bishops, and for many years resided peacefully and securely in well-built villages as cultivatoi's of the soil • In the southern parts of Siberia many tombs hare been opened, containing the bones of meniuid horses, with armour, Jewels, ic, many of which are suunosea to be muiB than a thousand years old. ^ t Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Soman Empirci," , THE ASIATIC SCYTHIANS — ^THE HUNS ATTILA. 31 in Southern Russia. Their corn-fields and habitations -were burned and destroyed by the Huns, to whom it is said the use of fire was unknown, except for the purpose of desolating the countries through which they passed, and who, compelling the Ostrogoths to retreat to the Dniester, forced the Visigoths to obtain leave of the emperor Valens to settle in Thrace ; their savage and frightful appearance exciting almost as much terror in the hearts of their enemies as their dreadful ravages. We are informed by the historians of the time that they were distinguished from the rest of the human species by their broad shoulders, flat noses, and small black eyes, deeply buried in the head, and that they were almost entirely destitute of beards, thus strongly resembling the modern Tartars ; and the terrible report preceded them in Europe, that they were demons, or lost souls escaping from eternal punishment.* A naked sword fixed in the ground was the only object of their religious worship ; they orna- mented the trappings of their horses with the scalps of their enemies, and put an end to their own lives on the approach of age or disease, Jornandes says that they had no food but roots and raw meat, and always eat on horseback, scarcely ever dismounting (which in all probability induced the historian Zosimus to write that they could not walk), and had neither tents, nor houses, having such an aversion to them that they called them the sepulchres of the living, and always sleeping in the open air. The invasion of the Huns drove the Goths upon the enervated and luxurious Roman empire, which was then liitle calculated to resist so great a shock ; but the conquests of the barbarians were for a time suspended, and their public force incapacitated and exhausted, by the discord of their chieftains ; and it was not till sixty years later, when their troubled factions were united by the firm hand and skilful policy of their celebrated chief Attila, that the Huns once more became formidable to Western Europe. * This description of the Huns which the writers of that time have left ug, bears a stiiliiug resemblance to that given us of the Tartars, by the traveiiers and missionaries of the middie ages, which, says Hue, may be recognized feature tor feature in the Mon- gols 01 the present day. John de Fiano Carpini lias described them as being of the middie size, with broad flat faces, prominent cheelt- bones, short flat noses, little eyes placed obliquely, and separated by a great space, with tlie beard scanty, or entirely wanting. I'rlar Kicoid says of them—" Alter leaving Turkey we entered Tartary, where we met with that wonderful and horrid people the Tartars, who difl'er so much in person, manners, and mode ot hie, from all the nations in the world. Tliey differ in person, for they have great broad faces, and eyes so little and narrow that tiiey look only like small slits in their faces; tliey are without beards, and many of them loolt exactly hke upright old baboons." 82 THE ARCHER AND THE STEPPB. In the rfeign of Arcadius, emperor of the Eisfr, a band of these adventurers ravaged the provinces of Asia Minor, from -whence they brought away rich spoils and innumerable cap- tives. They crossed the sea of Azof, penetrated by a secret path along the shores of the Caspian sea, traversed the mountains of Armenia, passed the Tigris and Euphrates, and occupied Cilicia and the Christian town of Antioch. Egypt trembled at the approach of the invaders, and the monks and numerous pilgrims of Jerusalem, prepared to escape their fury by a speedy embarkation from the Holy Land.* But, abandoning the direct !road to Palestine, and advancing on the plains of Media, they were there encountered by a Persian army of superior discipline and strength, and, being forced to retire, eflfected a perilous retreat to their own country, with the loss of almost all their booty, but with their restless ambition unabated. Attila, or Etzel, the son of Mundzuk, who received frota his enemies and allies the title of the Scourge of God, and •who boasted that the grass never grew where his horse's hoof had trod, succeeded his uncle Eugilas as joint king of the Huns, with his brother Bleda;, whom he however, it is said, in imitation of the alleged murder of Eeraus by his brother the founder of Rome, soon deprived of his throne and life. His features, according to a Gothic historian, bore the stamp of his national origin, small, deep-seated eyes, a flat nose, swarthy complexion, and a few hairs in the place of a beard, broad shoulders, and a short, square, dispropor- tioned body, though of great strength. + " His haughty step and demeanour," says Gibbon, " expressed the consciousness of his superiority over the rest of mankind ; and he had a habit of fiercely rolling his eyes, as if he wished to enjoy the terror which he inspired. Yet this savage hero was not * Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." ; t Herbert, In his " Attila," has thus versified this description :-i- " Terrific was his semblance, in no mould Of beautiful proportion cast, his limbs, Nothing exalted, but with sinews braced Of Ohalybajan temper, agile, lithe, And swifter than the roe ; his ample chest Was overbrow'd by a gigantic head. With eyes liecn, deeply sunk, and small, that eleam'd Strangely In wrath, as though some spirit uncleau, Within that corporal tenement install'd. Look'd from ita windows; but With temper'd firft Beamed mildly on the unresisting: thin His beard, and hoary; his fiat nostrils crown'd A defltrised, swart visage ; but, withal Tliat questionable shape, such glory wore, That mortals quailed betore him," THE ASIATIC SCXTHIAXS — THE HUNS — ATTILA. 33 inaccessible to pity ; his suppliant enemies might confide in the assurance of peace or pardon, and Attila was considered by his subjects as a just and indulgent master. He delighted in war ; but, after he had ascended the throne at a matux'e age, his head rather than his hand achieved the conquest of the north, and the fame of an adventurous soldier was use- fully changed for that of a prudent and successful general." After having vanquished his enemies in Asia, subdued the kingdoms of the Persians and the Medes, and i-educed to obedience every sovereign from the Danube to the Wall of China, an attempt to assassinate the king of the Huns, by the emissaries of the Emperor Theodosius, drew their army upon the empire of Constantinople. Attila ravaged the eastern provinces of Rome up to the suburbs of Byzantium, where fifty-eight towers fell before the storm of the invaders ; and, compelling the Csesar to make peace on most humiliat- ing terms, Theodosius agreed from henceforward to pay tribute to the Huns,* who restored their innumerable cap- tives for a sum that would have carried on a long and glorious war. Establishing his capital in a plain to the north of the Danube in Hungary, near the modern site of Tokay, the victorious prince, whom the Hungarians say founded Buda, encamped his court, harem, and followers in a village of wooden huiis, where he surrounded himself with poets and minstrels, and received envoys from the various sovereigns of Europe and Asia, assuming the title of Attila, the descendant of Nimrod, king of kings, and lord of the Huns, Goths, Danes, and Persians.t Priscus, the Roman ambassador, has left a detailed account of his recep- tion at the court of the Huns ; the icn patient gestures, though stern and inflexible gravity of their monarch, whose coun- tenance never relaxed into any appearance of cheerfulness or mirth, either at the songs that his musicians were singing in his praise, or the absurd speeches and antics of a Moorish and Scythian jester, who acted before him, till the entrance of his youngest and favourite son, Ernac, whom he tenderly embraced, and for whom,' predicting a fame and conquests superior even to his t)wn, he betrayed an affection apparently * Gibbon's " Decline and FalJ of the Roman Empire.*' t In the " NIebeluntfen Lfed," the old poet, when describing the reception of thenerdme Chrlmhltd by Attila (&lz€l),'siLTp, that Attlla's domlntons were so vast, that among hla subject warriors there were Russian. Oreek, Wallachlaii, Polish, and even Danish hiii;;hts. On a medat of the time, Attila is represented with a Teraphim or head ou hia breast— Cbeasy's *' Fifteen Decisive Battles condemned to death, were granted the privilege of self-destruction, and so spare themselves the ignominy of dying' by the hand of an executioner.* No one ever passed a royal torab on. horseback, but always dismounted, bowed to the grave, and continued on foot till it was out of sight. Their principal towns were Belanshir, now Astrakhan, the seat of government, which was also called Itel or Nihirize ; Sermend, or Serai Bauv, the palace of the lady, now Tarku ;. and old Chazar and Saakel, which lay on the route to Archangel, with which, port and Novogorod they carried on an, extensive trade by caravans, till the Mongols subdued the plains of Kipzak, and numerous other fortified cities attest their advanced state of society, their wealth, and prosperous condition. They were particu- larly celebrated for their manufacture of carpets, and extend- ed their dominions over all the south of Russia ; the Caspian Sea being known in the middle ages as the lake or sea of the Chazai-s. But in the tenth century their power began to decline; they were deprived of a. part of their dominions by the Russians, under their grand prince Sviatozlaf ; and the conqueror destroyed their capital, which, had been fortified by Greek engineei-s, and subverted, the dynasty of Jewish named Joseph." Hasdal goes on to state that he had despatched letters by a trusty Jew before, to the king of tneCliazars; but that, after an absence of.SU months, the messenger had returned from Constanthiople without reaclllng the place of his destination, because the sea was only navigable at certain seasons, and impassable at ail other times of the year, through the great storms which prevailed, and that it was equally imiiossible to proceed by land, on account of the disturbed state of^ the intervening tribes. He had ftelt lireatly grieved at this misibrtune, but had requested some i'alcstlne Jews to take charge of hie letters, who would for^vard the same by way of Nlslbis and Armenia, when the ambassadors of the kmg of Gub.il bad arrived, there being in his train two Jewish rabbis, wlio had faithfully sworn to Ibrward the present letter to its destination. Hasdai also prays the king to answer his letter through his secretary, and In give him every Informa- tion respecting certain legends of an emigration of Jews, acolony.of whom are said to have settled in a far distant country, which he believes was (Jhazaria, and requests him to furnish him with every inteillgence regarding his territories, tlie history of his nation, their lanijuage, and the wars he and his Jewish predecessors had cai'ried on. He re- gretted that all his endeavours t» find a certain lilar Amrann who about six years before had arrived in Spain, had been well received.at court, and whonvhe had since heard was d native Ohazar, had failed^ and that therefbre he and his brethren had no other hopo'oi Dbtalning Information respecting the khigdom of tlie Ghazars. except his toyal condescen- sion would deign to answer this letter. — Hebrew Bevievj^ VoLIl. No, 86. « The same custom prevaiis-at the present day in Japam i6 • I'HE AECHER AKD THE STEPPE. ' kings, tliougt the Jews themselves remained very ritimerous about Astrakhan till a much later time.* Their forces had previously been greatly weakened by the incursions of the > Petchenegans and other Tartar tribes ; and in 1016 they were again invaded by the Russians, who took their khan George Tzuda prisoner, a race of Christian sovereigns,+ having succeeded the Jewish line. In 1140 they were again governed by a Jew,' their chagan Gosro having been converted to Judaism by the Eabbi Isorah, a noted professor of that faith ; but, shortly after, the monarchy of the Chazars sauk under the successive attacks of the Polotzi and other wander- ing tribes, and was finally swept away by the Mongols under Ghengiz or Ziogis Khan. After the conversion of the Bulgarians on the Danube to Christianity, that nation settled down under a more regular and peaceable government, and, ceasing their invasions of Greece, they generally joined with the empire in their wars with the Slavonians,' though they had long before adopted the language and manners of the latter- people. They renounced their pagan faith about the middle of the ninth century; for, during a war they were carrying on against the Byzan- tine emperor Michaellll., the sister of their king Bogaris was taken, prisoner, and being a royal gaptive, she was con- ducted to Constantinople, and treated with great honour and courtesy, being also, at her own request, instructed in the doctrines of the Christian religion. Of the truth of this faith she became so convinced, that she desired to be baptized ; and when, in 845, the Byzantine empire concluded a peace with Bulgaria, and she returned to her own country, being anxious for the conversion of her brother and his people, she wrote to Constantinople requesting that instructors might be sent to aid her in her endeavours to propagate Christianity .tf Two distinguished bishops of the Greek Church, -Cyrillus and Methodius, were accordingly despatched to Bulgaria ; but for a long time the king refused even to listen to their argu- ments, and firmly adhered to idolatry. He, however, so . * Among the tribes of the Volga^ particularly the Tchawashes, many Jewisii customs stillprevail. "Benjamin of Tudela, In 1175, was informed In Persia, that on the high plains of Nishar, twenty-eight days' journey ft-nm Samarkand, in a territory covered with castles and towns, there dwelt an independent Jewish people, of the tribes of Dan, Zebuion, Asher, anii Naphthali, under a prince- Joseph Amarca, a Levite.*' — Haaithauaen, quoting iiitter, ..t The.Emperor'Constautiiie-lV. of Constautiuople married a daughter of one of the Chazarian khans. >. . . ^. tTlie"Worksof JamesMontgomery/', rinlaj's ".Byzantine Emiilre.". ., THE IGOUHS, AVARS, BULGAEIANS, ETC. it esteemed Methodius, for whom he formed a strong attachment,- that he retained him as a friend and counsellor at his court; though he refused to become his proselyte, and, finding that he was a skilful painter, desired him to compose a picture which should exhibit, collected together, the most horrible de- vices his imagination could conceive. Methodius executed so terrific a representation of the day of judgment, and explained its scenes to the king so forcibly, that Bogaris was overpowered by his reasoning, and consented to receive baptism. To Cyrillus is attributed the translation of the Scriptures, which has remained in use for eight hundred years without altera- tion among those Slavonic nations, the Eussians, Servians, and Montenegrins, who still adhere to the Greek church. It was first printed at Prague in 1519, and is probably the most ancient version of the Bible in a living tongue. Bulgaria was at this period the most advanced and com- mercial kingdom- of the north, and formed the chief medium for supplying Germany and Scandinavia with the manufac- tures, gold, and jewels, of Constantinople and Asia. Many treaties for regulating the trade, and fixing the amount of duty to be paid upon the Grecian frontier, had been con- cluded from time to time between the two powers, and their traffic was greatly augmented during the long peace that prevailed after the secession of Bogaris (who had taken the name of Michael on his baptism) and his people to the Eastern Church. This prince sent his second son Simeon to be educated at Constantinople, and in the year 885 resigned his throne to the heir-apparent, Vladimir, and retired into a monastery. But the misconduct of the new king, and the disorders into which he consequently plunged the state, com- pelled Bogaris, three years after, to emerge again from obscnrity ; and, consigning Vladimir to a cloister, having previously caused his eyes to be put out, the royal monk gave the crown to Simeon, and returned to his cell, where he expired in the year 907.* At this time, though Constantinople was called the em- pire of the Greeks, the Greeks themselves occupied a veiy subordinate position in the state. The peasants and hus- bandmen in the pro-vinces were chiefly Slavonians and foreign colonists ; and the merchants and superior classes, Romans, and members of the Latin Church. The political * FInlay's '* Byzantine Empire." ^S THE AECHEE. AKD' THE STEPPE. " administration was cliiefly in the hands of Asiatics, and for a centtiry and a half the Eaapress Irene was the only sovereign on the imperial throne whose origin was purely Greek. The emperors, who had generally been court favourites, successful generals, or mere adventurers, were seldom succeeded by more than two or three generations of their descendants, and most of these were Armenians, or other Asiatics, and one, Basil I., rose from a Slalvonian groom. Greek, indeed, was the language of the government, yet even by the popu- lace it was looked upon as a term of reproach. CHAPTEE T. f ^e €vLmmm — feorgia. Te icefalls ; yet tliat from the mountain's brow, Adown enormous ravines slope amain, Torrents methinks, that heard a miRhty voice, And stopp'd at once, amid their maddest pluntje, MoiionleBS torrents! silent cataracts. Ye living flowers, that skirt the eternal frost, Ye wild goats, sporting; round the eagle's nest^ Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm. Thou, too, hoar mount, with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet, the avalanche unheard, Shoots downwards. . , . Coleridge. The Hvrcanian cliflfs Of Caucasus, aud dark Iberlau dales.— Milton. The Caucasian* mountains, whose rugged rocks and narrow valleys form a botmdary between Europe and Asia of seven hundred and fifty miles in length, are peopled by nearly seventy different tribes, and were considered by the ancients to mark the extreme limits of the civilized world, beyond which dwelt the unknown and barbarous nations of the north, whose country, according to the old religion of Persia, was the abode of all the followers of Ahriman, or the principle of evil, and clothed in perpetual night. The same traditions also relate, that after perpetual wars had been carried on between these inhabitants of Turan, or the Land of Darkness, and the nations of Iran, or Land of the Sun, a king called Dulkamein ascended the throne of Persia, and having defeated and driven back the Turanians, he built a wall along the Caucasus, extending from the Black Sea to the Caspian, to repel and shut out those savage and wan- dering tribes, whose dreary land, according to Herodotus, was guarded by dragons, and contained mines of gold.t So * " The word Caucasus, according to Pllny,. ls< derived from> the Scythian words 'Grauka Sus,'or white from snow; others imagine It Is from KokKaf,,or Cusp, which Bignifles white mountains. The Persians call It Elburz, a Persian word, which signlfles ee mountains*'*— Dr. Wagner's " CaucaBus.*'— Haxthausen's "Tribes ot the Cnucasus." t (irltHns or dragons are tlie symbolsof all the Slavonic tribes. Many of the Siberian gold mines had- apparently been worked by the turmer lubabltants, when the. liusalaus conquered the country. 50 ISZ AECHEB AND THE STEPPE. late as tte eighteenth century, the traveller Eeineggs found here the remains of a -wall nearly ninety miles long, and in parts a hundred and twenty feet high,* and the ruins to this day may be traced at intervals, extending along the whole Caucasian frontier in one place for more than five miles, in tolerable preservation. The precise date of its erection is veiled in obscurity ; but many writers are of opinion that it was constructed after the Scythians had penetrated through the mountains, in the seventh century before Christ, and subjugated Asia Minor, in order to secure the passes as closely as possible from all future invasions of the barbarous warriors from the north. The Caucasian ridge is formed by two ranges of hills, running parallel from east to west, of which the northern slopes, called the White Mountains, ex- posed to the harsh and rude blasts of Siberia, are rugged and barren, rising every where from 10,000 to 15,000 feet above the level of the sesi — ^the most elevated, the Elburz, attaining the height of 18,000 feet. The southern range, or Black Mountains, do not rise to the limit of the snow-line ; but all travellers unite in extolling the exti'eme beauty of the landscape and fertility of the soil, which produces sponta- neously magnificent vines, mulberries, and fig-trees, inter- spersed with the southern laurel and northern birch, and on the mountains the most luxuriant pasture for cattle. The greatest diversity is also to be found among the aiiimal king- dom, these rocks forming the most northerly limits of the jackal, and the extreme- south em boundary of the reindeer; every variety of climate and temperature prevailing, and, while one district is scorched with heat, another is frozen in snow. The winter in the territory inhabited by the Suaves, round the foot of Mount Elburz, extends for nearly nine months in the year.+ The many tribes who, at the present day, inhabit the fertile valleys of -the Caucasus, and who all speak a different lan- guage, appear in some instances to have resided there from the most remote times ; in others, to have been compelled to seek a refuge among these mountains from the hostility of foreign nations, by whom they have been expelled from their ♦ Relnegg's "Researches In the Caucasus." ; t "The eye, soaring over the hills and mountain capes, penetrates to the distant giants of the Caucasus. One sees their wonderftil forms, peaks, stems, sunk in table-lands, cleft cupolas, &C., now right, now left, now forwards, now backwards. Grapes smiled upon us and figs in plenty ; and the country is enchanting and luxuriant."— Madame Pfelffcr's /•'(Jeorgla. and the Caucasus," in her " Voyage _ round, the World."— Haxihausen'a " Caucasus." THE CAUCASUS — GEORGIA, 51 original, and in some instances distant, sites. Klaproth has discovered a great affinity in the languages of some of the Caucasians, particularly those spoken by the sixteen Cir- cassian tribes, to the Finnish and Samoiede dialects of Northern Russia ; the Ossetes are generally considered to be descendants of the Alans, a branch of the Slavonic race ; and the posterity of the Avars, once so formidable to Europe, are supposed to exist in the inhabitants of Daghestan, on the eastern side of the Caucasus, who, fanatic Mahometans, are now the fiercest opponents of the Russian power, urged and commanded by Schamyl, their prophet. Among the Tchete- cheuzes, the many pieces of old European armour, swords, and other warlike equipments, adorned with Latin inscrip- tions that have been found, besides many of the habits and customs of the people, which bear more resemblance to those of "Western Europe than to the slaveholding surrounding nations of Asia, appear to warrant the supposition, that a few of the vanquished crusaders may have taken refuge among these mountains, when escaping from the swords or dungeons of the Saracens, and settled down peaceably among the inhabitants. When the followers of Mahomet rendered themselves masters of Persia, the G-hebers or Fire-wor- shippers,* the ancient possessors of that kingdom, flying from their own land, scattered themselves over many countries of the east, and a colony joining their fellow religionists, of whom there were mauy in Georgia, established themselves in the Caucasus, where, about twelve miles from Bakii, they still preserve their sacred fire, in a temple dedicated to the glory, and consecrated to the worship, of the sun.t Mingrelia, the ancient Colchis, was the scene of the almost fabulous expedition of the companions of the Greek Jason in search of the Golden Fleece, and, with the adjacent district of Abchasia, formed a province of the kingdom of Mithri- dates, the powerful and long-successful opponent of the Roman power in the east. Tigranes, king of Armenia, the ally of that ill-fated monarch, being vanquished by Pompey sixty-five years before the Christian era, fled to the Caucasus, and Athalus, the viceroy of Colchis, was carried prisoner to ♦ " They suppose the throne of the Almighty Is seated In the sun, and hence their worship of that luminary i^'—Hanway's " Travels." t The Are worship was exterminated in Georgia by'Timur; but after his death a few of its votaries returned ft-om the mountains of Hinduitan and Persia, where they had fled I o escape the fury of the Mahometans, to their old haunts at Bakii. The Giiebers have also erected 'a temple at Astrakhan, but their number Is fast diminishing. .... ", 52 THE AKCHER AND THE STEPPfi. Eome, where ia ctains he adorned the haughty conqueror's triumph. The Abchasians were supposed by Herodotus fa> be descendants of the Egyptians of Sraostiis, who carried hia conquests over the peaks of the Caucasus, across the steppes of Southern Scythia, and to the shores of the Don, because in his time they had black complexions and woolly hair ; and tradition affirms that the Egyptian king planted here a learned and polite colony, who manufactured linen, built navies, and invented geographical maps. They are among the most ancient inhabitants of the Caucasus, and some of their number served in the host of Xerxes, armed with daggers, wooden casques,, and leathern bucklers ;* and it was in this province, probably on th« site of the little harbour of Souchum Kale, that the celebrated town of Dioscurias was situated ; where, according to Strabo, the representatives of seventy different nations met to traffic, and which was long resorted to by the merchant navies- of Tyre, Carthage,, and Greece. In Pliny's time, before the country was laid waste by the Romans, that writer affirms that a hundred and thirty languages were spoken, in the market, for which as many interpreters were constantly employed ; so extensive a trade and communication was carried on by the kingdom of Mithridates with all the rest of Asia Minor, and Georgia^ India, Bactria, Egypt, Italy, and Greece. The beautiful and fertile kingdom of Georgia,+ stretching from the foot of the Caucasus to the borders of Armenia and Persia, is supposed to have been first peopled shortly after the deluge, probably by a branch of the Medes and Persians, of which empire it at one period formed a province ; but the Georgians, who call themselves Kartli, according to their national traditions derive their origin from Kartles, a patriarch who flourished at the time of the confusion of tongues, and founded the town of Mtschekka, which was the seat of the Georgian government till a.b. 469. Before this, the earliest inhabitants had lived in caves and holes in the ground, of which traces are still to be seen in some of the southern districts. Several Chinese colonies appear to have early settled in Georgia, as well as in the countries on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea ; their existence is men- tioned by Herodotus, and Xenophon speaks of Gymnias on * Glbbon'3 " Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." t This name, by which It was not known Mil the time of the Crusades, Is said by Gib- bon to hare been bestowedon.this country In honour of St. George of Cappadocla. ■ THE CAUCASUS— «EOEGIA. 53 the Araxes as an eastern colony, four hundred years before the Christian era. Aneient historians describe the Chinese colonists as a peaceable and civilized people, and skilful agriculturists, who constructed canals, and principally engaged in trading pursuits ; and they appear to have been held in respect and esteem by the natives, the Caucasian tribes readily assisting them against the arms of Pompey when he invaded their land; where he set fire to their forests and villages, and laid waste all the country through which he passed.* Georgia, which was known to the ancients by the name of Iberia (probably a nati*-e word, as it is still called Iveria by the inhabitants), was subdued by Alexander of Macedon on his passage to India, though at Mtschekka he met with an obstinate and heroic resistance. He levelled the fortifications to the ground, and treated the inhabitants with great rigour, leaving one of his officers, Ason, in command of the province ; but this viceroy was subsequently expelled by the people under Phamaces, or Pharnaz, a native chief, who, being a descendant of their ancient kings, was placed upon the throne B.C. 300.t One of his successors built the fortress of Dariel, but in the following centuiy, B.C. 100, the Alans broke through the Caucasus and overran the country, which afterwards became tributary to Mithridates ; but, upon his overthrow, it again emancipated itself from foreign dominion, and remained for many years independent. In the time of Strabo, the people are described by him as being divided into four distinct castes, besides the slaves ; the princes, of whom the oldest member became king, soldiers, priests, and tillers of the ground, and a community of goods prevailed in families, under the stewardship of the eldest (who was always supreme) in a household. $ Four narrow passes penetrate the mountains of the Caii- casus, and Strabo describes the central one Pylse Caucasise, or the Caucasian Gate, sometimes called the pass of Dariel, as being in his time closed by walla and gates, which Pliny * The Chinese colonists were almost entirely extirpated by Tamerlane. t Wagner's "Caucasus." i " Charming hills, embracing cheerful valleys, while on the peaks of m»ny a mountain Stood the ruins of towns and fortrusaes. Hero also there were times, as in the old Germim empire, when one nobleman waged leud witii.the other, and no man was sure of his life and property. Gentlemen lived in forufled castles on hills and mountains, went armed and harnessed liite knights, and in case of impending hostilities the subjects fled to the castles. Tiiere are said yet to be people who, -under or over their dresses, wear skirls ol iron^uitted wire,4ind helmets instead of caps, but I saw none of these."— PFElFFElt. 5i, THE AKCHEE AND THE STEPPE. speaks of as a miracle of nature, and Ptolemy mentions by; the name of the Sarmatian Gate ; Procopius also describes it minutely, and observes that all the other passes of the Caucasus could only be crossed by pedestrians, but that this was passable by horsemen and carriages.* It was a frequent subject of dispute between Persia and the Byzantine empire, and in the sixth century this defile, together -with the Cau- casian provinces and Georgia, falling into the possession of the Persian Shah Cabades, he commenced the restoration of the entire wall of the Caucasus. But this vast undertaking was not completed till the reign of his son and successor, Chosroes Nushirvan, who erected iron gates and towers to strengthen the barrier and defend the passes,+ and who, on concluding a peace with the emperor Justinian in 563, agreed that they should remain open to the eastern and western nations, both powers uniting to protect them from the incursions and depredations of the tribes of the north. Chosroes also founded the city of Derbend, or narrow gate, on the eastern or Caspian pass, where the Caucasian wall extends for some distance into the sea, adding, to this a second rampart to protect the harbour against storms and hostile attacks, and constructing them with stones of such an enormous size that it required fifty men to move one. Derbend stands on a rock, and is guarded with two towers and seven iron gates, which, with a mosque, were erected during the Saracen sway by the caliph Haroun al Raschid, who made it a royal residence, and placed over each gate two lions or sphinxes, supposed to possess a magical power in alarming and frustrating the efibrts of the infidels, that were constantly striving, as the Arabs affirmed, to. undermine the walls, and penetrate into the country of the faithful followers of the prophet. According to Ritter, a prophecy still finds credit among the Mahometans of western Asia, that the empire of the faithful shall not meet with destruc- tion till a nation of infidel enemies with yellow faces have forced their way through these walls ; and this idea still arms the fanaticism of the Mussulman tribes of the Caucasus to resist to the last extremity every effort of the Russians J * Haxthfluaen's "Tribes of the Caucasus." t Eilrissi. in U51, states tiiat tlie entire Caucasian wait liad three hundred gates and toivers, but this is probably exaggerated, though lie mentions the names ot'a great many 01' them Haxthauaen's " Tribes of the Caucasus." X When the Caucasus in modern times was subject to the caliph of Uamascus, a governor was placed there with the title of Viceroy of the Caliph, as a defence against liussia. THE CAUCi^US^GEOlieiA. ' 5^ to establish their dominion over their mountainous retreats. Chosroes, to protect the passes from the northern nations, established several feudal principalities among the Caucasian districts, over which he placed viceroys, whom he intrusted with the defence of the gates. The chief of the territory of Serir, the principal of these states, and which lay to the north of Derbend, bore the title of "lord of the golden throne ; " and the Arab traveller Abi Hawbal, describes the inhabitants in the year 960 as being entirely Christian, though they lived in close alliance with the Jewish kingdom of Chazaria, and the surrounding Mahometan tribes ; but histoiy is silent as to whether the Gheber chiefs who had been placed on the throne by Chosroes, who established the religion of Zoroaster throughout Georgia, had been converted to Christianity, or whether the crown had been usurped by a dynasty of princes from Byzantium.* This kingdom existed till the thirteenth century, when it was overthrown by Ziagis Khan y and previously, in the middle of the tenth century, the Russians, under their grand prince Sviatozlaf, took possession of the western provinces of the Caucasus ; t though a hundred and fifty years later they were expelled by the Polotzi, who were in their turn annihilated by the terrible invasion of the Monguls. About two centuries after Christ, King Aspagur of Georgia passed a law, prohibiting the practice of sacrificing children to idols, which were finally abolished during the reign of his successor Micaus (who occupied the throne from 265 to 318), through the medium of a Christian, slave, whom the Armenian chronicles call Nina, and who, having by her skill recovered the queen from a dangerous illness, succeeded in inducing her royal patrons to embrace Christianity. Tiflis, the modern capital, was built in 455, by king Vakhtang Gurgalatu, upon the site of an ancient village, called Iphilissi or Iphiiiskalaki, or warm town, on accouot of the hot springs in its neighbour- hood, to which he removed the seat of government from Mtschehka, fourteen years after its foundation in 469. In the coui-se of the sixth century, the Persian Shah Cabades conquered Georgia and the Caucasus after a long war ; and they remained subject to his empire till the throne of the Gaznevides, and the Gheber worship was overturned towards the latter end of the seventh century by the victorious arms * Hiixthausen's " Caucasus." t Waguer's " Caucasus." 56 tHE ARCHER AliTD THE STEPPE. of the Saracens, who bad already embraced tlie faith and enthusiasm of JVtahomet. These cruel and fanatical invaders having subdued Persia, sent an army into Georgia, under the command of Murhuireh, the brother of their caliph Valid, vho took Derbend after a furious battle, in -vrhich the Saracen hero Kri Har was killed ; he was buried near that fortress, and to this day the Lesghians, •who. follow the doc- trines of Islam, make pilgrimages to his tomb. Prom this time till the end of the ninth century,* the Arabs continually overran and wasted Georgia, compelling those provinces which they conquered to profess the Mahometan religion, and mercilessly destroying with fire and sword all the towns, houses, and villages, where the inhabitants refused to submit to this decree. In 861 they seized upon the capital Tiflis, but shortly after, on the decline of their power in Asia, were finally expelled from Georgia, though they have left many traces of their dominion in their colonies, which still exist in the Caucasus. This deliverance from the male of the Saracens was chiefly effected by the valour and military skill of the celebrated family of the Orpelians, who are said to have been the remnant of the royal family of China, or one of the counties bordering on Eastern Tartary, and who, having been driven from the throne by a great revolution in their native land, entered Georgia through the pass of Dariel, and offered their services to the dispirited and tributary king, to assist him in freeing his throne and country from the tyranny and oppression of the Mahometans. I'or their success in this undertaking, they received from the grateful monarch, the fortified castle of Orpetii, and have ever since proved the firmest supporters of the throne and kingdom of Georgia, and the bravest defenders of its people and govern- ment, to whom they have frequently rendered signal service.t In A.D. 1049, during the reign of David I., the Seljuk Turks under Togrul Beg, their celebrated monarch, invaded and devastated Georgia, forcing the king with bis court and treasures, and the principal families of the nobility, to fly to the mountains, and destroying the fields and villages, and -wasting the country every where on their route ; but Libarid 'Orpelian, the sbalassar or constable of the kingdom, assembled * The Jewish family of Baffratlon ascendod the throne of Georgia In the eighth centurv, and tlieir descendants reii^ed till the Russian conquest; the present representative of the family being au offlqer in the Russian service. t Tlie oldest member of Die Oi'polian or Orbelian family is hei-editary crown fleU- jnarshal of tbe kiuj^doin. THE CAUCASUS — aEORGIA. 57 a small band of devoted and valiant followers, and advancing against the enemy, whose force numbered twenty times more than his own few and brave adherents, encountered and engaged their whole army in the field, which he completely routed with great slaughter, carrying off all the standards and flags of the foe. But the victorious general met with a base return from his ungrateful though much indebted countrymen ; for this success, and the popularity and in- fluence he acquired in the government, excited against him the jealousy and animosity of the nobility, who caused him to be basely assassinated ; and, depriving his son Ivane of his paternal estates, obliged him to flee for his life. But the death of Libarid "was amply revenged by a second invasion of the Seljuks, imder their fierce and merciless leader, the victorious Alp, who defeated and cut to pieces the entire force that the Georgians could muster against them, and, besieging Tiflis, they took the capital and reduced the whole country to their sway. Their dominion was, however, of short deration, for they were driven out in the succeeding reign by the valour and policy of David II., who, recalling Ivane Orpelian from exile, restored to him his father's domains, and also granted the reinstated chief the castle of Lorki, as some compensation for the unmerited severity with which his family had been treated and punished.* In 1160, on the death of David III., who had ruled with justice and moderation, and whose prudence had done much to repair the calamities caused by the Seljuk invasion, Hs only son Temna succeeded to the vacant throne ; but the young prince being a minor, the king in his will had appointed his brother George regent of the kingdom, though he had intrusted the education and guardianship of his son to Ivane Orpelian III. When the prince attained his majority, the regent refused to give up the reins of government, but himself assumed the style and title of king ; while his oppression and merci- less exactions alienated the affection and esteem of the people, and rendered him odious to the nobles ; and Ivane, having recourse to arms, was joined by numerous maleoontents, and closely besieged the usurper and his adherents in Tiflis. But the army of Orpelian was repulsed from the walls of the capital, and forced to abandon the attack ; and retreating with Temna to his fortress of Lorki, the king, George, marched • Article " Georgia," Sncychpceclia Brilanniea, 58 THE ARCHER AND THE STEPPE. against and besieged him in bis own castle among the moim^ tains, where the garrison was soon reduced to the last ex- tremity from famine. In the hope of obtaining mercy for himself and his soldiers, the young prince advanced frpm the gate, and, throwing himself at the feet of his uncle, implored his pity ; but he was imprisoned and blinded by the hard- hearted and inhuman monarch, who, on Ivane surrendering his castle, when unable any longer to resist the arrows and swords of the enemy, and the slower and more cruel ravages of famine, caused this noble to undergo the same rigorous fate. Although Orpelian had only yielded on the condition of being permitted to depart, with his few remaining followers, freely and unmolested to another land, George caused them all to be treacherously seized and imprisoned, and having commanded the execution of every other member of the vanquished house (with the exception of the brother and two sons of the .unfortunate chief, who fled into Persia), and caused Ivane to be blinded in his dungeon, in order to obliterate all recollection of their deeds and name, he decreed that it should be effaced from the inscriptions on their tombs, and even struct off the pages of the histories and chronicles of Georgia. But on the death of George, who was succeeded by his only daughter Thamar, this princess, whose reign, is the most glorious in the history of Georgia, recalled to her dominions the remaining members of the house of Orpelian, and, as, Ivane had expired in prison, restored to them hia forfeited estates.* She expelled -the Persians who invaded her territories, and, extending the limits of her kingdom from the Black, to the Caspian Sea, reduced several neighbouring princes to her sway. The arms of her son George IV., who made Ivane Orpelian lY.the commander of his forces, were also triumphant over the tribes lying to the south and west of Georgia, whom he compelled to embrace Christianity ; but in 1220 his reign was marked by the dreadful ravages of the Mongul Tartars, who, entering the kingdom through the pass of Derbend, traversed it on their route to Persia, though in this, their first inroad, they gained no very decisive advantage over the inhabitants, t Two years after, on the death of George, who had intrusted the regency of the king- dom and the guardianship of her brother to the care of his • Article " Georgia," Enq/clopiedia Srilannica, t Hue's " Clirlstionity In Cbina, Tartnry," &c THE CAUCASUS — GEORGIA. 59 daughter Ehouzoudan, his son and successor, David, not being of age, they again invaded Greorgia, and, presenting themselves as fellow-Ohristians and allies, prepared to assist the young queen against her enemies the Tartars. To carry out the deception, they placed in front of their army some priests whom they had taken prisoners, and carried before them the cross as a standard. The deceived Georgians were surprised and attacked unawares, losing si-x thousand men ; but, discovering their fatal mistaike, they rallied their forces, and, encountering the enemy, killed twenty thousand, besides capturing many prisoners, and putting their whole army to flight. The queen Rhouzoudan sent an ambassador to Honorius III. to warn him of the danger by which Europe was menaced if the Monguls were allowed to continue their victorious progress unopposed ; and in 'her letter she states that she had been unable to send the assistance she had promised against the Saracens, because she had need of all her armies to resist a sudden invasion of barbarians. The death of Zingis Elan, which -took place in 1227, for a moment arrested the arms of the Monguls, who hastened back to the imperial camp to assist in the election of a new chief; but, this accomplished, they again overran Georgia, and the queen, having in vain appealed for assistance to the Christian countries of Europe, saw her throne and people laid prostrate at the feet of the Tartar khan, under whose sway they remained till the year 1500..* She herself became a Mahometan, and the royal family, who have reigned since the eighth century, and assert that they are descended from Solomon, still retained their title and authority, though only at the pleasure of the Mongul chief, and so long as they obeyed his dictates and paid a sufficient tribute. From the revolutions and almost continual wars with which Georgia has been distracted for so many hundreds of years, she has naturally made but little progress in literature, or in any abstruse science or art ; but the Bible was trans- lated by St. Euthymius into the native tongue as early as the eighth century, and there are some poetical romances still extant composed in the middle ages — particularly the poem of Tariel, by General Rusteval, a courtier of Queen Thamar, and another by the same author, recording her reign and exploits. The Georgians have also several other heroic songs, • Hue's " Christianity In Jartnry, Thibet," &o. fiO THB AECHEil AND THE STEPPE. parfcictilarly the Baramiani and the Rostomiani, and told in high, estimation Yisramiani and Dareganiani, two prose works by Serg of Thmogir, and Moses of Khoni ; but these, ■with a collection of hymns by the patriarch Antoni, the Code of Vakhtang, by Vakhtang VI. in 1703, 'and the Chronicles of the same prince, make np almost the whole amount of the native writings of Georgia.* Many traces of Christianity are still to be met with among the wild tribes of the Caucasus, and the ruins of churches and crosses are frequently seen in the mountains, which, according to some, are the relics of the attempt of Queen Thamar of Georgia to convert the natives to the Christian faith ; according to others, they were planted there by the Genoese, who, in the thirteenth and fotu-teenth cen- turies, cari'ied on an extensive trade with Georgia and Mingrelia, and formed many colonies in those countries,, of which there are at the present day but few remains.t • Article " Georgia," in the Encyclopcedia Britanmca. t Wagner'a"C!iuc88U8i" CHAPTEB VI Igflr— ®lga. Fair spring supplies the favouring gale. The naval plmmerer spreads his sail; And, ploughing wide the watery way, Explores witli anxious eyes bia prey. John Scoxt. • Equipp'd for deeds alilse on land or sea. Bmos. The Firms, or Tscliiides (that is, barbarians, or nations alien to the Slavonic race), as they are called in Kussia, formerly occupied all that part of the country which lies to the north of the Valdai HiUs, between the Vistula and Ural Mountains,* and are commonly considered to have been the aboriginal inhabitants of Scandinavia, from whence they were expelled by the Goths. The Budini, described by Herodotus, appear to have been a Finnish tribe,+ and Ptolemy in the second centviry mentions the Phinni, together with the Gythones and Venedse, as nations of small extent and power, in the neighbourhood of the Vistula ; while in the time of Pliny, the southern coast of the Baltic, to the eastward of that river, was vaguely termed Finningia. Pritchard and Latham are of opinion that the Finlanders, Laplanders, and most of the Siberian tribes belong to the same race, which appears to have borne a close affinity to the Huns and Igours, with whom they are by some writers identified, and collectively termed Ugrian. As the Slavonians became more powerful, they gradually reduced all the aboriginal hordes, and drove them further northward ; for as we learn from Nestor, the ancient chronicler of Russia, the Finns in his time occupied aU the territory from Lake Peipus eastward, J and traces of them are to be met with at the present day, more or less interspersed with the Slavonians, over all the northern part of Russia, particularly in the hilly district of Valdai and in the government of St. Petersburg, besides • Pritchard's "Nat. Hist, of Man." t Herodotus. X Chronicles of Nestor. 62 THE ABCHER AND THE STEPPE. several tribes on the Volga, and tlie inhabitants of the province of Finland, by whom it is called Suonemma, or the country of lakes. The Magyars of Hungary also belong to the same race, which is remarkable for its love of music and poetry, and possesses many songs and heroic ballads, with long romances and legends in verse.* They worshipped the sun, moon, and stars, amongst which the constellation of the Great Bear received particular honours, besides the winds, lakes, rivers, fountains, and cataracts, and several goddesses ; their principal deity was called Yomala,t and they believed in a future state. They were early acquainted with the art of smelting iron; Einnish swords are renowned in the Icelandic sagas, J and tradition ascribes to Finns the dis- covery of various mines in Sweden.- They were also particularly attached to agriculture, and appear to have been well versed in all the implements of husbandry, || though, from the rigour of the climate, they were principally dependent for their subsistence upon the produce of their numerous lakes. The province of Finland was partly subject to Russia in the early period of her history; but in the twelfth century it was conquered by Sweden, who long endeavoured by force and tyranny to convert the natives to Christianity. An English priest called Henry, who had accompanied Eric, the Swedish general, in this expedition, was appointed bishop of the country, and zealously com- menced the propagation of the Christian faith ; but the violent measures which he used to compel the Finns to renounce their idols, produced an insurrection against the invaders, and Henry, falling a victim to the animosity of the inhabitants, was assassinated in a tumult, and, being after- » One of the longest of their poems Is the Kalevala, a composition half Christian, half heathen, relating the history of a mother (evidently intendea for the Virgin) and her child, and of which the peculiar Tersiflcation probably gave rise to Longfellow's poem of Hiawatha. The following, translated by Alexander Castren, from the Finnish into liussian, and by Herr Schrlefen into English, is a specimen :— " Wisely' then the sun made answer, Well I know thy cliild beloved. It was he alone who made me — Lets me rush in gold through heaven, Lets me beam in silver splendour. All the lovely days of summer — Tea 1 saw thy son beloved. Him thy babe, O thou unhappy I In the marsh, up to the girdle. To his arms within the heather." t The name for the Deity is Yuma with the tribes on the Volga, j In the saga of St. Olaf, while relating the battle of Stiklestadt, the bard says— " " The king himself now proved the power Of Flnn-foli£'8 cralt In magic hour." II Fritcliara'8 "Nat. Hist of Man," THE Fnras, RUSSIANS, ETC. 6^ ■w^ards canonized, has since been made the patron saint of Finland. Both before and after his death, great cruelties were inflicted upon the unfortunate people ; all who refused baptism being mercilessly put to death by fire and sword j and, though they were ultimately compelled by persecution to profess the Christian faith, they still remain very supersti- tious.* In the middle ages, the word Finn was synonymous with that of sorcerer, and it was generally believed that this people had a particular intercourse with the devil ; "f and at all times they have been celebrated for their conjurers, who act precisely in the same manner as the Angehoks in Green- land, and the Shamans among the northern Tartars of Siberia.^ Abo, the capital of Finland till 1827, when its destruction by fire caused the seat of government to be removed to the modern port of Helsingfors, a well-built city guarded by the strong fortress of Sveaborg, was founded about the twelfth century, and during the middle ages suflfered severely five times from fire, besides in 1509 being sacked and almost totally destroyed by the Danes. It is built upon a promontory between the gulfs of Bothnia and Finland, and, before they were transferred to its rival, contained a univer- sity, museum, and library, besides several other public edifices; The greater part of Finland remained in the possession of Sweden till 1809, when she was finally subdued by Russia ; and her loss was a serious blow to the former power, to whom she had always proved a valuable ally. Her soldiers distinguished themselves under the banners' of Gustavus Adolphus in the Thirty Years' War ; in the days of Tacitus she was celebrated for her archers ; and a Finnish regiment fought valiantly in the army of William the Third at the Boyne.ll The name of Russians § is first mentioned in history inr » Mllner's " Shores of the Baltic" t See " Paradise Lost," where these lines occur — •' Follow the iilght-has when, caU'd In secret, riding' through the air she comes. Lured with the smell of infant blood ; to dunce With Lapland witches, while the lab'rlng moon Eclipses at their charms."— Milton. The Korweeian peasant even now thinks the Lapp and Finn can assume at pleasure the shape of animals. JPrltchard's "Natural History of Man." Lord Macaulay's " History of England."— .Mllner's *' Shores of the Baltic." Herbertstein, In 1549, says that the people of Moscow assert that the ancient appella- tion of Russia was Rossela, which in Russian means a dispersion. Nestor, In his chronicles says, "This name of Russian was given: us hy the Varangians,. and betbre that time we were known under tile name of Slaves ; and the Folanlans, who were also among the Slaves, had no other language. The name of Polanlans was given them ft-om the fields they cultivated, and because they Inhabited thoplalni but they wers of Slave origin, and had no other language than ttie Slavon," 64 THE ARCHEB AlTD THE STEPPE. the year 839, when a few who had yisited Constantinople with their sovereign, whom the Byzantine chronicles call Chacanus (which was probably his title chagcm or kham), ac- companied the embassy sent by Theophilus, Emperor of the East, to Louis le Debonnaire, King of Trance, the son and successor of Charlemagne, in the train and under the protec- tion of the pompous ambassador of the Greeks. Some historians suppose tiem to have been the descendants of the Roxolani, who invaded Moesia a.d. 70, and defeated two Roman cohorts when Adrian made peace with their Mng, but who were subsequently driven to the north, where the geographer of Ravenna, a.d. 886, places them in the vicinity of Novogorod (the Russians having founded a kingdom there before that period), and consider them to have been a Slavonic or Sarmatic tribe ; but the Russians are mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitus* as being a distinct people from the Slavonians, and in his time speaking a different language.t According to Levesque they are descended from the Huns,t but assumed the name and language of their Slavonic conquerors, who were undoubtedly the descendants of the Sai-matians ; and the traditions of Sweden maintain, that the Huns anciently formed a powerful monarchy in Russia, which they relate was then very densely peopled, far more so than at the present day. It is certain that after ^;he death of Attila, when his followers were driven back upon the plains of Scythia, the Slavonians were also expelled by the Goths from the shores of the Danube, having been forced by the Huns to the extreme north and south-west of Rus- sia, and spreading over Sarmatia, or Western Scythia, they were scattered -and divided into many tribes and nations, the principal of whom were the Poles, under their chief, Lech, from whose name they were anciently called Lechi ; the Drevlians, who derived their appellation from the woods and forests among which they dwelt in Volhynia, and the Krivitches, who founded the city and fortress of Smolensko. According to some authors, the Russians were so designated ' * In his map, lie gives the Russian and Slavonic names for the cataracts on the Dnieper t Some authors suppose that the Slavonians possessed a written language in these ancient times, prior to tliat now in use among them, hut there appears to be very little uround for sucn an idea. In tlie year 1781, several manuscripts were lound at Novogorod ■in a very perfect state; but although they were communicated to several academies, they have never been explained. They were written in the same characters as an inscription on a clock In the convent of St. Saba, at Svenigorod, near Moscow— Cam- PBNHAUSEN. t Lovesqnft's " Hletoire de la Kussle." THE FINNS, EUSSIANS, ETC. 65 from Eosseia, ■which in their language signifies a dispersion, or scattered people ; others, among whom are Herberstein, and the Tartar historian, Aboulgasi Baiadonr, Prince of Carizme, state from Russus, a brother of the Polish hero Lech, while it is also asserted that they received their name from the colour of their hair ; and, according to Levesqne, the common Oriental traditions afiirm that they were at all times a distinct people, having a different origin from any otter, and that from time immemorial their habits, manners, and language, bore no afiinity to those of any race in Europe.* Towards the early part of the fifth century, that portion of the Russian territory that was peopled by the Slavonians, became divided into several separate states, of which the largest and most important were Novogorod, Smolensko, Polotzk, and Kiof. The traditions of the latter city relate, that in the middle of the third century, three Sarmatian or Slavonian brothers, Kivi, Scieko, and Choranus, came from the east, with their sister Libeda, and divided all the south of Russia t among them, giving their names to their own states. Kivi founded the city of Kiof, and, heading an inroad of the Sarmatians upon the eastern empire, penetrated with his followers as far as Constantinople, and forced the Em- peror Probus to cede a large treasure to the Barbarians, and propose terms of peace ; but subsequently, leading another expedition into Bulgaria, he was killed in battle, and his kingdom, with those of his brothers, destroyed in the fol- lowing century by the overwhelming and terrific invasion of the Huns. Some idea may be formed. of what this invasion, of which we have comparatively so slight record, must have been, by the accounts which have descended to us of the more recent conquests of the Monguls, and how every vestige of civiliization — had there been any to destroy — must have been annihilated, and utterly swept away, in their terrific and destructive course. They appear to have spread even as far as the marshy shores of the north ; but about fifty years later, upon their descent into Hungary, and abandonment of the wasted steppes of Scythia, the Sarmatians or Slavonians wandered back to their old haunts, and a successor of Kivi, * The Bussians are mentioned twice In the Koran, and the Greek word 'p«ic, used to designate the Bussians, occurs twice In the Septuaglnt, though not In our translatioa— Flnlay's " Byzantine Empire."— Lovesque'a " Hfstolre de la BuBsle." t Herberstein'B "Kerum Muscovitarum," iB6 THE AECHKR A2SD THE STEPPE. of the same name, rebuilt tie city of Kiof, a.d. 430. It was subsequently conquered by Oleg, a warlike and victorious prince of Novogorod, in whose possession it remained till his death, after which the Chazars subdued the city and state, and ruled nearly all the south of Eussia for more than two hundred years. According to Nestor, the old historian and " Tenerable Bede " of Eussia, Novogorod was founded about the same time by the Slavonians as the second erection of Kiof. Advantageously situated near the confluence of the Volkliof with Lake Ilmen, and possessing by Lake Ladoga and the Neva a direct communication with the Baltic Sea, some writers have supposed that a large Finnish city existed on its present site, which idea appears rather to be supported by its name Novo Gordo, or New City, pi-evious to the irruption of the Slavonians upon the north of Eussia ; and some ancient ruins, which till lately were to be seen in the neighbourhood of Novogorod, are considered to have been the remains of this old and unchronicled capital of the Finns, or what possibly may have been a city of the Huns. The government was republican, under a chief magistrate chosen from among the boyards, and it early attained so much power and opulence, from the extensive trade carried on by its merchants and nobles, by means of caravans, among the Permians, Chazars, and Bulgarians of the Volga, and through them with Persia and India, that " who can resist the gods, and the great Novogorod ? " was a common proverb among the surrounding nations,* and four hundred thousand inhabitants are said to have resided within its walls. But her territories were encircled by enemies, the adjoining Fin- nish or Tchudish tribes, and the Permians, continually in- vading the commonwealth, and the treasure which their temples were reputed to contain excited the avarice of the Scandinavian sea-kings — or Varangian corsairs as they are called in the Russian chronicles — who frequently devastated their coasts ; and, possessing themselves of the provinces of Eevel and Livonia, carried on for many years a perpetual war with the neighbouring Slavonic and Finnish nations. These pirates hired themselves as mercenary soldiers to the highest bidder, and their assistance was often purchased by * Levesque's "HlBtoire de la Eussie," THE FINNS, RUSSIANS, ETC. 67 the Novogorodians against the plundering incursions of their other foes, who at length, strengthening themselves by union, so imperilled the existence of the republic, whose power had been weakened by constant warfare, that Gostromisla, the last male descendant of a long line of princes, advised his fellow-citizens on his deathbed to nominate his grandson Eurik, the prince of the Varangians, his successor as chief magistrate of Novogorod, and thus secure the al- liance and protection of the Varangians. Eurik, who was the son of the Swedish monarch Ludbrat, and his queen Oumila, the daughter of Gostromisla, was born at TJpsal, A.D. 830;* and in the year 861, responding to the invitation of the boyards of Novogorod, accompanied by his two brothers Truva and Sineus, and a motley crew of Finnish, Slavonic, and Norman adventurers, he sailed with a few ships up the Volkhof, and endeavoured to establish himself in the city. His claim was disputed, however, by a large majority of the inhabitants, who objected to the rule of a foreigner and a Varangian, whose followers they considered as mere uncivilized depredators, and, refusing them access into their town, they closed the gates against him. But, instead of returning to his ships, he resorted to arms, and building the town of Ladoga,f as head-quarters for his troops, he fortified it with a rampart of earth, his brothers also establishing themselves within a short distance of the city. The Novo- gorodians, assembling in large force, advanced from the town under their most able general Vadime, to expel the invaders from their inti'euohments ; but being defeated in a desperate engagement, their army completely destroyed, and their leader slain, Eurik, immediately quitting his stronghold, marched upon Novogorod, where the citizens, being without a general, and totally disorganized by their defeat, submitted to him without further resistance, and placed their govern- ment in his hands, A.D. 862. He appointed Sineus to the sovereignty of Bielo-Ozero, and Truva to that of Izborsk, chief towns in tributary territories, which, on their both dying without heirs, he again incorporated with his own dominions, and, abolishing the republican form of govern- ment, he took the title of Veliki Knez, or Grand Prince. • OustrelofTs "History of Russia." t The ruins of this castle still exist hi the nelKhbourhooa of Novogorod. The name is derived from the Slavonian word lacier, a place of repose Uaupenbauseh. 68 THE AECHEE AND THE STEPPE. He pacified and strengthened his dominions,* and appears to have ruled with justice and moderation, reconciling the people to his government by adopting the Slavonic language and manners, his folio-Wei's taking wives from among that nation, and he himself espousing a descendant of the ancient ruling family of Novogorod, in order to procure an additional claim to the throne ; and, at his death in 878, he was suc- ceeded by his son Igor, who being only a year old, Oleg, the brother-in-law of Eurik, took upon himself the oflSce of regent. The Varangians were not long content with this northern extremity of the Slavonic dominions, and the territory of Kiof, whose capital is situated, like Rome and Constantinople, upon seven hills, with their summits overlooking the broad and rapid stream of the Dnieper, was too productive, thickly populated, and fertile, to be long overlooked by such daring and rapacious freebooters, ever in search of adventure and plunder; and who, though accustomed to the frozen and tideless waters of the Baltic, and its marshy and inhospitable shores, have, wherever the opportunity was afforded by the weakness, civil discords, or pusillanimity of those nations with whom they have come in contact, established themselves in the more favoured and genial atmosphere of the south, and in England, France, and the most sunny and fertile pro- vinces of Italy, have made their power respected, and their vengeance feared, erecting kingdoms and noble houses whose descendants are now proud to trace their origin from the rude_ and warlike followers of the Varangian sea-kings. Shortly after they had occupied Novogbrod, they turned their arms towards the rich and grassy plaips upon which Kiof stands, and imder the command of Oskold, the stepson of Eurik, and Dir, one of his chiefs, drove out the Chazars, who many years before had extended their sway over this city and province ; and, having firmly established their power over the whole territory of Kiof, in 866 made the first warlike descent of the Russians upon Constantinople. Taking advantage of the temporary absence of the Emperor Michael from the city, they sailed with a naval armament of two hundred vessels through the Bosphorus, and even occupied the port of Byzan- tium, returning to their own country laden with the spoils * According to Storch, the empire of Kurik extended over those territories now com- Srehendlng the governments ot Revel, Riga, Polotzh, Pskof, Vyborg, St. Petersburg, rovogorod, Olonitz, Smolensfco, Archangel, Vladimir, Jaroslaf, Kostremn. and Vologda: but Archangel certainly at that period belonged to the Permiana, and Bmolenslto and Polotzk were Independent states till subdued by Oleg and Vladimir. THE FINNS, RUSSIANS, ETC. 69 of the Grecian cities ; thougt a violent storm — according to the Greek legends, occasioned by tte intercession of the Virgin Mary, a part of whose cloak was preserved by the Byzantines as a sacred relic, and carried oiit in procession, at the command of their emperor, on his hasty return — compelled them to eva- cuate prematurely the harbour and waters of Constantinople.* About this time a regular communication was established between the Grecian empire and the coasts of the Baltic Sea, by the commercial enterprise of the merchants of Novogorod and Kiof. A lake and river in summer, and the ice in ■winter, connecting the former city with the Baltic, she re- ceived in her stores all the produce of the north, and trans- ported it by canoes to Kiof, where it was accumulated in vast magazines till the annual departure of a fleet to Con- stantinople, -which usually took place in June. The ships sailed down the Dnieper + as far as the thirteen cataracts, J whose rocks and rapid falls break the smooth and even course of that river, some of which they were enabled to cross by simply lightening the cargo, but avoiding the more precipitate and formidable by dragging the vessels past them overland ; and then, resting on an island below the last fall, they held a festival in celebration of their escape from the perils of the river, and the attacks of the hostile tribes who roamed along its fir-lined shores, before proceeding to encounter the more formidable winds and breakers of the sea. But, preparatory to crossing the Euxine, the damages which their frail barks had sustained in their rough passage over land and water, were repaired on a second island near the mouth of the river, and with a fair wind a few favour- able days would moor them in the harbour of Constantinople. The Russian canoes, which consisted of a single tree hollowed out, and this narrow foundation raised and extended on every side by planks, till it had attained the desired height and length, were laden with slaves of every age (the Eitssians » Adclallcil account of the attnck upon Constantinople by Oskold and Dir, is plven by the Greelc hLstorians, Zonaras, Ccdrenus, Constantine, Porphyrogenitua, and tlie patri- archs Photius and Ignatius, the two latter being eyewitnesses. Piiotius says, ^'Not only have the Bulgarians come over to the Christian faith, but also the nation of tlie Russians, who, proud of their success lately, even exalted tixemselves atfainst the Greelt empire, but are beginning to exchange the impurities of heatlienism for the pure and orthodox doctrines of Christianity." The Bussian chronicles also mention tiiat the em- peror, under whose reign the expedition was undertaiten, persuaded them, after the conclusion of peace, to become Christians. — Biaclimore's " Noles to Mouravieffs Church of Russia." Gibbon's "Decline and Fail of the Koman Empire." t The Dnieper was anciently called Borysthenes, from the Scythian or Slavonic words 6or, a pine forest, and stena, a wall: the shores of that river being lined with vast forests of fir. — Levesque's " Histolre do la Russle." t Thirteen are marlied in the map of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, of which he glve^ the Slavonic and Kusslan names. 70 THE AECHER AND THE STEPPE. being in great demand as soldiers at Constantinople), hides, furs, amber from tbe Baltic shores, honey and bees' wax ; and they returned at stated seasons with a rich cargo of com, oil, ■wine, the manufactures of Greece, the embroidery of Persia, and the spices and ebony of the Indian Isles. A company of Eussian merchants settled at Constantinople, and in the principal provincial cities and towns of the Greek Empire, for trading purposes, and the treaties formed between the two nations protected their persons, effects, and privileges. But the marvellous accounts which themerchants and sailors who accompanied the fleets in these commercial enterprises, carried home, of the wealth and magnificence of Constan- tinople, excited the desire of their countrymen for a larger supply than their comparatively scanty trade afforded, and, in the space of a hundred and ninety years, four naval ex- peditions were undertaken by the Russians to plunder the treasures of the Greek capital.* The Christian religion appears to have been first trans- ported to Kief in the expedition .of Oskold, who with many of his followers, on his return from his hostile enterprise against Constantinople, embraced Christianity ; and Con- stantine Porphyrogenitus and other Greek historians relate, that during the lifetime of ^that prince a bishop was sent by the Emperor Basil the Macedonian, and St. Ignatius the patriarch of Byzantium, to Kiof, who made many converts, chiefly in consequence of the miraculous preservation of a volume of the Gospels, which remained unconsumed when thrown into the midst of flames by the unbelievers, and the Metropolitan of Russia appears in the catalogue of prelates subject to the Byzantine patriarchs as early as the year 891.t In the reign of Igor, a church of the prophet Blias ♦ Gibbon's " Decline and Fall of the Boman Empire." t Tbe Russians have a tradition that St. Andrew preached in their country. Herber- stein, in his " Rerum Muscoviticarum Commentarii," saj's : — "The Russians openly boast in their annals, that before tbe times of Viadimir and Oleg, the land of Russia was bap- tized and blessed by Andrew, the apostle Of Christ, who came, as they assert, tlrora Greece to the moutii of the Dnieper, and sailed up the river against the stream, as far as the mountains where Kiof now stands, and there blessed and baptized all tlie country ; that lie planted his cross there, and preached the great grace of God, foretelling that the churches of the Christians would be numerous; that then he went to the sources of the Dnieper, to tiie great luko Vololt, and descended by the river Lovat to lalte limen, and thence passed by the river Votcher, which flows out of the same iaite to Novogorod ; thence by the same river to lake Ladoga, and by the river Neva to the sea, whlch'they call Varetsgkai, but which we call the German Sea (the Baltic), between Finland and Livonia, and so sailed to Rome. Finally, that ho was crucffied for Christ's sake in the Pelopeu- nessus by Antipater." Mouravieff, in his " History of the Russian Church," quotes the old chronicler, Kestor, wlio says— St. Andrew, penetrating up the Dnieper into the deserts of Scythia, planted the first cross on the hills of Kiof, and said to his followers, "See you these hills? On tliese hiils shall shine tbe light of divine grace. There shall be here a great city, aud God shall have in it many cliurehea to his name."— Mmiravlefi's " Church of Hussia." THE FINNS, ErSSIAJTS, ETC, 71 is mentioned as existing at Kiof, wtere the Christian Varan- gians swore to the observance of the treaty, formed by the Eussian prince and his people, with the ambassadors of Con- stantinople, and the catacombs and caves of the Pechersky monastery at Kiof are supposed to have been excavated by them. In 879, the year following the death of Eurik, Oleg, the regent of Novogorod, assembling a large army from among all the numerous tribes who peopled his dominions, and accompanied by the infant prince Igor, marched against Smolensko, the capital of the Krivitohes, a Slavonic tribe by whom it had been founded about the same time as Novo- gorod, having overrun and swept away all the smaller towns and villages that studded the plains between the two cities. He subjected Smolensko to his sway, and embarking his followers in a fl«et of the small and precarious vessels used in the commerce of Novogorod, which he had compelled her merchants to supply, and caused to be transported with his army overland till he reached the shores of the Dnieper, a little to the north of Smolensko, he sailed down the river and arrived before Kiof. There, leaving his ships, he dis- guised himself as a Novogorod merchant, and, entering the town, professed to have arrived with a fleet of trading vessels, paying a .visit alone and on foot to the pa;lace of the grand prince, whom he induced -to accompany him, with merely a few courtiers and attendants, to inspect his fleet and goods. As soon as the deluded Oskold had arrived on the banks of the river, the Novogorodians leaping from their barks seized upon the unfortunate prince, whom they instantly murdered, and Oleg, forcing his way into the city at their head, took possession of the whole province, and removed the seat of his government to Kiof, its nearer proximity to Constantinople, and the superiority of its climate and soil, with its central position, giving it a great advantage over his own capital. He subdued or won over to his authority many of the Slavonic and Lithuanian tribes, whose allegiance had hitherto been exacted by the Chazars, and commanded the Severians and Raditnitsches, two Caucasian nations,* to desist from paying their customary tribute to that people, and reconciled the Kiovians to his government by relaxing the severity of the laws, and reducing the taxes. After reigning some years • Wagner's" Caucasus." 72 THE AECHEE AitD THE STEPPE. ia Kiof, he resigned tlie government to Igor till liis return, and, fitting out an expedition for the invasion of Constan- tinople, in the year 904 he sailed to the entrance of the Bosphorus, where the Greeks, who were prepared to resist him, had raised a strong barrier of arms and fortifications to defend the passage ; but, avoiding this, he caused his ships to be dragged across the land, and arrived before Constan- tinople, where, hanging his shield as a trophy over the gates, he marched with his warriors into the capital. Completely taken by surprise, the Greeks, astonished and alarmed at the unexpected manner in which the savage chieftain had over- come the formidable obstruction they had erected to oppose him, fondly supposing that it would prove insurmountable to barbarians, with whom the art of engineering, as practised by them, was unknown, proposed to negotiate with the in- vaders, and concluded an immediate truce. While the strangers remained in the city, the Emperor Leo gave a banquet to the Russian prince and his soldiers, at which he attempted to rid himself of his troublesome enemies through the cowardly medium of poison ; but the attempt failing, the Byzantine monarch was obliged to accept an ignominious peace, and ransom the city from destruction. The terms of the treaty bound Leo to pay a tribute to every vessel belong- ing to Oleg, and to remit all taxes and duties upon Russian merchants trading in the Greek empire. The grand prince returned with his fleet adorned with silken sails to Barf, and after a few years formed a new treaty with Constantinople, for the security of the lives and fortunes of the Russian traders, in which it was agreed that the goods of a Russian dying without testament, in the dominions of the emperor of Constantinople, should be transmitted to his heirs in Russia, and, if bequeathed by will, should be forwarded to the legatees ; that, if a Russian killed a Greek, or a Greek a Russian, the assassin should be put to death on the spot where the crime was committed ; or, if the murderer had effected his escape, his fortune was to be adjudged to the nearest heir of the murdered, a provision being made for the wife of the criminal. It was also provided that, for striking another with a sword or any other weapon, a fine of three litres of gold should be exacted from the offender ; and that a thief, Greek or Russian, caught in the fact, might be put to death with impunity ; but, if he should be seized, the stolen goods THE FINNS, RUSSIANS, ETC. 73 were to be restored, and the criminal condemned to pay thrice their value.* Although Oleg was only regent of the empire, yet he governed in his own person for thirty-four years, and Igor did not succeed to his father's throne till the death of his guardian, which took place in 913, from the eflfeots of a serpent's bite, the reptile, according to the chronicles of Nestor, having crept into the skull of a favourite horse, which diviners had predicted, five years before, would be the cause of its master's death. On hearing that the animal was dead, which, since the fatal prophecy he had ceased to mount, Oleg visited the body, and placing his foot on the head, exclaimed, " So this is the dreaded animal ! " when the ser- pent suddenly darting out, inflicted upon his foot a mortal wound.t Igor, who was at this time thirty-eight years of age, spent the greater part of his reign in g^uelling the disturbances that arose in various parts of his dominions. He defeated and drove back the Petchenegans, a Tartar nation whose tei-ritory lay on the north of the Caspian sea, and who advanced against Kiof in great force ; and subdued the Drevlians, who peopled the modern province of Volhynia, and were the last of the Slavonic tribes to abandon their wandering mode of life, having then but recently settled down in towns and villages. After encountering an ob- stinate resistance of three years, he also reduced to submission the Uglitches ; a nation whose territory lay on the shores of the Dnieper, and had asserted its independence, and passed the first twenty-eight years of his reign in almost constant warfere. But having succeeded in restoring tranquillity to his states, the grand prince was urgently importuned by his chiefs and soldiers to follow the example of his predecessor, and endeavour to reimburse his country for the losses it had sustained in these civil wars, by plundering the riches and trea- sures of the wealthy Grecian cities. This advice agreed too well with his own ambition and avarice to be rejected or disregard- ed; and in 941 he equipped a fleet for the invasion of Con- stantinople, with which he advanced into the Black Sea, while the naval powers of the empire were employed in a war with the Saracens ; and after devastating the provinces of Pontus, Paphlagonia, and Bithynia, entered the Bosphorus. But »Karamsln'3 History of Russia." , t Chronicles of Nestor. F 74 THE ARCHER AND THE STEPPE. -the Greeks, who were now aware of the real strength and pertinacity of their northern adversary, prepared energetically to resist this sudden inroad, and fitting out every remaining vessel and galley that was not employed on foreign service with an unusually abundant supply of the tenible fire,* that they always used in their warlike operations, and whose flames no water would allay, poured it from every side of their ships upon the enemy, sinking and destroying two- thirds of his canoes.j Many thousands of Russians, to avoid being burned, sprang into the sea, where the greater number perished in the waves ; others, who were captured, were beheaded by order of the emperor, and the rest were in- humanly murdered by the Thracian peasants as they attempted to gain the shore. The remaining vessels escaping into shallow water, Igor returned with them to Kiof, where, recruiting his forces by alliance with the Petchenegans, his foi-mer foes, he prepared another expedition for the following spring, with which he hoped to retrieve his losses and accom- plish his revenge. But the Greeks, anxious to avert the calamities of another Russian invasion, and not willing to encounter the chance of defeat from an infuriated and vin- dictive adversary, offered to revive the treaty that the Greek ■emperor had been forced by Oleg to accept, and pay to Igor the tribute which his more successful predecessor had exacted for each of his vessels ; terms that, after some hesitation, were accepted by the Russian prince. J " In these naval hos- ♦ The composition of tlie Greek lire, wliicli was so extensively used in tiie wars ot Byzantium, being ttie most formidable implement of defence possessed by the Greelts, and occasionally lent by tiieir emperors to tlieir allies, was considered as a state secret ot the utmost importance, and for nearly four centuries it was unlinown to the Mahometans, but, being discovered by the Saracens, they used it in repelling the Crusaders and over- powering the Greeiss. One of its urincipal ingredients is supposed to have been naphtha, or the bitumen wliicli is collected on tne shores of the Dead Sea, and when Ignited it was scarcely possible to quench it, wat«r having no efTect. In sieges it was poured from the ramparts, or launched like onr bombs in redhot balls of stone or iron, or was darted -In flax tw^ted roraid arrows and javelins. It produced a thick smoke and loud explosion, and is thus described by the crusader Joinville—" It came flying tlirough the air like a winged dragon, about the thickness of a hogshead, witli the reoort of thunder and the speed of lightning, and the darkness of the night was dispelled by this horrible illumina- tion."— Couni Robert of Paris. + Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." J In this treaty, according to Nestor, It was stipulated that " the Russian princes are . not in future to have any troops in the country of Kherson (the peninsula of Uherson in the Crimea), or in any of the towns that are dependent on it, still less to make war with . this country, and to endeavour to conquer it. But ifthe Russian prince requires aid, we, ■the Caesar, promise to ftirnish it, to replace under his authority those of tlie sun-ounding countries wliich have thrown it off. And if the Russians meet at the mouth of the Dnieper Khersonian fishermen, they shall not injure them, and they shall not have the right to winter at the mouth of the Dnieper, nor at Bielo B^ie (Berlslat). but at the approach of autumn they shall retvirn to their own country, into Russia. If the Black Bulgarians attack the country of Kherson, we recommend the Russian prince to drive them back, and not to allow them to disturb the peace."— H. D. Seymour's " Russia on ■ the Black Sea," &C. This treaty proves that the Russians had been troublesome to the Greek towns of the Crimea, even at tbat early period. THE FINNS, RUSSIANS, ETC. 75 till ties," says Gibbon, " every disadvantage was on tlie side of tLie Greeks ; tlieir savage enemy afforded no mercy, his poverty promised no spoil ; his impenetrable retreat de- prived the conquerors of the hopes of revenge ; and the pride or weakness of empire, indulged an opinion that no honour could be gained or lost in the intercourse with barbarians. At first their demands were high and inadmissible, three pounds of gold for each soldier or mariner of the fleet ; the Russian youth adhered to the design of conquest, but the counsels of moderation were recommended by the hoary sages. " Be content," they said, " with the liberal offers of Csesar ; is it not far better to obtain, without a, combat, the possession of gold, silver, silks, and all the objects of our desires ? Are we sure of victory ? Can we conclude a treaty with the sea ? We do not tread on the land ; we float on the abyss of water, and a common death hangs over our heads." The memory of these arctic fleets that seemed to descend from the Polar circle left a deep impression of terror on the imperial city. By the vulgar of every rank it was asserted and believed, that an equestrian statue in the square of Taurus was secretly inscribed with a prophecy, how the Russians in the last days should become masters of Constantinople."* Four years after his return to Kiof, Igor set out on a journey among the Drevlians, to enforce the payment of their tribute. He had already loaded them with heavy exactions, and provoked them at length to resistance by demanding double the ordinary amount. At a council they held among themselves, they decided no longer to submit to his tyranny and oppression. " This prince," said they, " is a mere wolf, who will steal the sheep one by one till he has destroyed the whole flock ; he must be assassinated."f They stationed an ambuscade in a wood, through which he and his retinue would probably pass, near a town called Korosten, on the river TJscha, and there waylaid and murdered him. His death took place in 945, in the sixty-ninth year of his age, and he was buried near the spot where he fell ; a kurgam or tumulus, according to the ancient Scythian and Slavonian custom, being raised over his tomb. J He married Olga, or Precasna as she is called in the Russian chronicles, which • Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Koman Empire." t Karamsin's " History of Russia." , ^ t Tatischeffsays, that In 1710 he himself saw the knrgam, or sepulchre of the grana prince, Igor.— Flnkerton's "Kussla." 76 THE AEOHBR AND THE STEPPE. signifies very beaiifciful, and by whom he bad one son, Syiatoz- laf. She was born in a village called Sibout, about eight miles from Pleskof, and was originally the daughter of a ferryman, or, as some historians relate, of a" reduced boyard, and de- scended from the ancient Chagans of Russia. Igor met her first accidentally in a wood while hunting, and, being struck with her great beauty, elevated her to share his throne ; and in the year 603 their marriage was celebrated with great ceremony and feasting in the temple of Peroun at Pleskof.* On receiving the news of her husband's "murder she assumed the reins of government in Kiof, and, i-esolving to avenge tenfold the assassination of the ^and prince, an opportunity was not long in presenting itself.; for, shortly after her accession, Male or Maldittus, the prince of the Drevlians, sent an embassy to her conrt to solicit her hand in maixiage. She barbarously caused all the deputation to be buried alive, despatching messengers of her own to their country, saying, if the inhabitants wished her to be their princess and mis- tress, they must send her a larger number of wooers ; and then, ordering the new envoys to be scalded to death, imme- diately set out, accompanied by a large retinue, to the land of the Drevlians, before intelligence of the cruel fate of their countrymen c&uld by any means have reached their province. Arrived there, she professed to ^comply with the proposals of the prince, whom she invited to a banquet with his principal nobles and chiefs ; and in the midst of theirepast,twhen they •were nearly all intoxicated with .wine, they were suddenly massacred by the armed Russian attendantsof Olga, who had ..previously given her servants instructions to that eflFect ; and her army pillaged and ravaged the country, reducing the :town of Korosten,! the scene of the murder of Igor, to ashes, and, finally, subjugating the province and annexing it to her •own kingdom. On her return to .Kiof, Olga -devoted her energies and resources to the.improvement of Russia, and the promotion of the welfare-and prosperity of its people : she made a tour round her dominions, and, during her progress, caused bridges to be built, and roads to be constructed, encouraging com- mercial enterprise, and attempting to increase and facilitate the internal communication of the country. She founded * PlnUerton's " Eussla." ■t Korosteu oocuplea the site of llie moaern.ftborosk, in Volhj-nla. THE rnraa, nussLUfs, etc. 77 many towns and villages,, and appears to liave been deservedly loved by the nation, whom she governed with justice and moderation, and by whom she was long held in esteem and respect. In the year 955, during a period of profound peace in her dominions, she abdicated the throne ; and, accompanied by numerous attendants, sailed from Kiof to visit the •Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus at Constantinople,, where she was received by the Byzantine sovereign with the greatest magnificence, and the polished and learned CiBsar- himself appears to have been much impressed by the unusual intelligence and information possessed by his singular guest.. The object of her journey appears to have been to obtain a more complete knowledge of the" practice and doctrines of the Christian religion, whose votaries she had always protected ^ in Kiof; for, shortly after her arrival in the Grecian capital, she embraced Christianity, and was baptized by the patriarch Polyceutes in the cathedral of St. Sophia in Constantinople — her example being followed by her uncle, thirty-four ladies, and twenty-two officers of her suite, two interpi'eters, and thirty-four Russian merchants, who composed her retinue, the emperor himself standing as her sponsor, and presenting her with many valuable and splendid gifts.* After her return to Kiof she firmly persi-sted in her new religion, and laboured assiduously to propagate it in her dominions, tra- velling to her native village of Sibout, and to Pleskof, for the purpose of instructing the inhabitants ; but her exertions did not meet with much success, both her family and nation obstinately adheringto their ancient faith. She built several churches, and many Greek missionaries settled in the empire, no attempt being made by the people to destroy the Christian- religion by persecution, it rather being treated with ridicule and contempt ; but her example appears to have made somO' impression upon them, and many of the Russian traders fioms Constantinople, who bad been struck with the magnificent churches of the Greeks, the splendour of their ceremonies, and the solemnity of their services, compared it, on their return home, with the idol worship and cruel religious rites of their own country, and in many instances professed the Christian faith. This was more ■ especially the case in the city and province of Novogorod ; where tradition asserts that, * Some authors say that the Greek emperor made the Grand Trlncess an, ofiCer ot. naarriage„ but there aiipears to be no fauu(Ution,for this story^ 78 THte AECHKR AND THE STEPPE. even during the life of Olga, tie hermits Sergius and Ger- manus lived upon the desolate island of Balaam in Lake Ladoga, and that from thence St. Abramins went to preach to the wild and barbarous inhabitants of Rostoff.* Olga, who ranks as a saint in the Russian calendar, and whom their chronicles compare to the sixn, "for as the sun illuminates the world, so she illuminated Russia with the faith of Christ," died fourteen years after her conversion, in 967, at the advanced age of eighty-five ; she had been suc- ceeded, on her abdication, by h'er son Sviatozlaf, whom all her endeavours had failed to instruct in either the Christian religion or her own enlightened views of legislation and government. After her death she was buried in a spot which she had herself chosen, by a Greek priest named Gregory, who had accompanied her from Constantinople, though her bones were afterwards removed by her great grandson Jaroslaf, and interred in the Church of the Tithes at Kiof J and, in fulfilment of her last request, none of the pagan games and other ceremonies called Trezni, usually performed in Russia over the graves of persons of distinction, were permitted to be celebrated over her tomb.t It is uncertain at what period coined money was first generally used in Russia, but some pieces which were cast about this period are still preserved in Novogorod, bearing the impression of a man on horseback.| The coin called grivna is mentioned for the first time in the Russian annals in 971, when, during a famine, a horse's head was sold for half a grivna ; and the name appears to have been applied not only to the coin, which was worth a pound's weight of silver, but to the pound weight itself, and to the sum of fifty cunes, the latter being a coin of stamped skin or leather, of which the current value was a marten's skin, the taxes being usually paid in furs. At this 'time, while the sovereigns principally resided at Kiof, Novogorod, their northern capital, was increasing, and ■* Moura-vieff's "^Church of Russia." + jbid. t According to Sir Jerome Horsey, this stamp had Its origin In an event which appears to be the same as thirt related by Herodotus with regard to the Scythian slaves " The masters," says lie, "were the only soldiers, as the discipline of those countries is • and in ancient times, having gone to fight against the Tartars, their slaves took possession of their houses, lands, and wealth. On their return, they perceived the self-emancipated bonds- men all assembled in battle array befoi-e the city walls: and, considering it beneath their dignity to use weapons of war in opposing so Ignoble offenders, each raised his whip In a menacing attitude, and by thus recalling to their recollection their former servitude so alarmed the slaves that they precipitately fled, and fioin that time. In remembrance of thl3 easy victory, the cohi of Novogorod bore a man on horseback raising his whip " THE FINNS, RUSSIANS, ETC. 79 had again become an immense and important city. It was divided into five distinct towns, each of which was sur- rounded by a stone wall, defended by towers and ramparts, where a large body of archers and spearmen were continually mounted for its defence. The population amounted to about half a million of inhabitants. CHAPTEE VII. (garopj rtt t^c ^iivtl^ Ciretnrg— f iarmala«ir— i^j Crinua. A bundred realms appear, Xakes, forests, cities, plains, extending wide, Tlie pomp of kings, the shepherd's humbler pride. Goldsmith. The graves Of empires beave, but like some passmg waves. Bybon. The period of the ninth century forms an important era in the historical annals of Europe ;* for it 'witnessed the foundation of a settled monarchy and regular government in most of her kingdoms and states, and the popes firit began to acquire that great ascendency which tliey afterwards exercised, not only as spiritual advisers, but as political arbiters of the continent. The Roman empire, weakened as it had become by the licentiousness and corruption of its rulers, the luxury and riches of its higher classes,- and the absolute slavery of the lower, had been tmable to repel the barbarian hordes who successively ravaged its territories and conquered its far-spread and unprotected provinces, and had • CONTEMPOEAET EQEOPEAN SOVEREIGNS OF THE NINTH CENTUHT. EASTERN EMPIRE. 840. Charles the B.nld. 834. Kenneth IL 802. NlcephorusI, 877. Louis 11., le B^gue. 8.14. Donald V. 8U. Michael I. 879. Garloman. 859. Constantiue IL 8i3. Leo V. the Armenian. 884. (Jhailes II. the Fat. 674. Ethus. 820. Michael II. 888. Eudes 876. Gregory. 829. Theopfiilus Logothetes. 898. Charles IIL the Simple. 894. Donald VX 842. Michael III. 867. Bazill.theMacedouian. GERMAN E5IPIRE. SWEDEN. 886. Leo VL 800. Charlemagne. 825. Eegnar LodbrOG:. 814.' Louis le Debonnaire. lieigDS uncertain. ENGLAND. 840. Lothairp. 827. Egbert. 85,5. Louis II. SPAIN. 837. Etheln-oir. 875. Charles the Bald. 824 Harab?e2 L 857. Ethelbald. 878. Louis lU. SaO. Ordogno. 8150. Ethelbert. 879. Charles 111 862. Alfonso IIL 865. Ethelred. 887. Arnold. 872. Alfred the Great. 899. Louis IV. POPES. 816. Stephen V. DENMAEK. POLAND. 817. Pascal L 801. Godefried. 842. Plast,acountry peasant. 824. EugeniusIL 809. OlatL 861. Zemevltu?. 827. Valenlinns, 811. Hemming. 892. Lescus IV. 828 Gregory if. 812. .Siw.arU. 844. Sergius IL 811. Harold. RUSSIA. 847. Leo IV. 819. Slwardir. Gostromlel. 85.5. Benedict IIL 856. Eric I. 862. Eurlk. 858. Nicholas 1. tlie Great. 86H. Eric II. 878. Oleg. 872. John VIIL Pope Joan. 878. Oanute L 832. Martin IL SCOTLAND. 884. Adrian IIL PIIABOE. 819. Congallus IIL 8S.5. Stoplien VL Charlemagne. 824. Dougal. 891. Fermasus. 814. Louis I.,loDeboDiia!ie. SSL Alpine. 896. Boniface YL EUEOPE IS THE NINTE CENTURY. 81 feeeu forced to recall its legions from the colonies ■which they' held in subjection, to assist in defending the very walls of their own capital ; so that, released from the thraldom of the Roman soldiers, the tributary nations one by one rendered themselves independent of the debased and degenerate Rome, who in 4.76 became the vassal, where once she had been the mistress, of the Greek empire, and remained for many years beneath her yoke. In 726 she released herself from the dominion of the Byzantine emperors, and became entirely subject to her Papal rulers, under whom for a time her ancient glory again revived ; when kings trembled at the thunders of the Vatican, and princes and nobles made pil- grimages to her shrines. In England, the stormy Heptarchy ceased to exist in 827, when the seven crowns were united on the head of Egbert ; and the century was concluded by the memorable reign of Alfred, the greatest of its Saxon monarchs, who, delivering his country from its foreign oppressors, devoted his energies to the encouragement of learning, the promotion of com- mercial enterprise, and the formation of just and equitable laws ; and whose grateful countrymen may reasonably consider as the founder of their nation's greatness, by the exertions which he made to establish that bulwark and chief strength of the British power, the navy ; and, by turning their attention to discoveries on the ocean, first gave an impulse to that spirit which has since gained for them the empire of the sea.- The fair and long-haired Franks, who, issuing from the dense forests of Germany, crossed the Rhine under their leader Pharamond, giving to France its modern appellation, and, according to thfeir historical traditions, the race of Merovingian kings, can hardly be said to have established that kingdom, or a settled government, till the reign of Charlemagne in 7G7, her sovereigns having, in the first instance, been mere military chiefs or leaders, whose power spread over a very small portion of the present country, and whose names were unknown beyond the narrow confines of their own domains. These were succeeded by a dynasty of rois faineants, whose mayors of the palace, the virtual rulers of the kingdom, first gained for it by their victories extent and fame, and extinguished for ever the hopes and endea- vours of its Saracen invaders to establish their dominion and 82 THE AECHER AND THE STEPPE. faitt in iiorth--westem Europe, by the signal defeat inflicted upon the infidels by the most celebrated of the maires du pcdais, Charles Martel, who, assisted by his gallant army of Franks, gained the decisive and sanguinary field of Tours. Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, furnished in their sea- kings that dreaded race of pirates, who, coveting the superior wealth of their more peaceful and settled neighbours, and preferring the adventurous lives of corsairs to the cultivation of the laborious arts of peace in their own inhospitable lands, harassed all the surrounding coasts by continual invasion in search of plunder ; and who, under the name of Varangians, in 864, have been mentioned as overthrowing the republic, and founding the kingdom of Novogorod. A band of these warriors, leaving Russia, afterwards became the bulwark and most trusted guard of the later Byzantine Caesars ; while their Scandinavian kinsmen, in 905, wrested from France the extensive and fertile province of Normandy, and placed their chiefs upon the throne of England ; and, in 1080, a colony of these Northmen took possession of Sicily and the southern part of Italy, establishing the kingdom of Naples, under their leader, Roger I. Prussia, which was peopled by a branch of the Lithuanian race, who, following the course of the Visttila, had settled round its month on the borders of the Baltic, maintained till several centuries later its savage independence, idolatry, and primitive manners, though several attempts had been made to convert the inhabitants by the neighbouring states of Germany and Poland. It was conquered in 1230 by the Teutonic knights, who at length compelled them by force to embrace Christianity. The German empire dates its commencement from the victorious Charlemagne, who, having annexed it to France in the year 800, caused himself to be crowned Emperor of the West at Rome, and added a second head to the eagle which represented the imperial power, to denote that the empires of Rome and Germany were united in him ; but his suc- cessors inherited neither his political prudence nor military and legislative skill ; his dominions v,-ere divided by his descendants ; and, in 912, the princes and nobles of Germany asserting their independence, their country became separated from that of France under the first native emperor Conrad, whose successors were henceforth elected to fill the throne EUROPE IN THE NINTH CENTUET. 83 by a grand confederation of the princes, barons, and knights of the German empire. The republic of Venice was founded in 803, the city having been built in tbs fifth century on seventy-two islands in the Adriatic Sea, by a colony of Italians, who, flying from the town of Aquila on the approach of the barbarous hosts of Attila, took refuge on those barren and desert rocks ; where their industry and talent erected a rich and beautiful town, and their extensive and enterprising trade, subsequently established the greatest commercial state of the Middle Ages. The history of Poland, which was peopled by the Sarma- tian or Slavonic race, may be included in that of Eussia, from the earliest ages to the fourth or fifth century of the Christian era, when it continues very obscure till the con- version of its duke, Mieczyslav I., in 965, on the occasion of his marriage with the daughter of the king of Hungary, a Christian prince ; and at that time her sovereigns ac- knowledged — at least for a part of their lands — the suzerainty of the German empire, and took a part in its wars and diets. A daughter of Mieczyslav married Sweyn, king of Denmark, and was mother of Canute, the Danish conqueror of England ; and his successor, Boleslaf, after a long war with the emperor, Henry II. of Germany, for the possession of Bohemia, added Silesia and Moravia to his kingdom, and absolved himself from his feudal obligations to the empire. He assumed the title of king of Poland, and died in 1025."* At this period the Greek empire, though already a decay- ing power, was the chief seat of learning and science in Europe, and there the cultivation of the polite arts and literature was sustained, during a period that may well be termed the dark ages in the other nations of the continent ; and " it should appear," says Gibbon, " that Russia might have derived an early and rapid improvement from her pecu- liar connection with the church and state of Constantinople, which in that age so justly despised the ignorance of the Latins. But the Byzantine empire was servile, solitary, and verging to a hasty decline ; after the fall of Kiof, the naviga- tion of the Borysthenes, was forgotten ; the great princes of Vladimir and Moscow were separated from the sea, and Christendom and the divided monarchy was oppressed by the ignorance and blindness of Tartar servitude."t * Krasinskl's "History of Poland." tGlbbon's "Deollne and Fall of tlio Roman Empire"! 84 THE ARCHER AND THE STEPPE. The kingdom of Biarmaland, so celebrated in the sagaSj and in all the traditions of the north, during the early middle agfes of European history,, comprehended the modern pro- vinces of Permia and Archangel, from the banks of the Onega and Dana, to the borders of the gloomy peaks of the Ural chain. This was the country of the Biarmi, visited and described by Ottar, the old Danish captain, to King Alfred, and who, ia his voyage along the coast of Scandinavia, examined the distant shores of the White Sea, and found there a peaceful and civilized people, living in well-built villages and cities, and cultivating theground with industry and success. They appeared to him to speak the same lan- guage as the Finns,* who inhabited the north of Sweden, and were a very savage and primitive tribe. At that time, there existed on the Dwina a large commercial town called Sigtem or Birca,t frequented during the summer by traders from Scandinavia, where the Biarmi sold to the northmen, not only peltry, salt, and iron, the produce of their country, but likewise Indian wares, which came to them by caravans through the medium of the Chazars and Bulgarians, and across the Caspian Sea in the barks of the Persians. Tzordyn, or Great Perm, was, according to Strahlenberg, a great mart at that early period, and appears to have been frequented by merchants from Asia and all parts of Eastern Europe. In that region numerous ruins of fortresses and tombs still remain ; " and," says Pritchard, " an unquestionable voucher for the real existence of an ancient trade with the east, are the great numbers of eastern coins which have been discovered in tombs, and in other places through the whole extent of this country, from the lakes Ladoga and Onega to the Dwina. These coins, which have been carefully examined by many antiquarians in Germany and in Eussia, are pieces of silver money belonging to chaliffs and other eastern princes, who reigned before the year 1000 of the Christian era, and many of them are silver Persian coins of the kind used by the Arabs before the year 695, when the Arabian or Saracen money was first cast. Prom these facts, M. Frahn and other learned men have inferred that a great traffic was carried on during the middle ages through the eastern parts of Europe, • The Lapps. t Ad quain statlonem (Blrcam oppianm Gothorum in medio Sveoniaa posltum), quffl tutlssima est in mariti'mis Sveortiie feglonlbus, solent Uanoniin. Slavomm, atque Sem- brorum norves aliique Scytliiaj poi)aU i>ro dlvcrsis commerciorutu necessitatibus taolleuiter conrenlre.— Adam ub Bimui^. EUROPE IN THE NINTH CENTURY. 85 between the northern coast, then inhabited by Scandinavian and Finnish races, and the countries near the Eiixine and the Caspian, which the arts and the refinement of Southern Asia had recently penetrated."* The Arab writers also speak of a far distant kingdom to the west of the Upper Volga, and three months' journey fi'om the land of the Bulgarians ; where the summer had no night and the winter no day, and where the frost was so bitter, that those who came from that country brought with them, even in the summer, a cold severe enough to kill all trees and plants ; " for which reason," an old historian observes, " many nations forbid them to enter their territovies."+ The celebrated annual fair of Nisni Novogorod J is sup- posed to have been held at Makarief, in the neighbourhood of that town, from whence it has been removed only within the last few years from the most remote times ; and it appears probable that merchants from every country of Asia, and even traders from Western .Europe, occasionally resorted to barter their wares in its markets ; coins of the Saxon kings of England have been found between lake Ladoga and Per- mia, and many fragments of English pottery have been excavated in the district and government of Orenburg. In the Scandinavian saga of St. Olaf, there is an account of an expedition undertaken by two sea-kings, Karl and Gun- stein, round the North 'Cape to Biarmaland, on the coast of the White Sea, where, after trading for skins at the mouth of the Dwina, in the town of Birca, near where Archangel now stands, they proceeded after the fair to plunder the temple and idol of Yomala,|| the principal deity of all the Finnish tribes ; they took a cup of silver coins that rested on his knee, a gold ornament from round his neck, and then robbed the graves of the chiefs who were interred there of the treasures and jewels which their tombs contained ; and, bearing away every article of value, they retired to the protection of their own ships. § Many similar attempts appear to have been made by the avaricious Northmen to pillage the wealth and • Pritchard's " Natnrnl History of Man." + Strlnnham'8 '* Wlkingszligu Staatsverfasaung und Sillen des nlten Scandlnavler." X For an account of this fair, sec Hill's " Siberia," Oliphant's " Sliorcs ol the Black Sea, " Cuatlne's " HIstoIre de la lluBsi^" and many other works on Russia. II According to the annals of the Norsemen, the Idol was so studded with, jewels that It cast a radiance all around ; upon Its head was a golden crown set with twelve precious stones, and round its neck a collar which In value amounted to three huiidred marics In gold, and a dress which outweighed the lading of three of the richest slilps that ever navigated the Grecian seas. § Laing's" Sca-fcingsof Norway." 8G THE AECHER AND THE STEPPE. - merchandise that the trade and industry of the Biarmi had accumulated in their towns ; and, about the ninth century, the sea-kings formed a settlement on Kolmogri, an island near the mouth of the Dwina, where a monasteiy was after- wards erected in the thirteenth or fourteenth century by the Novogorodians, when under their general, Stephen, who was subsequently flayed alive by the inhabitants, they con- quered and converted the flourishing kingdom of Biarmaland. In the tenth century Eric, the son of Harald Harfaager, king of Norway, sailed with a fleet into the White Sea, and land- ing on its shores, as the sagas relate, fought many a battle and won many a victory. His son, Harald Greyskin, several years later, also penetrated into the country, burning and destroying all the cultivated fields and villages that lay near his route ; and totally defeating the Biarmi, with terrible slaughter, in a great battle on the banks of the Dwina, he withdrew from their land, after spreading waste and desola- tion far and wide.* A Scandinavian skald of the time, Glurn Giwsen, celebrates this foray in the following song : — '* I saw the liero Harald cliase, With bloody sword, Binrme'3 race; They fly before him, throufth the night, All by their burning city's light, On Dwina's banks, at Harald's word, Across the storm of spear and sword. In such a wild war-cruise as this. Great would he be who could bring peace." f According to evidence collected by MuUer, the province of Permia was conquered in the twelfth century by the before- mentioned St. Stephen Fermeki, a Russian of Novogorod, who invented the Permian alphabet, and founded a monastery at the mouth of the river Wym. The people of Permia are described by Everard Ysbrandt Ides,J in the account of his journey through Siberia in the year 1692^ when he observes that they " speak a language resembling that of the Livo- nians|| near Germany, for some of his retinue, who understood that tongue, could comprehend a great part of what these people said." He mentions their capital as being a very great city, inhabited by merchants and artificers in silver, copper, and bone, and surrounded by salt-pits ; but remarks that the natives of the province do not live in towns, but mostly in small villages built in the. woods, and adds tha^ the country terminates in a forest. " The stature and habits ♦Laing's "Sea-kings of Norway." flbid J He was a Dane, sent by Peter the Great as ambassador to China. 11 The Licfl or Finns, who inhabit the province of Livouia. EUROPE IN THE NINTH CENTUET. 87 of these people," says he, " are not different from those of the Eussian peasantry. They all live by agriculture, except those employed in the manufacture of fiirs. They pay tribute to his czarish majesty, but are under no waywode, choosing judges among themselves. They are all Christians of the Greek Churcla."* The most ancient inhabitants of the Crimea of whom we have any record, were the Cimmerians, a Celtic tribe, who, being driven from thence by the Scythians, retired to the Danube ; and the latter having been expelled from the north of Persia by Mnus, king of Assyria, took possession of all the country which bears, their name. A remnant of the Cimmerians, taking refuge in the mountainous regions of the Crimea, they were afterwards known by the name of Tauri, and to these people are attributed the excavation of the numerous caverns in the rock at Inkerman.t About seven- teen hundred years before the Christian era, an Amazonian queen led her warriors beyond the Don, and established in Taurida th« worship of Mars and Diana, at whose altars the savage Tauri sacrificed every stranger who landed on their shores, or fell into their hands ; f and where Iphigenia had been appoiated a priestess, when rescued by Orestes and Pylades.!!" In the sixth century before Christ, the- Greeks formed a colony in the Crimea,§ and built there Panticapoeum or Bosphorus, where Kertch now stands, and Theodosia or Kafia ; and the Heracleots of the Euxine, with a colony from Asia Minor, about the same period founded Chereon, the name of the Heracleotic Chersonese, given by the Greeks to the peninsula on which that town was situated, being derived from them. The commerce of the Greek settlers soon became very flourishing ; they built cities and temples, and * Pritchard's "'Natural History of Man." t This name Is derived from Iriy and' kerman, a castle Keuilly's "Travels In the Crimea." t H. D. Seymour, In hia "Russia on the Black Sea," Ac., considers that the Euxine and tile Crimea were the scene of tlie adventures of Ulysses In the Odyssey,.froin wliich lie quotes a passage, which he supposes to be a description of the harbour of Bulaklava, it beuig, as he states, a most exact picture : — "■ Within a long recess, a bay there lies Edged round with cliffs, high pointed to the skies. The jutting shores, that swell on either side, Contract its mouth, and break the rusiiing tide. From thence we cllmb'd a point, whose airy brow Commands the prospect of the plains tieiow." Pope's " Homer's Odyssey," 6. 10, v. 101. I) See story of "Iphigenia," in the History of Greece. §The famousMiltiades, the hero of Marathon, was for some time governor of the Greek colonics in the Crimea, or " Tauric Chersonese." 88 THE AKCBEK AND THE STEPPE. introduced to the Crimea the arts and dvilization of Greece ; and at one time, as Demosthenes informs us in his oration against Leptines, Athens annually imported from the Crimea between thi-ee hundred thousand and four hundred thousand mediums or bushels of grain. In the year 480 B.C., the Thracians, driving the Scythians from the peninsula of Kertch, established at Bosphorus a monarchical state,* but three hundred years later, a tribe of Sarmatians or Saurematse, originally of Media, overran the Crimea, and, in conjunction with the Tauri of the mountains, invaded Bosphorus and Chetson, levying enormous contributions upon the linhabi- tanta. From that time they continually harassed and ravaged these provinces till the year ;8i B.C., when the ■whole of the Crimea was subdued by the arms of the king of Pontus, Mithridates the Great, who established at Pantica- pceum the capital of his kingdom, and drove the Saurematas into Soythia.f About sixteen years after, Mithridates having been defeated by Pompey, after a long war with the Eomans, his son Phamaces rebelled against him, and incited the army to revolt against their sovereign ; and the king, finding him- self besieged in his capital, put an -end to his own 'life "by poison ; | while the Eomans ceded his territory to Phamaces, except the town of Fanagoria, which tthey erected into a republic, as a reward to the citizens for having been the first to desert their unfortunate monarchi|| About the year a.d. 62, the Alans, a Sarmatic tribe, -pene- trated into the Crimea, and forced the kings. of the Bosphorus to pay them tribute. Their dominion 'lasted nearly a hundred and fifty years, when they in their turn were supplanted 'by the Goths, and it was under the rule of the latter people, * The series ofGreekklnsrs of Hie Bosphorus, from rc.(480 toB.o. 304, wereArchiCiii- actidffi, 480; Spartacus I., "^SS ; Seleucus, 431; a reign ot twenty years, but the name of the king unknown,; Satyrus I., )407; Leucon, 393; SpartacusII., 353; Parysades, 348; Satyrus II., 310; Enmaius, 309; Spartacus III., 804. They were styled Archaantidse from the founder of their dynasty, and- claimed descentrfrom Neoptolemas, who, on the death of his father Achilles In the Ti-ojan war, is said to have emigrated to these coasts. Demosthenes, in one of his orations, alludes to Theodosia as being then one of the most famous cities In the world ; and Leucon, during a scarcity lu Greece, sent a hundred thousand mediums of corn as a present to the Athenians. t Reuiliy's " Crimea." i A curious tradition prevails in .Sweden, to the effect that Mithridates, Instead of com- mitting suicide, as the Roman historians relate, took refuge with his followers In Scan- dinavia, where, under the name of Odin, his exploits and valour procured for him the adoration of the primitive and savage people among whom he resided; and where, having been long regarded as the chief deity of their mythology, his fame has descended to pos- terity as their most ancient national hero. II The ruins and tumuli of the Crimen, afford an ample Bold for the researches and speculations of the antiquarian, and several of the artificial mounds that abound in the vicinity of Kertch have been excavated by the Russian government, and have been found to contain the bodies, ornaments, and trappings, of what are supposed to have been tho Scythian and Bosphorean kings, and some appear to have heen constructed several hun- dred years before the Christian' era. EUROPE IN THE NINTH CENTURT. 89^ during the reigns of Dioolesian and Constantine, that Chris- tianity "was introduced into the country, of which they remained in possession longer than any other people ; and it retained its name of Gothia for more than a thoxisand years, almost to the end of the sixteenth century.* Several bishoprics were erected at Cherson, Bosphorus, and among the Goths on the borders of the Black Sea, whose Scythian shores were now crowned with neat and populous villages, surrounded with fertile and well-cultivated fields ; but in the year 357, the peaceful and industrious Goths were forced to submit to the overwhelming hordes of the Huns, who burned and destroyed all their corn-fields, orchards, and habitations, and finally drove the whole nation from the steppes of Scythia. They, however, still held their dwellings among the mountains in the Crimea, and in the peninsula of Kertch, together with the remnants of the Alans and Tauri, where they maintained their dynasty of Christian kings ; and, being again threatened by the Huns on the death of Attila, they implored the assis- tance of the Greek emperor, who built walls to protect their country against the nomades of the steppes, and two fortresses at Alouchta and Orsouf, on the southern coast. But in the early part of the fifth century, the kingdom of Bosphorus was entirely abolished, though the mountain Goths retained the fortress of Mangoup Kale for another thousand years ; and in 464 the Crimea was invaded by the Bulgarians, who remained masters of the countiy till 6T9, when they were conquered by the Avars and Chazars, who also subdued the Goths of Mangoup Kal6, the Tauri, and the well-fortified and defended Gireek towns. The Chazars or Kazars, who were driven by the Huns to the north of the Caucasus, are first described by the Greek writers in 626, when one of their hordes transported their tents from the shores of the Volga to the mountains of Georgia, on the invitation of the Greek emperor Heraclius, to assist him in the war he was carrying on against Persia.t Their territory was frequently * H. D. Seymour's "Ros^h on the Black Sea," Ac. t *^ Bcraclius received them In the neighbourhood ofTlfll'', and the khan and his nobles dismounted Irora their horses, if we may credit the Greeks, to adore the purple of the Cassar. Such voluntary homape and important aid were entitled to the warmest acknowledgments; and the emperor, taking oiT his own diadem, placed it on the heiid of the Turkish prince, whom he saluted with a tender embrace, and tlie appellation of son. After a sumptuous banquet he presented Tiebel with the plate and ornaments, the gold, the g;em9, and the silk, which hud been used at the imperial table, and with his own Iiand distributed rich jewels and earrings to ills new allies. In a secret interview, lie produced the portrait of ids daughter Eudocla, condescended to flatter the barbarian with tlie promise of a fair and august bride, obtained an immediate succour of forty thousand horse, and negotiated a strong diversion of the Turkish arms on tlie side of the Oxus. "Eudocla was afterwards sent to her Turkish husband, but the news of his death stopped her journey."— Gibbon's " Decline and I'all of the Roman Empire." a 90 THE ARCHER AND THE STEPPE. invaded by the Patzinaks or Petchenegans, another Tartar nation, who, towards the latter end of the ninth century, invaded the Crimea, and afterwards settled down near the mouth of the Dnieper ; they carried on an extensive trade and correspondence with Constantinople, and their empire lasted about a hundred and fifty years, when they were at- tacjced and vanquished by the Comans or Polotzi, another Tartar tribe, who took possession of the Crimea, made Soudak (Soldaya) their capital, and forced the Petchenegans to retire to their ancient homes, in the Asiatic deserts. In the southern and mountainous districts of the Crimea, upon an elevated limestone rock, with walls resting on the very edge of the precipice, and overlooking the rich and beautiful valley of Jehosaphat, stands the town or rather fortress of Tchoufut Kal6,* the central position and principal settle- ment of the Karaite sect of the Jews,+ and which is probably the only town in the world which that people can call exclusively their own, and which is ruled and governed by their own municipal laws.J According to their own tradi- tions, they entered the Crimea before the Christian era ; and, coming from Assyria, where they had been carried in the captivity, all being descended, as they assert, from the tribe of Judah, they selected for their residence the summit of these steep and lofty crags, on account, so their legends aiSrm, of the resemblance of its situation to that of Jeru- salem. They differ from the rest of their nation, by whom they are regarded as heretics and schismatics, in not receiving the doctiines of the Talmud, which was probably composed since their departure from Judsea ; and their synagogue at Tchoufut Kal6 is supposed to be at least a thousand years old, one of their tombs outside the town bearing the inscrip- tion A.D. 640. A few of the same sect still linger around the broken walls of Jerusalem, where they assemble every Friday, to mourn together the departed glory of the ancient city ; and a considerable number are scattered among the towns and villages of Eussia and Poland, having emigrated to the latter country when the Mongoils invaded Taurida, * Ollplianf's "Russia and the Black Sea." i The name is said, Dy Elcliter, to l)o derived i'rom .Kara and rt«, werds signifying in Arabic, blaclt dog — ^Olipliant's "Russian Siiores ol the Biaclt.Sea." t "Tiioy enjoyed considerable priviieges under the I'artar rule, and were exempted ftom some contributions that were imposed on the Greeiis and Armenians, which, they assert, was on account of services formerly rendered to the Tartar lilians; but, according to Peysonnei, a Jewish doctor obtained them for his countrymen as a reward, for curing a princess of tire royal I'amiiy/— H. D. Seymour's " Russia on the Black Sea," Ac. EUROPE IN THE NINTH CENTURY. 91 and deprived them for a time of their rocky and mountainous retreat j but all in every land look to the Crimea, where they are respected even by their Eussian masters for their extreme probity and upright dealing, as their proper home, and to the rabbi of Tchoufut Kal6 as the highest ecclesiastical authority of their church ; and all desire that their remains may lie with those of their forefathers, in the cemetery spreading over the valley beneath its hoary walls.* In 840, the Emperor Theophilus of Constantinople erected the Crimea into a province under the name of Cherson, and united with it the Greek towns on the Kuban ; and in the middle of the tenth century it still remained a part of the Greek empire, and was used as a place of banishment for the political offenders of the state. lu the year 842 he built a fortress, and established a trading colony at Sarkel,t on the shores of the Don, J which brought Byzantium into connec- tion with the Petchenegans and the kingdom of the Khazars, though the latter had already given an empress to the im- perial throne. * "All devout Karaites, scattered through the Crimea, when Increasing infirmities warn them of approaching dissolution, are brought hither to die."— Olipliant'a " itusslau Shores of the Black Sea." + Now Bielaveja, near Tcherkask, the capital of the Don Cossacks. t Finlay's **Bj'zautiQe Empire." CHAPTEE VIII. To us 'tia equal, nil we ask is -war While yet we tailc, or but an instant shun Tlie fight, our glorious work remains undone, £et every Greek who sees my spear coufound. roll on the Greeks, they drive in flrin array.— Pope's "Homer's Iliad," In the year 955, before feommencing her journey to Con- stantinople, the Grand Princess Olga formally resigned her throne and government iato the hands of her son, S'viatozlaf Igorovitz,* ■who was at that time about thirty-five years old. Upon her return to Kioj^ after having received baptism at the hands of the Greek patriarch in the cathedral of St.. Sophia at Constantinople, she endeavoured by argument and entreaty, assisted by the persuasive eloquence of the Greek priests who accompanied her, to induce her son to follow her example, and renounce the errors of the pagan faith ; but though he forbore to persecute all the professors of Chris- tianity, wh&m, throughout his reign, he aiUowed freely to practise all the rites and ceremonies of their religion, and confided to his mother the care and education of his children during his numerous military campaigns, all her efforts for his conversion were unavailing ; for he remained a firm be- liever in the idolatry and cruel worship of his country, con- sidering that the Christian religion, which he identified with the splendour and luxury of the Greeks, caused nations and men to become degenerate, cowardly, and efieminate. Con- temning and despising all the arts of civilization, and even the common comforts of life, he discouraged and discon- tinued all the improvements of his mother, and attempted to revive in Russia the savage customs, primitive manners, and wandering, roving habits of his ancestors, the barbarovis * Ovitz or ovitclt is the Basslan for "son," and it is the custom in Russia for a son always to talie his father's name added to liis own ; ovna or evjia is " daughter," and la added to her father's name by a daughter, as Anna IvanoTua, Anna the dautsbter of John. SVIATOZLAF. 93 and unsettled Slavonians. Sliortly after his Recession hp abandoned his palace at Kiof, and dismissing his body-guard and personal attendants, formed a large standing army, recruited from among the most savage tribes in his dominions, •with whom he encamped upon an open plain outside the capital ; and, abolishing all the distiactions of convenience, recognised no other rank than that afforded by superior military skill and valour. Neither huts, npr tents, nor any- other covering than the open air, was permitted among his soldiers, who were devotedly attached to their prince, and whose privations and danger he equally shared ; at night, wrapped in a bear-skin, with his head resting on his saddle, he always slept upon the bare ground, and never allowed his frugal meals to consist of any other food than a scanty supply of meat, which was often horseflesh broiled or roasted upon the coals, and the coarsest roots or grain. The simple and hardy life, and few requirements to which he acpustomed his army, with the strict discipline which he maintained, enabled him to lead his troops to distant countries, and engage with an enemy in the field whose battalions were far more numerous, and whose arms and equipments were far superior to the wooden javelins, bows, and slings, wjiich formed the sole implements of war in use among the Eussians ; and, unencumbered by baggage, his marches and impetuous attacks surprised the fancied security of his foes before they were aware of the neighbourhood of his troops, op bad time to prepare any adequate means of defence. The nation against which he first turned his arms was the kingdom of the Chazars, on the southern shores of the "Volga, who had been lately compelled to relinquish their territory to the north of the Crijnea, and at the mouth of the Dnieper, to the restless and unsettled Petchenegan tribes, and whose power was now very inferior to that which it had been when they subjugated Kiof, and threatened the inde- pendence of the Greek empire. About the year 9fa^, Sviatozlaf penetrated into their provinces, and, advancing on the plains extending to the north of the Caucasian mountains, he defeated the Chaznr armies in a pitched battle, marched upon their capital Belansher, which he took by storm, to- gether with the fort of Belaia Vess, whose defences had been constructed by Greek engineers to form a protection to the wealthy and populous city ; and, having besieged and 94 THE ARCHER AND THE STEPPE. carried Tamartargas, a Ghazar town in the modem peninsula of Taman, on the Crimean Bosphorus, which he called Trun- toracan, he ultimately compelled the whole kingdom to sub- mit to his arms and acknowledge his authority. He then invaded the Caucasian province of Suania, and took possession of the western Caucasus, which the Eussians retained from that time for a hundred and fifty years. In the year 966, the European provinces of the Byzantine empire being threatened by an invasion of the Hungarians, Nicephorus, the Greek emperor, sent to solicit the assistance of Peter, king of Bulgaria, to prevent their passage of the Danube. Upon the refusal of this prince to agree with the demand, as he had himself lately concluded an alliance with Hungary, Nicephorus sent Kalohyres, the son of the governor of Cherson, as ambassador to Kiof, to propose to Sviatozlaf that the Riissians should invade Bulgaria, and, at the same time, the Greek envoy presented the Grand Prince with fifteen hundred pounds of gold to defray the expenses of the expedition. " The high position," says Finlay, in his Byzan- tine empire, " occupied by the court of Kiof in the tenth century, is attested by the style with which it was addressed by the court of Constantinople. The golden bulls of the Bioman emperor of the East, addressed to the Prince of Rus- sia, were ornamented with a pendant seal equal in size to a double solidus, like those addressed to the kings of France." But Kalohyres, on his arrival at Kiof, turned traitor to his sovereign, and, proclaiming himself emperor, negotiated for the support of the Russians in obtaining his own elevation to the throne of Byzantium. Sviatozlaf eagerly accepted the proposal, and, promptly availing himself of the opportunity thus offered of approaching a step nearer to Constantinople, the ultimate object of his ambition, led an army across the flat and marshy fields of Wallachia to the banks of the Danube, whose pestilential shores, nearly nine hundred years later, proved so fatal to the invading forces of Russia. He crossed the river in 968, and defeated the Biilgarians in a furious engagement ; and the king dying shortly after, he possessed himseK of Presthlava, the capital, and ultimately rendered himself master of the whole kingdom. But he was soon forced to abandon his new conquest, by the receipt of alarming intelligence from Kiof. The Petchenegans, taking advantage of the absence of the Grand Prince with neai-ly the SVIATOZLAF. 95 whole army, to revenge themselves on the Russians for the losses they had formerly sustained from them, had advanced upon Kiof in great force after desolating the surrounding country ; and, laying siege to the capital where the Grand Princess Olga and the sons of Sviatozlaf were residing, it was soon involved in all the miseries of famine. But their triumph was not of long duration ; for Pritich, a Russian general, collecting a brave, though small and undisciplined band of his scattered countrymen, marched speedily to the succour of the city, and, arriving on the opposite bank of the Dnieper, crossed the river in the night. He then instructed his soldiers to fill the air with their shouts, and the sound of their trumpets ; on hearing which the enemy was seized with alarm, and a rumour circulating in their camp, that Sviatozlat with his victorious army had approached from the Danube, the invaders all fled precipitately from before the town, which was entered and relieved by Pritich. He shortly afterwards had an interview with Kour, the prince of the Petchenegans, when a mutual exchange of courtesies ensued ; and, as proofs of their future peace and friendship, the Russian general presented the prince with a shield, cuirass, and sword, and received from him in retui'n a horse, sabre, and a quiver of arrows ; but the Petchenegans had hardly effected their retreat from the province of Kiof, before the arrival of Sviatozlaf with his whole army, who, on receiving intelli- gence of the dangers by which his capital was threatened, had immediately evacuated Bulgaria, and hastened to its relief. He followed the Petchenegans, and attacked and routed their army ; after which he made a treaty with the remainder, and allowed them to return in safety to their own land.* On the restoration of peace, Sviatozlaf remained for some time at Kiof His mother urgently entreated him to abandon the Bulgarian war, and he consented to remain in his own empire during the rest of her life. " See," said he, " the extent of my power and dominions. This is my capital, to which from Hungary I bring iron and horses, from Constan- tinople silk and gold, from Asia swords and jewels, and from Russia honey and slaves. What more can I require?" " Then," said she, " I am content to die, bury me wherever thou wiltj" and, three days after, she expired. In the • Earamsln's " History of Russia." 9-6 THE AKCHEK AM> THE STEPPE. meanwhile; tlie Emperor Mcepliorus had coneluded ^n alliance with Bulgaria, and assisted Boris and Romanus, the sons of Peter, to recover their father's throne ; but a few months later he was himself assassinated in his palace at Constantinople, by his nephew and general, John Zimisces, who immediately assumed the imperial crown.* The second, and most formidable invasion of Sviatozlaf took place soon after the accession of this prince. He divided his domi- nions between his three sons, Yaropolk, Oleg, and Vla- dimir,-]- and again marched southwards with an army of Eussians, Chazars, and Croats, in all amounting to forty thousand men, and, entering Bulgaria about the year 970, advanced upon the city of Presthlava or Marcianopolis. He took it after a desperate siege, having been several times repulsed from its walls by the inhabitants, both sides engag- ing with the most reckless courage, and made the king of Bulgaria and his family prisoners, though Boris shortly after died in captivity. Moldavia, Wallachia, and Bulgaria, " the principalities," of diplomatic language, have formed for ages the battle-field and theatre of contention for all the nations who have alter- nately ruled in Constantinople, and the restless and warlike tribes of the north. The Scythians and Macedonians, the Sarmatians and Romans, the Slavonians and Greeks, the Russians and Turks, have all at different times crossed the waters of the Danube, and fought for an empire upon its shores ; for the rich city of the Bosphonis has formed the .splendid goal to the ambition and victories of every con- queror in Western Asia during the last thousand years, and their inroads upon her ^territories and incessant wars, greatly contributed to the fall of the eastern throne of the Osesars, when she succumbed at length before the persevering and untiring efforts of the OttDman sultan, Mahomet. These provinces, which were known as Dacia to the Romans, and where they planted a colony, and jealously banished some of their most learned and virtuous men, originally formed a part of the kingdom of Macedonia, and coins have been excavated of as early a period as the reigns of the pre- * Finlay's "Byzantine Empire." t III Itussian ttiis name is commenced by a letter resembling our &, and taking the third place in their alpliabet; but wliicli is pronounced like our v, or the German m. The same occurs in.Azov, Moacow, Oczabov, Rostov, words which In Enjiiish are frequently but erroneously spelt with a w.— See Major's note to "Herbersteln's^^erMm Jf«BCO- vitorum" SYIATOZLAF. 97 . 491. The traces of the ancient roads and gardens that covered the little territory of the colony, and the principal street, which was about twenty feet wide, with the great market- place, are still distinctly traceable, and the remains of a large palace stand on one side of a small street leading to the market-place. Lieutenant Kruse was commissioned by the Russian government to make excavations among the ruins, and be uncovered the ancient cathedral of Cherson where Vladimir was baptized, in which a few columns of a fine white ciy stalline marble, striped with blue, were still uninjured ; and a second church, which was larger than the cathedral, built iiv the form of a Greek cross, and tifty feet- each way. The semicircular seats for the clergy were found entire, and a coarse mosaic fltill existed as the pavement. It appear^ to have been a Greek temple transformed into a Christian Church, and was perhaps the ancient Parthenon of Cherson, dediciited to tho famous divinity of the Taurl.— H. X>i Seymour's ** Russia on the Black Sea and Sea of Azof." t Herbertstein says that he kept three hundred In a high tower In Kiof; three hundred in Blelograd, and two hundred at Berestof and Selvl. J This church was also excavated by Lieutenant Kruse. Nestor, in his chronicles says, "that the Princess Anne was received by the Khersonians into their port," and that they conducted her to the palace. " The baptism of Vladimir took place in the church of the Holy Mother of God at Cherson, situated in the midst of the town, on the market-place. It is here near this church that Is to be seen to this day, the palace of Vladimir, and that of the princess. Immediately after the baptism, the bishop con- ducted the princess for another ceremony, that of marriage. Vladimir ordered to be built a church in Kherson, which church may still be seen in our days."— Nestor's "French Translation," vlll. 183. 11 Mouravleff's " Church of Kussia." § Clarke says that he obtained somo copper coins of Vladimir, in the Chersonese, with a V upon them, probably marking the era of his baptism.— IL D. Seymour's " Russia on the Black Sea," &q., x. 159. VLADIMIK THE GREAT. 113 must be right which had been embraced by their Czar and his boyards, they sprang by hundreds into the Dnieper, and bathed in its waters while the priests read the prayers from the shores ; and the bones of Yaropolk and Oleg, the brothers of Vladimir, were taken from the grave that they might be sanctified by baptism, after which they were again consigned to the tomb. A mount adjoining the palace of Kiof, that had formerly been sacred to Peroun,_ was now surmounted by a Christian church, and a decree having been issued by the Czar, ordaining that every idol throughout the empire should be destroyed in the same manner as those of the capital, the metropolitan and bishops travelled through the whole of Russia to baptize and instruct the people, erect churches and schoolsj and appoint priests and bishops over the various provinces. In Novogorod,* where Dobrina, the uncle of Vladimir, had long ruled, and the Christian religion had already made some progress, no opposition was raised to the establishment of the new faith, and the destruction of the national idols, by the newly-appointed bishop Joachim, the former archbishop of Cherson, with the authority of the governor of the city ; but in Eostoff the five tribes who still retained their idols, notwithstanding the efibrts of Abramius, obstinately resisted, and drove out of their province the first two prelates, Fedor and Hilarion, who were sent amongst them^ though the zealous endeavours of their successors, Leontius and Isaiah, were at length crowned with success. -J- At first, five dioceses were formed in Russia, under the metropolitan ; namely, Novogorod, Rostofi', TchernigoS", Belgorod, and Vladimir ; the latter city having been founded on the Kliazma by the Czar, in 991, when he visited the province of Suzdal, |. accompanied by Stephen, a native Russian, whom he appointed bishop over his newly-founded town, and where he built a church dedicated to the Virgin Mother, which still remains. Stephen, assisted by another prelate, at the same time baptized all the inhabitants of that extensive territory. Among the many churches and mouas- • A tradition that Peroun, after having been precipitated into the river at Novogorod, had risen out of the water and made a partlnpr address to the people, was long comme- morated by the citizens; who, on the anniversary of the event, were accustomed to arm themselves with sticks, and, running about the town, attempt to strike each other unawares, t The practice of wearing crosses round the neck, originated In Kussla at this time, for the bishops ordered all Christians to wear crosses asa distinguishing, mark — Mouravleft 8 "Church of Russia." t Suzdal extended over the modem governmenta. of Taroslaf, Kostroma, Vladimir, Moscow, Tver, 27ijnl Novogorod, Tula, oiul Kaluga. 114 THE ARCHER AND IHE STEPPE. teries whicli Vladimir caused to be erected throughout his empire, was the Cathedral of the Tithes at Kiof) so called from a vow the prince made to endow it with the tenth part of his revenues, and which was constructed by Greek archi- tects, brought for the purpose from Constantinople, who also founded stone buildings in the capital for the national assembly and halls of justice. Many of the Greek books of religion were translated: into the Slavonic language by order of the Czar who introduced that version of the Bible into Russia which had been translated about a century before by Cyrillus ; and he sent missionaries to preach to the Bulgarians on the Volga, who, however, did not meet with many con- verts.* But their representations induced four of the princes of that province to visit Kiof, where they all subsequently embraced the Christian faith. The Mahometan prince of the Petchenegans, who, with a large retinue, made a friendly journey to the Russian capital, was the most eminent proselyte of the Czar ; for while he remained the guest of Vladimir, he carefully observed the rites and ceremonies of the Greek religion, and, obtaining a thorough knowledge of its doc- trines, caused himself to be baptized, and, taking up his residence in the city, remained there till his death ; and in the year 991 the Czar received an embassy from Rome, sent by the pope to assure him of his esteem and regard. The aversion with which his boyards regarded his innovations, and his efforts to spread the arts and scholastic learning of Byzantium among them, caused Vladimir to make a law obliging them to allow their sons to attend the schools he had founded ; and he established a payment of tithes for the relief of the poor, aged, sick, strangers, and prisoners, as well as to provide for the funerals of those who died without leaving sufficient to defray the expenses of their burial. These tithes consisted of a fixed contribution of corn, cattle, and the profits of trade, besides a tax collected from every cause which was tried ; the right of judging causes being granted to the bishops and metropolitan, who administered justice according to the ecclesiastical laws promulgated by the Emperor John the Scholar of Constantinople.t * MouravieflTs '* Cliurcli of Russia." t The following is an exact and verbal copj- of the edict in question, according to the text of the most ancient codex of the thirteenth century :_" In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, I, Prince Bazil, called also Vladimir, son of Svia- tozlaf, grandson of Igor, and of the holy Princess Olga, having received the saving rite of baptism, from the Tsars of Greece, and from Photius, the patriarch of Constanlinople, and have brouglit to Kiof the first metropolitan Leontius, -who thereupon has baptized tlie VLADIMIR THE GREAT. 1 1 5- During the reign of Vladimir, Tryggve Olafssen, the king of one of the six provinces into which Norway was divided, and a grandson of Harald Harfager, falling a victim to the conspiracy of Gumilda, the wife of Eric, Harald's son, who wished to see her husband sole possessor of his father's king- dom ;* and, leaving as his successor only an infant son, his inheritance was seized upon by the neighbouring princes, and Astrid, the widow of Tryggve, was compelled to fly from the country with her son Olaf, attended by Thoralf, a faithful adherent of her husband's, to the court of Haco, king of Sweden, who boldly refused to deliver her up to ISTorway, She remained two years with this generous prince ; but, the usurping chiefs threatening him with signal vengeance if he resisted their demand, Astrid, fearing to endanger her pro- tector, resolved to take refuge with her brotiier Sigurd, who had been long in the service of Vladimir, and filled a high office at his court. She therefore left Sweden, with the intention of joining her brother in E-ussia; but, while crossing the Baltic, her vessel was captured by some Esthonian ^hole country of the Russians. Some years after that, I built to the Holy Mother ot God, the church called the Church of the Tenths, and endowed this church as the cathedra], with the right of receiving tithe from the whole country of the Russians, so far as my dominion extends, with this proviso, that to this house of the Saviour, and of his holy mother, belon^sthe tenth mite (squirrel skhi) of the judicial dues in the disti-icts of the pnncedom, and ft-omcommerciallmposts the produce of the tenth week; moreover, from every house and family, from cattle, and from reaped corn, the tenth must be paid. And since, upon reading the Greek Nomancou, I have discovered that, according to a precept therein contained, there are certain matters of dispute which it does not belong to the prince and his boyards and judges to take cognizance of, and to decide upon, there- fore have I, alter due deliberation with my consort the Princess Anna, and with my chil- dren, resolved to concede the administration of justice in certain fixed cases to the church, that is, to the metropolitan and collective bishops of the Russian territory. Ac- cordingly, neither shall my cnildren, nor grandchildren, nor my latest descendants, either cite before their tribunals ecclesiastical persons, or usurp that judicial power which has been conceded to the church, for this exclusively belongs to her according to my grant" He goes on to state all the various crimes upon which the church is to pass judgment, adding, "It is also among the ancient Tegulations, that the bishops should have the supervision of the measures, weights, scales, and balances of the town and of the market. Over these matters must the bishops watch, neither increasing nor diminishing them, and on the universal day of judgment they shall answer for this, and for the salvation of souls. >'ow, these are the persons which belong to the church : the stewards of their estates, the priests (popes), deacons, and their children, the wife of a priest, and the whole body of clerks ; moreover, the monk, the nun, the woman who bakes the holy bread, the cloistered pilgrim, the physician, the man who by a holy miracle is restored to health, the slave whom his master releases for the good of his soul, the stranger, the blind, and the lame; especially the monasteries, the hospitals, and establishments for the care of guests and strangers. All these are the people who, for the sake of God, belong to tha church. Between these parties, the metropolitan or the bishop is to act as judge, and to arrange the offences, disputes, and contentions which take place among them, as also the succession of property. Notwithstanding, when any judicial matter arises between a person belonging to the church and another man, the tribunal appointed to judge the cause shall be partly civil, and partly ecclesiastical. *' In case that any one, either of my children or descendants, shall act contrary to this decree, made in conformity with the regulations of the Holy Fathers and of the first Tsars, or shall any lieutenant, steward, or judge, or any other person infringe these privi- leges of the church, may the curse light upon him, both in this and the Hie to come, accordlngtothejndgment of the Holy lathers, and of the seven general councils."— From MS. of Baron Eosenkampf, quoted In Blackmore'a "Notes to Mouravleff's Church of Russia." . * Lalng's "Sea-kings of Norway." 116 THE ARCHER AXD THE STEPPE. corsairs, who, after putting some of the crew to death, divided the remainder among them ; and Olaf and Thoralf were separated from Astrid, falling to the share of a pirate called KlerkoQ, -who considering Thoralf too old to be of any service as a slave, killed him, but took Olaf to Esthonia, where he exchanged him for a i-am with a peasant, by whom he was treated with much kindness, and with whom he continued nearly six years. At the end of that time, when he was nine years old, Sigurd, the brother of Astrid, came from Novogorod to Esthonia, accompanied by a splendid and numerous retinue, to collect the taxes of Vladimir ; and, while passing through one of the towns, chanced to see Olaf, andj observing that he was a foreigner, sent for himj and inquired his name and country. Olaf related all his adventures, and Sigurd, dis- covering that he was his own nephew, bought him from the, peasant to whom he belonged, and took him to Noyogorod, though without making known his name and rank. It chanced that Olaf was one day in the market-place, when among many people assembled there, he recognised Klerkon, the corsair who had put Thoralf to death ; and, having a small axe in his hand, he struck him on the head and instantly killed him, and then, hastening home to his lodging, informed Sigurd of what he had done, A law existed in JTovogorod to the effect, that if any murder was committed in the city all the people should unite in seeking out and discovering the criminal, and according to the ancient Jewish law stone him to death in the streets ; and, fearing lest Olaf should suffer this summary punishment from the hands of the citizens, who were making a strict search for the assassin, Sigurd conducted him to the palace* of the Grand Princess,t and informing her of what had happened, en- treated her to protect his nephew. She was pleased with the appearance of the boy, whom she affirmed was far too handsome to be slain ; and, interceding for him with Vladimir, obtained a commutation of his punishment to a fine, which she herself immediately paid, and expressed a desire to receive him into her household. As it was con- trary to the laws of Russia for any foreign prince to reside in the country without the express permission of the Czar, Sigurd informed her of the real name and rank of Olaf, and * It was the custom In Novogorod for the Grnna Prince and Princess to reside In separate palaces, each being attended by an equally numerous retinue, t She ia called Allogla in the saga of Olaf Tryggvesoa, ftom wUlch this account Is taken. VLADIMIR THE GEEAT. 117 entreated her to oMain that permission for the Norwegian prince from her husband ; and Yladimir, pitying his mis- fortunes, entertained him at his court with all the honour due to the son of a king, and, after he had been several years in Russia, besto-wed upon him a high command in his army. But the esteem in which he was held by the prince drew against him the hatred and animosity of the boyards, who, objecting to any foreigner holding rank, or exercising so high a power in their country, endeavoured to prejudice the mind of Vladimir against the exiled prince, and raise jealous sus- picions in his mind ; and at length Olaf, observing that he was treated with increasing coldness by the Czar, and fearing lest his safety should be compromised if he resided longer in Russia, requested to be aillowed to leave Novogorod, as he longed to travel, and see the land where his family formerly reigned. Vladimir readily granted his request, and equipped a small fleet of ships for his escort ; and the Norwegian prince leaving Russia, sailed to Denmark, Ireland, and England, where he a few years later became a convert to Christianity, and subsequently repossessing himself of his kingdom, about the year 995 ; he closed his adventurous career in 1000.* In the latter period of his life, Vladimir is said to have felt great remorse for his former sins j and the tranquillity of his reign was much disturbed by the dissensions of his sons, among whom he had divided his empire, allowing each com- plete control in his own principality, and only exacting from them the payment of a small tribute. His favourite 'son, VassOi, died liefore him, and the rest, being discontented at the unequal size of the governments which their father had ceded to them, continually engaged in war with each other ; and the turbulent Petchenegans, taking advantage of the divided and troubled condition of the empire, again invaded Russia. The Czar advanced against them, and the opposing armies were drawn up on each side of the river Sula, when the prince of the Petchenegans despatched a herald to the Russian camp, with proposals to spare the blood of their subjects, by deciding the fate of the war in a single combat between two soldiers chosen from the hostile armies — he possessing among his troops a man of extraordinary size and agility, on whose success he fully relied. The offer had been • Lalns's "Sea-kings of KorTtH}-." 118 THE AECHER AND THE STEPPE. accepted, when a young Eussian stepped out of the ranks, and, falling on his knees before his prince, he requested that he might till the honourable post of combatant for his nation in the approaching duel. He was ordered first to prove his valour in an encounter with an infuriated bull, and, having obtained a signal success, he was unanimously proclaimed the champion of Eussia Ijy the army and the Ozar. The rival forces closed round the combatants, and waited with breathless anxiety the issue of the struggle between the gigantic Petchenegan and his smaller but more agile adver- sary. It lasted but a few moments, and terminating with the defeat and death of the former, the victor was elevated on the spot to the rank of a boyard, and an armistice of three years was agreed upon — the Petchenegans retiring to their own land. But, upon the conclusion of the truce, they again invaded Eussia, and, laying siege to one of her frontier towns, Yladimir immediately marched to the assistance of the inhabitants. However, his early success had now abandoned him : the Russians were defeated in a fierce battle before the walls, their army was completely routed and dispersed, and the Czar only escaped death or captivity by concealing him- self under a bridge, while the victorious troops passed on and plundered and devastated his territories. Jaroslaf, the prince of Novogorod, taking advantage of this defeat of his father's army, as its almost complete annihila- tion would probably render it impossible for the Ozar to enforce obedience upon his rebellious son ; and being chiefly induced to take this step by the wishes of the citizens of Novogorod, who had always been jealous of the supremacy of Kiof, and desired to form an independent state, he refused to pay the accustomed tribute, and armed himself against his father. Vladimir, collecting his scanty number of followers, put himself at their head, and prepared to march against Novogorod ; but the reverses his army had sustained, and the ingratitude of his son, so preyed upon his mind, that he died before he had advanced many miles on his route, on the 15tli of July, 1015, at the age of seventy-seven. He left eleven sons, including hia adopted nephew, among whom he had divided his empire ; namely, Sviatopolk, prince of Tver ; Soudeslaff, prince of Polotzk ; Nicolas, prince of Tchernigofi'j Vladimir, prince of Smolensko ; Micislaf, prince of Tmura- catan or Taman ; Boris, Gleb, Jaroslaf, prince of Novogorod; VLADIMIR THE GREAT. 119 Maslaf, Sviatoslaf, and Stanislaus ; and one daughter, Mary, who married Mieczyslav II., king of Poland. Historians have bestowed upon Vladimir the title of Great j and he and his wife, the Greek princess Anna, who died before him in 1011, are enrolled among the saints of Russia. His remains were interred in a marble coflan, and buried in the Church of the Tithes, to which he had caused the relics of the Grand Princess Olga to be removed, and which was afterwards burned and destroyed by the Tartars when they gained possession of Russia; but, in 1636, Peter Mogila, arch- bishop of Kiof, discovered under its ruins the coffins of the Czar and the Greek princess, and, having removed the head of Vladimir to the Pechersky monastery, he left the remaining bones undisturbed.* The introduction of Christianity forms a grand epoch in the history of every nation, from the complete revolution it produced in their manners and customs, by its creating a bond of union between them, which prevented their former perpetual and desiiltory wars. Prom that time they gradually settled to more peaceful and industrious occupations, living by agriculture or manual skill rather than by plundering their more wealthy or weaker neighbours, or following the restless and primitive pursuit of hunting ; a precarious mode of life, which has ever allowed little scope for the moral and intellectual development of those nations whose harsh climate, or unproductive soil, have compelled them to adopt the chase as their only means of subsistence. It was hardly to be expected that in Russia, from the manner in which Christi- anity was forced upon the people, it should make as much alteration in their condition and habits as if their conversion had proceeded more slowly, and from conviction, and not merely from obedience to their sovereign's will and command. The figure of their household god, with which every Russian was accustomed to adorn the walls of his hut, was replaced by a picture of his patron saint, and the enthusiasm with which they performed the rites of their pagan creed, was transferred to the services of the Christian faith ; but they assimilated these to many of their barbarous ceremonies, and retained many of their ancient superstitions, still regarding with awe and reverence the rivers and groves that they had formerly held as sacred to their gods, and keeping as holidays those days and seasons of the year which they had been * MouraYleB's "ChurcU of Kusala." 120 THE ABCHEE AND THE STEPPE. accustomed to set apart for tieir heathen festivals.* To this day, in the more remote villages and provinces of Russia, manyof their anniversary celebrations and customs rather resemble the idolatrous practices of their ancestors than those of a people who profess the Christian religion.t Little altera- tion appeal's to have been made in the clothing and manner of living of the peasantry ; and even the form, of their dwellings, from the days of Sviatozlaf and Vladimir to the present time ; for the Russians have always been remarkable for the tenacity with which they have adhered to their habits and customs, and for their aversion to any change or innovation; and the same love of music and poetry, attachment to their place of birth, indolence, and respect to age, appears to have characterized their peasantry then, as it does now. The practice which still prevails among the latter, of forming themselves into village communities, and holding their lands in common, eilecting a chief from among themselves every three years, appears to have been in force from the period when they first abandoned their nomadic habits, and much resembles the ancient system of Hindostan. As in both Russia and China, at the present day, a father was supreme in his household, his authority being absolute over his wife and children, as that of masters over slaves, and on his death the eldest son succeeded to his position as arbiter and supe- rior of the family.:}: Their women appear from the earliest * The Russian peasantry at the present day, almost nniversally celehrate their marriages at the season of the year formerly dedicated to the Slavonic gods of love and marriage, a practice which prevailed amongst the heathen Slavonians.— Dr. Pinkerton's ''Russia." t " On Midsummer's eve a custom still exists in Russia, among the lower classes, that can only he derived from a very remote antiquity, and is perhaps a remnant of the wor- ship of Baal. A party of peasant women and girls assemble in some retired and unfre- quented spot, and light a large Are, over which they leap In succession. If by chance anv one of the other sex should he tound near the place, or should have seen them in the act of performing the heathenish rite, it is at the imminent risk of his life; for the women would not scruple to sacrifice him for his temerity. I was assured that such instances had often been known." — "The Englishwoman in Russia." For an aecouiitof the same ceremony, in which the men also joined, see Dr. Pinker- ton's "Russia." A feast resembling the heathen Saturnalia was celebrated as late as the present cen- tury, in the very streets of the capital, by the peasantry of Uussia. t Haxthausen mentions in his work, one or two instances of the extent to which even now the patriarchal system is carried in Russia. "It is the custom in Moscow for all the daughters, whether married or single, to pass the whole of their evenings in the apartments of their mother, which greatly deranges the domestic life of the husband. 'The Princess G was mentioned to me as the type of the wife of a boyard of ancient Russia : every evening till her death she was surrounded by her daughters. On one occasion, one of the daughters, tlie Princess A , vpho lifild a high position at court, was prevented by her duty ITom visiting her mother, who, on the following morning, overwhelmed lier with the bitterest reproaches. Her daughter excused herself by pleading her obligations to the etiquette of the palace; but the sole answerwas, 'Every evening of a daugliter belongs to the mother, thiit is the usage of Russia.' Her son, who had commanded a corpi d'a7*m^e as gcneral-in-chief, and who had been successively an ambassador, a governor-general, and had fliled other high offices, was obliged, when at St. Petersburg, to wait on his mother every morning. He ventured one day to make a slight change in the stables of his mother, by substituting a good horse lor one that ha deemed bad ; his mother resented this boldness, lor the following morning she inflicted on him several severe blows, which he received with submission." VLADIMIB THE GBEA*. 121 ages to have been retained in the seclusion common amongst the Asiatic nations ; and, though this custom was somewhat relaxed during the short period that the Eussians communi- cated so constantly and familiarly with the Greeks, it was renewed in full force when the Tartars conquered Russia. Till the time of Peter the Great, the wives of the nobility were sel- dom permitted to cross the threshold of their houses, and then always closely veiled; they were even forbidden to appear in church ; and a custom existed in Russia, during the early years of her history, allowing no woman to put an animal to death, not even those that they required for food.* Although the nobles of this empire never encroached upon the prerogative of the crown, to the same extent as those in the other nations of Europe during the middle ages, yet they possessed some influence in the government of the state ; and in the chronicles of Nestor he mentions the public assemblies which the Grand Princes occasionally convened to decide upon important aifairs, and at which the clergy and even the simple citizens had a right to attend ; the boyards were obliged to follow their sovereign to battle, with their guards and retinues ready furnished with horses, accoutrements, and provisions, recom- pensing themselves with the spoil and prisoners whom they captured. Though they possessed slaves, these were generally prisoners of war or their descendants, for the peasants were not at that period, as in the rest of Europe, feudal serfs bound to the soil; this regulation having only been introduced into Russia in the sixteenth century, but were termed kabalnie, because they hired themselves out in a written contract, which was called kabala, for a specified term of years, or till the death of their employer, who was bound to receive with them a character from the chief of their village, otherwise he could not punish the vassal who robbed or deserted him.t The succession to the throne, as in most other Slavonic natious at that time, and according to the custom that now prevails among the Mahometan nations of the East, devolved not upon the son of the former monarch, but upon the oldest member of his family, and it would have been well if this practice had always been adhered to ; for the impolitic measure pursued « Till the reign of Peter the Great, a husband could nut his wife or children to death with Impunity, and it was the custom, in thn time of Vladimir, for a wife to taite oil her husband's boots on tlie day of her marriage, to show her complete subjection to iiini; and, till witliin the last few years, a bride always presented her husband on his wcddtng-day with a whip of her own construction, t JJubbe's " Ulstory of Russia." I 122 THE ARCHER AND THE STEPPE. by Sviatozlaf and Yladimir, of dividing tlie empire among their sons, produced great dissension in the state, and perpetual civil -wars. Her strength and political importance being diminished, she thus became a prey to her foreign enemies, opening by her internal troubles a way for the entrance of the fierce and restless tribes of Asia, who, wandering in search of forage for their horses, and pasture for their herds, upon her borders, were ever ready to profit by her divisions or calamities to make inroads upon her territories; and their continual invasions retarded for years the advancement of commerce and letters, and the social progress of Russia ; and ultimately, breaking off all communication with Constanti- nople and the West, replunged her people into the ignorance and barbarism from which, in the reigns of Olga and Vladimir, they appeared to be beginning to emerge. From the introduction of Christianity into Russia till the time of Peter the Great, the Russians, like the Greeks, dated the current year, which began in September, though by an erroneous calculation, from the creation of the world. Thus, the year of Vladimir's death, a. d. 1015, was called with them A. M. 6523. CHAPTER X. ^Ijiaiopolfi — f ^e ^oks xnfeah ^itssra — |aroslEf. "In the delight of moral prudence school'd. How feelingly at home the sovereign ruled, Lo ! he harangues his cohorts — ^there the storm Of battle meets him in authentic form. Yet high or low, None bleed, and none lie prostrate but the foe." — Wordsworth. From A-D. 1015 to 1053; or, according to the Russian dates, from a-m. 6523 to C5S1. SviATOPOLK, the son of Yaropolk, the elder brother of Vladimir, having been born after the death .of his father, had been adopted by the Czar as his own son, and had re- ceived the government of Tver as his share when that prince divided the empire among his sods ; but the succession to the throne of Kiof had long been the object of his ambition, and he had chiefly resided there during the declining years of Vladimir, with the intention of seizing upon this impor- tant city of the empire, as soon as the grave should have closed upon the Czar. But a formidable rival existed in the person of Boris, another sou of Vladimir, who was employed with the army against the Petchenegans at the time of his father's death, and who had "rendered himself extremely popular with his soldiers and the nation at large. The former unanimously proposed to assist him in gaining the vacant throne, but he rejected their offer, declaring that it devolved rightfully upon the elder brother ; this, however, did not preserve him from the cruelty of Sviatopolk, who, fearing that he might oppose his ambitious schemes, had already despatched assassins with orders to murder him. They entered his tent in the night, where he and his brother Gleb were engaged in prayer, and, having first struck down the sentinel who guarded it, put an end to their lives ; and these two young princes, who possessed many virtues, and were much beloved by the people, whose sympathy they especially procured, from their falling victims to the ambi- 124 THE AECHEE AND THE STEPPE. tion and cruelty of their brother while at their devo- tions, were, a few years after their death, canonized by the Eussian Church, and their tomb is still shown in the ancient cathedral at Tchernigoff. Another brother, who attempted to fly into Hungary, was seized upon and brought back to- Eof, where he was put to death, and Sviatopolk, supposing that the remaining sons of Vladimir were established at too great a distance to give him any cause for fear, assumed the government of Kiof ; but Jaroslaf, the prince of Novogorod, indignant at these cruelties, and resolved to avenge the murder of his brotherSj advanced -upon Kiof with an army, and, driving Sviatopolk from the capital, forced him to take refuge with his father-in-law, Boleslaf, king of Poland, whose assistance the deposed prince solicited for the recovery of his dominions. The Polish monarch with a powerful army entered Russia in the year 1018, and, having defeated the army of Jaroslaf, he compelled the city of Kiof to capitulate after a brave defence, and replaced Sviatopolk upon the throne ; and Jaroslaf having formed a scheme to surprise and carry off the latter fi'om his capital, and his design failing in the execution, retired to Novogorod, to which city he was pursued by the implacable Boleslaf, who defeated and destroyed his whole array at its veiy gates. Discouraged by his disasters, ashamed of his defeat, and fearing that his con- tinued ill-sUccess might alienate from him the affection of his people, Jaroslaf made preparations to cross tlie Baltic, and pass the remainder of his life as an adventurer in foreign lands, but, upon the entreaty of his subjects, he was induced to alter his determination and remain among them ; they also levied contributions upon their own city to enable him to procure mercenary troops to assist him iia the recovery of Kiof Meanwhile Boleslaf, with the Polish anny, having re-estab' lished Sviatopolk in his dominions, though at the same time exacting from him a yearly tribute, refused to withdraw from Kiof, which was at that time the most wealthy and luxurious city of the north, till at length her citizens and soldiers, wearied by the oppressions and exactions of the Poles, formed a conspiracy against them, designing to destroy their whole army by a sudden massacre, or by the more secret and insi- dious means of poison. But Boleslaf, having discovered their intentions on the eve of its fulfilment, assembled all his SVIATOPOLK — THE POLES INVABE EUSSIA. — JAROSLAP. 125 followers who were ia tlie town and surrounding country, and, after sacking and destroying the greater part of the capital, abandoned it with his subjects, every man loaded with the spoil and plunder of Kiof This city had been so much increased and eni-iched by Vladimir, tliafc, at the time of its occupation by the Poles, it contained three hundred churches and eight markets, and it had received from its people the boastful appellation of " the rival of Constan- tinople." Indeed, the historians of the time describe the splendid dresses worn by the inhabitants, their hot baths, and rich and sumptuous feasts, which their commerce with Greece provided with the wines of the Mediterranean, silver plate, and even the productions of the Indies j and they appear to have been entirely given up to luxury, dissipation, and idleness. Upon the retreat of Boleslaf, Sviatopolk immediately pursued him, but, encountering his army near the river Bog, was totally defeated, and forced to retire upon Kiof. At the same time, the Grand Prince received intelli- gence that Jaroslaf was advancing against him with the soldiers of Novogorod, their valour having been encouraged and revived by a successful campaign they had lately under- taken against the Chazars, who, during the latter years of the reign of Vladimir, had emancipated themselves from the yoke of the Russians, and whose khan, George Tzuda, Jaroslaf had taken prisoner ; and in this distress Sviatopolk was forced to accept the assistance of the Petchenegans, who, tempted by the hope of plunder, flocked eagerly to his standard. The armies met near the spot where Boris and Gleb had formerly been assassinated ; and Jaroslaf, before engaging with the enemy, harangued his troops, pointing out to them this circumstance, calling upon their valour to revenge the act, and concluding with a prayer to the Almighty to grant them success in the battle.* At the earliest dawn of day he attacked the foe, and continued in a fierce and desperate conflict tUl sunset, when the forces of Sviatopolk, though greatly superior in number to those of his adversary, having been routed with great slaughter, their leader was forced to quit the field, and, after being reduced to great misery, died upon the road, having wandered about from place to place after his defeat, which had dispersed his followers, disdaining to ask for mercy from his cousin, who, on/ the event of the battle^. • Bell's "History of Russia." 126 THE ARCHER AND THE STEPPE. had taken possession of Kiof. But the King of Poland, un- ■wUling to surrender entirely this principality into the hands of his former enemy, and elated by the victories he had lately gained over the Prussians, whose country he had invaded to avenge the murder of St. Adalbert,* again marched upon Kiof, and, surprising the army of Jaroslaf on the banks of the Bnieper, attacked the Russians before they had time to form, and, being seized with a panic, they fled in confusion, hurrying away their prince, who was almost trampled to death in their flight ; so that Boleslaf once more became master of the capital. It was not lUl after his death in 1025, that Jaroslaf succeeded in expelling his son and successor, Mieczyslaf II., and the Polish army, entirely from Russia, when a peace being concluded between them, it was confirmed by the marriage of the Polish king with Mary, the sister of Jaroslaf and daughter of Vladimir, and con- ■tinued throughout the whole reign of Jaroslaf. As soon as this prince had re-established himself on the throne of Kiof, he invaded the principality of Polotzk, the territory of his elder brother Soudeslaff, who had taken part against him in the late wars, and, defeating and capturing the unfortunate chief, he threw him into prison, where he detained him in close confinement throughout the whole of his reign, though, on the death of Jaroslaf, Soudeslaff was released by his nephew Iziaslaf, the son and successor of the Grand Prince, and, em- bracing a monastic life, assumed the cowl in the cloisters of Pechersky at Kiof. One of the sons of A^ladimir, who had received the town and government of Smolensko from his father, appears to have taken no part in the wars of his brothers, but trans- mitted his principality to his descendants, which thus, for a time, became separated from the Russian empire.t The foundation of this city is supposed to have been coeval with that of Novogorod ; it was a flourishing town and state before the time of Rurik, and was annexed by Oleg to his dominions on his march to the conquest of Kiof. On hearing of the successful result of the long war between the Poles and Russia, Mioislaf, the seventh son of Vladimir, and prince of Tmutaracau, a town which had been captured •St. Adalbert went to Prussia in 1010, to preach Christianity to the heathens of that conntry. According to Dr. Clarlte, he preached in the tenth century in liussla, the Grand Princess Olga having requested the Emperor Otho to send misslouaries to convert lerempire. S^gur. SVIATOPOLK — THE POLES INVADE RUSSIA — JAEOSLAF. 127 by Sviatozlaf from the Khazars, in the modem peninsula of Taman, on the sea of Azof, sent a letter to Jaroslaf, re- questing from him the cession of a small portion of their father's vast dominions, of which the Grand Prince was now almost the sole possessor. Micislaf had proved himself a brave and successful general in many wars with the restless mountain tribes of the Caucasus, by whom his little kingdom had been frequently menaced ; and, having terminated a hostility that had lasted for many years, by defeating in single combat the chief of the Circassians, he built the church of Taman in remembrance of his success ; a memorial which exists at the present day. He also assisted the Greek Emperor in an expedition against the Khazars of the Crimea ; but on receiving from Jaroslaf, in compliance to his demand, a small territory, which was insufficient to satisfy his ambi- tion, he marched with an army into Russia, and, after carry- ing on for some time a successful war in his brother's dominions, agreed to conclude a peace. After this it was finally arranged that the two brothers should reign jointly and with equal power over the whole empire ; and they continued to govern amicably together till the death of Micislaf, which took place seven years after the conclusion of the truce. By order of this prince, the cathedral of the Saviour at Tchernigoff was built.* In 1030 the province of Esthonia revolted against Russia, and proclaimed itself an' independent state. Jaroslaf marched against it, and, after re-establishing his authority, founded the town of Dorpat, called by the Russians Jourief,t where he placed a garrison to collect the tribute. Dorpat remained in the possession of the Russians till the year 1210, when it was captured by Volgum, Grand Master of the Knights of the Sword. To show his gratitude for the fidelity of Novo- gorod, and for its valuable assistance in his time of need, Jaroslaf granted to its citizens many privileges, and gave them a form of government which laid the foundation of the * Monravieflrs "Church of Russia." t Youri, or George, was the Christian name of Jaroslaf. Blaclcmore, In his notes to Mouravieff 's " Church of llussla," quotes a short extract from a paper presented to tlie Society of Russian History and Antiquities, In wliich, with regard to the doubie names of these princes, he says, "The ancient Siavonians' had only one name, to which was added their patronymic The Rusao-Slavoniana had uaualiy three names; one given by the father at their birth, another at their baptism, and the third, their patronymic, as for instance, Sviatopollc Michael Isyaslavich. The Christian names of many of the princes are not known, and it is imagined that they were purposely kept secret, that the bearers of them might not be subject to sorcery or Incantatlou, which It was supposed could not effect unless doue in the right name." 128 THE AECHEE AUD THE STEPPE. ittdependence and prosperity they enjoyed during the middle ages. The governor of the province, who was always to be a prince of the royal family, on his installation was bound upon oath to observe the laws, and took no part in the deliberations of the people. The first magistrate in the city was the posadnich, or mayor, who was elected for a limited time, and under him was the senate, composed of the boyards, which was elective, and the tisatsM* or tribune, one of whose members was chosen by every hundred freemen, that class consisting of all who were neither nobles or slaves. The citizens sat in judgment upon their own order ; none but Novogorodian magistrates could be appointed by the sove- reign in the province, and those were to be approved of by the posadnick ; and no citizen of Novogorod could be arrest- ed for debt. They had also the right of imposing their own taxes, and framing their own commercial Iaws.t Jaroslaf also promiilgated a legislative code, called Gramota Soudebuaict, for the government of the whole empire, and they appear to have been the first written laws used in Russia. The judges travelled from place to place, and were supported and paid by the inhabitants of the district where they administered justice. The punishment of death was abolished ; formerly, when a murder had been committed, the father, brother, son, or nephew, might avenge it, but no other ; unless it had been inflicted upon a citizen of Novo- gorod, in which case the inhabitants of the town were bound to avenge him by stoning the offender to death ; but this custom was no longer permitted, instead of it a fine being fixed as the penalty of the crime. For the assassination of a boyard eighty grivnas was exacted, a grivna being worth about a pound's weight of silver, for that of a free Russian forty grivnas, and for every woman half that sum ; but for the murder of a female slave a larger fine was adjudged than for that of a man. For a blow with the fist, or the sheath or handle of a sword, for knocking out a tooth, or pidling a man by the beard, the fine was twelve grivnas ; for a blow with a club three grivnas, and the punishment for stealing a. horse was imprisonment for life. The only absolute slaves were prisoners of war, men or women bought of foreigners and their descendants ; but a debtor who could not acquit himself of his obligations was sold to his creditors, whose * Karamslu's " History of Russia." t IbM. SVIATOPOLK — TIIE POLES INVADE RUSSIA — JAEOSLAF. 129 servant he remained till lie had ransomed himself by labour. A man could not put his slave to death, and freemen occasion- ally sold themselves to a boyard, some to obtain protection, others to procure subsistence ; but they could only sell them- selves or their children for a limited term of years. It was allowable to kill a robber, if caught in tbe fact, during the night, but if he were detained till morning, it was compulsory to bring him before the judge ; and if proved by witnesses that he had been put to death when bound, and incapable of doing harm, it was considered as a murder, and punished accordingly. Usury was at that time so exorbitant, that a regulation was made permitting no lender to claim a higher rate of interest than fifty per cent, a year.* The revenue of the sovereign consisted of the produce of his personal estates, voluntary contributions, and the fines that were exacted from criminals. Jaroslaf founded a college at Novogorod, where he maintained at his own cost three hundred noble youths ; procuring for them instructors from Constantiuople, and causing translations to be made of the works of the Greek fathers into the Slavonic tongue, in which labour he personally assisted the priests, he formed them into a small library, established by himself, at Kiof. In this reign psalms and hymns were first sung in the churches, the mode of choral singing, now prevalent in Russia, being introduced into the empire by three Greek singers, who were brought from Constantinople, with their families, for the purpose ; and the Grand Prince engaged in his service the most skilful ai-tists from Greece, who erected in Kiof the cathedral of St. Sophia, after the model of that of Byzantium, besides the monastery of St. George and the convent of St. Irene, in the same city. Novogorod Sieverski, and many other towns, owe also their foundation to Jaroslaf, who in 1044 built the Kremlin at Novogorod ; and his court was the resort of exiled and unfortunate princes, his family having formed alliances with most of the royal houses of Europe. About the year 1019, Jaroslaf sent an embassy to Olaf the Saint, king of Norway, demanding of him the hand of his daughter Ingigerd in marriage, who agreed to his pro- posals on the condition of receiving from her husband the town and principality of Ladoga; at the same time, she * Karnmsla's " Histoiy of Kussla." 130 THE AHCHEK AND THE STEPPE. stipulated, that iblie should be accompanied to Novogorod by a Swede, who should hold the same rank in Kussia* that he did in his own country ; and, on her request being granted, she chose her brother-in-law, the Earl Eognvald, to conduct her there, bestowing upon him the government of Ladoga. Not long after the marriage of his daughter, Olafwas driven from his kingdom by Earl Hakon, a rebellious and turbulent vas- sal, and with his wife and son took refuge in Russia, where he was presented by Jaroslaf with a tract of land sufficient for the support of his followers ; the Grand Prince, likewise, offering bim the sovereignty of a province on the Volga, which he refused, as he purposed undertaking a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. But the death of Hakon taking place in 1030, and Olaf dreaming one night that an angel commanded him to return to Norway, he repaired to his own kingdom, leaving his son Magnus to receive his education at Novogorod, and endeavoured by force of arms to re-establish himself on his throne. The expedition, however, proved unfortunate, for the Norwegian king was defeated and killed in the fatal battle of Stiklestadt,-]- fought on the 29th of July of that year ; and his half-brother, the celebrated Harald Hardrada, J having been severely wounded in the same engagement, escaped to Russia, where he was most hospitably and honour- ably received by the Grand Prince, who made him one of his generals. In the poem of " Bolverk the Skald," his residence in that country is thus mentioned : — " The king's sharp sword lies clean and bright, Prepared in foreign lands to fight; Our ravens croak to have their fill. The wolf howls fi'om the distant hilL Our brave king is to Russia gone, Braver than he on earth there's none; His sharp sword will carve many a feast, For woll and raven in the eastH After remaining several years in Russia, in 1034 he, with many of his followers, joined the Varangian guard, which was principally composed of his countrymen, at Constanti- nople j and accompanying the Greeks in many warlike expe- ditions to Sicily, and against the Saracens, both in Palestine • Lalng's " Sea-kings of Norway." " Saga of Olaf the Snint." t Olaf was worshipped as a saint, and churches dedicated to his memoTv in Sweden, Norway, Denmarli, England, Kussia, and even in Constautinoiile, and his sbrine was long resorted to by pilgrims. ± The Stern. . 11 .Saga of " Harald Hardrada. SVIATOPOLK— THE POLES IITVADE RUSSIA — JAEOSLAF. 131 and Africa, he gradually amassed great ■wealth and treasure, both in gold and jewels. From -time to time he sent this by Russian merchants to Novogorod, to be intrusted to the care of Jaroslaf until his return to his native land.* During his residence at the Grand Prince's court, he had formed an attachment to Jellisaveta (Elizabeth), or EUisof, as she is called in the Norwegian annals, the daughter of Jaroslaf; and while sailing across the Black Sea, on his return to her father's dominions, he composed sixteen songs in her praise, all ending in the same words, of wliich the following is a specimen : — " Past Sicily's wide plains we flew, A dauntless, never-wearied crew ; Our viking steed rusli'd til rough tbe sea. As vilting-lilte fast, last sail'd we. Never, 1 tiling, along tliis sliore Bid Norseman ever sail before ; Yet to tlie Eussian queen, I fear, My gold adoru'd, I am not dear." On his return to Novogorod, in 1045, he took all the gold, silk, jewels, and precious stones, which he had accumulated while in the service of tbe Greek emperor into his own jjossession ; and the Norwegian sagas relate that " they altogether made so vast a treasure, that no man in the nor- thern land,s had ever seen the like before belonging to one man ; " for he had assisted the Greeks in the capture of eighty strongholds, and had been three times through the emperor's treasury, the soldiers and officers of the Varangian guard having the privilege of passing through the imperial treasury on the death of the emperor, and keeping whatever they could seize upon while marching across. The winter after Harald's return to Russia, he married the princess Jellisa- veta, who had refused the hand of several princes during his absence, and the event is thus related by an ancient Norwe- gian bard. Stuff the Blind : — ■"Agder's chief now gainM the queen. Who long his secret love had been ; •Of gold, no doubt a mighty store. The princess to her husbaud bore."t Having remained two years longer in Russia, he embarked « According to some author.*, the princess Zoe, of Constantinople, wished to marry him, and on Ills refusal tiirew him into prison, from whence he escaped and returned to Kussla. tliBlng's "Sea-kings of Norway." Sagaof "HaraldHardrada.' 132 THE ARCHER AND THE STEPPE- for Norway, on the invitation of his nephew Magnus,* who. had lived several years after the death of Olaf at the court of Novogorod, and only quitted it at the pressing solicitations of his subjects, with a small fleet of ships, for his native land. The voyage of Harald to Norway is commemorated in the verses of the Norse bard, Valgard of Valli :^- *' The fairest cargo ahipe'er bore From Russians distant eastern stiorei Tlie gallant Harald iiomeward brings, Gold, and a fame that Skald still sings." He reigned jointly with Magnus till the death of the latter in 1047, when Harald became sole possessor of the kingdom ; and subsequently assisting Tostig, Earl of Nor- thumberland, the brother of Harold, king of England, in his invasion of that prince's dominions, they were both defeated and killed in a battle fought near York, on the 2oth of September, 1066, and the Norwegian monarch was suc- ceeded on his throne by his sons Olaf and Magnus.t About the year 1040, Jaroslaf bestowed the government of Novogorod upon his eldest son, Vladimir, who "was at that time twenty years of age; and had scarcely established himself on his throne before he again revived the project of a naval invasion of Constantinople — an expedition which had not been undertaken for hostile purposes since the unfor- tunate attempt of Igor, and which in this instance was not destined to meet with greater success. Under the pretence of obtaining satisfaction for the murder of a Russian in the Byzantine empire, he sailed to the entrance of the Bosphorus; but his fleet was repulsed in the attempt to force a passage by the Grecian ships, armed with their destructive artificial fire, and 15,000 men fell victims to the flames. But the fleet of Constantinople becoming dispersed in the pursuit, the * Magnus reigned from about 1035 to 1047; after the defeat and death of his father, St, Olaf, he remained for several years in Kussia. Sigvat the Skald says— •' I ask the merchant oft, who drives His trade to Kussia, 'How he thrives. Our noble prince? How lives he there?' And still good news, his praise I hear." And Arwer, another bard, shortly before his return to Norway, says— " It is no loose report that he Who will command o'er land and sea. This- generous youth who scatters gold, Norway's brave son, but ten years old, r« rigging siiips in Buasia's lake ISIis crown, with friends' support, to take." ITe was joined in Novogorod by many of his fathei-'s followers, wjiom lie accompanied to Sweden, where they ultimately regained possession of Norway, t Lalng's " Sea-kings of Norway." SVIATOPOLK— THE POLES INVADE EUSaiA — JAHOSLAP. 13S Vftnguard was surrounded by Russian ships, and their pro- vision of fire being exhausted, twenty-four of their galleys ■were either captured or destroyed by the remaining vessels of Bussia ;* and the Emperor Constantino Monomachus, to revenge this partisxl defeat, caused the eyes to be put out of all those Russian prisoners who had fallen into the hands of the Greeks. Jaroslaf was very indignant at this cruelty to his subjects, and on the death of the metropolitan of Kiof, Theo- pemptus, after the conclusion of the war, he called together the Russian bishops, to elect a new primate from among them- selves, without any reference or communication with the Byzantine patriarch.-}- A priest, Hilarion, was elected by the conclave ; but not being satisfied at the irregular manner in which he had been chosen, and this infringement of the ecclesiastical rule, the new metropolitan sought, and obtained, from the patriarch, Michael Cerularius of Constantinople, a benedictory letter, and an order confirming him in his office. In 1051, an embassy of bishops was sent by Henry I., king of France, to the court of Jaroslaf at Kiof, to ask the hand of his daughter Anna in marriage. She accompanied the ambassadors back to France, with many rich gifts from her father to her husband,^ and the same year the death of Vladimir, Grand Prince of Novogorod, took place. He was succeeded in his government by his brother Sviatozlaf, and buried in the cathedral of St. Sophia at Novogorod, which had just been completed under his directions, and whose walls he had caused to be decorated by Greek artists, with paintings copied from those in the churches of Constantinople ; it also contains the tombs of his wife Alexandra, his uncle Micislaf, the brother of Jaroslaf, and his mother Irene, the daughter of Olaf, king of Noi'way. |{ The death of Jaroslaf occurred in 1053, about two years after that of his son. A short time before, he had divided his empire§ among his five surviving sons, making the younger ones tributary to the eldest, Iziaslaf, the prince of * Gibbon's "Decline and Tall of the Roman Empire." t MouravielTs "Church of Russia." I Anna Jaroslafovna was the mother of PhiUp I, king of France. She founaed » convent hi that country, and after her death was enrolled among tlie French saints. II Coxe's " Travels in Poland, Russia," &c § It is the custom at the present day In Russia for a father to leave his estate to be divided equally among his sous, so thatalarye property seldom descends to mure than two or three scnerations; and, as In the case of Vladimir and Jaroslaf, it is not unusual, when a nobleman is srowiiig old, for him to divide his property in his lifetime among his children, reserving to himsell only a small portion, BUffloieiit for his own maintenauce, or residing with one of them till his death. 134 THE AECHER AND THE STEPPE. Kiof, and empowering the latter to put down any insubordi- nation on the part of his brothers by force of arms ; and on his deathbed, remembering the calamitous -wars which had followed the decease of Sviatozlaf and Vladimir, and the dis- sensions which the partitioning of the empire had always occasioned, he entreated his sons to live at peace with one another, and not peril the safety and welfare of their country for their own selfish ambition. He was buried in the cathedral at Kiof, which he had founded, and whose walls have survived the storm of the Mongol invasion, and every fire, sack, and siege to which the unfortunate city has been since subjected ; and the marble monument still stands that was erected over his tomb, and, being almost the only sarco- phagus of the kind in Russia, it has been supposed that it was brought originally from Constantinople.* For the period in which he lived, Jaroslaf was a learned and accomplished prince, and a diligeat student at a time when reading was chiefly confirmed to the priests. He had restored to his empire the inestimable blessings of peace, which he generally preserved throughout his life, and his memory was long held in well-merited gratitude and esteem, for the justice and moderation with which lie ruled, and the wisdom and equity of his laws ; but the disastrous practice of the period to which he conformed, of dividing his dominions among his sons, produced at his death a repetition of the dissensions and revolutions which had ushered in the com- mencement of the former reigns ; and the imperial princes, disregarding the dying injunctions of their fathei-, and for- getting every other consideration in ambition for their own personal aggrandisement and desire for independent sovereign power, replunged Russia into all the horrors of a disastrous and desolating civil war. In appearance, Jaroslaf was slightly made, with black eyes and hair, and rather below the middle stature. He married the princess Ingigerd of Norway, who, according to a custom that still prevails at the court of Russia, -{■ took the name of Irene on embracing the Greek faith, and by whom he had six sons and four daughters ; namely, Vladimir, who died before him ; Iziaslaf, who married a daughter of the Emperor * Plnkerton'a "Russia." t Every foreign princess, wlio ratirries a prince of the imperial famiiv of Russia, is obliged to adopt the Greelt rellKlon, at tlie same time ciiangius iier name. and talung tliat of a saint in the Russian calendar. SVIATOPOLK — THK POLES INVADE RUSSIA — JAROSLAF. 135 Henry III. of Germany, and succeeded to the throne of Eaof ; Sviatozlaf, prince of Novogorod, -who married the sister of Casimir, king of Poland ; Vizislaf, prince of Polotzk ; Vyze- vold, who married a princess of the Greek empire, the daughter of Constantine Monomachus, and Halte the Bold ; Jellisaveta, the wife of Harald Hardrada, king of Norway ; Anna, the queen of Henry I., king of France ; and two other daughters, of whom one became the wife of Boleslaf II., king of Poland, and the other espoused the king of Hungary. The invasion of Constantinople by Yladimir Jaroslafovitz, was the last hostile attempt of the Russians upon the empire of the Greeks. From this time their friendly intercourse remained undisturbed for many years ; but the civil wars that prevailed in Kiof during the reigns of the sons of Jaroslaf, greatly diminished their trade and commerce and as the Tartar tribes in Russia grew more powerful from the weak- ness of Kiof, their merchant vessels, unless strongly armed and attended, were frequently plundered in the Dnieper by these depredators, long before they had reached the shores of the Euxine Sea. But the Russians remained firmly attached to the religious faith of the Greeks, and were the only nation who responded with any assistance to the last appeal of the Byzantine emperor for support against the final invasion of the Turks ; and as Constantinople became more deeply imbued with ecclesiastical prejudices, and more hostile to the Latin nations, " the Eastern Church," says Finlay, " be- came in their eyes the symbol of their nationality, and the bigoted attachment of the Russians to the same religious formalities, obtained for them from the Byzantine Greeks the appellation of the most Christian nation."* * Finlay's " Byzantine Empire."" CHAPTER XL Sljj guitars— f^£ gCitrKs— llal^moab jof iljijni— fe in&ahs " 'Tis he of Gazna— fierce in wratU He comes, anrt India's diadems Lie scattered in his ruinous path, His blood-hounds he adorns with gems. Priests in the veiy fane he slaughters. And chokes up with the glittering wrecks Of golden sliriues, the sacred waters." — Moors. Having seen, the Russians settle down under a regular government, with a just and equal code of laws, and begin- ning to spread among themselves the polite arts and man- ners of the Greeks ; before proceeding to the division of their provinces, and the decline of their power, which from this time gradually diminished till they had reached the com- paratively insignificant position that they maintained in the middle ages, it is necessary to examine into the then existing condition of the Turanian or Tartar nations of Central Asia, by whom this change in their prospects was chiefly influenced, and their subsequent misfortunes introduced. I have already mentioned the most powerful and anciently civilized of their race, the Huns or Hiongnus, their empire, their decline, their invasion of Europe, and ultimate fall. A few years after they had sunk into obscurity, the Avars first appeared on the confines of Europe ; and, coming from Tran- soxiana, encamped near the foot of the Caucasus, entered into an alliance with the Slavonic tribe of the Alans, and, traver- sing the east of Russia, invaded Georgia, and besieged and captured the town of Bosphorus in the Crimea. They are stated, and it appears with probability, by the writers of the time, to have been a section of the Huns, whom they strongly resembled both in appearance and manners, with the excep- tion that they wore their hair long ; and Zeuss has observed, THE AVARS — THE TUHKS, ETC. 137 that one tribe among that people had formerly been distin- guished in the works of a Byzantine writer, by their name. In the reign of Justinian, the emperor of Constantinople, some ambassadors accompanied an Alan prince in a political mission he had undertaken to the capital of the Greeks. On obtaining an audience of the sovereign, Candish, the chief of the envoys, thus addressed him in the name of his own chagan or prince* — " You see before you, O mighty prince ! the I'epresentatives of the strongest and most populous of nations, the invincible and irresistible Avars. We are -willing to devote ourselves to your service ; we are able to vanquish all the enemies who now disturb your repose ; but we expect, as the price of alliance and reward of our valovir, a yeai'ly subsidy of that gold and those treasures with which you superfluously abound, and a rich and fruitful possession for our numerous people." But the emperor feared that these •wild allies might prove as dangerous to their friends as to their foes ; and, anxious to keep them at a safe distance from his own dominions, he recommended to their energies the subjection of the Slavonians and Bulgarians, who at this time perpetually harassed with their plundering inroads the border provinces of the Roman empire. Loaded with presents, the ambassadors returned to the encampment of their horde in Southern Russia, and informed their chiefs of the emperor's advice ; and, precipitating th(;mselves upon Poland and Ger- many, the Avars in ten years had obliterated every trace of many Bulgarian and Slavonic nations,-]- rendered the others tributary ; and, though they sustained a signal defeat from the armies of the Austrasian prince, Sigebert, ended by founding a Eurojiean kingdom, later known as that of the Magyars, in Hungary. The second in importance and extent to the Huns, among the Tartars, were the Turks, known to the Chinese as the Thu-kiu ; and, according to Klaproth and Remusat, were themselves a tribe of -those Hiong-nus who had entered the military service of China ; and later, being driven from the province of Schensi by the dynasty of the Wei, had taken refuge under their leader Assena near the ■precipitous mountains of Altai. Here, dwelling under the' foot of a helmet-shaped peak, termed from the circumstance by the Chinese Thu-kun, and from whence they derived their name, they became celebrated under their leader Thurnen, •Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Kom an Empire." t Kid. K. 138 THE AKCHEE AND THE STEPPE. who lived about a.d. 545 ; and a few years after, tteir khan, Dizabulus, was visited by ambassadors from Constantinople, whom he received with barbaric splendour and profusion, seated on a couch supported by two wheels.* Like the other Tartar nations, they supported large flocks, and lived in tents ; a golden wolf on the top of a speai-, formed the ensign of their tribe, and for years they carried on a desultory war with China, whom a Turkish prince once proposed that his people should rival and imitate, by founding cities and temples for themselves in their native deserts. But this advice was defeated by a stronger argument from another of the chiefs.t "The Turks," said he, "are not equal in number to one hundredth of the inhabitants of China. If we balance their power, and elude their armies, it is because we wander with- out any fixed habitation. When we are strong, we advance and conquer ; and when weak, retire and are concealed. Should the Turks confine themselves within the walls of cities, the loss of a battle would be the destruction of their empire. The Bonzes of China preach only patience and humility. Such, king ! is not the religion of heroes." The Turks, till they had invaded and adopted the faith of the various southern Asiatic states, believed in one Supreme Being, to whom alone they made sacrifices, though they had many religious songs in honour of the power and beneficence of the spirits of the elements j and, like all the Turanian nations, were es;trem.ely superstitious, consulting soothsayers, magicians, and witchcraft. Their laws were rigid and impartial as those of Sparta ; the most serious crimes wei-e punished with death ; a robber was compelled to make restitution to the amount of ten times the value of the theft ; and no punishment could be too horrible, or con- tempt and ignominy too severe, for any appearance of cowardice.^ At the time of their emigration to the south, one of their tribes, separating from the rest of the horde, advanced northwards, and settled upon the barren and frozen plains of the Lena, where, under the name of Yak- hutes, they still lead a wandering life, and speak a language which even now bears some resemblance to that of their more polished and luxurious brethren of Europe. The Turks first became conspicuous about the middle of ♦ Pritchard*s " Natural Htstory of Man." t Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of tlie Boman Empire." t Ibid. THE AVARS— THE TURKS, ETC. ISO" the sixth century, whea they had ah-eady more than once invaded Persia and the districts of Mavarnalhar ; and a few years later they possessed themselves of Khorassan, from whence they were shortly after expelled by the invasion of the Saracens, who had rendered themselves masters of Persia, and founded Bagdad. In the ninth century, the whole nation issued forth from the Mongolian steppes, and, follow- ing the path trodden by the more adventurous of their tribe, crossed the Jaxartes, and encamped in the plains of Trans- oxiana; then, turning towards the west, conquered and overran the kingdom of the White Huns at Carizme, who had maintained their existence on the eastern shores of the Caspian for several hundreds of years ; and among whom, through the influence of Timothy the patriarch of the Nes- torians,* who had sent thither several monks of his sect, Christianity was beginning to make some progress, though opposed by the votaries of the Mahometan faith. The latter had already made a considerable number of converts, and founded many mosques. The empire of the Turks, which now extended from the shores of the Caspian to the deserts around Cashgar and Samarcand, and from the banks of the Irtish and Permia to the borders of Iran or Persia, con- tinued united in Asia till about the middle of the tenth century, when it fell to pieces and became separated into several states ; and two of their hordes, again invading the northern unprotected provinces of Persia, wrested Khorassan and Ghizni, or Gazna, from the dominions of the caliphs. The position of this people with regard to Bagdad at that period, was very similar to the relations of the Slavonians and Bulgarians in respect to the city of Constantinople. Like her western neighbour, the wealthy Persian capital was looked upon with greedy eyes by all the wild and warlike tribes of the north. They continually invaded and plundered the frontier cities, and harassed her fertile territories ; her gold was sufficient to attract their horsemen thousands of miles across sands and rocks ; the science cultivated by the Saracens at Bagdad, has enlightened the whole civilized world ; her merchants traversed Asia with their stores, and brought back fruits and tidings from the remotest East, yet she was unable to drive these warriors from her provinces, and often hardly prevented them from entering her own • He was patriarch from A.D. 777 to 820. 140 THE ARCHER AND THE STEPPE. ■well-guarded gates. Rising high on the banks of the mighty Tigris, on a plain where scarcely a hill intervenes betweea the Persian gulf and Mediterranean sea, and near the site of the ancient Nineveh and Babylon, she had been founded in ad. 762 by Almanzor, the caliph of the Mahc- metan Arabians or Saracens, whose people about a century before, and in obedience to the decrees of Mahomet, had invaded simultaneously both the east and the west, and, con- quering and overrunning Persia with fire and sword, had replaced the ancient creed of the fire-worshippers for the doctrines and faith of the Mecca prophet. Almanzor estab- lished the throne of the Saracen caliphs at Bagdad, which from this time rose inpow«r an— llofcogorob— Itiataskg pofan juf t^^ €\mt^. *' The fairest cities of tlie land Are fired by an invader's hand ; And famine fuilows in the car Of the Ml demon, civil war."— Anon. From A.D. 1053 to 1078, or from A.M. 6581 to 6606. The peace and prosperity wMch Russia enjoyed during the latter years of Jaroslaf, continued but a few years after his death. The army of Kiof having been very much re- duced by its separation from those detachments who had accompanied the imperial princes as guards and retinues to their various sovereignties, Yizislaf, the prince of Polotzk, taking advantage of the diminished strength of the capital, to endeavour to throw ojff his allegiance to Iziaslaf, and in- crease his own dominions, marched an army into the territories of his brother, by whom he was defeated, and forced to retire upon Polotzk. To this town he was pursued by Iziaslaf, who, capturing him and his two sons, loaded them with chains and threw them into prison, threatening them with immediate death unless they renounced all claim to the principality, and acknowledged him as the lawful sovereign of Polotzk and Kiof. But the inhabitants, in- censed at this treatment of their prince, rose up in arms against the usurper, and assisted by Sviatozlaf, the prince of Novogorod, and his brother Vyzevold, drove him from his kingdom, and compelled him to seek refuge in Poland, whose sovereign, Boleslaf II., was his cousin and brother-in-law, and in 1067 he was formally deposed from his throne by the National Assembly of Kiof. Upon this, Iziaslaf endeavoured to rouse the king of Poland in his behalf, who, urged by the hope of establishing for himself a claim to the empire, in right of his mother and wife, who were both Russian IZIASLAF — THE POLES INVADE RUSSIA, ETC. 153 princesses, advanced witli a numerous army into Russia, and was encountered by tlie forces of Vizislaf within a few miles of Kiof. When "Vizislaf perceived the Polish troops drawn up in order of battle, though in former wars he had shown him- self by no means deficient in courage and intrepidity, he was seized with a fear and irresolution, which he vainly endea- voured to overcome. He escaped from his tent and fled from the field, and then ashamed of this pusillanimity, and attempting to recover his self-possession, returned ; but at the sight of the enemy was again overcome with a panic, which all his efforts failed to conquer, and rendered him totally incapable of commanding his troops, till, finally abandoning the army, his soldiers, deprived of their chief, dispersed without engaging the enemy. The inhabitants of Kiof, finding themselves left to the mercy of the Poles, who were marching upon the city without opposition, solicited the assistance of Sviatozlaf and Vyzevold, who procuring a re- conciliation between the citizens and their deposed monarch, Iziaslaf again ascended the throne. They also recovered for him the towns and provinces of which they had formerly deprived him. Polotzk and Minsk were the only cities that attempted to stand a siege ; but the former was soon forced to capitulate, and in the latter, whose resistance had been more obstinate and protracted, all the men were cruelly massacred by the victors, and the women and children dis- tributed for slaves among their warriors.* Vizislaf having escaped from his dominions, shortly afterwards died in ob- scurity, and the Polish king being recalled to Poland with his army by the prospect of a war with Hungary, Kiof was once more freed from foreign invaders. But dissensions were continually arising among the princes, who perpetually encroached upon each others' territories. George, the metropolitan of Kiof, was so alarmed at these disturbances, that he abandoned his see and returned to Constantinople, his native place ; and in 1072 Sviatozlaf again took up arms against his brother, and expelled him from his throne and country. Iziaslaf having vainly applied for the as- sistance of the emperor Henry IV. of Germany, accompanying his solicitations by rich and splendid presents, which dazzled and astonished the simple and unrefined court of the- German kaiser, who, howevei', only remonstrated fruitlessly by an. » Pinlicrton'8"IiHasia." 154 THE AECHEE AND THE STEPPE. ambassador with tbe usurper, sent his son to E-ome to intreat the interference of the Pope in his behalf; -while Sviatozlaf remained alike deaf to the bold reproof of Theodosius, a hermit, who dwelt in a cave near Kiof, where he founded a monastery, remarkable for the asceticism and severity of its rules, and the holy lives of its priests.* Gregory VII., the ambitious and zealous Hildebrand, who extended the power of the Church of Rome to a hitherto unknown extent, then filled the chair of St. Peter ; and eagerly embracing the oppor- tunity which appeared to present itself of including Russia within the bounds of the Papal see, and in the expectation that Iziaslaf would, on the recovery of his dominions, re- nounce, the supremacy of the schismatical patriarchate of Constantinople, and acknowledge the authority of the tiara of Rome, he commanded the king of Poland to assist the Rus- sian prince in regaining his throne, and addressed a long letter to Iziaslaf. -j- In this document he states, that, at the request of the son of the deposed monarch, he had administered to him the oath of fealty to St. Peter J and his successors, not doubting that it would be approved by the king of Russia, and all the lords of his kingdom, since the apostle would henceforward regard their country as his own, and defend it accordingly. At the command of the Pope, Boleslaf once more entered Russia with a powerful army; and having ravaged the border provinces, and sacked and utterly de- stroyed the large town of Wolyn, he transported the plunder * MouravlelTs "Church of Russia." t Blackmore in his notes to Mouravleffs " Russian Church," gives the letter as printed in Baronius's Annals, torn. xi. 472.— "Gveccrius semis servorum Del Demetrlo." (this was Iziaslaf s baptismal name) "reglEussorumetreginsB, Apostolicambenedictionem. Filiusvesterhmina Apostolorum vlsitaiis ad nos venit, et quod regnum illud doiio Sanctl Petri per inanus nostras vellet obtinere, eidem beato Petro Apostolorum Principl debita fidelitate exhibita, devotis pre- cibus postulavlt, indubitaiiter asseverans illara suam petitionera vestro consensu ratam fore ac stabilem, st Apostolicaj auctoritatls gratia ac niunimine donaretur. Cuius votis et petitionlbus, quia justa videbantur turn ex consensu vestro turn ex devotione poscentis, tandem assensum prffibulmus, et rognl yestri gubcrnacula sibi ex parte bcatl Petri tradidi- mus, ea videlicet Intentlono atque deslderio carltatis, ut beatus Petru.? vos et regnum ■Oestrum omniaque vestra bona sua apud l)eum iutercessione custodiat, et cum omni pace, honore quoque et glorift, Idem regnum usque in flnem vitaa vestraj tenere vos faciat, et liujus milltlie finite cursu, inipetret vobla apud supernum regem gloriam senipiternara Quinetlamnos parr.tlssimos esse noverit vestrte nobllltatis serenitas. ut ad quascumque justa negotia hujus Sedis auctoritatem pro sua necessitate petierit, proculdubio contlnuo petitionum suarum oonsequatur efTectum. Prseterea ut haac, et aliamulta quae lltterisnoii contliientur, cordibus vestris arctius Inflgantur, misimus hos nuutios nostros, quorum unus vester notus est et fldus amicus ; qui et ea, quaj in litteria sunt, diligenter vobis ex- ponent, et quaa minus sunt viva voce explebunt. Qujbus, pro reverentia beat! »^etri. cujus legati sunt, vos mites et affabiles praebeatis ; et quicquid vobis dixerint et parte nostra patienter audiatis, atque indubitanter credatis : et qujB ibi ex auctoritate Aposlo- licfe scdld negotia tractare voluerint, et statuere, nullorum male ingenio turban permittatis, scdpotiuseossinceracaritatefovendojuvetis. OmnipoteusDensmentesvestrasiiluminet atque per temporalia bona faciat vos transire ad gloriam sempiternam 1 Data Homfc SV'. KfllendasMaii, Indictione decimatertia ; hoc est anno 1075." t Stephen's "Ecclesiastical Biographies." IZIASLAP — THE POLES INVADE EUSSIA, ETC. 155 whicli lie liad seized from the enemy's cities into Poland, and advanced upon Kiof. He was encountered near tlie city by Sviatozlaf, whom he defeated after a furious battle, in which the Grand Prince was killed ; but the loss of the Poles was so great, that their monarch was forced to retire for a time, in order to recruit his forces, though the following spi-ing he returned to Kiof and commenced the siege of that place. He remained for a long time before the walls, having failed in several desperate attacks to penetrate beyond, till the gar- rison was so weakened by famine and the plague, which broke out among them, that they were forced to capitulate, and Boleslaf entered the city, but treated it with a generosity too seldom practised in those days. He not only commended the valour of the citizens, but distributed an ample supply of provisions among them, and prohibited his ti'oops from insult- ing them, or pillaging and destroying their houses. However, when Iziaslaf had been reinstated on his throne, the Polish soldiere, like their predecessors in the reign of Sviatopolk, refused to leave the country, which they fpund so much more opulent and luxurious than their own; and Boleslaf estab- lished himself as virtual sovereign, the Russian prince being little more than his vassal and dependant. Kiof, during the prosperous reign of Jaroslaf, had acquired riches and magni- licence. Greek artists had been employed by him to build and decorate the churches, monasteries, and palaces ; it had risen again from the desolation caused by the Polish army in the preceding reign with renewed lustre, and its extensive commerce had introduced the wealth and luxury of Byzan- tium ; so that an ancient Polish historian remarks, " that Boleslaf, king of Poland, having remained during several years with his army in Russia, brought back his troops to their native country enervated by the seeds of corruption. That opulent country," says he, " steeped in pleasures, relaxed in energy, and destroyed by its commerce with the Greeks, proved no less fatal to the Polish army than did the voluptuous Capua to the soldiers of Hannibal."* Thus the Polish army with their monarch, who had become too indolent even to ride out on horseback, but passed his days engrossed in amusements and trifling pursuits in the interior of his palace, remained at Kiof, and appeared to have entirely forgotten their own country, till the reports of the serious disorders • " Hietolre do In Kusslo," par A. Kabbe, 156 THE AKCHER AND THE STEPPE. tliafc prevailed there at length obliged them to return, accom- panied by an auxiliary Russian force to put down the insur- rections that had broken ont. But Boleslaf, though he had triumphed over all his foreign enemies at the time -when he enjoyed the respect and confidence of his subjects, now having by his misconduct entirely lost their esteem, was unable to re-establish himself over his own people ; and, being finally compelled to abandon his kingdom, he, according to most writers, ended his days in th« humble capacity of a cook, in a monastery in Carinthia.* No sooner had Russia been released from the oppression of the Poles than the Hungarians invaded her western pro- vinces ; and the two remaining years of the reign of Iziaslaf were continually disturbed by the invasions of the neigh- bouring Tartar tribes, particularly the Polotzi, who a few- years before had driven the Petchenegans out of Kipzak,t and now extended their inroads and plundering excursions to all the countries round. In 1078 they first extended their ravages into Russia, where they were met by the Grand Prince, with the Russian army, near the banks of the river Alta. He had previously visited with his suite the cave of a celebrated hermit, named Anthony, who, after visiting Greece and the Holy Land, had returned to bis native country, where he lived in a secluded cell, excavated by his own hands, among th-e forests that surrounded Kiof, and who, it is said, foretold to Iziaslaf the disastrous result of the approaching battle.^ On the 3rd of December, 1078, the Russians engaged with the enemy, but their arany was completely defeated, in a furious engagement, by the overwhelming force of the Polotzi, and their Grand. Prince was among the slain. His death took pla, my children: fear neither death nor wild beasts. Trust in Providence; it far surpasses all human precautions."— See Karamsin's "History of liussia."—Lalng'8 "Sea-kings of Norway." t The Russians and Poles are still celebrated for the number of languages they are usually acquainted with. t It'is a common thing in Russia, and almost universal among the peasantry, to take a siesta in the middle of the day. 1G6 THE AECHEK AND THE STEPPE. many of the monasteries, in which he collected numerous Greek and Latin manuscripts ; and several theological works of this period still exist. Of these the most remarkable are the two epistles of Nicephorus, the metropolitan of Kiof, a Greek who had accompanied the princess Arma, the daughter of Vyzevold, from Constantinople ; and there is also a de- scription by a Russian abbot, named Daniel, of a journey undertaken to Jerusalem a few years after its conquest by the first Crusaders. CHAPTER XIV. (Tljf |)olcs iiibak %nssm — gourii goIgoraH— lliDsab iamhb — IlingltDin uf Palix^. "Massacre, Treason and slavery, rapine, fear."— Shkixe¥. From the death of Vladimir Monomachus commences the most gloomy and disastrous period of Russian history ; a period which is buried in darkness and obscurity, and of which few writings or authentic records remain. While the internal government of the country was given up to misrule and anarchy, the inhabitants suffered continually from the desolating inroads of the Tartars, who annually reduced many of the frontier towns to ashes, and carried off hundreds of the people to slavery or death. Riding their swift horses with the speed of the wind across the barren and trackless steppes between Asia and Europe, the wretched peasantry fled to the forests on their approach ; while the invaders penetrated into the heart of the empire, sacked and pillaged the fields and villages to the very walls of the capital, and returned laden with spoil and plunder to their tents in the deserts, before the citizens had recovered from their con- sternation, or united for an attempt at self-defence. Micislaf or Peter, the eldest son of Vladimir, who, at the age of forty- nine, succeeded his father on the thx-one, had, before his acces- sion, gained considerable renown in the numerous campaigns in which he had formerly engaged under the standard and command of Monomachus ; but though his right to the crown was upheld by the citizens of Kiof, it was disputed by the sons of Oleg, and a fierce war ensued, which was carried on between the rival princes for many years. "While his own character shines promiscuously in this age of lawless- ness and vice, his reign was one long scene of terror ; and, in the midst of the miseries that these dissensions produced, a terrible fire accidentally broke out in the capital, which 168 THE ARCHER AND THE STEPPE. destroyed, according to the Russian ctronicles,* no less than four hundred chapels and churches, besides numerous houses. Micislaf was assassinated in 1 132, when his brother Yaropolk succeeded in possessing himself of the throne, though vio- lently opposed by the sons of Oleg, and Iziaslaf, the son of the deceased prince. At length, the latter finding himself ■without followers, succeeded in making his escape to Poland, ■where, appealing to the generosity of her king, Boleslaf III., he entreated that sovereign to lend him some assistance ; ■which Boleslaf, rejoiced to find a pretext for humbling his ancient enemy, readily promised to do, and the foUo'wing year the confederate princes marched ■with a large army into Russia. The Poles committed the most frightful ravages, and almost surpassed the Tartars in their ■waste with fire and sword; but the injured peasantry rose up at every step to oppose them. They united in ba VaMmiL,1388. House of Moscow. Simon, 1340. Donskoi, 1S62. {To be imerted opposite p. 184.] PRINCES, FROM 862 TO 1388. OP NOVOaOROD. at, a Swedish princo. 1025. Gleb, Micislaf, Jaroslaf, Stanielaiis. Maiy, Svintozlaf, Iziazlaf. ' order of pr. of m. Irene, d.of St. m. Mieczslav II., opolk, TmutaTttcan. Olaf, k. of Norway. k. ofPolaod. HnJte, Jelliaaveta, sumamed m. Harald, tiie Sold. king of Norway. Anna, Irene, Mary, ffl. Henry I., m, Boleslaf, m. the k. of king of Idngr of Uung^ary. Prance. Poland. yda, dau^ter id, Gleb. I I Eoproxla took the veil. Bafijlko, pr. of Volhynia. I I .polk, U32, Viaoheslaff, H39. Touri Dolfforuki. I I Volodar. Koiislnf. I Eotislaf. U56. I n, 1173. Eurik, II,, 1179. JicislafllL, Vladimir IV. 12U,ldUed 1224. t Killks, 1224, Vladimii-ko. , 1 11 I Audrey, 1168. Gleb. Vyze- Jaroslaf, 1153. ( 1168. T ol^ Yladimir, I1 8S.J 1176. Conatantine. Youri Audrey, founder of HoQse ofTver. Vladimir. I Oleg. Fedor. j killed by Vyzevold. Tartars, 1240. Princes of Holich, PnncLs Of Rlazaii. Vyzevold, killed at Kolka, 1224. Yoorii II., of Suzdal, killed by Tartars. 1?63. Teroslafll., of Novogorod. MikhaU of Kiof, 1239. Fedor 1240. Alexander. died young. , 1 112 52 NevakoL Machael III. I Iziaslaf, 1248. Audrey U., 1249. Vaeaili, 1271. Deme- trius II., Alexander II., 1321 • Ivan of Biazan, .1 .chaeL Jaroelaf. luse of ?vfir. I I Fedor. Michael. CoDBtontine. 1359. Demetrius III. I From Demetrius was de- scended the usurper Vaa- sili ChuiskL 1360. Boris, From Boris in female lino, dGScended Bomanoffs. nth the exception tif those of the princes of Halich and Suzdal, marli thote who reigned a Grand Princes in Kiqf^ and rtfer to the year cf their accession. APFAIES OP POLAND, ETC. 185 Literature was first introduced among the Poles by Christian missionaries and Benedictine monks ; and their earliest chronicles are by Martinus Gallus, who flourished in 1110 and 1115, and is supposed to have been a Frenchman settled in Poland. Their language, being a branch of the Slavonian, differs less from the Russian than many of the provincial dialects of England do to one another ; and at first they made use of the Slavonic alphabet* of Cyrillus, in common "with the other nations of their race ; but towards the end of the tenth century the Poles were obliged, by Pope John XIII., with the Bohemians and Latins of Moldavia, to adopt the Latin chai-acters, which they henceforth employed. So late as the thirteenth centiiry the same custom was still retained in Poland that prevailed among the ancient Slavonians, of putting to death all children who were born imperfect, and old men when incapacitated by age. It has been previously stated that Esthonia, which is inhabited by a part of the Finnish race, imder the early Grand Princes of Russia, formed a province of that empire ; but, during the troubles and civil wars that ensued on the death of Jaroslaf, the Danish king, Eric, took possession of its northern coast. In 1093 he built a monastery on the Finnish gulf, dedicated to St. Michael, which was afterwards transformed into a convent of Cistercian nuns, of which the ruins still remain ; and a fortress called Lindarnisse, or Danish town, the foundation of the modern Revel. The Russians shortly after this expelled the Danes from the country ; though, towards the end of the twelfth century, the latter again took possession of the province under their king, Canute, who founded a settlement upon its shores, brought over a large body of priests to convert the inhabitants, and built several churches. Livonia, the adjoining province to Esthonia, appears also from the earliest times to have formed a part of Russia, and, according to Henry, the ancient Letton chronicler, the inhabitants had been converted by her to the Greek religion soon after its adoption by her own people ; but in 1168, some Bremen merchantsilanding near the mouth of the Dwina, traded with the natives, and terminated their ♦ It was composed, by Cyrillus, of the Greek alphabet, -with the addition of certain other characters derived from other languages, chiefly Armenian or Hebrew, and originally consisted of forty letters. It is used still, with some alterations. In Itussia, Wallacliia, Moldavia. Bulgaria, and Servia. The characters now used in Russia for printing books not of an ecclesiasLlcal nature, were introduced by Peter the First, wlio wi.ghed to make the Slavonic character approximate in appearance to the priuting of ttie ■West. N 186 THE ARCHEE AND THE STEPPE. negotiations by building a fortress and founding a settlement at Eiga. Eighteen years after this first expedition, an Augustin monk, Meinbard of Holstein, established himseli in the country, and obtained permission from the Russian prince, Vladimir of Pskof, to whom the province was tribu- tary, to use his utmost endeavours to convert the inhabitants to Christianity.* In 1201 he instituted the order of Knights Sword-bearers by permission of the Pope, Innocent III., who gave them laws similar to those of the Knights Tem- plars ; and, granting to them the third part of the lands ot Livonia and Esthonia, Meinhard, vdth the authority of the King of Denmark, placed the entire government of the provinces in their hands. In the year 1210, their grand master, Volgum, took Dorpat from the Russians by storm, and, having reduced it to ashes, ultimately caused it to be rebuilt. The possession of Revel formed a subject of long dispute in the thirteenth century betweep Denmark, Sweden, the Knights, and even the Pope, who, however, relinquishing his claim in favour of Denmark, in 1240 that nation took possession of the town, and erected it into a bishopric. During the regency of Margharetta Sambria, the queen- mother of Denmark, she selected Esthonia as her own dowry, and granted it an independent government, the right of coinage, and many other privileges ; and, in 1284, Revel became one of the Hanseatic league, and monopolized vritli Novogorod the trade of the Baltic and the North. In the meanwhile Esthonia had fallen into the possession of the Margrave of Brandenburg, in right of his wife, a princess of Sweden, though towards the commencement of the 14th century she emancipated herself from his authority, and for a few years remained independent. But in 1347 she was sold, by Yaldemar III., King of Denmark, to the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights,+ at Marienburg, for 18,000 marks of standard gold, and this governor presented the country to his ally, the Master of the Order of Sword-bearers, the latter having united themselves with the German knights. They remained a portion of this body till 1521, when the Herrmeister, Plattenburg of Esthonia, separating his esta- * Tooke's " Russia TJuder Catherine II." t This order was founded in Palestine, 1190, Tvith the same object and rnles as the Knights of St, John. It was called the Order of the Kniglits of the Blessed Virgin, and was recruited from the German nation : and. being expelled from Palestine in the 13th century hy the Saracens, they settled in Prussia, where they subjugated, and forcibly conyeited the uatlyes, and founded a powerful state.— Count v, KiasinsWs •Poland." AFFAIRS OF POLAND, ETC. 187 blishment from the Teutonic, was admitted by the Emperor, Charles V., among the princes of the German empire. But the oppression of the nobles of this province was so great upon their unfortunate serfs, that a saying still exists among them — " Esthonia was an Elysium for the nobility, a heaven for the clergy, a mine of gold for the stranger, and a hell for the peasants;" and in 1560 the latter rose up in great numbei-s against their masters, attacked castles and monas- teries, slew all the nobility, knights, and merchants, who fell into their hands, and prepared to attack Kevel, where many of their lords had sought a refuge. The struggle continued for many months, till at length the citizens of Eevel, and the other towns in the provinces, finding themselves threatened with destruction from an exasperated peasantry, and menaced by an invasion of the Russians — Esthonia being engaged at the time in a war with her powerful neighbour — agreed to throw off the domination of the feeble knights, who were no longer able to protect them from their enemies, and calling in the assistance of Eric XIV., King of Sweden, they took the oath of allegiance to that monarch, and Esthonia became a Swedish province.* The town of Narva was built on the river of the same name, in 1224, by order of Valdemar II. of Denmark. In 1209, soon after the institution of the Knights Sword- bearers, Albert, one of the order, was made Bishop of Livonia; and building a monastery at Riga, in the hopes of alluring the heathen Livonians to embrace Christianity, he esta- blished a theatre in its cloisters, and caused plays, of which the subjects were derived from the Old and New Testaments, to be performed. The natives flocked to it in crowds, and an interpreter informed them of the history of the various scenes which they saw represented, and this stratagem appears to have been attended with great success. At that time Livonia was still tributary to Vladimir of Pskof ; and in a treaty entered into by Albert with tliis prince, tlie bishop gives security for the payment of the customary taxation and tribute. Like Esthonia, she was a frequent subject of dispute between the surrounding powers, but enjoyed for many years great prosperity under the Teutonic knights, who, after a long war with Russia, concluded in 1502 a peace of fifty years with that empire, during which the Reformation of Luther was introduced, and ultimately * Lady Eastlnko's " Letters fl'om the Baltic." 188 THE ASCHElB AOT) THE STEPPE. adopted by the whole province.* She was subsequently invaded and devastated by the Muscovite armies, under their Czar, Ivan the Terrible, at the expiration of the fifty years' truce ; and, in order to obtain protection against the Russians, the Livonians concluded, in 1561, a treaty with the Poles at Vilna, in which they submitted to the dominion of Poland, though retaining the free exercise of their religion, and their own laws and privileges. This occasioned a war with Russia ; and Ivan, invading Livonia, placed on its throne Magnus, Duke of Holstein, the brother of the King of Denmark, and in 1570 married him to Maria Ivanovna, a princess of his own family. Magnus continued for several years the vassal of the Czar ; and at length, having endured many insults and indignities at his hands, escaped with his wife into Poland, and Stephen Bathori, the king of that country, took possession of Livonia, which remained a pro- vince of Poland till 1660, when, at the peace of Oliva, it was ceded to Sweden. In the eleventh century the people of Courland were noted for their extreme cruelty, and their auguries and magical arts. According to Adam of Bremen, they were consulted by all Europe for their divinations, more especially, notwith- standing the remote situation of their province, and their barbarous manners, by the comparatively polished and re- fined Spaniards and Greeks, whose vessels appear to have occasionally penetrated on trading expeditions to the distant waters of the Baltic. Courland afterwards became a province of Poland ; and on the submission of the knights of Livonia to that power, the Grand Master of the Order, Gothard Ketler, received it as a hereditary fief of the crown of Poland, and it was not till the reign of Catherine II. that it finally became a part of the Russian empire. During the progress of the thirteenth century, another powerful, principality began to rise on the frontiers of Russia and Poland. This was Lithuania, who, strengthening her- self by the conquest of the western provinces of the former state, after its overthrow and subjection by the Monguls, and successfully resisting the aggression of the Livonian knights, who harassed her northern frontier under the pre- text of introducing among her heathen people the faith and doctrines of Christianity ; extended her dominions to the ♦ Tookc's '^Kuflsian Empire." AFFAIRS OF POLAND, ETC. 1S9 shores of the Black Sea, the Dnieper, and the Danube. But the inhabitants long and obstinately retained the pagan worship of their ancestors, and adored the sacred fire which was kept continually burning on an altar in their capital at Vilna; and the last consecrated grove of the Lithuanians; one in the province of Samogitia, was not cut down till 1430. In 1252, their duke, Mindove, was baptized into the Latin Church by the legate of the Pope, who also crowned him with the title of king ; but a similitude of faith was insuffi- cient to protect him from the hostility of the German knights, and, on their again invading his states, he returned to his former idolatry, and became a most bitter enemy to the Latin Christians. They continued to harass his terri- tories as long as their power endured, and in the year 1322 besieged and burned the town of Kovnoj in Lithuania ; three thousand of the inhabitants, who had bravely defended it, falling victims to the fury of the flames. Ghedemin, who succeeded to the throne in 1 320, by the murder of his master, "Veshoeleg, the last prince of the old dynasty, assumed the title of Grand Duke of Lithuania and Russia, and was one of the most celebrated monarchs of his country, or of the period in which he flourished. His suzerainete was acknow- ledged by the republics of Pskof, or Pleskqf, and Novogorod, and the Tartars of the Crimea, against whom he and his successor made many campaigns, and where he totally de- stroyed the ancient cities of Bosphorus and Cherson ; and during his wars with the Russian principalities, he three times appeared in arms before the gates of Moscow.* His sou, Olgherd, was baptized into the Greek Church on his marriage with a princess of Tver, and subdued Southern Russia, with the seaports of Kilia and Bialigorod. He esta- blished many churches and monasteries in his dominions, and when at Kiof always attended the services in the Chris- tian cathedral ; but on his death, in 1380, his body was burned on a fiineral pile with all the heathen rites of his ancestors. His Idngdom passed to his fourth sod, laghellon, who, upon his union with Hedwige, the queen of Poland, in 1386, became a convert to the Latin Church, and Lithu- ania from henceforth Remained in close connection with Poland. At this period the vast extent and alarming increase of the Mussulman power in Asia, and the reverses • Kraslnski's "History of Polnnd." 190 THE ARCHER AND THE STEPPE. the crusaders had sustained on the plains of Palestine, having obliged the Chiistian knights to abandon their oft-repeated attempts to rescue the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of the sacrilegious infidels, they looked round for another opportu- nity of displaying their valour and their faith ; and the forests of Lithuania offering a favourable field to the chivalrous achievements of the West, many English appear to have taken a part in the vrars undertaken by the Livonian knights against the heathens of this province.* In 1390 a band of English nobles, under the Earl of Derby, afterwards Henry IV., embarked for Prussia, and advanced, in. conjunc- tion with the knights, to the walls of "Vilna, but were unable to take the town; and on this occasion Henry killed, in single combat, Gleb, the Prince of Czartoriski, a direct ancestor of the celebrated Polish family of that distinguished name. Thirteen years before this the yoimg duke, Albrecht, son of Albrecht II. of Austria, had penetrated with many German lords into Samogitia, and as far as Isborsk; and Suchemvirtjt an officer of his court who accompanied him, has left a poetical description of their journey, and of the various exploits of several of his countrymen who joined the banner of the Teutonic order in the same land. In addition to the republics of Novogorod, Viatka, and * Chaucer, In his " Canterbury Tales," when describing a knight, says :— "At Alisandre he was, when it was won, Full often time he hadde the horde begonne, Aborren alle nations in Pruce (Prussia), In Lethorve (Lithuania), hadde he resyed, and in Kuce," (Russia.) -f- Suchemvirt relates :— *'De9drItten lages chom dazher Vroleich inein ander lant, Dazwaz Kussenfa geunant, Da sach man wuksten prennen, Slahen, schiezzen und rennen Ilaid ein, pusch ein, unverzagt." A-fterwards he informs us— " Dazher wuchst drew gantzelant Die ich mit nameii tue bechaunt^ Sameyt Rnssein aragel Wint regen und der hagol, Begraif uns da mit grozzen vrost, Da faultuns hamasch und die chost." On the return of the expedition towards Memel, making their way through a track- ess country, they passed through— *' Ein Wildung heist der granden, Gen westen noch gen sanden. So poz Kcvert ich nye gerayt, Daz spricli ich wolanf meyn ayt." They then reached Konigsberg, o( which Suchemvirt says :— " Tgu Chunigez perch sowaz uns each, Do het wir rue und gut gemach. ' —Von Herzo? Albrecht's "Kitterschaft von Suchemvirt," quoted in Mijor's Introduction to Herbersteln's "^erum Muscovitarurii.'* AFFAIRS OP POLAND, ETC. 191 Pskof, tlie grand principalities of Vladimir or Suzdal, Kiof, Tchernigoff, Halich, Tver, Eiazan, Polotzk, Kozolesk, and Lithuania, the kingdom of the Black Bulgarians still existed on the Volga, and the Polot2a retained possession of the Crimea and of Elipzak ; and such was the position of Russia ■when the name of the Monguls was first heard in Europe. Nearly a hundred and forty years had elapsed siuce the oppression of the Christian pilgi-ims at Jerusalem by the fierce and merciless followers of Mahomet, who, towards the middle of the eleventh century, rendered themselves masters of the sacred hills of Judea, had first roused the religious ardour of the nations of the west ; and Peter the Hermit called upon all Europe to arm and join in the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of the Saracens. Multitudes of nobles, knights, and soldiers, of every age and degree, had flocked to the shores of Palestine from almost every country in Europe ; even the remote Iceland had sent forth its warriors to join in the expeditions that were again and again fitted out by the chivalry of the "West, and destined to perish on the sandy plains or among the deserted hills of the Holy Land. But now, in the middle of the thirteenth century, the repeated reverses that the Crusaders had encountered from the swords of the Infidels, and the shipwrecks, pesti- lence, and other disasters that had overtaken and almost annihilated their armaments, before they had crossed the intervening seas, or engaged with a single Mussulman, had diminished the ardour and cooled the courage of the i-ulex'S and nobles of Europe ; and the religion of Mahomet was spreading far and wide, unopposed, except by the feeble efforts of those nations whose territories were overrun by its followers j and the Ottoman Turks had already appeared on the south-eastern frontiers of Europe, and wrested from the tottering empire of Byzantium some of its richest and most fertile provinces in Asia. This people, once so celebrated and so formidable in the annals of the world, derive their name from Othman, or Osman, one of their sultans, who began to reign in 1299, and is generally considered as the founder of their empire, whose limits he first extended from the region about jMount Taurus, to which country they had emigrated under his grandfather Solyman. The followers of this chief appear to have been a mixed horde from all the diflferent Tartar or 192 THE AECHER AND THE STEPt>E. Turkish nations who, within the last three hundred years, had established themselves among the provinces of Western Asia ; particularly by the Avars, who, overthrowing the kingdom of the White Huns at Carizme, and the empire of the Saracen caliphs at Bagdad, occupied for many years the thrones of Transoxiana and Persia, till they fell in their turn before the still more formidable power of Zingis Khan. When the hordes of this conqueror invaded Persia, and destroyed the kingdoms of the Turks or Turkomans at Khorassan and Ghizni, Soljrman assembled a few of the scattered tribes, and prepai'ed with three of his sons to lead them across the deserts of Mesopotamia to the more secure provinces of Asia Minor. But, as he was fording the Euphrates on horseback, his charger stumbled, and the sultan perished iu the waves, and his two elder sons, alarmed at this calamity, and dismayed at so unfortunate an omen at the commencement of their enterprise, abandoned their fugitive countrymen, and returned to their former habita- tions ; while the youngest, Ortogrul or Togrul, who had pre- viously crossed the river with his three sons, Conda, Sambani, and Othman, remained for some time with his followers encamped on the western bank. At length he obtained permission from Aladdin, the sultan of Iconium, to settle with four hundred Turks in the moiintains of Armenia, where he died in 1288 ; and, eleven years after, on the death of Sambani and Conda, the crown devolved upon Othman, his youngest son, under whom commenced the powerful and dreaded empire of the Othman or Ottoman Turks, who in less than two hundred years had established a firm footing in Europe, and subdued its most civilized people, the refined, though artificial and efieminate Greeks. But, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Mon- guls * first rose into power, and rendered themselves, by their extensive conqxiests and horrible ravages and massacres, the most formidable of all the Tartars or Turanian nations ; though, till the time of their celebrated leader, Zingis Khan, their name was unknown to the civilized world j and the future conquerors of Asia and half Europe were a few obscure tribes, wanderiilg with their flocks on the dreary shores of Lake Baikal, and the rivers Angara and Selinga, in Siberia. * From this time the whole race of Turkish or Turaslan people is often very improperly termed MonguL AFFAIRS OF POLAKD, ETC. 193 A slight notice of two tribes called Mokho and Tliatha occurs in the early Chinese annals ; and, from the posi- tion of the regions where they are said to have resided about the year a.d. 860, these nations appear to coincide with the later Monguls and Tartai-s, while all historians agree that they were of but comparatively recent appearance on the political theatre of Asia ; and, according to Sanang Set- seu, a prince of the tribe of Ordos, who wrote a history of the Mongolian people, they originally came from India., though this assertion has been proved to be entirely destitute of foundation. It is evident, however, that they derive their descent from the same source as the Turks, and formed one of that great horde of nations wlio, under the several denomi- nations of Huns, Avars, Chazars, Polotzi, and Scythians, had already preceded them in the conquest of the East ; and, accord- ing to their national traditions, twenty generations before the time of Zingis Khan, and at a period subsequent to the age of Mahomet, they made their escape, under their leader, Bourte-chino, or the Blue Wolf, from the straitly guarded valley of Irguene-koun, among the Altai mountains, where for four hundred and fifty years had been confined the descendants of two warriors, Tchouzan and Kayan, who had taken refuge there with their wives, on the general defeat or massacre of their tribe, of which they were the only sur- vivors. There they had been compelled to forge, for their Turkish masters and conquerors, the iron and other metals which the s\irrounding mountains plentifully contained, till the tribe, becoming too numerous to find subsistence within these narrow limits, they accumulated an enormous quantity of fuel in an iron mine, and with seventy bellows melted an aperture in the side of the mountain, through which the whole tribe issued, and, asserting their independence, pro- claimed Bourte-chino their chief. This prince, upon the refusal of the Khun, his former sovereign, to grant him his daughter in marriage, demanded, and obtained a higher honour in the hand of a Chinese imperial princess ; * and his successors subsequently disputing with the Mantchous the dominion of Mangi, or the northern provinces of China, were defeated, and expelled by their rivals to the frozen deserts and steppes of Siberia. From Bourte-chino were descended • Gibbon'8 "Decline ancl Fall of tUo Soman Empire." 194 TU13 ARCHER AND THE STEPPE. all the princes of the Mongolian hordes, and from Tartar and Mongul, the two sons of Alancova, the widow of Donynb Bayan, his tenth descendant, and whose birth was affirmed to have been occasioned by a miracle, the two nations received their name, and from the posterity of the eldest son of Mon- gul, whose name in their language signifies melancholy, the celebrated chieftain and conqueror Temudschin, or Zingis Khan. According to Easchid, Alancova must have flourished about the time of the dynasty of the Abasside caliphs in Bagdad. A ceremony, in commemoration of their escape from the valley of Irguene-koun, was annually celebrated by the Mon- guls, so late as the end of the thirteenth century, when the princes and nobles forged a bar of iron in remembrance of their former occupation ; and this legend is common to all the Turanian nations, many of the other Turkish tribes * also professing to derive their origin from the same source. Upon the irruption of the Mongul hosts into Europe, their brethren, the Tartars, the first tribe whom they had subdued, led the van ; and this was the cause of the name Tatar or Tartar being, bestowed by the nations of Europe upon the whole race, a designation which is generally retained at the present time, and which was then considered the more appropriate as it was a common opinion that they were demons, and had issued from the depths of Tartarus.* In the twelfth century, the empire of the Keraites, or Kara-hitai, was still the most powerful state in Central Asia. Their sovereign took the title of TJng Khan, or the Great Monarch, and appears, as before mentioned, with many of his subjects, to have been converted about this time to Christianity, by the adventurous missionaries of the Nestorian church, who had already acquired great influence among the Igours ; and who, penetrating through wide deserts and thick forests to spread their faith among the tents of this distant kingdom, carried home marvellous accounts of its power, magnificence, and wealth. All the historians of the Middle Ages unite in ascribing to the Monguls the same physiognomy peculiar to the Huns of Attila + and the Tartar nations of the present day ; and their wandering habits and ode of living, as described by the Franciscan monk Eulru- ♦ Pritohanl's "Natural History of Mail." t See Chapter IL the Huns— Attila. AFFAIRS OP POLAND, ETC. 195 quis,* who -was sent by St. Louis of France on a mission to the Grand Khan, when they had settled down after the con- quest of Eussia, were very similar to those of their descen- dants, who still roam over the grassy steppes of Central Asia and Southern Kussia.t " The Tartars," says he, " have no per- manent abode, and never know where they may be the next day, though every chief of a horde knows the bounds of his pasture-ground, and whereabouts he ought to be, according to the season of the year. When winter comes they ascend towards the south, and in summer go up again towards the cold regions of the north. The houses they inhabit are placed upon wheels, and constructed of a kind of wooden lattice-work, with an opening at the top that serves for a chimney. This wooden frame is generally covered with white felt plastered with lime or powdered bones, but some- times these houses are black. Before the entrance there is suspended a piece of felt enriched with paintings, represent- ing flowers, trees, birds, and fantastic animals. These dwell- ings are sometimes thirty feet long, and there were as m.a.uy as twenty-two oxen harnessed to one of them." The idea that the Monguls were demons, or at least in league with infernal spirits, which, it may be remembered, was formerly rejjorted of the Huns, was strengthened by their acquaintance with the composition of a kind of inflammable powder, which they generally discharged in the midst of their battles, and which exploding, raised clouds of smoke and flame, and this was incomprehensible to the Europeans, with whom gun- ♦ Kalruqnls accompanied Bartholomew of Cremona on a mission iVom St Louis to tlie Grand Khan, and, proceeding first to Constantinople, they embarked from thence for Soldaya, then in the possession of tlie Genoese, and after three days' Journey first met with the Tartars. In the account of his journey to the king of France, he says among other details — ** In the tents of the Tartars, above the place of the head of the family, there is always a small image, a kind of doll made of telt . . . Their ordinary drink is kumja, a spirit made of mare's milk . . . They live chiefly on their flocks and ttie pro- duce of the chase . . . Tlie heginnlnK of winter is the season for the grand imperial hunts, which are conducted like great military expeditions . . . The cotton and silk stuffs, embroidered in gold or silver, whicii the wealthy Tartars wear in summer, come ftom China and Persia ; the costly furs that they wrap themselves in, in winter, chiefly ft-oni Kussia and Bulgaria. Their usual plan in winter is to wear two pelisses, the one with the hair inwards, the other with it tamed out . . . of sheep or goatskin for the poor, and of fox or wolfs skin for the rich, or sometimes the latter lino them with silk, or cotton wadding, or fine wool . . . The Tartar dress is in the form of a tunic, and that of tlie women does not differ greatly ft"om that of the men; so, when you see a company of these women on horseback, you might take them for men at arms, with helmet and lance — as they wear a lofty headdress— especially as they ride astride. They never wash their clothes, saying that God is angry if tney do, and sends thunder while tlioy are hanging up to dry. The sound of thunder terrifies them so ranch that, when they hear it, they hide themselves under their felt carpets, and remain buried thus till it is over . . . Their mode of washing their faces and hands is, by Hlllng their mouths with water, and squirting it out over them. They never clean any of their domestic utensils, uidess indeed when they are boiling meat; they then sometimes dipintothepotthebowls they eat from, wash them with the liquor, ana pour it back Into the caldron."— Bergeron's "Kelatioil dcs Voyages en Tartaric," quoted by r Abb€ Hue. t Bergeron's " Eelatiuu des Voyages eu Tartarie," quoted by U. V Abbd Hue. 196 THE ARCHER AND THE STEPPE. powder was yet unknown, and in these days of ignorance and, superstition was naturally considered by them as the work of fiendish agency or magic. They originally made war equally on the Mahometans and Christians, and professed a belief in one God ; but their descendants subsequently adopted the religion of the different nations whose govern- ment they had overthrown, and among whom they settled and dispersed. These hordes, with those of the other Tartar tribes in conjunction with whom they accomplished the subjugation of Asia, are still as mamerous, though scattered and divided, in Western Tartary, and upon the elevated and extensive plains of Thibet, ov Land of Grass, as it is termed by the Chinese ; some tribes acknowledging the Russian sway, others that of the Celestial empire ; as in the days when they united for conquest under the banners of Attila, Zingis Khan, and Tamerlane ; but though still connected by their faith in the Grand Lama of Thibet, they appear little likely again to prove dangerous to the liberties of Europe, even if there arose among them a leader or chief of sufficient skill, ambition, and enterprise to unite their scattered clans, and direct their forces ; for at present the strongly guarded frontiers of Russia oppose a powerful barrier to so undisci- plined and roughly armed a foe, and her influence and policy, while it seeks to overawe and conciliate them, is gradually inducing those families on her borders to settle down in villages as traders, or peaceful and indolent agriculturists ; though they remember with mournful regret their former glory and exploits, and look with longing eyes upon their nominal mistress, the ancient Chinese empire, which they once conquered, and now affirm is still theirs by right. They follow the roving lives and most of the customs of their ances- tors, and though many engage as merchants in the extensive commerce carried on by them with Russia and China proper, their principal employment is still tending their floeks and herds ; " and these formidable shepherds," says the Abb6 Hue, " after having invaded and ravaged the world, have resumed, in the midst of their immeasurable steppes, the wandering lives of their forefathers."* * "The Mongul," says the Abb^ Hue (speaking fVom his experience of the Moniruls. of the present day), "passes suddeiiiy from extravagant gaiety to a state of melancholy; his disposition is full of gentleness and good-nature. Timid to excess In his ordinary habits, wlieu fanaticism or the desire of vengeance arouses him, he displays in his courage an impetuosity which nothing can stay; very hospitable, indolent, honest to each other, but given to pilfer." BOOK II. PEOM THE CONQUESTS OF THE MONGULS TO THE ETSE OF TIMOE. FROM A J) 1201 TO A.D. 1336 ( OR, A.M. 6709 TO A.D. 6844. " A boisterous race, by frosty Canrus pierced, Drove martial horde on horde, with dreadful sweep, Resistless rushing o'er the enfeebled south, And gave the vanquish'd earth another form.' Thomson. BOOK II.— CHAPTER I. On nomme ce tyran, du nom de roi dea rols, C'est ce fler Geiigis Khan, dont les af¥^eux exploits, Font UQ vaste tombeau de la aupcrbe Asle. VOLTAIEE'S " GHENGIS KHAN." Towards the end of the twelfth century, the Mogul or Mongul horde, was divided into thirteen tribes, all governed by one khan, and comprised about thirty or forty thousand families and tents, who pastured their flocks on the plains of south-eastern Siberia. But in the year 1175, Jehangir Bahadar, their chief, expired while his subjects were en- camped on the shores of the river Selinga, and more than two-thirds of the nations refused to acknowledge the claims of his son Temudschin, a boy of eleven years of age, whose mother was the daughter of a neighbouring prince, the khan of their kindred tribe, the Tartars. Violent contentions broke out in the horde, which were increased by an invasion • EUKOPEAN SOVEREIGNS CONTEMPORARY WITH ZINGIS KHAN. Eastern Empibe. 1223. Louis VIIL Scotland. Alexius Angelus. 1203. Isaac Angelus rest 1204. Alexius Mourzonflens. 1204. Baldwin of Flanders. 1206. Henry. 1217. Peter de Courtenai. 1219. Robert de Courtenai. German Empire. Philip. 1208. Otlio V. 1211. Fi-ederick II. England. John. 1211 Henry III. France. 1200. Mlscislaf IV. 1203. Vladislaf III. 1208. Lescus V. Hungary. 1200. Ladislafll. 1201, Andrew II. Sweden. Suercher III. 1211. Eric XI. 1220. John I. 1223. Eric XII. Denmark. William the Hon. 1214. Alexander IJ. Spain. Alfonso IX of Castille. 1214. Henry t Sancho I. 1212. Alfonso II. Innocent III. 1216. Honorluslil. 1227. Gregory IX. 1182. Canute V. Philip II. 1202. Waldemar II. t In the year 1294, by the command of Kazan, Ithnn of Persia, the grent-grandson of ifingis, a collection of traditions was transcribed in the Persian language, hy the vizier Fadiailuh, and this worlt has been the chief foundation of the history of Zhigis, by M. Fotit de ia Croix — Gibuon. 200 THE ARCHER AND THE STEPPE. of the Tartars, till at length. Temudschin and his adherents, being defeated in a desperate engagement, were forced to take refuge in the dominions of the emperor of the Keraites, who kindly received the fugitive prince at his court, be- stowed upon him a high office, and subsequently gave him the hand of his daughter in marriage. But a few years later he incurred the suspicions and distrust of the friendly monarch, who iaaued a decree for his immediate arrest ; and Temudschin collecting those Monguls who had hitherto re- mained steadfast in their allegiance, and escaping by night from Karahtai, returned to his own dominions, where he utterly routed his rebel subjects in a furious battle, and causing seventy caldrons of boiling water to be placed over a fire, ordered the most forward of the insurgents to be plunged into them alive. He then turned his arms against the Tartars, and vanquished and subjugated their tribe, and the following year, 1 202, totally defeated the army of the Keraites, under their emperor, who had marched in person against his son-in-law, and was slain in the fight; and, ac- cording to the barbarous custom of the Scythian conquerors, the victor caused the skull of the vanquished monarch to be encased in silver and converted into a goblet for wine. Alarmed at the overthrow of the powerful Keraites, the other kingdoms of central Asia united to ofier a resistance to the further progress of the victorious prince ; but, recruiting his forces with the warriors of the conquered tribes, he over- ran and subdued them in succession, and before the year A.D. 1205 had rendered himself master of every province in the north-eastern districts of Asiatic Scythia.* In 1206, a general assembly was held on a wide plain in Mongolia, near the stupendous range of the Altai, which was attended by the Mongul nobles and warriors, and many of the chiefs and princes of the dependent and tributary hordes. Seated on a high throne formed of bucklers, and covered with foxes' and wolves' skin, surmounted by a simple piece of felt, Temudschin presided over the meeting, which had been con- vened for the election of the provincial governors, and the promulgation of a new code of laws ; when suddenly an old hermit, mounted on a white horse, appeared in the midst of * "Hlstolre du Grand Glienghizcan," par M. Petit de la Croix, A report at this period gained credence in Europe, tliat tlie Hrst invasion of tlie Monguls iiad been occasioned by tlio preaching of one of ttieir proplicts, who foretold the near approach of the destruction of ail things ; wiiereupoQ tney fled to the soutii, in hopes of finding some laud to shelter hi that was exempt from this cui'se. ZINCHS KHAN — THE CONQUESTS OP THE MONQULS. 201 the conclave, and addressing the spectiators, exclaimed, " My brethren, the Great God of Heaven has appeared to me in a vision, seated on a throne of fire, surrounded by celestial beings, and judging all the nations of the earth. I heard him give the empire of the world to Temudschin, and pro- claim him King of kings." * This extraordinary intelligence ■was received vrith acclamations by the people, who solemnly and unanimously bestowed upon their sovereign the title of Zingis Khan, or Great Khan of the Strong, and Emperor of all the Monguls and Tartars, crying out with one ^'oice, " Ten thousand years of life to Zingis;" and thus prophecy strengthened Temudschin in his determination of acquiring the -empire of the world, and threw a divine authority round his most barbarous acts, in the eyes of his superstitious and impressible subjects. Like AttUa, and supported by the alleged vision of the hermit, he endeavoured to clothe him- self in the eyes of his followers and foes with a more than mortal character, and making war alike On every sect and faith, fought under the pretext of establishing a belief in one supreme God ; and to the humbled and conquered inha- bitants of a vanquished city, he declared himself to be the instrument of the divine wrath and retribution upon sinners, thus attempting to justify the almost unparalleled devastation, and atrocities, committed by the forces of the Monguls, on whichever side they turned their arrhs. In after days, when his armies had stormed and entered a city, his generals were accustomed to drive all the inhabitants into a square in the midst of their ranks ; and after drawing off the younger men to serve in their forces, and a certain number of the women and children to make use of as slaves, a few, who generally consisted of the aged, and those iucapable of bearing arms, were allowed to remain among the ruins of their homes, ■while the remainder, with all who attempted to resist the former decrees, were massacred on the spot by their enemies, who, with pointed spears and bended bows, were ranged around the captive multitude, f But though so barbarous and unscnipulous as invaders, and terrible and unmerciful to their foes, yet the Monguls maintained justice and order most rigidly among themselves, and reeeived from their monarch a code of laws still used by • Hac's "Tartaiy, Thibet nnd China." t Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Boman Empire," 202 THE ABCHEE AND THE STEPPE. every Tartar chief in Asia, wLo claims his descent from Temudschin, and still known there under the name of " Isa Gengis Khane," * or " the laws of Zingis." His immense hosts were divided into companies, presided over by officers who were responsible for the lives and liberties of their men ; and the punishment of death was inflicted for perjury, mur^ der, and the robbery of a horse or an ox. At the same time, in support of the idea of his divine mission, he bestowed upon his followers the appellation of " the Celestial people," which was the origin of the application of this term to the Chinese empire, whose sovereign, upon the successors of Zingis possessing themselves of the throne of Pekin, became the supreme head and chief over the rest of the Mongul race, investing every khan with his regal office, and sending forth his decrees to be obeyed on the borders of Poland and .Greece. Thus, China having adopted, still retains the proud name of her former conquerors, though she has long driven them back from her gardens and crowded cities to the soli- tary wastes and heaths of their desert steppes. But the northern provinces of China, where the Monguls first com- menced their conquests, had been subdued some years before by the Mandshus, a fierce, eastern Tartarian race, who, rivalling and repelling the Monguls, had broken through the strong barrier of 'the great wall, and, forcing the imperial dynasty of the Soug to retreat to the district around Canton, had called the half of the empire which they held Mangi, and established their chief and his throne in Yenking,-]- near the modern site of Pekin, instead of the old capital of China, Nankin, which was situated much further to the south. After subduing all the nations of Central Asia, Zingis turned his eyes towards the territory of the ancient enemies of his race, who, being firmly established in their new conquest, had laid aside their weapons, which had won for them an empire, and in for- * They Beemto have been a collection of the old usages of the Moghul (Mongul) tribes, comprehending some rules of state and ceremony, and some iujuncLions tor the punish- ment of particular crimes. The punishments were only two, death and the bastinado, ttie number of blows extending from seven to seven hundred, Tliere is something very Chinese in the whole of tlie Moghul system of punishment: even princes advanced in years, and in command of large armies, being 'punished by bastinado with a sticli, by Iheir father's orders. Whether they receive their usage in this respect from the Chinese, or communicated it to them, is not very certain, as tlie whole body of their laws or cus- toms was formed before the introduction of tire Mussulman religion, and was probably in many respects inconsistent with the Koran, as, for instance, in allowini; the use of the blood of animals, and in the extent of toleration granted to other rellKions, it gradually fell into decay. "—Ersiiine's "Translatiou of Memoirs of Zehir-eddin Baber, Emperor of Hindostan." t Yenliing stood a few miles from the site of Pekin, the modern capital ; its ruins are ^till to be seeiL ZINGIS KHAN — THE CONQUESTS OF THE MONGULS. 203 mer days been their only ornaments and pride ; and, adopting the luxurious habits of the native Chinese, were fast sinking down in sloth and apathy. The Mongul conqueror had fixed his capital, in a district about six hundred miles to the north-west of Pekin, in an old city of the Keraites, called Kai'acorura, or the Camp of the Golden Horde, where his guards and followers lived around him in their felt huts and tents, and from whence he issued forth his commands and laws, his sons, all eminent for their talents and valour, hold- ing under their father the principal offices of state. Toushi, the eldest, was his grand huntsman ; Octal the prime minister of his empire j Zagatai his judge ; and Touloui the commander- in-chief of his troops. Here an extraordinary mixture of simplicity and barbaric magnificence distinguished every ceremony at the court ; the greatest splendour and solemnity were observed in the receptions, halls of justice, and banquets ; while the latter were solely composed of roasted sheep and mare's milk, with a kind of spirit distilled from it, and Zingis distributed among his soldiers in one day five hun- dred wagon loads of jewels, silver, and gold. From this spot he pi'epared his expeditions for the conq^iest of half Asia and Europe, and led his forces in the year 1206 upon the neighbouring empire of Mangi, where the Chinese histo- rians have described in moviug language the dreadful deso- lation committed by his arms, and where the progress of the Monguls was marked at every step by universal slaughter, and perfect seas of blood. Among other atrocities, taking unworthy advantage of the proverbial Chinese reverence for age, they placed all the old men whom they had taken pri- soners in front of their ranks as they advanced ; so that every son in the native army feared to commence the attack lest he should inadvertently incur the guilt of parricide.* The unmartial Chinese, and the Mandshus, then- masters, were swept away like chafi' before the Tartar force, who converted the land in a few short months into one vast mass of ruins, and covered the wastes and deserted fields with unburied corpses and mouldering bones. Ninety-six cities, besides numerous villages, were pillaged and utterly destroyed ; throughout the whole country ten towns only escaped ; but the cruelty of the foe had urged the vanquished to a despe- rate resistance, and at the siege of Yeuking the inhabitants * Gibbon's " DooUne and Fall of tbe Koman Empire." Gutzlafl'9 " History of China '! 204 THEAECHEE A:HD-THE STEPPE; held out aftei- famine Had reduced them to devour their fellow-men, and after they had been compelled, by the exhaus- tion of- their ammunition, to discharge from their war- engines their money, silver, and even gold. But, if the CMnese have been unable fo fight, theyhave always known how to die ; and they would not yield till after the Mon- guls had fired a mine in the centre of the palace, which blew up with a tremendous explosion, and, burniiig for thii-ty days, left the palace a heap of blackened stones. At the same time China was distracted by a domestic revolt, and the inhabitants eagerly embraced an offer of peace, which was bought from the victors, satiated with plunder send mur- der, for a heavy tribute of gold and silk, three thousand horses, one thousand of their children for slaves, and an imperial princess, destined to become the bride of Zmgis: The Monguls then retreated, leaving behind them one con- tinued scene of desolation j but a few years later they had spread themselves again over the land, and, after driving the Chinese monarch beyond the shores of the Hbang-ho, united the five northern provinces of China to their own empire. Owing to the difficulty they experienced in procuririg forage for the immense number of horses that accompanied them, and their droves of cattle; in a deliberative assembly held by the chiefs of the army, they actaally debated upon the expe- diency of exterminating «very inhabitant' throughout its wide and populous extent, and converting the land iatrf a pasture and hunting- ground ; but Yebutchouoai, a Chinese inandarin, adroitly averted this liorriMe proposition by ap^ pealing to the avarice of- the khan, and representing the enormous amount' of revenue, food, and manufactures, which Ms country was capable of producing for their conquerors under a just and wise government ', and, his argument avail- ing, the idea was abandoned, and Mangi given up to the legislation of native miagistrates, presided over by a Mongnl chief In 1 218, the unprovoked arrest and massacre of a caravan of three Mongul ambassadbrs, and a hundred merchants at Otrar, by command of Mahommed, the sultan of Carizme, or Turkes- tan, and his refusal to grant any reparation or ackoowledge his injustice, first drew the forces of Zingis to the regions of the west. The treacherous descendant of Tbgrul and Arslan^ ruled the> vast territory extending over Khorassan and Persia, ZINGIS KHAN — THE CONQUESTS OF THE MONGULS. 205 and liis laws were obeyed from the mouth of the Euphrates and the borders of Georgia, to the frontiers of Ghizni and Hindostan, and the stupendous rocks of the Hindoo Kosh. After fasting and praying for three days and nights on a mountain, the Mongul emperor declared his intention of appealing to the judgment of Heaven and the sword ; and, accompanied by his four sons and seven hundred thousand men, marched upon the plains of Turkestan. " Our Euro- pean battles," says Gibbon, quoting Voltaire, " are petty skirmishes if compared to the numbers that have- fought and fallen in the plains of Asia ;" and in the first battle in which the Monguls encountered the Carizmians, and which wan only tei'minated by the darkness of night, the latter, who numbered four hundred thousand soldiers, left a hundred and sixty thousand among the slain. The Turks retreated to their cities, and armed each for an obstinate defence ; the Monguls, aided by captive Chinese engineers, sapped and mined the walls, and brought up their war machines against every fortification with irresistible force ; slowly, and after long and weary sieges, each town fell before them, and their triumphs were marked by the most awful atrocities and terrific massacres.* Protracted by the energy and courage of Jellaladin, the son of Mahommed, who several times inflicted upon the Monguls a signal defeat, the war continued for some years under the conduct of Tauloui, occasionally assisted by Zingis, who passed between his capital and the- camp ; and during this time the cities of Otrar, Cojeude, Bokhara, Samarcand, Carizme, Herat, Maru, Neisabour, Balkh, and Gandahar, were successively reduced ; while all Transoxiana, Khorassan, and Persia, were traversed and laid waste ; so that, according to Gibbon, five centuries have been unable to repair the ravages caused by the Monguls in four years of terror and conquest. As in Gluna, so then in West- ern Asia, and later in Hussia and the Eastern countries of Europe, wherever they met with the slightest opposition to their arms, they massacred, without mercy and without restraint, men, women, and children of every age and degree, not sparing even the bmte creation, and razing every temple or habitation to the ground; so that long after, travellers, wlule crossing the districts traversed by these savage conquerors, were horror-struck by encountering, in regions now totally deserted • Gibbon's " Decllrio and Fall of the Boman Emplro." Universal Hlatory. 206 THE ARCHER AND THE STEPPE. and waste, innumerable pyramids of human bones, the sole remains to be traced upon th^ spots where flourishing and wealthy cities once stood. In Maru, Neisabour, and Herat, the three great capitals of the province of Khorassan, the number of the slain, according to both the Mongul and Per- sian authorities, amounted to four millions, thi-ee hundred and forty seven thousand persons ; and at Neisabour, Touloui having discovered that a few had saved themselves from the general massacre by feigning death, commanded the heads to be cut off the bodies of the slain, and piled in heaps around the ruined city.* In the meanwhile Mahommed had taken refuge on a desert island in the Caspian, where he died dethroned and alone ; and the gallant Jellaladin, retreating as he fought, was driven gradually to the banks of the Indus by the Monguls, under the personal conduct of Zingis ; and, sustaining a last defeat on its banks, and perceiving that all was lost, he leaped his horse into the midst of its rapid waters, and sought a shelter on the plains of Hindostan. Gladly would the Grand Khan have followed the fugitive, and carried his arms among the groves and temples of Brahma,f but his troops clamoured for a speedy return to their native land ; and, loaded with half the wealth of Asia, he slowly com- menced his march towards the north.| While passing over the forlorn scenes of his sanguinary success, he appears to have felt a slight remorse for this useless destruction and prodigal waste of life, and annoimoed his intention of re- building the cities he had laid waste ; and beyond the Oxus and Jaxartes, the Monguls being joined by two generals and thirty thousand horse, who had made the whole circuit of the Caspian, subduing all the nations on their route, the united armies retiirned to their homes in Central Asia, and again prepared to issue forth on a new career of conquests. These two Mongul generals, Chin Nojan and Souda » IIuo^s " ChriatlQnity in China, Tartary," &o. t " As when a vulture on Imaus bred, Whose snowy ridge the roving Tartar bounds, Dislodging from a region scarce of prey, To gorge the liesh of Iambs, or yeanling lilds ; On hills where flocks are fed, flies towards the south 01 Ganges, or Hydaspes, Indian streams, But in Ills way lights on the barren plains Of Serlcana, where the Chinese drive With sails and wind, tlielr cany waggons light" Milton's "Paradise Lost." J Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Boman Empire."— Sherrefeddln All's " llistory of TimurBek." ZINGIS KHAN — THK CONQUESTS OP THE ilONGULS. 207 Bahadar, had separated from their countrymen when en- gaged in Transoxiana, to accomplish the subjugation of the Polotzi, and the last feeble remains of the empire of the, Chazars. Proceeding with incessant victories, they crossed the Caucasus, destroyed the principality of the Golden Throne, and routM and dispersed the other nations who dwelt among the Hyrcanian cliffs ; and, having penetrated the narrow pass of Derbend, traversed Georgia. In the hope of deceiving the inhabitants with the idea that they were Christians and allies, thfiy placed in their van some priests whom they had taken prisoners, and carried the cross as their standard ; then, suddenly attacking the Georgians, they defeated and killed 60,000 men. But on discovering their fatal mistake the Georgians rose in arms against the intruders, killed 20,000 of the Slonguls, took many prisoners, and put their army to flight. The Georgian queen, Rhouzondan, in a letter which she sent at this time by ambassadors to Pope Honorius III., warning him of the danger with which Europe was menaced by a desolating invasion of the Tartars, states that she had been unable to fulfil her promise to the Eoman pontiff, of assisting him in a crusade against the Saracens, as she required the aid of her whole army to repulse a sudden invasion of the barbarians. But the Monguls marched straight through the country without pausing, except to fight, on their pro- gress; and, returning through the north of Persia, joined the army of Zingis near Tashkand.* Towards the close of the year 1223, Toushi, the eldest son of Zingis, was despatched with an army of 600,000 men for the invasion and conquest of Europe. On the confines of this continent the Polotzi and Circassians had united to oppose the common enemy; but each listened to the trea- cherous words of the ambassadors of the Mongul, who dis- solved their alliance by offering to each his friendship and support, and then attacked and defeated both nations sepa- rately, driving the Polotzi from Kipzak. Toushi himself died soon after this event, but his chiefs and generals continued the war ; and the expelled tribes having retreated upon Russia, some of the fugitives were pursued by the Tartai's as far as to the gates of Novogorod, while another division of the horde spread over the south of Russia to the Crimea. The rumours of the horrible devastations of the Monguls in ' . * Hue's " Christianity In China, Tartary, nnd TUlbot." 208 THE AKCHEE AMD THE STEPPE. Asia liad filled the aeighbouring nations with, terror and dismay, aiid their almost uninterrupted success had com- pletely disheartened the inhabitants, who considered that it vas vain to oppose them, and believed themselves to be abandpn^dby Heaven, when they saw the vapid progress and conquests of those whom they believed to be the arch-enemies of God. More especially they shuddered when they thought of the terrible retribution that had been inflicted by the Monguls upon every city whose courage or self-confidence had urged her to stem the torrent which threatened to engulf every civilized nation on the earth, and attempt a brave though fruitless resistance. But in Novogorod the citizens, who were left without a leader, their prince having inarched against the enemy in the south, and unable to assemble any competent force to withstand, if they had been so inclined, the enormous number of their savage assailants, rested their hopes on the justice of their cause, and the aid of Heaven in support of Christianity ; and, advancing from the city, came to meet the invaders, each warrior bearing in his hand a cross, fondly trusting that their enemies would respect their lives when protected by the sacred emblem of their faith. Vain, indeed, was this hope, for they were promptly received by the loud and piercing war-cries of the Monguls, who, in the fierce battle that immediately ensued, tUled ten thousand men; but the march of the barbarians was arrested, and the nortb of Russia for a time spared by the death of Zingis, at the camp of the Golden Hordej and his generals, who commanded the Mongttt"arfSyphastened back to Asia with their followers to assist in the election and inauguration of a new Grand Khan. In the naeanwhile the other division of Toushi's tribe had driven the Polotzi from the Crimea, and capturing Soudak, or Soldaya, where the Genoese had formed a trading settlement tributary to these people, made it the capital of the peninsula, and razed the flourishing town of Theodosia to the ground. They had been preceded into Russia by their ambassadors, whom they sent to the princes of Halich and Kiof, declaring their peaceful intentions and friendly inclinations towards the Russian states ; but these princes remembering the deceitful manner in which they had acted with regard to the Polotzi and Cii'cassians, and that it was their usual custom to send envoys into these countries upon which they meditated an invasion, to survey the land, ZrtTGIS KHAN — THE CONQUESTS OF THE, MONGULS. 209 and observe its strength, capabilities of defence, its peculiar aspects, fords, rivers, and land tracts, superseded the Monguls in the act of treachery, and inhumanly caused the ambassa- dors to be put to death. They then called upon all the princes of Russia to lend their aid to the general defence ; and all justly estimating the danger responded to the appeal. From the northern province of "Vladimir, the grand prince Vyzevold brought every efficient warrior of his fur-clad troops, armed with hempen shirts of mail, wooden shields, and long spears, the soldiers of Tver and Novogorod marched each beneath the banner of his respective chief; the bowmen of Moscow, under Michael the Brave, hastened with all speed to the south, and with gallant detachments from Eiazan and Tchernigoff, joined the ranks of the gorgeously-attired horse- men of Halich and Kiof. The united armies, joined by the fugitive Polotzi, advanced as far as Mariopol, on the Sea ot Azof, and encountering the Tartars on the banks of the Kalka, were soon engaged in a fierce and long-contested combat. The Polotzi, who were the first attacked by the enemy, were unable to withstand the furious onslaught with which tlie Monguls always commenced an engagement, and fled through the battalions of Halich, commanded by its young prince, Daniel, and his uncle, the veteran Micislaf, causing disorder and confusion among the troops. Micislaf attempted to rally his forces, and rushed to the front, but was overpowered by the number of his opponents, and his battalions almost entirely dispersed ; and the victorious Tartars cut to pieces in succession the armies of the other Russian chiefs, who had become scattered and separated during the attack, while the Grand Prince, Vyzevold of Vladimir, and the piinces of Moscow and Kiof, were left upon the field among the dead. The other commanders fled ; and JMicislaf of Halich, on reaching his own country, unable to overcome the haunting sense of his disgrace and defeat, retired to hide his head in a monastery, a prey to melancholy and remorse. So ended the fatal battle of the Kalka, fought on the 1st of May, 1224 ; but though seldom has been witnessed a more sanguinary and terrific defeat, its event was not followed by any important result. The Mon- guls, indeed, two years after, having subjugated and possessed themselves of the Crimea, pursue'd the retreating Russians to the walls of Kiof, and had prepared to commence the siege 210 THE AECHER AND THE STEPPE. or attack, but the same event — ^the death of their sovereign — that had recalled their countrymen in the north hack to Asia, had a like effect on the forces who surrounded the ■walls of Kiof ; and the Monguls, abandoning Russia for a time, and summoning their troops from Georgia, which they had again invaded with a few squadrons of horse, all collected at Karacorum to make choice of a new chief. Since the close of the campaign in Transoxiana, and the subsequent conquest of Cashgar, which, held by a Keraite tribe called the Naymans, after the conquest of their coun- trymen, long successfully resisted the Monguls,* Zingis Khan, though more than sixty years of age, had undertaken, in the year 1225, another campaign against the kingdom of Tangout, whose prince had afforded shelter to two of his enemies, and now obstinately refused to deliver them up. The emperor marched against the rash potentate in person, and, encountering his army in the midst of a wide frozen lake, a tremendous battle was fought upon the ice, in which the Tangoutians were totally defeated, with the loss of 300,000 men. But so many of the Monguls had also fallen in the fight, that they were forced to return for a time to Karacorum to recruit their exhausted force ; and it was not till the middle of the following year that Zingis again pre- pared to set forth. But Death had stretched out her hand to lay hold on the mighty monarch, and from his approach there was no retreat ; and while encamped for a few days on their march near the borders of China, the emperor expired, after a week's illness, on the 18th of August, 1227, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. While on his death -bed he earnestly recommended his sons to finish the conquest of the world. " My children," said he, " I have raised an empire so vast, that from the centre to one of its extremities is a year's journey. If you wish to preserve it, remain united." His body was secretly transported to Mongolia ; and, accord- * A carious record of this conquest by Zingis lifts been found in an inscription at Kertsctiiiik, near tlie borders of (Jhina, and broupht trom thence to St. Petersburg. It is engraven upon a grey granite block, five feet high, and more than one foot broad, In four perpendicular rows of Ingour characters, which, when read from left to right, has been translated by Schmidt into the following beginning of a formula of oath to the Ellyas or winged demons ;— "Zingis Khan, alter his return from the subjection of Rartagol, after the annihilation of all hatred between all tribes of Monguls to ali the 335 Ellyas." Sartagol is Kliara; Khitai fthe empire of the Keraites), the capital of which, Cashgar, held by the Nayman chief; Gusbluli khan, was conquered in the years 1219 and 1220. The stone is therefore a talisman against the return of the hatred of the Ellyas, to whom vows or offerings, it Is probable, had been made here.^rritchard's "Natural History of Wan." ZINGIS KHAN — THE CONQUESTS OP THE MONGULS. 211 Ing to a practice generally followed at the burials of the khans, to prevent the intelKgence of his death from spreading, the troops who accompanied his coffin killed all whom they met on their route, at the same time exclaiming, " Go, serve our master iu another world." He was buried among the Borkan Caldoun moxmtains, though the precise locality is unknown ; and, according to a barbarous custom long preva- lent in Tartary, an immense number of horses and men were sacrificed over his grave.* Zingis Khan, who, with the exception of the fierce and cruel Timur, subdued more kingdoms, and occasioned the destruction of a greater number of human livest than any other conqueror of whom we have record in ancient or modern times, was in religion a deist, consulting soothsayers and magicians — in appearance broadly made, and rather above the middle stature, and of immense strength, with a large head, and loud and thundering voice. His harem con- tained at least five hundred wives, by the chief of whom, the Keraite princess, he had his four ddest sons and succes- sors — Toushi, who died before him, and to whose horde and posterity he bequeathed the region in Western Asia, extend- ing to the extreme north, and from the lake of Ai-al towards the west, as fer as, in the words of a Mongul historian, "a Tartar horse had trod ; " Octal, who inherited the Chinese empire,* and was elected to the throne after his father's death ; Zagatai, whose horde possessed the country of the Igours, all Transoxiana, Carizme, and extended to the borders of Hindoostan ; and Touloui, who, as the youngest son, retained, according to the ancient custom of the Tartars, the home and immediate sovereignty of his father in the East. All these princes were, however, only viceroys to the Grand Khan, to whom they referred before undertaking any important expedition, and joined when he requu-ed their aid in any distant war ; and, for several years after the death of ■ A French mIsslonaTy of the time remarks, that the Tartars were so superstitious that they imagined that all the slaves who were slain at their master's tuneral immediately joined him as his attendants in another world. This superj^tition niipenrs to have been shared by the Scythians, Sarmatians, Huns, Slavonians, and all the Tartar tribes.— Hue's •' Christianity In Tartarj-, China, and Thibet." t It is said that on one occasion Zlnsis Khan asked one of his cenerals what was. in his opinion, the greatest pleasure of men. " To co hunting," was the reply, "on a spriufr day, mounted on a fine horse, and hoidinjr a falcon on your flst, to see him brine down his prey." "No," said Zingis; "the greatest enjoyment of man is to conquer his enemies, to drive them before him, to snatch from them all that they possess, to see the persons dear to them with their faces bathed in tears, to mount their horses, and carry awav captive their daughters and their wives Hue's " Clirlstiaulty in Tartary," iSc. i iPritchard's "Natural Hlstorj' of Man." 212 ;TJHE,ABCHEE AND TflE STEPPE. Zingis, tjiey remained at his camp in central Asia and China to complete these important conquests. The whole empire was ruled more like an army than a state, and the limits of the authority of each governor was defined rather by the localities of the families of his horde, than the natural or political divisions of the provinces. No Mongol could change his place of abode, or transfer his allegiance to ajiother chief, without the express permission of the Imperial court ; and the power of the Grand Khan extended over every other viceroy and ruler from the borders Of his own patrimony to the most remote and distant Mongul tent. " Since the commencement of the world," says the Chinese historian, Toung-kien-kammou, "no nation has been so powerful as the Monguls are now ; why does Heaven permit that i " Their conquests in Western Asia spread terror through all Europe, and caused the emperor, John Ducas of Byzantium, to reinforce all his garrison and fortify his cities j while the story found credence among his subjects, that the Tartars had the heads of dogs and eat the flesh of men ; yet no effort was made by the nations of the West to stem the coming torrent by strengtheniug the kingdom on the frontiers of Europe. Russia, indeed, was almost too inaccessible, shut out as she then was from the Euxine, to receive any efficient assistance; but the queen, Bhouzoudan of Georgia, appealed again and again for the aid of her fellow-religionists, and was only answered by cold refusals, or perfect indifference and neglect.* The Polotzi, after their defeat at Kalka, and expulsion from Kipzak and the Crimea, had wandered for some years in the southern steppes of Russia, ravaging the borders of Halich and Kiof ; and, at length retreating into Hungary, the king, Bela IV., allowed several of their families, under their chief, to form a colony in Moldavia, then a part of his territory, and from that time they settled down to a peaceful and agricultural life. It was not until the spring of the year 1229, that all the Tartar nobles and generals had reached the distant tents of Karacorum, to deliberate on the choice of a new khan. Touloui had been invested with the office of regent till the election should have taken place ; and, after three days of feasting, the grand council was h«ld, in which many voices • Hue's " Christianity In China, Tsrtaiy, aaa IJiiUet" ZINGIS KHAN — THE CONQUESTS OF THE MONGULS. 213 declared in favour of this prince, who had led them so often to battle and to victory. But Touloui himself proclaimed that Octal had been appointed his successor by the last words and directions of Zingis, and that the will of their father must be obeyed ; and, though his brother refused at first to accept the crown, wishing to place it on the head of Touloui, the latter declined the generous offer, and was the first to take the oath of allegiance. Then all the princes bent the knee nine times before Octal, and he was saluted with the title of Khakan or Grand Khan, and acknowledged as their lawful and imperial chief. Toushi had left three sons, Batft, Bereka, and Shebiani, who divided between them the command of their father's horde. The two former remained for a time at Karacorum, till they marched forth on new conquests in the west ; while Shebiani, taking up his abode to the north of the Aral, invaded Siberia with fifteen thousand families and tents, and with these he founded an empire, and erected a wooden capital near the present site of Tobolsk. Here his descen- dants reigned for above three hundred years, till the conquest of these wilds by the band of a Cossack outlaw, who pur- chased, by more than a third of Asia, a pardon for his political offences from the Gzar ; and the sultans and leaders of the Tartar tribes, who stiU roam in comparative independence over the wide Siberian steppes, wear an eagle's feather in their caps, as the proud mark of their descent from Zingis. The Monguls appear to have penetrated as far as the frozen shores of the Arctic Ocean ; for only fifteen years after the death of their great chief, we find that they were acquainted with the names and manners of the Samoyedes, whose ftir and ivory, their only riches, were not secure from the depre- dations of the Tartars, even in their subterranean huts on the borders of the Polar Sea.* In the year 1240, Turmechirin, th« son of Zagatai, crossed the Indus, and subdued the principal towns of Hindostan, and his descendants ruled in Transoxiana and Samarcand till the last khan of their race was slain in a battle with the Kalmucks, when the empire, after a long civil war, became subject to the sway of Tamerlane. • Gibbon's "Decline ana Fall of the Soman Empire." CHAPTER II. f^t ^riticcs of ^M—§utu ^f^m — '§t tonqmts '^nssm, anb xnbiigts '^almxh anb- Pimgarg — ^ntbassg sent bg t^t "^ap ta tlj£ ^ranb- ^^'att — dtktiwn of Cmtgat^ — J^aracorum — Camp: 0f §atn at S^rai. " The populous cities blaclten In the sun, And in the general wreclCv proud palaces Lie undistinguish'd, save by the dun smoke Of recent conflagration."— H. Mobb, Upon the sudden and unexpected departure of the Monguls from before Kiof — though their country was utterly laid ■waste, their prince Micislaf fallen at Kalka, and a severe famine and pestilence were already making their presence felt throughout the land— the Russians at Kiof gave them- selves up to the most extravagant joy : the sounds of war were exchanged for perpetual feasting and amusement, and the clash of swords and dust of battle for hunting and dancing, and other national sports. But these amusements were suc- ceeded too soon by other and graver cares : the scattered Polotzi tribes, who roved on the southern borders of the empire after their expulsion from Kipzak, kept up a per- petual desultory war with the inhabitants, and, a few years after the death of Micislaf took prisoner his successor, Vladimir lY., a prince of the house of Monomachus, and caused him to be cruelly put to death. Nature and man appeared alike to have leagued against the unhappy Kiof; and, during the few years that elapsed between the first and second invasion of the Monguls, many houses were over- thrown, and many persons killed or injured, by several shocks of earthquake that were felt throughout southern Russia ; while, during the whole of one summer, the country was enveloped in a thick fog, which, destroying the crops, was productive of a dreadful famine, only succeeded by a still more terrible plague. The depopulation and national dis- couragement of which these misfortunes were the cause, still THE PRINCES OF KIOF, ETC. 215 furtlier incapacitated the Russians from offering any adequate resistance to the approaching storm of Tartars ; and, added to this, the people appeared utterly indifferent to their danger, and the utmost recklessness of defence and life every where prevailed. After the death of Vladimir, the princely sceptre again became the subject of controversy and civil wars ; it was held by several chiefs in succession, each of whom was compelled in turn to yield it to a more powerful competitor, and each of whom, if he escaped with life, was only destined to suffer loss of sight by the cruelty of a successful rival, or linger out a few miserable years in a dungeon or monastic cell. At length Mikkail, a prince of Suzdal, succeeded in establishing himself at Kiof; but, abandoning the city, he fled into Hungary on the second approach of the Tartars, leaving his dominions to be defended by his eldest son, Demetrius, the worthiest and bravest of his race. The father of Mikkail, the Grand Prince of Vladimir, had been succeeded by his sons Jaroslaf in Novogorod, and George in Vladimii-, the latter of whom gained considerable success and fame in his wars with the Bulgarians on the Volga, who had frequently harassed his territories, though the invasion of their kingdom by the Monguls shortly after, induced them to intreat the Russian princes for assistance ; which, being refused, Bul- garia was unable to contend alone against her powerful enemy, and her kingdom was finally swept away in 1236 by the overwhelming force of Batii Khan. In 1235, Ogotai, or Octal, the son and successor of Zingis Khan, having completed the subversion of all Central Asia, first prepared to establish his dominion over the eastern countries of Europe. His entire army consisted of fifteen hundred thousand men — for every Mongul who had attained to the vigour of manhood was a soldier — and the forces of the Khan were further increased by captives from the many nations whom his own and his father's conquests had reduced to a state of servitude. He divided these forces under different generals, for the subjection of India, Corea, and the more distant nations of the west, and intrusted 500,000 warriors of the tributary Finnish, Turkish, and Slavonic nations, with 160,000 Monguls, to the command of his nephew, Batii Khan, the viceroy of Kipzak, who, after cele- brating a grand festival for forty, days at the Tartar camp at 216 THE AKCHEa AND THE STEPPE. Karacorum, set foi'ward on this SlJupfendotis expedition, and, overrunning the kingdom of Bulgaria, entered Russia.** Well skilled in the art of forging metals, which their own coiintiy plentifully affijrded, the Tartars, armed with pikes hooked at the end, weighty bows, frohi which they let fly iron shafts, and' tretaendoua battering-rams, that in one day overthrew the fortifications of Kiof, had little difSeulty in contending against the wooden swords and slings of the Russians, and committed the most frightful ravages every where on their route. The tortures and barbarities which they inflicted on the natives, of a;U ag«s and degrees, are too hideous and shocking for description, and can scarcely even find a parallel in the horrible executions of China, or among the wild Indian tribes of North America. In many jiarts of the empire, they spared scaSrcely one out of fifty men, and the province of Kiof alone lost 60,000, besides women and children. Riazan, whose princes, Oleg and Fedor, had solicited and obtained the assistance of George, the Grand Prince, was taken and razfed to the ground--— all her chiefs, priests, and inhabitants, perishing in the carnage that ensued, and her arnly with its allies entirely destroyed ; while Periazlaf — though bravely defended by its youthful ■ prince — Rostoff, Moscow, Tver, and all the district of Suzdal, shared the same fate. At length the Tartar amiy marched upon Vladimir and closely besieged it, while the Grand Princess and he* sons attempted to defend the town in the ab.sence of Yourii, its sovereign, who was engaged in the celebration of a rtiarriage feast at a short distance from his capital. But their courage, inspired by despair, was unavailing against the furious onslaught of the Tartars ; who, destroying the walls and bastions, maasaei'ed the two princes with every inhabitant whom they encountered in the streets, and the princess, having taken refuge with her daughters and the ladies and officers of her court in a church, which she refused to open to the invaders, disregarding all their promises of security and ofiers of quarter, calmly received the sacrament from the hands of the archbishop, and perished « " A Russian ftigitlve/' says Gibbon,' *' carried the alarm t6 Sweden ; and, in Ilie year 1238, the inliabitants of Gotliia (Sweden) and Frlse, were prevented, by their fear of the Tartars, from sending as usuai their ships to the herring fishery on tile coast of Enpland, and, as there was no exportation, (ortyorflfty of these fish were soid (or a shiillng.(?) It is whimsical enough, that the orders of a Mongul Khan, who reigned on the borders of China, should have lowered the price oflierrings In the EugUsli market 1"— Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Boman Empire." THE PRINCES OP KIOD', ETC. 217 in the flames of the edifice, -which the Monguls had fired in order to induce her to abandon the protection of its walls.* The unfortunate George tore his hair and became almost desperate when he learned his family's fate ; and, collecting a small army, he marched to oppose the strongly armed hosts of the enemy, but was defeated and killed in a battle fought on the banks of the Siti, on the 4th of March, 1238, and his forces destroyed to a man — the wounded and prisoners, among whom was his nephew Vassilko, being all put to death with horrible tortures by their barbarous conquerors. To ascertain the number of dead left upon the field, the Monguls were accustomed after an engagement to cut off an ear from each of the slain ; and in the year 1239 they gathered 270,000 of these ghastly trophies from the desolated plains of Russia ; t and, after the battle of Leignitz, where they defeated the united forces of the Poles, SUesians, and the order of the Teutonic knights, they filled nine sacks with the right ears collected from the field. | Having completed the total destruction of Vladimir and its dependencies, Batii Khan led his forces to within a short distance of Novogorod, but did not pursue his conquests further north ; and on Taroslaf, the brother of George, and Prince of Novogorod, tendering to him his submission, with ofiers of allegiance, he granted that chief the province of Vladimir, with the title of Grand Prince, to be held tributary to the khan ; and, withdrawing his army from the north of Russia, marched towards the more fruitful and populous principalities of the south, where, sacking aU the towns and villages, and burning and laying waste every forest and field through which his forces passed, he advanced upon the old and so frequently captured city of Kiof. No bridge in those days spanned the breadth of the Dnieper, and the Monguls were unprovided with boats ; but they speedily surmounted this obstacle by crossing the river, after the fashion of the ancient Scythians, upon boughs of trees covered with hides, to which they fastened their baggage, and tying it to the tails of their horses, and seating themselves upon it, using their bows for oars, were thus conveyed safely across. Arrived at the other side, they established themselves before the town, where its prince had abandoned the defence of his • MonraTieffs " Church of Enssla." t Hue's "Chrlstinnity In China," &c % Ulbbon'9 " Decline and Fall of the BomoB Empire." 218 THE AECHEB AJTD THE STEPPE. own dominions to the skill and courage of his eldest son Demetrius, with the energetic assistance of his boyards, by whom the enemy was long bravely withstood. But the formidable storming machines of the Tartars, and the in- flammable powder, whose composition was a secret to the rest of the world, and with which they raised smoke and flames in the midst of their engagements, confounding and baffling their enemies, and inspiring them with the belief that they were opposed by demons rather than by mortal men,* soon efiected for them an entrance into the city, and, accord- ing to their usual custom, they destroyed the inhabitants, among whom was Joseph, the Greek metropolitan of Russia, without distinction or mercy, and fired every house. But the commander still refused to yield, and after every church and monastery, all of which had been fortified by the citizens, had successively fallen before the enemy, he intrenched himself with the rest of the people in the cathedral of St. Sophia, prepared to resist to the last extremity every efibrt of the Monguls to dislodge them from this, their last stronghold and retreat. But their efibrts were of no avail ; for the roof break- ing in, owing to the weight of the crowds who had sought safety and shelter in the upper rooms and every part of the building, many perished among the ruins, and their chief was taken alive and dragged a prisoner before the fierce and savage Batu Khan. When brought, however, into the pre- sence of the Mongul prince, the calmness and fearlessness of his demeanour inspired even the Tartar with some respect for his courage and misfortunes ; and, sparing his life, Batu allowed him to plead successfully for the protection of his few remaining followers, who, with a large sum of money that they had concealed in the ground from the avaricious eyes of their enemies, ransomed the cathedral of St. Sophia from destruction, though all the rest of the city was reduced to ashes; at the same time, the conqueror listened to the arguments of his captive, when he attempted to divert him from pursuing his desolating course any farther in Russia. Demetrius represented to Batd that his country had long been weakened by the dissensions of her princes, and the continual invasions of her foreign enemies, who had en- croached upon and appropriated her provinces, plundered her cities, and reduced her to so barren and enfeebled a con- • Hue's " Christianity in China," &c. THE PRINCES OP KIOP, ETC. 219 dition, that she was totally unable to resist the arms of the Tartars, who, now that they had captured and destroyed her chief cities, and rendered barren and waste all her fields and cultivated lands, could obtain neither advantage nor booty by pursuing the war any further, but would suffer severely from want of forage and pi-ovisions ; and that, owing to the prostrate condition of Russia, the Monguls need fear no outbreak or reprisals, if they abandoned her to seek wealth and furthur fame among the more favoured nations of the West. Poland and Hungary, he urged, contained iron mines, whose pi-oduce would be valuable in renewing the bent and rusty weapons of the Tartars ; and they had for many years enjoyed the blessings of peace, during which they had greatly prospered, accumulated riches, and cultivated their land ; their fields would aflSbrd ample forage for the horses of the Monguls, and they were already making formid- able preparations to resist the arms of the invaders. Bati dismissed the Russian with many presents and marks of his esteem ; and, proceeding to act upon his advice, invaded and overran Halich, Silesia, and Poland, where he encountered the united armies of these kingdoms, who had joined the banners and martial array of the Teutonic knights, in a desperate fight at Leignitz, and were commanded by the Duke of Silesia and the Polish king, Henry the First. Be- fore the engagement, the mother of Henry, St. Hedwige, had abandoned the convent in which she had been long self- immurred, and, rushing through the ranks of the soldiers, urged them to fight heroically in the cause of their country and of Christianity. They indeed made a desperate resis- tance, and inflicted a sevei-e loss upon the enemy ; but the Crusaders, who had demanded the honour of commencing the battle, which was fought on the 9th of April, 1241, were deceived by a feint of the Mongul cavalry, who fii-st retreated and then charged, and, having separated from the main body in pursuit, the enemy rallied, and overthrew the divided forces in succession, leaving the king and duke among the countless dead. The barbarians struck oflT the head from the corpse of the unfortunate monarch, and mounting it on a pike, presented it before the town of Leignitz, calling upon the inhabitants to surrender ; but before the Poles had decided upon their answer to the imperioiis summons, the Monguls furiously burst open the gates, and gave up the 220 THE ARCHER AND THE STEPPE. town to utter destruction, with, all the ravages of fire and sword. Laying wafite the whole country, they drove the wretched captives, who were chained together, and of all ranks and ages, in crowds before their hosts ; and despatched an outlawed Englishman as their ambassador, to the neigh- bouring Hungarian king, demanding the submission of that prince. But upon his positive refusal to listen to their pro- posals, they devastated Huugary for three years, and retreated to their camp on the Yolga, having left in that kingdom * only three cities standing, and driven her unfortunate monarch to seek refuge in the dreary retreat of a solitary isle on the Adriatic. They had previously ravaged both shores of the Danube, which they crossed on the ice, and indxicing the fugitives, who had fled to the woods from their burning towns, to abandon their hiding-places, under solemn engage- ments of protection and pardon, they massacred them all without mercy,; and three hundred women, who had escaped from the indiscriminate carnage, and belonged to the highest families of the nobility, were coolly executed in the presence * The monk, Eojrer of Varadin, an eyewitness -of tlie Tartar Inrasion of Hungary, in a book, entitled "MiserabUe Carmen, thus relates his own adventures:^" Whllet the Tartars were sacking Varadln, I escaped by night into a fortified island, but not thinking myself safe tliere, I took refuge In a neighbouring forest, iln the moraiing, th« island was occupied by the Tartars, who kUled all the people in it; my very hair stood up on hearing of these massacres, and a cold sweat, as of death, burst from me, when 1 thought ofthat army of murderers. I continued to wander about the woods, 'but I was staiTmg with hunger, and wag obliged to venture at night into the island, in order to searcli among the bodies for movsels-of food or flour, which 1 secretly carried away. I lived thus for twenty days, hiding myself in caverns and ditches, and in the hollow trunks of trees. The Tartars then promised that they would do -no harm to the inhabitants who would come out of their concealment. I -did not myself depend much on this piwailae, and my suspicions were but too^ust; but I thought it better to go at once to their camp, than to await my fate in a village, and I therefore gave hiyself up to a Hungarian who had gone into the service of the Tartars, and who deigned, as a gi'eat favour, to place me amongthenumberofhis servants. I was almost naked, but myibuslness was to mind the waggons; and I had the fear of death continually before me, tor I. knew that in one night the Tartars had murdered the Inhabitants of all the surrounding villages. Never- theless, as the princes had received orders to return to Tartary, we began to move away with the herds of cattle, and horses, and waggons, laden with booty. The army retired slowly, and when it had quitted Hungary to enter -Coumania, it was no longer allowed that any cattle should be killed for the use of the captives. The Tartars gave us only the intestines, heads, and hoofs, of the animals they had eateni and we heard from the in- terpreters that it was intended to kill us very soon:" He goes on to relate, how, having with his servant contrived to make his escape, they hide for several days in a forest, and, having reached the outside, mounted a tree to look about them. " Oh, what a sorrow! , the country was entirely desolatod, and it was a desert that we should have to oross, with nothing but the steeples of the churches to direct our steps ; and happy did we think ourselves, if we could find now and then some peas, onions, or garlic, in the ruins of the villages, otherwise, we had to support ourselves on roots. In about a week after leaving the forest, we arrived at Alba, where we found nothing but human bones, and the walls of the churches and palaces still stained with Christian blood. Ten miles otf there was, near a wood, a country-house commonly called I^ata ; and tour miles ll-om this forest, a high mountain, where many individuals of both sexes had taken refuge. When we reached it, the fugitives -congratulated us with tears In their eyes, and questioned us concerning the perils wo had encountered, 'lliey ofllered us black bread, made of a mixture of flour with nak^bark, and we thought it the most delicious thing we had ever «aten."— (Quoted 'by aiuc, in his "Clirlstiauity in China," &cO THE PEINCES OP laOF, ETC. 221 of the Tartar cHef.* As Batu advanced with his followers to the borders of Austria and Bohemia, Vinceslas, the king of the latter country, in alarm for its safety, wrote to all the neighbouring princes, urging them to unite in arms against the comm^on enemy. In his letter to the Duke of Brabant, he says — " A body of ferocious savages, in countless numbers, are occupying our I frontiers. The misfoi'tunes pre- dicted for the sins of men in the Holy Scriptures, are over- whelming us on every side ; " and, in conclusion, he remarks, that " the people of both north and south, are so oppressed by calamity, that never since the beginning of the world were they so cruelly scourged. "t But in 1246» before entering Bohemia, the Mongnl general was suddenly recalled to Asia by the death of Ogotai or Octal Elhan, whose son, Couyuk or Gayuk, succeeded him as chief of the Golden Horde ; and this event probably saved Europe; whose armies had been defeated, and her kingdoms overthrown, wherever they had been opposed, on every side ; as, while it caused the Tartars for a time to return to Karacorum, their ambition and enter- prise were subsequently diverted to another quarter of che globe. At the same time that Batii invaded Russia, another army of Tartars entered Georgia, which they burned and pillaged with Albania, and Great Armenia, where the princes, finding it impossible to oppose them effectually, submitted to the Mongul general Tcharmagan, and consented to serve in his armies, though the Georgian queen again urgently wrote for assistance fi-om the powers of the West ; and, in a letter addressed to the Pope, Gregory IX., she professes entire submission to the Church of Rome, and promises to unite Georgia to the Holy See. But she received for her only answer, that the pope mourned deeply the evils suffered by Georgia, but was unable to send her any help, since the Emperor Frederick II. had just raised a tempest within the Church ; still he greatly approved of her design of bringing Georgia within the pale of the Romish faith, and would send her some monks of the order of St. Dominic to assist her in the pious work. But the priests, if they ever reached her country, could not aid her against the enemies, who were pouring across her frontiers; and Rhouzoudon, finding her- • Gibbon's " Decline nnd Full of the Homnii Empire." t Hue's " ChrUtlanltj in Clilna, Tartarj-," 4