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order that he might have something to report to his clerical

master when he came back from his explorations.

Sixty-one years later, Richard Chancellor, trying to discover

the North-eastern passage to the Indies, and blown by

an ill wind into the White Sea, reached the mouth of the Dwina

and found the Moscovite village of Kholmogory, a few hours

from the spot where in 1584 the town of Archangel was founded.

This time the foreign visitors were requested to come

to Moscow and show themselves to the Grand Duke. They

went and returned to England with the first commercial treaty

ever concluded between Russia and the western world. Other

nations soon followed and something became known of this

mysterious land.

Geographically, Russia is a vast plain. The Ural mountains

are low and form no barrier against invaders. The

rivers are broad but often shallow. It was an ideal territory for

nomads.

While the Roman Empire was founded, grew in power and

disappeared again, Slavic tribes, who had long since left their

homes in Central Asia, wandered aimlessly through the forests

and plains of the region between the Dniester and Dnieper

rivers. The Greeks had sometimes met these Slavs and a few

travellers of the third and fourth centuries mention them.

Otherwise they were as little known as were the Nevada Indians

in the year 1800.

Unfortunately for the peace of these primitive peoples, a

very convenient trade-route ran through their country. This

was the main road from northern Europe to Constantinople.

It followed the coast of the Baltic until the Neva was reached.

Then it crossed Lake Ladoga and went southward along the

Volkhov river. Then through Lake Ilmen and up the small

Lovat river. Then there was a short portage until the Dnieper

was reached. Then down the Dnieper into the Black Sea.

The Norsemen knew of this road at a very early date. In

the ninth century they began to settle in northern Russia, just

as other Norsemen were laying the foundation for independent

states in Germany and France. But in the year 862, three

Norsemen, brothers, crossed the Baltic and founded three small

dynasties. Of the three brothers, only one, Rurik, lived for a

number of years. He took possession of the territory of his

brothers, and twenty years after the arrival of this first

Norseman, a Slavic state had been established with Kiev as its

capital.

From Kiev to the Black Sea is a short distance. Soon the

existence of an organised Slavic State became known in

Constantinople. This meant a new field for the zealous

missionaries of the Christian faith. Byzantine monks followed the

Dnieper on their way northward and soon reached the heart of

Russia. They found the people worshipping strange gods

who were supposed to dwell in woods and rivers and in mountain

caves. They taught them the story of Jesus. There was

no competition from the side of Roman missionaries. These

good men were too busy educating the heathen Teutons to

bother about the distant Slavs. Hence Russia received its religion

and its alphabet and its first ideas of art and architecture

from the Byzantine monks and as the Byzantine empire (a

relic of the eastern Roman empire) had become very oriental

and had lost many of its European traits, the Russians suffered

in consequence.

Politically speaking these new states of the great Russian

plains did not fare well. It was the Norse habit to divide

every inheritance equally among all the sons. No sooner had

a small state been founded but it was broken up among eight

or nine heirs who in turn left their territory to an ever increasing

number of descendants. It was inevitable that these small

competing states should quarrel among themselves. Anarchy

was the order of the day. And when the red glow of the eastern

horizon told the people of the threatened invasion of a savage

Asiatic tribe, the little states were too weak and too divided

to render any sort of defence against this terrible enemy.

It was in the year 1224 that the first great Tartar in