548

HISTORY Cft? MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

At the first island below the falls, the Russians celebrated the festival of theirescape ; at a second, near the mouth of the river, they repaired their shatteredvessels, for the longer and more perilous voyage of the Black sea. If theysteered along the coast, the Danube was accessible. With a fair wind, theycould reach, in thirty-six or forty hours, the opposite shores of Anatolia, andConstantinople admitted the annual visit of the strangers of the north. Theyreturned, at the stated season, with a rich cargo of corn, wine, and oil, themanufactures of Greece, and the spices of India. Some of their countrymenresided in the capital and provinces, and the national treaties protected thepersons, effects, and privileges of the Russian merchant.’*

Thus did the self-taught navigators of the north, either wearied with a con-tinued scene of what might almost be called fraternal warfare, or, to speaknearer the truth perhaps, tired of a conduct productive only of carnage, withoutsatisfying the avarice, or pampering the luxurious appetite of the conqueror,turn their attention, for a time, to less hostile pursuits, and enter by meansof the rivers which intersect their country, and the diminutive oceans whichthat of their neighbours surrounded, into by no means an inconsiderableshare of traffic with Constantinople itself. The description of the uncouthmeans by which this commerce was carried on, will not only prove interestingand amusing, but will serve to shew what the mind, even of uncivilised man,is capable of effecting, when applied with energy to any direct and particularpurpose.

Dangerous did the connexion prove, and sore cause of regret had those po-tentates, who still continued to boast themselves the descendants of the Cassars,at having encouraged that which proved a greater scourge than the empire,fallen as it was in consequence, and beset with foes on every side, had expe-rienced since the extinction of the Goths. Enervated by luxury, and appa-rently almost indifferent to its own fate, a fleet, if it could be said to deservethat appellation, of Russian marauders were permitted to pass down the Borys-thenes, and transfer all these horrors, which naturally as it were render theinroads or assaults made by an uncivilised people, more than commonlydreadful, from the tempestuous latitudes of the north, to the less agitatedshores of the Euxine, and the milder climate of Greece, or its environs. Thedescription of the vessels, bv means of which this kind of war, desultory as itproved, was carried on, may serve to convince all future ages, as it must have

done