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To begin with, our boat was commanded by a Vice-Admiral in full uniform. His family was with him, spending the summer on board sailing up and down the river between Nizhni Novgorod and Astrakhan. The passengers over whom the vice-admiral ruled were delightfully varied. There were Russians from every quarter of the empire, and of as many races, including Armenians.
In the mean time the Metropolitan with his bishops made progresses into the interior of Russia, to the cities of Rostoff and Novgorod, everywhere baptizing and instructing the people. Vladimir himself, for the same good end, went in company with other bishops to the district of Souzdal and to Volhynia.
Marpha, the ambitious widow, who had stirred up the revolt and sought to attach Novgorod to Lithuania, had never been molested; and even the principal persons who were most conspicuous in resisting his authority at the outset were suffered to remain unharmed.
He hoped thus to provoke Sviatoslaf to attempt the passage of the stream. But Sviatoslaf was not to be thus entrapped. Breaking up his camp, he retired to Novgorod, where he was received with rejoicings by the inhabitants. Here he established himself as a monarch, accumulated his forces, and began, by diplomacy and by arms, to extend his conquests over the adjacent principalities.
The Prince of Novgorod was the only prince in Russia who had kept his independence, but he knew Batu's hands could extend as far as the Ilmen. "God has subjected many peoples to me," wrote the barbarian to him: "will you alone refuse to recognize my power? If you wish to keep your land, come to me; you will see the splendor and the glory of my sway."
There were also among them some bronze weapons from ancient times when iron was not yet employed in that low country. Some swords were entirely made of bronze, but most of them were of good steel of Novgorod. The Bohemian handled the spears, swords, hatchets, axes and tarred bows, examining them closely by the light of the camp-fires.
At the point of intersection I got on board a small steamer and sailed up stream towards Lake Ilmen for about fifty miles.* The journey was tedious, for the country was flat and monotonous, and the steamer, though it puffed and snorted inordinately, did not make more than nine knots. Towards sunset Novgorod appeared on the horizon.
Petersburg to the Prussian frontier, and connect with the railroads of Prussia, so that within twelve months it will be practicable to travel by rail all the way from Marseilles or Bordeaux to Nijni Novgorod. The Moscow and St. Petersburg Railway is something over four hundred miles in length, and consists of a double track, broad, well graded, and substantially constructed.
A series of terrible disasters from storms and floods thinned his ranks, and the monarch in great dejection returned to Moscow to replenish his forces. Again, early in December, he hastened to meet his army which had been rendezvoused at Nigni Novgorod, on the Volga, about three hundred miles west of Moscow.
It lay to the southeast of Esthonia, and it was a part of what is now known as the Russian Empire. Many Norsemen lived in that land, and King Valdemar was himself the son of the great Swedish viking, Rurik, who had made conquests and settlements in the countries east of the Baltic Sea. Valdemar held his court at Holmgard the modern Novgorod.
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