IN NORTHERN MISTS 



were harpoons, as Jacob thinks. We must rather suppose 

 that they were rough (" unpoHshed ") steel blades, which 

 were used for making harpoons and lances (for walrus hunting 

 and whaling). The blades having water poured over them 

 must doubtless mean the tempering of the steel, through which, 

 when it was afterwards hung up by a cord, it came to give 

 the true ring. Although Abu Hamid is no trustworthy writer, 

 it seems that there must be some reality at the base of this 

 statement; and we here have information about some of the 

 wares that the traders carried to Wisu, and that were derived 

 from their commercial intercourse with Arabs and Jews. 

 The people to whom the inhabitants of Wisu, or Vesses, took 

 the steel blades must have been fishermen on the shore of the 

 Polar Sea, who carried on seal and walrus hunting, and 

 perhaps also whaling, and this is what is referred to by the 

 fish that Allah sends up. They may have been Samoyeds (on 

 the Pechora), Karelians, Tver-Finns, and even Norwegians. It 

 might be objected that sables cannot be supposed to have been 

 obtained from the last named; but this is doubtless not to be 

 taken too literally. Ibn Ruste (circa 912 A.D.) thus says that 

 the Rus (Scandinavians, usually Swedes) had no other occupa- 

 tion but trading in sables, squirrel, and other furs, which they 

 sold to anyone who would buy them. 



It seems to result from what may be trustworthy in these 

 statements that there was fairly active commercial intercourse 

 from Bulgar with the Vesses and with the peoples on the White 

 Sea, and perhaps in districts near the Polar Sea. A shortest 

 night of one hour would take us to a little north of the mouth 

 of the Dvina. In the land of the Vesses, by Lake Bielo-ozero, 

 there was an easy way across from the Volga's tributary, 

 Syexna, to Lake Kubenskoye, which has a connection with 

 the Dvina ; and there was also transit to the river Onega. There 

 was thus easy communication along the great rivers ; but besides 

 this the traders seem also to have traveled overland with dogs; 

 this was probably when going north to Yugria and the country 

 of the Pechora, in the same way as traders in our time generally 

 146 



