THE FINNS AND LAPPS. 137 



Here then was a great central mart or exchange, 

 whither came the ships and mariners of all nations, save 

 only the Saracens ; for the infidel vessels would have 

 found scant welcome at the hands of the newly-converted 

 Northmen. Here was a source of sea law observed by all 

 Christian sea-faring peoples. And here, if anywhere, was 

 the focal point from which it may be presumed would be 

 radiated any new item of knowledge, of interest and im- 

 portance to the maritime world. 



Among the ships which came to Wisbuy were those of 

 the Finns and Lapps ; and among the northern tribes, the 

 Finns and Lapps differed from all the others in character 

 and customs. Unlike their neighbors, they belong to that 

 great Ugric nomad race which includes the Mongolians, 

 Etrurians and Magyars. Their early history is exceed- 

 ingly obscure. While the Lapps are commonly regarded 

 as members of the Finnic branch of the Turanian family, 

 some ethnologists consider them to be the original inhabi- 

 tants of the country now known as Finland, and to have 

 occupied it before the irruption into Europe of the Asiatic 

 hordes which destroyed the Roman Empire. The Finns, 

 on this theory, starting from the foot of the Ural Moun- 

 tains, came to Bulgaria and Hungary, and being driven 

 thence in the 7th century, made their way to the Baltic 

 provinces, whence they drove the Lapps to the extreme 

 north. Other hypotheses deny the close connection thus 

 predicated between the Finns and Magyars, and place 

 the migration of the former northward at a far earlier 

 date, while extending the area of their settlement over a 

 large part of Sweden and Norway, whence they were ex- 

 pelled by the Scandinavian Teutons and forced into the 

 confines of present Finland. 



In the I2th century, at the instigation of the Pope, Eric 

 IX., King of Sweden, undertook to introduce Christianity 

 among them; a series of crusades followed during the 

 next two hundred years, with the result of subduing 

 the Finns, though not of conquering them, and with the 



