CHAPTER IX. 



VOLGA AND ITliAL BASINS. 



(OitnAT RrssiA.) 



ITE river whicli iiitorsocMs Russia obliquely from near the Baltic to 

 the Caspian, and wliicli drains an area tlirice the extent of France, 

 has largely contributed to the political development of the Russian 

 people. The JJnieper showed the liittle Russians tiie route to 

 ^ (Constantinople ; the Vistula, Niémen, and Western Dvina laid open 

 the West to the White Russians and Lithuanians; even the Volkhov and the 

 Neva, by placin<>- Novgorod in relation with the Hanseatic towns, withdrew it, so 

 to say, from the heart of the land. But the Volg-a and the vast system of 

 its navigable affluents compelled the inhabitants lo devc^loj) tliemselves and create 

 their civilisation on ihc spot. Althougli tlie water liigliways i'acih'tated com- 

 munication in every direction between the various regions of Great Russia, few 

 colonists were attracted to the arid steppes, the salt wastes, and theland-loeked basin 

 of the Caspian in the south-east. Tlie bulk of the people were thus eonlined to 

 the central region, which they gradually brought undcu- cultivation. Coming in 

 contact at a thousand points with the Asiatic tribes pouring in tJiiougli the 

 steppes, the Great Russians intermingled with them, either absorbing or becoming 

 absorbed, and thus by continuous crossings developing that hard}^ race which 

 gradually accpiired the supremacy over all the Eastern Shivs. Through husbandry, 

 canals, highways, railways, henceforth relieved from the old limits imposed by 

 their swamps and forests, they have been able to reverse the flow of migration, 

 sending forth groups of colonists to the remote shores of the Pacific, girdling 

 round Ciiina with a continuous chain of settlements, and thus bringing a great 

 part of the Asiatic continent more and more under Euroi)ean influences. But 

 the Volga and its great head-streams still remain the centre of Great ][ussian 

 nationality; hero they number already upwards of tliirty millions, and in some 

 places have peopled the land as thickly as many countries in the west of 

 Europe. 



