THE GROWTH OF RUSSIA 171 



man can reclaim. Though resembling in no other respect those splen- 

 did States of the American Union — Georgia, Alabama, and Florida — 

 it almost exactly coincides with them in area. The general aspect of 

 this steppe is Asiatic rather than Eiiroi)ean. 



No natural divisions anywhere intersect these zones to allow the 

 erection of jarring local interests into separate states. The difference 

 between them is in agricultural capability. They bear no other land- 

 marks than the funeral mounds of a bygone age, which, laboriousl}'' 

 constructed, dot their face. Over illimitai)le forest and illimitable 

 steppe hovers a uniformit}'' as limitless as the limitless variety of 

 western Europe. In the upheaval and turmoil which preceded and 

 followed the fall of the Roman empire, ljarl)arian hosts of various 

 lineage chased each other all over that ])rodigious plain which we call 

 Russia t9da3^ Its predominant })hysica] features were then the same 

 as now. But upon the tumultuous, receding masses of humanity thev 

 ]>roduced impressions no more })ernjanent than did the clouds. In 

 time the tribal movements diminished and almost ceased. Most of 

 the tribes that outlived disease and carnage settled in fixed habita- 

 tions. The boundaries of their nascent states were vague and shift- 

 ing, but tbey wow possessed a recognized center from which to act 

 and around which to grow. 



THE SLAVS, THE FINKS, AND THE TARTARS 



Thus in the western portion of the plain a large l)ody of Slavs 

 established their definite home. Of Indo-European or Aryan stock, 

 they were the distant kinsmen of the Teutons, the Celts, and Greco- 

 Latins, who had parceled out among themselves the central, western, 

 and southern })ortions of Europe. B}' lar the larger ]>art of the ])lain 

 remained under tlie control of various Turanian or Tartar-Mongolian 

 tribes. They may be included under the general names of Tartars 

 and Finns. The Finns held all the sparsely inlialjited country be- 

 tween the Baltic Sea, the Arctic Ocean, and the Urals. South of 

 them, as far as the shores of the Black Sea, Avere found mixed tribes 

 of Finns and Tartars. Northwest and noi'tli t)f tlie C'asj)ian Sea Avere 

 Tartars and Turks. Finns and Tartars were descended from a com- 

 mon original stock and were kindred to the ancestors of the Magyars 

 or Hungarians and of the Ottoman Turks. The word Russian or 

 Russia was then unknown. lUit all the history since of an empire — 

 <.;.\|)aiiding like the tree of Holy Writ, wiiich overspread the earth — 



