XIII.] 
PIERBERSTEIN’S MAP OF RUSSIA 
157 
Sea) here projects into the north coast of Russia; from the 
south there falls into it a large river, called the Dwina. On 
the banks of the Dwina there are forts or towns with the 
names Solovoka (Solovets), Pinega, Colmogor, &c. There are 
to be found on the map besides, the names Mesen, Peczora, 
Oby,^ Tumen, &c. Oby runs out of a large lake named Kythay 
lacus. In the text, mention is made of Irtisch and Papingorod, 
of walruses and white hears ^ by the coast of the Polar Sea, of 
the Siberian cedar-tree, of the word Samoyed signifying self¬ 
eaters, &c.^ The walrus is described in great detail. It is 
mentioned further that the Russian Grand Duke sent out two 
men, Simeon Theodorovitsch Kurbski and Knes Pietro 
U cHATOl, to explore the lands east of the Petchora, &c. 
Herber stein’s work, where the narrative of I stoma’s circum¬ 
navigation of the northern extremity of Europe, which has been 
already quoted, is to be found, was published only a few years 
before the first north-east voyages of the English and the Dutch, 
of which I have before given a detailed account. Through 
these the northernmost part of European Russia and the 
westernmost part of the Asiatic Polar Sea were mapped, but an 
actual knowledge of the north coast of Asia in its entirety 
was obtained through the conquest of Siberia by the Russians. 
It is impossible here to give an account of the campaigns, by 
which the whole of this enormous territory was brought under 
the sceptre of the Czar of Moscow, or of the private journeys for 
sport, trade, and the collecting of tribute, by which this conquest 
was facilitated. But as nearly every step which the Russian 
1 The river Ob is mentioned the first time in 1492, in the negotiations 
which the Austrian ambassador, Michael Snups, carried on in Moscow in 
order to obtain permission to travel in the interior of Russia (Adelung, 
Uehersicht der Reisenden in Russland, p. 157). 
^ As before stated, Marco Polo mentions Polar bears but not walruses. 
^ Herodotus places Andropagi in nearly the same regions which are 
now inhabited by the Samoyeds. Pliny also speaks of man-eating 
Scythians. 
