The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

328 BUSSIA IN EUROPE.history is presented by a city situated in the midst of solitudes, and lying asnear to the pole as Labrador, Cape Farewell in Greenland, or Kamchatka, yetattracting a population of hundreds of thousands, thanks to its commercialadvantages and the influences of political centralization. But so long as theinhabitants had to depend on the local resources, this great lacustrine territorycould never have developed large centres of population. It is known to have beenoccupied by fishing and hunting tribes from a remote antiquity, for objectsbelonging to the stone age have been found on the shores of Onega and the neighbouringlakes. A rampart of rough-hewn blocks 3,220 yards long has beentraced near the small Lake Lujand, south-east of Onega, but the nationality ofits builders is unknown, no human remains having been discovered in thesurrounding graves. The tumuli occurring near the Svir, south-west of Onega,contain two distinct types of crania—one brachycephalous, the other doliehocephalousand prognathous like the African.Population :Finns and Great Russians.The intruding Great Russians now occupy nearly all the Volkhov basin, andhave at many points overstepped their old historical limits marked by LakePeipus and the rivers Narova, Neva, and Svir. But within their ethnologicaldomain proper there still remain detached groups and enclaves of Finnish populations.In the Msta basin, and on the uplands skirted on the east by the Valdaicrests, there dwell Karelian Finns, descendants of those removed hither by Peterthe Great, and who had here been probably preceded by the Chudes, the"Prodigies," "Monsters," "Foreigners," whose remains are found in the surroundingtumuli. East of the Narva others have preserved the name of Votes(Vadjalaiset), formerly belonging to a widely diffused nation already in the enjoymentof a relatively advanced culture in the ninth century. Upwards of eightthousand mounds, mostly small and poor in old remains, have been examined byIvanovskiy, and the two thousand crania found in them seem to belong to the Ural-Altaic race. On the west side of Onega, and farther south between Lakes Ladogaand Belo (" White "), there dwell some Vepses, or Northern Chudes, here and thereforming distinct communities variously estimated at from 12,000 to 25,000. Theirsjieech is of a peculiarly archaic type, but they are being rapidly " Russified," andin several of their villages Russian already prevails, or is largely mingled with thelocal dialect. Most of the women have preserved their language better thantheir Finnish type : according to Mainov few have the slant eyes of theMongolians, and many are distinguished for their beauty, quite in the " Novgorodstyle." Nearly all the Vepses are brachycephalous, and taller than theaverage Russian. To judge from the names of their domestic animals, iron,gold, zinc, agricultural terms, they seem to be indebted to the Russians, Swedes,and Lithuanians for their culture. They still believe in their household gods,and on occupying a new home never forget to fetch the embers from the oldhearth, and slip a bit of bread under the oven. But if the cock neglects to crow