The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

THE VOLGA. 365and rafts are then able to descend from the lake region, and higher up the riverbecomes regularly navigable. Xear this point the Volga is nearly doubled bythe Selijarovka from the winding Lake Seliger, whoso insular monastery of StNilus is still visited yearly by about 20,000 pilgrims. Here may be saidto begin the commercial stream, the Ra, Rhas, or Rhos of the ancients and of theMordvinians, the Yul of the Cheremissians, the Atel or Etil of the Tatars, theFig. 192. Sources of the Volga and Dvtna.Scale 1 : 575,003.E of P. 301 10- E of GTamar of the Armenians—that is, in these languages, the " River " —and in Finnishthe Volga, or the " Holy River."Below the Selijarovka it descends the slopes of the plateau through a series ofthirty-five porogi, or rapids, -which, however, do not stop the navigation, andbeyond the last of the series it winds unimpeded through the Great Russianlowlands, receiving numerous navigable tributaries, and communicating by canalwith the Baltic basin. After passing the populous towns of Tver, Ribinsk,Yaroslav, and Kostroma, it is joined at Jsijni-Xovgorod by the Oka, of nearly