doms for themselves in the countries which now form modern Russia, and taken possession of the city of Novgorod, a regular commercial route appears to have been opened, through Russia, between Constantinople and the North, by which the Varangians passed, who entered as bodyguards into the service of the Emperors of the East. But as far as regards trade, Novgorod and the Scandinavian colonists in Russia promoted a connection with Asia, which was of far greater extent and importance.

Before the passage to the East Indies by sea was discovered, and particularly before the Genoese and Venetians began to trade in the Black Sea and on the coasts of Asia, the main road from Arabia and the countries round the Caspian Sea to the Baltic and Scandinavia, lay through Russia, along the great rivers. To judge from the Oriental coins found both in Russia and in the Scandinavian countries, this commercial road must have been used from the eighth until far in the eleventh century, when it was broken up by internal disturbances in Asia, and by contemporary revolutions in Russia and the North. The road ran either from Transoxana (in Turan) to the countries north of the Caspian Sea, whence the merchandise was then brought along the river Volga to the Baltic; or else from Khorasan (in Iran), through Armenia, to the Black Sea; whence the Khazars and other people again conveyed it up the rivers farther towards the North. How considerable this trade must have been may be seen from the numerous hints in the Sagas, as well as from the still-existing Arabian accounts of merchants who in those days visited the coasts of the Baltic for the sake of trade, where considerable trading places, such as Sleswick and many others, are mentioned; but still more than all these, from the very great number of Arabian coins that have been dug up both in Russia and Scandinavia. In Sweden, and particularly in the island of Gothland, such an immense quantity of these has been found at various times, that in Stockholm alone

above twenty thousand pieces have been preserved, presenting more than a thousand different dies, and coined in about seventy towns in the eastern and northern districts of the dominions of the Caliphs. Five-sixths of them were coined by Samanidic Caliphs. Together with the coins, a great mass of ornaments has been dug up, consisting of rings and other articles in silver, which are distinguished by a peculiar workmanship. On the whole, it appears that silver first came by this way into the North, where it was not generally circulated before the ninth and tenth centuries, and consequently at the time when the trade with Arabia was in full activity.

These discoveries of Arabian coins in the north of Europe, but which are confined to the shores of the Baltic, the German Ocean, and the Irish Sea, undoubtedly prove that Scandinavia, and particularly the countries on its eastern coasts, together with the islands of Gothland, Öland, and Bornholm, must have been the principal depôt for Arabian merchandise. It was the trade with the East that originally gave considerable importance to the city of Visby in Gothland; and it was subsequently the Russian trade that made Visby, in conjunction with Novgorod, important members of the German Hanseatic league. As long as the Arabian trade flourished, Gothland was the centre of a very animated traffic. Even now an almost incredible number of German, Hungarian, and particularly AngloSaxon coins, of the tenth and eleventh centuries, is dug up in the island. The collection of coins in Stockholm comprises an assortment of Anglo-Saxon coins, mostly the product of these discoveries, which, for extent and completeness, surpasses the greatest collections of the sort even in London and England.

The important and extensive commercial intercourse between Scandinavia and England, to which this so decidedly points, can also be traced in England itself. Oriental or Arabian coins, struck in the countries near the

Caspian Sea, are dug up both in England and Ireland in conjunction with the very same kind of peculiar silver rings, and other ornaments of the same metal, that are also found with the Arabian coins in Scandinavia and Russia; nay, they are sometimes dug up, as in Cuerdale, in conjunction with coins of Danish-Norwegian kings and jarls; a fact which still further confirms the opinion that they were brought over to the British Isles by the Northmen. This connection with Arabia through the countries of Scandinavia may probably have brought to England, as well as to the North, such a mass of silver as enabled the AngloSaxon kings to mint that surprising number of silver coins, which appears at once in such forcible contrast to the want of silver in the preceding centuries. The ancient Britons had little or no silver before the Roman conquest. The Romans, who had large silver mines in Spain, certainly brought silver money with them into the British Islands; but after the overthrow of their dominion, a want of silver again prevailed, and continued, as the coins show, until far into the eighth and ninth centuries. Silver was consequently introduced into England and Scandinavia, generally speaking, about the same time; and there is undoubtedly far greater probability that it was brought into these countries in the same way—that is, from Asia through Russia-than that it should have come into England through the Moors in Spain; of whose caliphs there are very rarely any coins found in England, and between whom and the English the intercourse at that period seems to have been but very limited. In the treasure found at Cuerdale the rings and other silver ornaments were for the most part broken, and twisted, or even melted, together. Something similar has been observed in the treasure trove in the countries round the Baltic, and in Russia. This clearly proves that silver, as an article of commerce, was brought from Asia to the North, where it was melted and converted into ornaments and coins.

As long as the Norman expeditions lasted, and on the

whole as long as the Scandinavian supremacy at sea sufficed to protect the Scandinavian merchants and their ships, they continued to make voyages on their own account to the countries colonized by the Northmen. Thus the Anglo-Saxon coins dug up in the island of Gothland indicate a brisk and uninterrupted commerce between Scandinavia and England from the time of the Anglo-Saxon king Edgar (959-975) down to the death of Edward the Confessor and the Norman conquest (1066). But from that time, and particularly after the year 1100, there is a remarkable decrease in the Anglo-Saxon coins found in Gothland; which is a natural result of the interruption of the previous connection, through the hostile relations that ensued between the descendants of William the Conqueror and the Scandinavian kings; who steadily continued to claim the crown of England. Later in the middle ages the countries of Scandinavia fell more and more under the commercial yoke of the German Hanse Towns; whilst in England, on the contrary, a freer and healthier state of commerce was continually developing itself. The Danish king, Canute the Great, made it a point of the utmost importance to conclude commercial treaties with various foreign nations; and the Scandinavian merchants settled in England essentially contributed to make these leagues profitable. Old authors expressly notice the influence of these merchants on British trade. We also find evidence of it not only in their great number, and the weight they possessed in several English towns,-especially London, where they had their own churches, markets, and courts of law, and where, as before stated, they even at times decided the election of a king, as in the case of Harald Harefoot, but also in the names of money afterwards retained in the English language, as "March" and "Ora," from the Scandinavian "Mark" and "Ore." It was a natural consequence that commerce should at the same time make great progress, as the numerous Scandinavian settlers in England, and the Danish conquest,

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had infused a new and hitherto unknown life into everything relating to navigation, without which no animated trade could have flourished in the British Islands.

The ancient Britons were by no means a seafaring people. They appear to have confined themselves to short coasting voyages between the islands, and over the Irish and English channels. They had, therefore, no fleet to protect their coasts from the attacks of the Romans. Their vessels consisted either of the trunks of trees hollowed out, or of small frail boats formed of interwoven branches, or wicker-work, covered with hides. The Celtic nations have, on the whole, never been remarkable for their love of the sea, or of a seafaring life. On the contrary, they seem to have derived from nature a decided antipathy to it; and even to the present day it is very striking to observe how unwillingly their descendants venture out to sea. They prefer, under all circumstances, a landsman's life, even in remote and barren mountain tracts; nay, their disinclination for everything relating to a seaman's life is carried so far that they neglect, in a way almost incredible, the rich fisheries on the western coast of Scotland, and on the greater part of the coasts of Ireland; although, in the last-named country especially, famine carries off the inhabitants in shoals. In those villages where fishing is carried on to any extent, the inhabitants are in general descended from immigrant foreigners. Thus it is said that the fishermen on the west coast of Ireland are descended from Spaniards; and, to judge from their appearance, the assertion finds some confirmation.

Nor were the Anglo-Saxons a seafaring people, in the proper sense of the term. They comprised, it is true, Jutes, Angles, and Frisians; but the Saxons were the most numerous, and the Saxon disposition has always clung to a life ashore. It was natural, however, that the art of navigation should gradually develop itself among the Anglo-Saxons as they advanced in civilization and refinement. But how little they were at home on the sea, even in the time of Alfred the Great, is shown by the feeble