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HE earliest and most important commercial intercourse between the Slavonians and other european nations was carried on in the city of, at the mouth of the Oder, a city of whose extent, wealth, and influence, Adam of Bremen [Hist. Eccles. c. xii.] speaks with a sort of astonishment. Among its local regulations he mentions that the christians who traded there were not allowed to attempt to proselytise the inhabitants, whom he honors with this eulogium, that, though they observed the rites of paganism, there was no where to be found more courtesy of manners, nor a more benignant hospitality. In the ninth century the labours of Method and