Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/78

 54 successful at this period. Most probably, as Monsieur Zamyslovski opines, all that was then done was to turn a few stranded whales to account (see his study in the Revue du Min. de l'Istr. Publ., published May, 1882, p. 67). Certain varieties of birds had a constant sale abroad—gerfalcons, especially, brought very high prices. Flax from Pskov, and hemp from Smolensk, Dorokhobouje, and Viazma, all found foreign purchasers, and so did the salt from the Staraïa-Roussa salt-works, and the tar from Smolensk and Dvinsk. Persia took all the walrus teeth, using them both for industrial purposes and in the preparation of much vaunted remedies and antidotes against poison. Mica, found in great quantities on the banks of the Dvina and in Carelia, was used instead of glass all over the country, and was also exported with other mineral products, such as saltpetre, prepared at Ouglitch, Jaroslavl, and Oustioug; sulphur, taken out of the lakes of Samara; and iron from the mines of Carelia and those near Kargopol and Oustioujna.

Some manufactured articles, though principally consumed at home, found a certain number of purchasers abroad. Tartary took saddles, bridles, linens, cloths, and garments, and sent back Asiatic horses in their stead. The European merchants brought ingot silver, gold thread, copper, cloth, looking-glasses, lace, cutlery, needles, purses, wines, and fruits. Their Asiatic comrades sold silk stuffs, gold tissues, carpets, pearls, and gems. Both were bound to bring all their merchandise to Moscow, where the Sovereign, having made his own selection in the first place, gave them leave to offer the rest for public sale. Peter the Great's daughter was to claim this privilege, with regard to the merchants who brought fashions from France, in later days.

The meeting-place of all the merchants was at the confluence of the Mologa and the Volga. Here, in ancient days, had stood a little town, called the 'town of the slaves' (Kholopii gorodok), of which a church was the only remaining vestige. This town had been founded, according to tradition, by Novgorod slaves, who had fled from the rage of their masters, whose honour they had cruelly outraged during an absence which had proved too long for the virtue of the wives they behind them. The fair held on this spot was the most famous in all Russia. It lasted four months, and filled the huge estuary with such an army of boats, packed close together, that men passed dryfoot from one shore to the other. German, Polish, Lithuanian, Greek, Italian, Persian merchants, crowded along the shores, and exposed their wares in a huge meadow, circled with temporary inns and wineshops. These last establishments numbered as many as seventy, and the bartering round about them was so extensive as to be worth 180 pounds of silver to the