Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/194

 4 Greek, and hence from a Chaldaic origin, viz., from the Greek word ῤοῦς, a flowing, or from a kind of dispersion, as it were, by drops, which is called by the Aramæans, Resissaia or Ressaia; just as the Galli and Umbri have received their appellations from the Hebrew words, Gall and Gallim, and from Umber, i.e., floods, storms, and inundations; which is as much as to call them an inconstant and stormy people, or a nation liable to burst out and run over. But whatever be the source from which Russia has derived its name, all the races using the Sclavonic language that observe both the faith and the forms of Christianity in accordance with the ritual of the Greeks, and are called in conventional language Russians, and in Latin Rhuteni, have increased to so great a multitude, that they have either driven out all intermediate nations, or have absorbed them into their own habits of living; so that all may now be designated by one common word, Russians.

Moreover, the Slavonic language,—which, by a slight corruption of the word, is called Sclavonic at the present day,—has a most extensive range: for the Dalmatians, the Bosnians, the Croatians, the Istrians, and those who dwell along the Adriatic in a long tract of country as far as Friuli; the Carni, whom the Venetians call Charsi; the Carniolians also, and the Carinthians, as far as the Drave; the Styrians, like-