Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/197

Rh also the Poles are called Lechi. Others are called Lithuanians, Mazovians, and Pomeranians; others, taking their abode by the Dnieper where now Kiev is situated, were called Poleni; others Drewliani, dwelling in woods; others between the Dwina and Peti were called Dregowici; others called Poleutzani, on the river Polta, which flows into the Dwina; others about the Lake Ilmen, who took possession of Novogorod, and selected as their ruler a prince named Gostomissel; others, called Seweri or Sewerski, dwelt on the shores of the rivers Desna and Sula; others again named Chriwitzi, by the sources of the Volga and the Dnieper, whose capital and fortress is Smolensko. These things are testified by their own annals.

It is unknown who were the original sovereigns of Russia, for they had no characters in which their deeds could be written and transmitted to memory. But after that Michael, king of Constantinople, had sent the Sclavonian characters into Bulgaria in the year of the world six thousand four hundred and six [898], then first, not only the occurrences of the period, but also those which they had heard from their ancestors and retained through long memory, began to be written and recorded in their annals. From these it appears, that the people of the Coseri had formerly exacted from some of the Russians a tribute of squirrel skins, to be delivered to them from each house, and also that the Waregi had been rulers over them. Concerning the Coseri, I have