Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/101

Rh with the grand Empire. The union of the Slavic people under one government has been the dream of the emperors of Russia for a long time, and what could be a better union, they argue, than their absorption into our own nation?"

Fred asked who the Slavs were, and whence they came.

"According to those who have studied the subject," Doctor Bronson answered, "they were anciently known as Scythians or Sarmatians. Their



early history is much obscured, but they seem to have had their centre around the Carpathian Mountains, whence they spread to the four points of the compass. On the north they reached to the Baltic; westward, they went to the banks of the Elbe; southward, beyond the Danube; and eastward, their progress was impeded by the Tartar hordes of Asia, and