many different nations. Amongst these, the Goths are remarkable for their valour in war. They are divided into Ostrogoths and Westrogoths; the former meaning eastern, and the latter western Goths, from the situation of the countries which they inhabit. Marching out of this country, they became in former times a terror to the whole world, as several authors have recorded.

Norway, called by some Nortwagia, lies in a long range contiguous to Sweden, and is washed by the sea; and as the latter took its name from sud, that is, south, so the former derives its name from nort, that is, the north, in which direction it lies. For the Germans have used their own vernacular names for the four cardinal points, to designate provinces lying in those respective directions; for ost signifies east, whence the name of Austria, which the Germans properly call Osterreich. West is the German word for the Occident, whence comes the name of Westphalia; and in the same manner as I have above said, from sud and nort, come Swetia and Nortwagia.

Scandia is not an island, but a continent, forming part of the kingdoms of Sweden, and skirting the country of the Goths in a long tract. A great part of it now belongs to the King of Denmark; but as writers on these matters have described it as larger than Sweden itself, and have stated that the Goths and Lombards proceeded thence, these three kingdoms seem, according to my opinion, to have been comprehended as one great body, under the single name of Scandia; for at that time that part of the land between the Frozen Ocean and the Baltic Sea, which washes Finland, was unknown, and is indeed but little known to this day, on account of the great number of marshes and innumerable rivers, together with the inclemency of the climate; this has been the cause that many have described the whole of this immense island [peninsula] under the single name of Scandia.

With respect to Corela, we have already said that it is tri

butary both to the King of Sweden and the Prince of Russia, and lies between the dominions of both of these princes; hence each claims it as his own. Its boundaries extend as far as the Frozen Ocean. As, however, many various accounts have been given of the Frozen Ocean by different writers, I have thought it not inappropriate to subjoin a brief description of the navigation of that sea.

The Navigation of the Frozen Ocean.

At the time that I was at the court of the Grand Duke of Muscovy, as the ambassador of the Most Serene Prince my master, there happened to be there Gregory Istoma, the interpreter of that prince, an industrious man, who had learned the Latin language at the court of John, King of Denmark; and as he had been sent by his prince in the year 1496 to the King of Denmark, in company with one Master David (a Scotchman by birth, and at that time the King of Denmark's ambassador, with whom also I became acquainted in my first embassy), he gave me a short account of his journey; and as from the great difficulties of the road, this journey seemed to be an extremely laborious one, I have conceived the wish briefly to describe it just as I received it from him. In the first place, he said that being dispatched by his prince, in company with the aforesaid ambassador David, he had reached Great Novogorod; but as at that time the kingdom of Sweden had revolted from the King of Denmark, and the Grand Prince of Muscovy was on that account at issue with the Swedes, so that the travellers could not follow the ordinary road in consequence of the disorders occasioned by the war, they were obliged to take a route which, though safer, was much longer. The first portion of it, which was difficult enough, was from Novo

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gorod to the mouths of the Dwina and Potivlo; he stated that there could not be a more abominable road than this for the trouble and difficulties which it exposed them to, and that it was three hundred miles long. The party then embarked in four boats at the mouths of the Dwina, and sailed along the right-hand shore of the ocean, and there saw some lofty and bluff mountains, and after accomplishing sixteen miles, and crossing a certain gulf, they sailed along the left shore, and leaving the open sea to their right, which, like the adjacent mountains, takes its name from the river Petchora, they came to the people of Finlapeia. Although these people dwell in low cottages, scattered here and there along the sea coast, and lead an almost savage life, they are yet more gentle in their manners than the wild Laplanders. He stated that they were tributary to the Prince of Muscovy.

A voyage of eighty miles, after leaving the land of the Laplanders, brought them to the country of Nortpoden, which is subject to the King of Sweden. The Russians call the country Kaienska Semla, and the people, Kaiemai. Then coasting along a winding shore which stretched out to the right, he said that they came to a certain headland called Holynose [Sviatoi Nos]. Holynose is a huge rock, in the shape of a nose, protruding into the sea, under which is seen a cave which every six hours receives the waters of the ocean, and forms a whirlpool, and alternately discharges them with great uproar, causing a similar whirlpool. Some have called it the navel of the sea. He stated that the force of this vortex was so great, that it would draw into it ships and other things in the neighbourhood, and swallow them up; and that he himself was never in greater danger, for finding that the whirlpool began suddenly and violently to draw the ship in which they sailed towards itself, they escaped with great difficulty by laboriously plying their oars. Having passed the Holynose, they came to a certain rocky mountain, which they were obliged to sail round. Here they were

detained several days by contrary winds, upon which a sailor said, "This rock which you see is called Semes, and unless we appease it with a gift we shall not easily pass it." Istoma, however, reproached him with his vain superstition. The sailor, upon this rebuke, held his peace; and, after being detained there four days by the tempest, the wind abated, and they weighed anchor. When a favourable wind arose for carrying them on, the pilot said, "You laughed at my warning about appeasing the rock Semes, as though it were an empty superstition; but if I had not secretly climbed the rock in the night, and propitiated Semes, you would on no account have had a passage granted to you." Upon being questioned as to the offering which he had made to Semes, he said that he had poured out upon the projecting rock which we had seen some oatmeal mixed with butter.

He further stated that, in sailing onwards, they came to another huge promontory, forming a peninsula, named Motka, at the point of which was the fortress of Barthus, which signifies a garrison house, for the kings of Norway maintain a military garrison there for the defence of their borders. He stated that this promontory jutted so far into the sea that it would take nearly eight days to sail round it, so that to prevent the delay which this would occasion, at the expense of great exertion they carried over their boats and baggage on their shoulders, a distance of half a mile across the isthmus. They afterwards sailed up to the country of the Ditciloppi, who are wild Laplanders, to a place named Dront [Drontheim], two hundred miles north of the Dwina; and they say that the Prince of Muscovy exacts tribute even as far as this place. They then left their boats and performed the rest of their journey by land, in sledges. He further related that there are herds of deer there, as plentiful as oxen are with us, which are called in the Norwegian language, "rhen". They are somewhat larger than our stags, and are used by the Laplanders instead of oxen, and in the following manner: they yoke the deer to

a carriage made in the form of a fishing boat, in which the man is bound by his feet lest he should fall out while the deer is at full speed; in his left hand he holds a bridle, to guide the course of the deer, and in his right a staff, with which to prevent the upsetting of the carriage, if it should happen to lean too much on either side. He stated that, by this mode of travelling, he himself had accomplished twenty [German] miles in one day, and had then let loose the deer, which returned of its own accord to its own master and its accustomed home. Having at length accomplished this journey, they came to Berges [Bergen], a city of Norway, quite in the north, amongst the mountains, and then reached Denmark on horseback. At Dront and Berges the day is said to be twenty-two hours long in the summer solstice.

Blazius, another of the prince's interpreters, who a few years before had been sent by his prince into Spain to the emperor, gave me another and more compendious account of his journey; for he said, that when he had been dispatched from Moscow to John, King of Denmark, he had travelled as far as Rostov on foot; that he took boat at Pereaslav, and sailed thence by the Volga to Castromos; thence he travelled by a land journey of seven versts up to a certain small river, along which he sailed first to Vologda, thence to Suchana and Dwina, and so on, as far as Berges, a city of Norway; that in his passage he overcame all the dangers and toils related above by Istoma; and at length came straight to Hafnia, the metropolis of Denmark, which is called by the Germans, Kopenhagen. Both of them stated that they returned to Moscow through Livonia, and each accomplished the journey in the space of one year; though Gregory Istoma said, that in the middle portion of that time he had been detained in many places by storms, and suffered great delays. Each distinctly affirmed, that he had traversed seventeen

1 He must of course mean the nearest point to Denmark.