Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 2, 1851).djvu/54

duced it to submission. He despoiled the archbishop, the citizens, merchants, and foreigners, of all their goods, and carried away three hundred carriages, laden, according to some accounts, with gold, silver, and jewels, to Moscow. Indeed, I myself made diligent inquiries at Moscow about this business, and heard that a far greater number of carriages were taken away laden with booty. And no wonder, for after the city was taken, he took the archbishop and all the richest and most powerful men with him to Moscow, and sent his own subjects as new colonists into their estates. Consequently, out of their possessions he derived annually an immense revenue into his treasury beyond the ordinary returns. Out of the proceeds of the archbishopric he only granted a small portion of the returns to a certain bishop then appointed by himself, and at his death the episcopal see was for a long time vacant. At length, in consequence of the urgent request of the citizens and of his subjects, that they might not always be without a bishop, he instituted one again at the time that we were there.

The people of Novogorod formerly offered their chief worship and adoration to a certain idol named Perun, which was placed on the spot where now stands the monastery named Perunski, after the same idol. When subsequently they received baptism, they removed it from its place, and threw it into the river Volchov; and the story goes, that it swam against the stream, and that near the bridge a voice was heard, saying, "This for you, O inhabitants of Novogorod, in memory of me"; and at the same time a certain rope was thrown upon the bridge. Even now it happens from time to time on certain days of the year, that this voice of Perun may be heard, and on these occasions the citizens suddenly run together and lash each other with ropes, and such a tumult arises therefrom, that all the efforts of the governor can scarcely assuage it.

It is also related in their annals, that when the people of