Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 2, 1851).djvu/55

Novogorod were besieging Corsun, a city of Greece, with a grievous siege of seven years' duration, their wives becoming weary of their solitary life, and being also doubtful of the safety or return of their husbands, married their slaves. At length the city was taken, and the victorious husbands returned from the war, bringing with them the bronze gates of the conquered city, as well as a great bell, which we ourselves saw in their cathedral church. The slaves endeavoured to repel by force the masters whose wives they had married. Their masters, in great indignation, at the suggestion of some one, laid down their arms, and took thongs and ropes in their hands, as the proper mode of dealing with slaves, at which the latter became terrified, and fled. They betook themselves to a place still called Chloppigrod, — i.e., the Slaves' Fortress, — and defended it. They were conquered, however, and received the merited punishment from their masters.

The longest day in the summer solstice at Novogorod is eighteen hours and more. The climate is much colder even than that of Moscow. The people used to be very courteous and honourable; but now, doubtless from the Russian contagion introduced by the people who emigrated thither from Moscow, they are become most degraded.

The lake Ilmen, which in ancient Russian documents is named Almer, and which others call Limidis, lies two wersts above Novogorod. It is twelve German miles long and eight broad, and receives, besides others, two rather famous rivers, the Louat and the Scholona, which latter rises in another lake. Another river takes its rise in lake Ilmen, viz., the Volchov, which flows through Novogorod, and after a course of six-and-thirty miles enters lake Lodoga. It is sixty miles broad and nearly a hundred long, interspersed with some islands. It discharges the large river Neva, which flows westward nearly six miles into the German sea. At its mouth lies Oreschak, called by the Germans