with well-armed retainers, commenced a journey to Constantinople to
offer their services to the emperor. It was twelve hundred miles,
directly south, from Novgorod to the imperial city. The adventurers
had advanced about half way, when they arrived at a little village,
called Kief, upon the banks of the Dnieper. The location of the city
was so beautiful, upon a commanding bluff, at the head of the
navigation of this majestic stream, and the region around seemed so
attractive, that the Norman adventurers, Ascolod and Dir by name,
decided to remain there. They were soon joined by others of their
warlike countrymen. The natives appear to have made no opposition to
their rule, and thus Kief became the center of a new and independent
Russian kingdom. These energetic men rapidly extended their
territories, raised a large army, which was thoroughly drilled in all
the science of Norman warfare, and then audaciously declared war
against Greece and attempted its subjugation. The Dnieper, navigable
for boats most of the distance from Kief to the Euxine, favored their
enterprise. They launched upon the stream two hundred barges, which
they filled with their choicest troops. Rapidly they floated down the
stream, spread their sails upon the bosom of the Euxine, entered the
Bosporus, and anchoring their fleet at the mouth of the Golden Horn,
laid siege to the city. The Emperor Michael III. then reigned at
Constantinople. This Northmen invasion was entirely unexpected, and
the emperor was absent, engaged in war with the Arabs. A courier was
immediately dispatched to inform him of the peril of the city. He
hastily returned to his capital which he finally reached, after
eluding, with much difficulty, the vigilance of the besiegers. Just as
the inhabitants of the city were yielding to despair, there arose a
tempest, which swept the Bosporus with resistless fury. The crowded
barges were dashed against each other, shattered, wrecked and sunk.
The Christians of Constantinople justly attributed their salvation to