The revolution at Kief had not interrupted the friendly relations
existing between Kief and Constantinople. The Christians of the
imperial city made great efforts, by sending missionaries to Kief, to
multiply the number of Christians there. Oleg, though a pagan, granted
free toleration to Christianity, and reciprocated the presents and
friendly messages he received from the emperor. But at length Oleg,
having consolidated his realms, and ambitions of still greater renown,
wealth and power, resolved boldly to declare war against the empire
itself, and to march upon Constantinople. The warriors from a hundred
tribes, each under their feudal lord, were ranged around his banners.
For miles along the banks of the Dnieper at Kief, the river was
covered with barges, two thousand in number. An immense body of
cavalry accompanied the expedition, following along the shore.

The navigation of the river, which poured its flood through a channel
nearly a thousand miles in length from Kief to the Euxine, was
difficult and perilous. It required the blind, unthinking courage of
semi-barbarians to undertake such an enterprise. There were many
cataracts, down which the flotilla would be swept over foaming billows
and amidst jagged rocks. In many places the stream was quite
impassable by boats, and it was necessary to take all the barges, with
their contents, on shore, and drag them for miles through the forest,
again to launch them upon smoother water; and all this time they were
exposed to attacks from numerous and ferocious foes. Having arrived at
the mouth of the Dnieper, they had still six or eight hundred miles of
navigation over the waves of that storm-swept sea. And then, at the
close, they had to encounter, in deadly fight, all the power of the
Roman empire. But unintimidated by these perils, Oleg, leaving Igor
with his bride at Kief, launched his boats upon the current, and
commenced his desperate enterprise.