ABSTRACT
HISTORY offers no instance of a people displaying so constant and resolute a tendency to colonization as the Russians, from the earliest times. Proceeding from a comparatively small district, at the foot of the Valdai Mountains, they have gradually during a thousand years spread over a seventh part of the globe. When the German peoples, in the period between the second and fifth centuries, overspread the whole of Europe, their expeditions were in search of conquest; entire nations emigrated, not with a view to colonize peacefully, but to invade and conquer nations already peopled, and despoil them of their ancient landed possessions.
