The situation of the town opposite the confluence of the Volga (having a course of 2,320 miles) and Oka (with 900 miles of navigation) rivers, is pre-eminently suitable for the purpose of commerce, of which these rivers indeed, prior to the introduction of railways, constituted the great arteries. The town of Lower Novgorod was founded as early as 1222, and was in 1237 occupied by the Tartars. When it was taken from them, they declared perpetual warfare against it, and sacked it more than once. By means of the two large rivers named—which extend, with their contributory streams and canal communication with the Baltic, over a considerable portion of northern, eastern and southern Russia—an easy communication is maintained with the richest agricultural and manufacturing provinces. The Kamma, a tributary of the Volga, also affords water communication with the remote provinces of Ural and parts of Siberia. The productions of China are carried during the month of September over the Baikal Lake, and in spring reach the Volga along with the Siberian caravans. The productions of Astrakhan, Persia and Bokhara ascend that river, while those of Petersburg, Germany, England, and France descend it: so that the merchandise of the east and the west meet as in a common centre here. And this line of commerce dates back into far distant ages, promoted and shared in by those trading monks who took so leading a part in founding the great Hanseatic League. It is an interesting historical fact that the first vessel of war ever built in Russia was launched at Nijni by a company of merchants from Holstein, who obtained permission in the seventeenth century to open a trade with Persia and India by way of the Caspian sea. The vessel was called the Friedrich. The travels of Olearius were in connection with this undertaking, of which there is a great history, to be recounted on some other occasion.