The attention paid to Jews and their literature by Christian scholars and princes here and there produced droll occurrences. In Sweden, the most bigoted Protestant country, no Jew and no Catholic were allowed to dwell. Nevertheless King Charles XI felt extraordinary interest in the Jews, still more in the Karaites, who pretended to follow the simple word of God without the accretion of traditions, and were said to bear great resemblance to the Protestants. Would it not be easy to bring over to Christianity these people who were not entangled in the web of the Talmud? Charles XI accordingly sent a professor of Upsala, learned in Hebrew literature, Gustavus Peringer of Lilienblad (about 1690), to Poland for the purpose of seeking out the Karaites, informing himself of their manner of life and their customs, and especially buying their writings without regard to cost. Provided with letters of recommendation to the king of Poland, Peringer went first to Lithuania, where dwelt several Karaite communities. But the Polish and Lithuanian Karaites were even more degraded than their brethren in Constantinople, the Crimea, and Egypt. There were very few among them who knew any details about their origin and the history of their sect; not one had accurate information. At about this time the Polish king, John Sobieski, had ordered, through a Karaite judge, Abraham ben Samuel of Trok, who was in favor with him, that the Karaites, for some unknown object, scatter from their headquarters of Trok, Luzk, and Halicz, and settle also in other small towns; they obeyed, and dispersed as far as the northern province of Samogitia. These Polish Karaites, cut off from their center, isolated, avoiding intercourse with rabbis, and mixing only with the Polish rustic population, became more and more boorish, and sank into profound lethargy. Whether Peringer even partially fulfilled the wish of his king is not known; probably he altogether failed in his mission. Some years later (1696-1697), two learned Swedes, probably also commissioned by Charles XI, traveled in Lithuania to visit Karaite communities and buy up their writings. At the same time they invited Karaites to visit Sweden, and give information respecting their doctrines. Zeal for conversion had certainly more share in the matter than curiosity about the unknown. A young Karaite, Samuel ben Aaron, who had settled at Poswol in Samogitia, and understood some Latin, resolved to make a journey to Riga, and hold a conference with John Puffendorf, a royal official. Through want of literary sources and the ignorance of the Karaites concerning the origin and development of their sect, Samuel ben Aaron could give only a scanty account in a work, the title of which proves that fancifulness had penetrated also to Karaite circles.