But the need of a power which should decide all questions that might arise while the vetché was in abeyance, was more pressing in the cities, and favoured the development of the power--originally very limited,--of the _kniazes_ or princes, who were elective and whose dignity was neither hereditary nor lifelong. The prince did not even have a permanent military following: his dignity was of a purely personal nature. It is certain that not he but the vetché had the power to make laws. Our information concerning the political organisation of the earliest period of Russian history is very scanty, and we know more of what it lacked than of what it possessed. What strikes us most is the absence of a military organisation. In times of danger, those who could defend themselves took up arms, the remainder fled to places of safety. Nor can we discern with certainty any social differentiation into classes. On the other hand we know that a thriving trade was being carried on in the ninth century along the route which led from the gulf of Finland through Lake Ilmen to the Dvina and down the Dnieper to the Black Sea and thence to Greece. The oldest wooden cities lay along the famous route of the Varangians to the Greek Empire, along which amidst many dangers, the raw products of the north were exchanged for the finished commodities of the south. It is owing to these dangers that the trader had also to be a warrior, and it is into those ancient trade relations--peaceful intercourse enforced by warlike means--that we are to look for the most important arms of the old Russian state. Who discovered this trade route? We see no compelling reason to deny the honour to the Slavs, although it is established beyond doubt that even before the middle of the ninth century the Northmen reached Byzantium along this route. On the other hand, the marauding and trading expeditions which were carried on by Russians in the tenth century and earlier to the sea of Azov, the Caspian, and further still to the Caucasus and the shores of Persia, emanated from Scandinavians, and not from Slavs. RELIGION [Illustration: NATIVE OF YAKUTSK]