Southwestern Russia comprehended (1) in the fan-shaped territory formed by the Pripet and its tributaries--Volhinia, with Vladimir in Volhinia, Lutsk, Turov, Brest, and even Lublin, which is unquestionably Polish; (2) in the basins of the San, the Dniester, and the Pripet--Galicia proper, or Red Russia, whose ancient inhabitants, the white Croats, seem to have originated in the Danubian Slavs. Its principal towns were Galitch, founded by Vladimirko about 1444; Peremishl; Terebovlia, and Svenigorodka. The near neighbourhood of Hungary and Poland contributed to these two principalities distinctive characteristics, as well as a more advanced civilisation. In the epic songs Galicia, the land of the hero Dvorik Stepanovitch, is a country of fabulous wealth. _The Narrative of the Expedition of Igor_ gives an exalted idea of the power of its princes: “Iaroslav Osmomysl of Galicia,” cries the poet addressing one of them, “high art thou seated upon thy golden throne! With thy iron regiments thou guardest the Carpathian mountains, thou shuttest the gates of the Danube, thou barrest the way to the king of Hungary; at will thou openest the gates of Kiev, and thine arrows reach far into the distance.” THE UNITY OF THE PRINCIPALITIES The disposition of these fifteen or sixteen principalities confirms what has been previously stated concerning the essential unity of the configuration of the Russian soil. None of the river-basins forms a closed or isolated region; no line of heights establishes between them barriers or political frontiers. The greater number of the Russian principalities belonged to the basin of the Dnieper, but pushed their limits everywhere beyond. Kiev, with Pereiaslavl, is the only one strictly confined within it; but Volhinia puts the basin of the Dnieper in communication with those of the Bug in the south and of the Vistula; Polotsk connects it with the basins of the Niemen and the Dvina, Novgorod-Seversk with that of the Don, Tchernigov and Smolensk with that of the Volga. Between these principalities, water-courses everywhere establish communications. Russia, though divided into appanages, was already making toward a great united empire. The lack of cohesion among nearly all the states and their frequent dismemberments prevented their becoming actual nationalities. The principalities of Smolensk, of Tchernigov, of Riazan never possessed that definite historical existence so characteristic of the duchy of Brittany or the county of Toulouse in France, the duchies of Saxony, Swabia, or Bavaria in Germany.