(II) LIST OF KILLED, 217 (III) EXTRACTS FROM A REPORT BY TWO CHRISTIAN LADIES, 222 XII. NOTES AND COMMENTS, 231 APPENDICES PAGE I. PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT ON THE KISHINEFF CRIME AND THE JEWS, 256 II. LETTER FROM TOLSTOY, 268 III. LETTER FROM MAXIME GORKY, 272 IV. FATHER JOHN OF KRONSTADT RECANTS, 276 V. THE STORY OF SIMON OF TRENT, 278 VI. ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF PAPAL BULLS, 291 WITHIN THE PALE PART I _THE STORY OF THE RUSSIAN JEW_ CHAPTER I FROM ANCIENT TIMES TO 1804 The time when Jews first settled in Russia is a subject of mere historical conjecture. Some accounts assert that colonies of the race were founded in the country bordering on the Black Sea several centuries before the Christian era. All the probabilities favour this view. Both before and after their dispersion by the Romans, a people so intelligent and resourceful as the Hebrews would learn of the fruitful regions watered by the four great rivers which flow into the southern sea-boundaries of the vast territory now under the sway of the Tsar. They would have a choice of land and sea routes for the voyages of emigration, trade, or adventure. The distance from Jerusalem to the mouth of the Volga, through Asia Minor and the Caucasus, is not much more than from Astrakhan to St. Petersburg, while the journey by sea from Joppa to where the city of Odessa stands to-day for Russia’s richest seaport, is much less than that from Athens to Marseilles. The Caucasus, Taurida (Crimea), Cherson, and Bessarabia, known in the days of King Solomon by other names, would be within the zone of trading intercourse with the Kingdom of Israel, while these rich and interesting parts of Southern Russia would naturally attract the footsteps of the scattered race after Titus had destroyed their nation and dispersed its people, as well as during the existence of the Byzantine Empire. Whether the race known as the Khazars, who governed the territory stretching north from Astrakhan over the eastern watershed of the Volga as far as Kazan, were civilised by Semitic colonists, as alleged by some writers, is now only an interesting speculation. One fact offered in support of this theory is that the Israelites were driven out of this country by its rulers in the eleventh century, at a time when Jews in Christian Europe began to be objects of race persecution.