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Viking Expeditions 37
service. They who cut the runes were from "Rodrs-
land" i. e. Roslagen.
From the Black Sea these Northmen at times took
another route. They sailed up the Don, dragged their
ships to the bend in the Volga, and sailed down to the
Caspian Sea. Its southern shores were then held by the
Arabs, or Saracens, on whom the sturdy men of the
North made a powerful impression. "Never have I
seen taller people/’ writes an Arabian author of that
day. "They are tall as palm trees and have red cheeks
and light hair." The Northmen entered into an active
trade with the Saracens and brought home to the North
Oriental products of fruits, fine fabrics, splendid weap-
ons, and precious metals. In Swedish soil, especially in
the Island of Gothland, have been found thousands of
Saracen coins and Oriental jewelry, showing how con-
siderable the traffic was across Russia between Sweden
and the Saracen lands. The masses of precious metals,
which even today, after a thousand years, are dug up
in Sweden, are but a slight indication of the wealth the
viking expeditions must have brought to the- North.
Many runic inscriptions found in Sweden tell of men
who have been "Eastway." One runic inscription, for
instance, is made in memory of a man "who in Greece
was the commander of the army." Not a few runic
inscriptions also tell of vikings who sailed "Westway."
Otherwise it was mostly Norwegians and Danes who
sailed westward to the lands bordering on their waters,
the North Sea and the Atlantic.
The Norwegian Expeditions. The Norwegians steered
preferably to the groups of islands north of Scotland,
as they lay nearest to them. These islands became a
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