These Finnish peasants turned out to be a remnant of the aborigines, or at least of the oldest known inhabitants of the district.

Men of the same race, but bearing different tribal names, such as Finns, Korelli, Tcheremiss, Tchuvash, Mordva, Votyaks, Permyaks, Zyryanye, Voguls, are to be found in considerable numbers all over the northern provinces, from the Gulf of Bothnia to Western Siberia, as well as in the provinces bordering the Middle Volga as far south as Penza, Simbirsk, and Tamboff.* The Russian peasants, who now compose the great mass of the population, are the intruders.
* The semi-official "Statesman's Handbook for Russia," published in 1896, enumerates fourteen different tribes, with an aggregate of about 4,650,000 souls, but these numbers must not be regarded as having any pretensions to accuracy.

The best authorities differ widely in their estimates.
I had long taken a deep interest in what learned Germans call the Volkerwanderung--that is to say, the migrations of peoples during the gradual dissolution of the Roman Empire, and it had often occurred to me that the most approved authorities, who had expended an infinite amount of learning on the subject, had not always taken the trouble to investigate the nature of the process.

It is not enough to know that a race or tribe extended its dominions or changed its geographical position.

We ought at the same time to inquire whether it expelled, exterminated, or absorbed the former inhabitants, and how the expulsion, extermination, or absorption was effected.