the Ural out doubt, the Greek merchants obtained this com- EUROPE. modity. But the traffic in corn, slaves, or furs, would CHAP. VIII. never alone have induced the Greeks to take such long and perilous journeys into the interior as are described by our author. There was another article, Gold from which in all ages has excited the cupidity of man- and Altai kind, and exercised the most potent rule. Gold was mountains. procured in great quantity and with little difficulty from the Ural mountains and those of Altai; and we find many of the barbarous nations possessing this metal in great abundance. northward Budini. The great caravan route will be best described by Route exactly following in the order of our author's narra- from the tive, first recording his observation, that the Scythians who performed the journey carried on their affairs in seven different languages, and therefore required the same number of interpreters.' seven days' Further north beyond the Budini was first a de- Desert of sert of seven days' journey in extent, which we may journey, presume extended through the governments of Sim- occupying birsk and Kasan as far as the southern confines of and Kasan. Viatka. 3 Simbirsk wards the occupying Beyond the desert the route turned somewhat Route totowards the east, and entered the country of the east. Thyssagetae, a numerous and distinct people who Thyssagetae lived by hunting. Four great rivers rose amongst Perm. the Thyssagetae, and flowed into the lake Maeotis, namely, the Lycus, Oarus, Tanais, and Syrgis.* 5 On the river Oarus Darius commenced building eight large forts, each sixty stadia distant from the other, but he left them half finished, and there the ruins 2 iv. 21. 3 iv. 22. 4 iv. 123. 1 iv. 24. 5 It is impossible, with the exception of the Tanais or Don, to identify these rivers in modern geography. The Oarus was perhaps the Volga, and perhaps one of the others was the Ural, but then both of these rivers discharge themselves into the Caspian, and not into the Maeotis, which Herodotus distinctly states, though he could not have been so well acquainted with the coast and with the lower courses of the rivers as he was with the upper courses. Mannert supposes the Lycus, Oarus, and Syrgis to be respectively the Volga, Uzen, and Ural: Rennell supposes the Oarus to be the Volga, and'the Lycus and Syrgis to be the Medveditza and Khoper, which fall into the Don. Dahlmann has pointed out the difficulty in believing that Darius really advanced as far as the river Oarus, and whether we identify this river EUROPE. remained until the time of Herodotus.' The country CHAP. VIII. of the Thyssagetae must have been included in the government of Perm. Jyrcae on the Ural Scythian exiles occupying Tobolsk. Contiguous to the Thyssagetae, and in the same mountains. region, which was very thickly wooded, dwelt the Jyrcae, a nation who lived by hunting, and practised it in the following manner. The huntsman climbed a tree, and stood there in ambush, whilst his horse and dog were ready beneath, the horse having been trained to lie on its belly so that it might not be seen above the ground. When the man saw any game he shot an arrow, threw himself upon his horse, and followed the game with his dog. Eastward of the Jyrcae were some Scythians who had revolted from the Royal Scythians, and settled here. The whole country is described as level, and possessing a deep soil; but beyond the region becomes stony and rugged. This "stony and rugged" country of the Jyrcae and Scythian colonists seems to have extended into the interior of the Ural mountains, and perhaps comprehended part of the government of Perm on the western side, and of Tobolsk on the eastern. The whole territory has been always celebrated for those animals which furnish the most valuable furs, and these are found in the greatest numbers on the eastern slopes.* Argippaei, at the foot 5 After passing through a considerable extent of this of the Altai mountainous country, the caravan would reach the mountains. Argippaei, who lived at the foot of lofty mountains, with the Volga or the Uzen, it seems impossible for the Persian army in sixty days to have twice marched, and by the worst possible road, from the mouths of the Ister to the province of Saratoff, a distance of certainly not much less than a thousand English miles. The fortresses may have been standing in the time of Herodotus, but it is a very great question whether Darius built them. The Scythian accounts of this expedition, which Herodotus probably collected at Olbia, and upon which he based his own narrative, must have led him into considerable exaggeration upon the subject. This however would only affect the history of the expedition, and not the geography of the country. Cf. Dahlmann, Life of Herod, chap. vii. sect. 5. 2 iv. 22. 3 iv. 23. 1 iv. 124. Heeren, quoting from Lehrberg, furnishes some useful and interesting particulars concerning the Jyrcae. Asiat. Nat. ii. p. 28. The caravan route now appears to have turned towards the south or south-east along the Ural chain as far as the Kirghis steppe. and were all, both men and women, bald from their EUROPE. birth, and had flat noses and large chins. They CHAP. VIII. spoke a peculiar language, but wore the Scythian costume. Their diet chiefly consisted of the fruit of a tree named Ponticon, which was about the same size as the fig tree. The fruit it produced was similar to beans, only with a stone inside. When this fruit was ripe the natives beat it through cloths, upon which a thick black liquor was strained out, called Aschy. This they sucked, or took mixed with milk; and from the mass of fruit remaining after this process they made a sort of cake, which formed their principal food. They had very little cattle, for their pastures were not good. Each man dwelt under a tree, over which, in the winter-time, he spread a white and thick covering of felt cloth. This tribe was accounted sacred, and no one would do them any injury, and they themselves possessed no implements of war. They arbitrated in the disputes of the neighbouring nations, and whoever took refuge amongst them had nothing to fear from any one.1 tion of the with the Herodotus is here so explicit that we have no dif- Identificaficulty in following Heeren and others in identify- Argippaei ing the Argippaei with part of the Calmucks, a prin- Calmucks. cipal branch of the Mongols. Their abodes must have been in the western part of Great Mongolia, probably in the northern part of the Khirgis steppe, between the Ural and Altai mountains. The description-"lofty mountains," scarcely suits the Ural, but we can hardly expect an author, when dealing in loose hearsay information, to be very exact in particulars of this kind. Indeed, the expression, "at the foot of lofty mountains," seems like a little poetic feeling, or fancy painting, thrown in to assist the reader in his conception of a sacred race with bald heads, a venerable tribe of peace-makers, whose primitive homes beneath the trees could afford shelter and safety to the darkest criminal. The fruit which formed their diet was probably the birds' cherry, the 1 iv. 23. EUROPE. Prunus Padus of Linnaeus, which the Calmucks still CHAP. VIII. eat in almost the same manner that Herodotus de Unknown scribes. They dress the berries with milk, then press them in a sieve, and afterwards form them into a thick mass, which is called "moisun chat;" a small piece of which, mixed with water, makes a nutricious and palatable soup. The people still live in tents, or moveable huts, called kybitkas, but make them in a more artificial manner; and, indeed, it would almost appear that Herodotus had made some mistake about the trees which supported the felt covering, as there are very few to be found in this region. The country and nations as far as the Argippaei north of the were well known to Herodotus, and he acknowledged Occupied by that he found it easy to obtain his information, both from the Scythians who went there and from the Greeks on the Pontus.' But of the region north of the Argippaei no one, he says, can speak with certainty; for lofty and impassable mountains (the Altai) formed their boundary. The Argippaei, however, said that these mountains were inhabited by men who had goats' feet, and that beyond them were people who slept for six months at a time; but all these stories our author rejected as incredible." region Argippaei, men with goats' feet and people who slept for six months at a time. Identification of the Altai. Eastern route continued. The Issedones. 3 The inaccessible mountains are evidently the Altai chain which bounds southern Siberia. The tradition of men with goats' feet is one of those stories which are often told of distant countries, and especially of Siberia; whilst in the other tradition, of the men who slept for six months in the year, we can perceive a glimmering of real truth, inasmuch as we know that the polar regions continue for six months without the light of the sun.1 Eastward But to return to the caravan route. from the Argippaei dwelt the Issedones, who observed the following customs. When a man lost his father all his relations brought small cattle, killed 5 3 Probably the furs by which the Siberians secure their joints, and especially their knees, against the frost, may have procured for the mountaineers of the Ural the epithet "goat-footed." Cf. Heeren, Asiat. Nat. vol. ii. p. 15. 5 iv. 25. them, and cut up the flesh, together with the dead EUROPE. body of the parent, and then mingled the whole to- CHAP. VIII. gether and had it served up for a dinner. The head of the corpse, however, was stripped, cleaned, and gilded; and the relatives afterwards regarded it as a most sacred object, and performed great sacrifices to it every year; for the Issedones, like the Greeks, celebrated the anniversary of their father's death. The people generally were accounted to be just in their dealings, and they gave to their women equal power and authority with the men.' The Issedones Arimaspi. said that above them were the people with one eye, called the Arimaspi, which account was repeated by the Scythians, and from them adopted by the Greeks, who called these one-eyed people by the Scythian name of Arimaspi: arima being Scythian for "one," and spou for "eye." There also were the goldguarding grypes, or griffins. Herodotus here takes Goldoccasion to remark, that towards the northern part griffins. of Europe there was certainly a great quantity of gold, but how it was procured he was unable to state with certainty, though some people said that the Arimaspi stole it from the griffins. Herodotus, however, did not believe that there were men born with one eye and yet in other respects resembling the rest of mankind. The Hyperboreans in the far north we have already noticed.15 2 iv. 27. 3 iii. 116. 4 See p. 159. 1 iv. 26. 5 Heeren places the Issedones in that part of Mongolia now occupied by the Sungarees, and extends them to the ancient Serica. On the other hand, the recent discoveries of gold in the Ural mountains have induced some commentators to follow the opinion of Reichard, that the seat of the Issedones must be referred to the Ural and not to the Altai. A disquisition on this subject would, however, lead to no satisfactory result. Doubtless a vast quantity of gold must have been obtained both from the Ural and the Altai, for how otherwise are we to account for the prodigious quantities of this precious metal which have existed in central Asia both in ancient and modern times. The thrones of princes, the furniture of palaces, the vessels for the royal table, have all been fashioned of massive gold, from the days of Solomon downwards; and we might almost suppose that monarchs must have bought up the gold in every part of their dominions to dazzle the eyes of their subjects, did we not find satraps and inferior officers, together with private individuals, possessed of immense wealth (Herod. i. 192; vii. 27). We shall presently find that a pastoral nation of eastern Asia (the Massagetae) made its utensils chiefly of gold. (i. 215. Cf. also Heeren, Asiat. Nat. vol. i. pp. 26-31.) guarding |
