The histories of Herodotus;

202-204] THE MASSAGET^E 79
greater, by others less, than the Ister ; they say that there are
many islands in it, some nearly equal in size to Lesbos ; and
that in them are men who during the summer feed upon all
manner of roots, which they dig out of the ground ; and that
they store up for food ripe fruits which they find on the trees,
and feed upon these during the winter. They add that they
have discovered other trees that produce fruit of a peculiar
kind, which the inhabitants, when they meet together in companies,
and have lit a fire, throw on the fire, as they sit round
in a circle ; and that by inhaling the fumes of the burning
fruit that has been thrown on they become intoxicated by
the odour, just as the Greeks do by wine ; and that the more
fruit is thrown on the more intoxicated they become, until
they rise up to dance and betake themselves to singing. In
this manner these islanders are reported to live. The river
Araxes flows from the Matienian Mountains, whence also
springs the river Gyndes, which Cyrus distributed into the
three hundred and sixty trenches ; and it gushes out from
forty springs, all of which, except one, discharge themselves
into fens and swamps, in which it is said men live who feed
on raw fish and clothe themselves in the skins of sea-calves
but the one stream of the Araxes flows through an unobstructed
channel into the Caspian Sea. The Caspian is a sea
by itself, having no communication with any other sea ; for
the whole of that which the Grecians navigate, and that beyonc
the Pillars, called the Atlantic, and the Red Sea, are all
one But the Caspian is a separate sea of itself, being in
leng* '1 a fifteen days' voyage for a rowing-boat ; and in breadth,
where it is widest, an eight days' voyage. On the western
shore of this sea stretches the Caucasus, which is in extent
the largest, and in height the loftiest of all mountains ; it contains
within itself many and various nations of men, who for
the most part live upon the produce of wild fruit trees. In
this country, it is said, there are trees which produce leaves
of such a nature chat by rubbing them and mixing them with
water the people paint figures on their garments ; these figures,
they say, do not wash out, but grow old with the wool,
as if they had been woven in from the first. It is said that
sexual intercourse among these people takes place openly, as
with cattle. The Caucasus, then, bounds the western side
of this sea, which is called the Caspian ; and on the east, toward
the rising sun, succeeds a plain in extent unbounded in
the prospect. A great portion of this extensive plain is inhabited
by the Massagetae, against whom Cyrus resolved to
make war ; for the motives that urged and incited him to this
;