osed, in those days, to be the highest on the globe. In
the neighborhood of these mountains there was a country, inhabited by
a wild and half-savage people, who were called Scythians. This was, in
fact, a sort of generic term, which was applied, in those days, to
almost all the aboriginal tribes beyond the confines of civilization.
The Scythians, however, if such they can properly be called, who lived
on the borders of the Caspian Sea, were not wholly uncivilized. They
possessed many of those mechanical arts which are the first to be
matured among warlike nations. They had no iron or steel, but they
were accustomed to work other metals, particularly gold and brass.
They tipped their spears and javelins with brass, and made brazen
plates for defensive armor, both for themselves and for their horses.
They made, also, many ornaments and decorations of gold. These they
attached to their helmets, their belts, and their banners. They were
very formidable in war, being, like all other northern nations,
perfectly desperate and reckless in battle. They were excellent
horsemen, and had an abundance of horses with which to exercise their
skill; so that their armies consisted, like those of the Cossacks of
modern times, of great bodies of cavalry.

The various campaigns and conquests by which Cyrus obtained
possession of his extended dominions occupied an interval of about
thirty years. It was near the close of this interval, when he was, in
fact, advancing toward a late period of life, that he formed the plan
of penetrating into these northern regions, with a view of adding them
also to his domains.

He had two sons, Cambyses and Smerdis. His wife is said to have been a
daughter of Astyages, and that he married her soon after his conquest
of the kingdom of Media, in order to reconcile the Medians more easily
to his sway, by making a Median princess their queen. Among the
western nations of Europe such a marriage would be abhorred, Astyages
having been Cyrus's grandfather; but among the Orientals, in those
days, alliances of this nature were not uncommon. It would seem that
this queen was not living at the time that the events occurred which
are to be related in this chapter. Her sons had grown up to maturity,
and were now princes of great distinction.

One of the Scythian or northern nations to which we have referred were
called the Massagetae. They formed a very extensive and powerful realm.
They were governed, at this time, b