y and
rugged. And on the other side of this extensive stone-bound
tract there live at the foot of a high mountain-chain men
who are bald from their birth, both men and women, they are
also flat-nosed and have large chins. They speak a peculiar
language, wear the Scythian dress and live on the fruit of
a tree. The tree on which they live is called _Ponticon_,
is about as large as the wild fig-tree, and bears fruit
which resembles a bean, but has a kernel. When this fruit
is ripe, they strain it through a cloth, and the juice
which flows from it is thick and black and called _aschy_.
This juice they suck or drink mixed with milk, and of the
pressed fruits they make cakes which they eat, for they
have not many cattle because the pasture is poor. As far as
to these bald people the land is now sufficiently well
known, also the races on this side of them, because they
are visited by Scythians. From them it is not difficult to
collect information, which is also to be had from the
Greeks at the port of the Borysthenes and other ports in
Pontus. The Scythians who travel thither do business with
the assistance of seven interpreters in seven languages. So
far our knowledge extends. But of the land on the other
side of the bald men none can give any trustworthy account
because it is shut off by a separating wall of lofty
trackless mountains, which no man can cross. But these bald
men say--which, however, I do not believe--that men with
goat's feet live on the mountains, and on the other side of
them other men who sleep six months at a time. The latter
statement, however, I cannot at all admit. On the other
hand, the land east of the bald men, in which the Issedones
live, is well known, but what is farther to the north, both
on the other side of the bald men and of the Issedones, is
only known by the statements of these tribes. Above the
Issedones live the one-eyed men, and the gold-guarding
griffins. This information the Scythians have got from the
Issedones and we from the Scythians, and we call the
one-eyed race by the Scythian name Arimaspi, for in the
Scythian language _arima_ signifies one and _spou_ the eye.
The whole of the country which I have been speaking of has
so hard and severe a winter, that there prevails there for
eight months an altogether insupportable c