le of the arc which we have described as being of an
extended roundness, and which takes an active traveller fifteen days to
traverse, are the Europaean Alani, the Costoboci, and the countless
tribes of the Scythians, who extend over territories which have no
ascertained limit; a small part of whom live on grain. But the rest
wander over vast deserts, knowing neither ploughtime nor seedtime; but
living in cold and frost, and feeding like great beasts. They place
their relations, their homes, and their wretched furniture on waggons
covered with bark, and, whenever they choose, they migrate without
hindrance, driving off these waggons wherever they like.

43. When one arrives at another point of the circuit where there is a
harbour, which bounds the figure of the arc at that extremity, the
island Peuce is conspicuous, inhabited by the Troglodytae, and Peuci, and
other inferior tribes, and we come also to Histros, formerly a city of
great power, and to Tomi, Apollonia, Anchialos, Odissos, and many others
on the Thracian coast.

44. But the Danube, rising near Basle on the borders of the Tyrol,
extending over a wider space, and receiving on his way nearly sixty
navigable rivers, pours through the Scythian territory by seven mouths
into the Black Sea.

45. The first mouth (according to the Greek interpretation of the
names) is at the island of Peuce, which we have mentioned; the second is
at Naracustoma, the third at Calonstoma, the fourth at Pseudostoma. The
Boreonstoma and the Sthenostoma, are much smaller, and the seventh is
large and black-looking like a bog.

46. But the whole sea, all around, is full of mists and shoals, and is
sweeter than seas in general, because by the evaporation of moisture the
air is often thick and dense, and its waters are tempered by the
immensity of the rivers which fall into it; and it is full of shifting
shallows, because the number of the streams which surround it pour in
mud and lumps of soil.

47. And it is well known that fish flock in large shoals to its most
remote extremities that they may spawn and rear their young more
healthfully, in consequence of the salubrity of the water; while the
hollow caverns, which are very numerous there, protect them from
voracious monsters. For nothing of the kind is ever seen in this sea,
except some small dolphins, and they do no harm.

48. Now the portions of the Black Sea which are exposed to the north
wind are so thoroughly frozen that, whi