JAPETIC STOCK. 233 



The ancient Scythians, so formidable of old, may be regarded as a 

 branch of the Tartaric stock, together with the Alani, a fierce, pastoral 

 people, who, in former times, covered with their tents the plains between 

 the Volga and Tanais, and who penetrated into the wilds of Siberia to 

 the north, and pushed their southern inroads to the confines of India and 

 Persia ; but who, after a desperate struggle, sank at length beneath the 

 overwhelming power of the Huns. To the same stock the ancient Getae 

 and Sarmatians appear to be also referable. 



" Among the various branches of the human race," says Gibbon, 

 " the Sarmatians form a very remarkable shade, as they seem to unite 

 the manners of the Asiatic barbarians with the figure and complexion 

 of the ancient inhabitants of Europe. According to the various accidents 

 of peace or war, the Sarmatians were sometimes 'confined to the banks of 

 the Tanais, and they sometimes spread themselves over the immense 

 plains which lie between the Vistula and the Volga. The care of their 

 numerous flocks and herds, the pursuit of game, and the exercise of war, 

 or, rather, rapine, directed the vagrant motions of the Sarmatians. The 

 moveable camps, or cities, the ordinary residence of their wives and 

 children, consisted only of large wagons, drawn by oxen, and covered, in 

 the form of tents." The military strength of the nation consisted of 

 cavalry : their cuirass was composed of polished slices of horses' hoofs, 

 laid, scale-like, over each other, and sewed on coarse linen ; their 

 offensive arms were daggers, lances, and poisoned arrows, the points 

 of which were of bone, and anointed with the venom of the viper. 



Of this tribe the most numerous and warlike family was that of 

 the Jazygae, who, in the time of Pliny, were settled on the banks of the 

 Tibiscus. 



The habits of the ancient Scythians are well described by Hero- 

 dotus : their territories, embracing a square of 4,000 stadia, or 400 

 Roman miles, were confined, on the west and south, by the Danube and 

 the Palus Maeotis ; they were a fierce nomadic people, divided into 

 distinct tribes, and essentially pastoral, subsisting on milk, and the flesh 

 of flocks and herds. According to Herodotus, beyond, or to the north- 

 east of the Scythian territories, after traversing a rude wilderness, a 

 range of mountains occurs (perhaps a branch of the Little Altai), 

 inhabited by a nation said to be bald (perhaps nearly beardless), " with 

 flat noses and broad chins, and who speak a language peculiar to them- 

 selves :" in short, as may be presumed, a people of Mongole lineage, 

 but of whom little was known. The same may be said, also, respecting 

 the Hyperboreans, with whose existence fthe ancients were acquainted. 

 Many of the usages of the ancient Scythians remind us of those of the 

 indigenes of America. Herodotus states, that every warrior drank the 

 blood of the first man he slew in battle, and cut off the heads of all 



VOL. I. 2 H 



