18 
STEPPE TUMULI. 
On leaving the banks of the Ingouletz, our road recommenced 
eastward, over the dreary Steppe, where I again observed innumer¬ 
able tumuli; and some of a breadth and height hardly credible. 
The different mounds in this immense region of the dead, vary 
greatly in size ; and, where one of unusual magnitude presents 
itself, it is generally surrounded by several of smaller dimensions. 
There can be no doubt that the larger tumuli are raised over the 
bodies of princes and heroes ; and the minor sort, cover the 
remains of the followers of their armies, or of their state. But 
that so vast an expanse should be occupied by monuments of the 
dead, extended regularly to the very farthest stretch of sight, 
seemed almost beyond belief: — yet, there they were ; and the 
contemplation was as aweful, as the view was amazing. 
The first idea which strikes the spectator is, that he is in 
some famous field of battle, vast enough for the world to have 
been lost on it; but Herodotus will not allow us to appropriate 
these remote regions of sepulture to the casual circumstance of 
war. He declares them regular places of interment for whole 
nations ; and particularly mentions, that whenever the Scythians 
lost a king, or a chief, they assembled in great multitudes to 
solemnise his obsequies ; and, after making the tour of certain 
districts of the kingdom with the corpse, they stopped in the 
country of the Gerrhi, a people who lived in the most distant 
parts of Scythia, and over whose lands the sepulchres were 
spread. A large quadrangular excavation was then made in the 
earth (in dimensions more like a hall of banquet than a grave), 
and within it was placed a sort of bier bearing the body of the 
deceased prince. Daggers were laid at various distances around 
him, and the whole covered with pieces of wood and branches 
