Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/601

Rh S C Y S C Y 575 the sickle, being worked with one hand, and the motion is entirely a swinging or bagging one. The implement con- sists of a short scythe blade mounted on a vertical handle, and in using it the reaper collects the grain with a crook, which holds the straw together till it receives the cutting stroke of the instrument. The Hainault scythe is exten- sively used in Belgium. The common hay scythe consists of a slightly curved broad blade varying in length from 28 to 46 inches, mounted on a bent, or sometimes straight, wooden sned or snathe, to which two handles are attached at such distances as enable the workman, with an easy stoop, to swing the scythe blade along the ground, the cutting edge being slightly elevated to keep it clear of the inequalities of the surface. The grain-reaping scythe is similar, but provided with a cradle or short gathering rake attached to the heel and following the direction of the blade for about 12 inches. The object of this attachment is to gather the stalks as they are cut and lay them in regular swaths against the line of still-standing corn. The reap- ing scythe, instead of a long sned, has frequently two helves, the right hand branching from the left or main helve and the two handles placed about 2 feet apart. The best scythe blades are made from rolled sheets of steel, riveted to a back frame of iron, which gives strength and rigidity to the blade. On the Continent it is still common to mould and hammer the whole blade out of a single piece of steel, but such scythes are difficult to keep keen of edge. There is a great demand for scythes in Russia, chiefly supplied from the German empire and Austria. The principal manufacturing centre of scythes and sickles in the United Kingdom is Sheffield. SCYTHIA, SCYTHIANS. When the Greeks began to settle the north coast of the Black Sea, about the middle of the 7th century B.C., they found the south Russian steppe in the hands of a nomadic race, whom they called Scythians. An exacter form of the name was Scoloti. The inhabitants of the steppe must always have been nomads ; but the life of all nomads is so much alike that we cannot tell whether the Scythians are the race alluded to in II., xiii. 5 sq. The name is first found in Hesiod (Strabo, vii. p. 300) about 800 B.C., and about 689 (Herod., iv. 15) Aristeas of Proconnesus knew a good deal about them in connexion Avith the ancient trade route leading from their country to Central Asia. From the passage of the Tanais (Don) for fifteen marches north-east through the steppe the country belonged to the nomad Sarmatians, whose speech and way of life resembled those of the Scythians. Then came the wooded region of the Budini, who spread far inland and were probably a Finnish race of hunters with filthy habits. 1 In this region lay Gelonus, the Greek emporium of the fur trade, round which lived the half-Grecian Geloni, prob- ably on the Volga and hardly farther south than Simbirsk. Seven more marches in the same line ran through desert, and then in the country of the Thyssagetse the road turned south-east, and led first through the country of the lyrcse, whose way of hunting (Herod., iv. 22) indicates that they dwelt between the steppe and the forest, but belonged more to the former ; the road perhaps crossed the river Ural near Orenburg, and ascending its tributary the Ilek crossed the Mugojar Mountains. Beyond this in the steppe as far as the Sir-Darya and Amu-Darya the traveller was again among Scythians, who were regarded as a branch of the European Scythians. Next came a long tract of rocky soil, till the bald-headed Argippaei were reached, a race esteemed holy and seemingly Mongolian, who dwelt on the slopes of impassable mountains, probably the Belur-tagh, 1 In Herod., iv. 109, (f>dfiporpayfov<n is to be taken literally. Plan <le Carpin relates the same thing of the Mongols. and served as intermediaries in trade with the remoter peoples of Central Asia. The description of the fruit on which they subsisted (Herod., iv. 23) suits the Elseagnus hortensis, indigenous on the upper Zerafshan. Many notices of ancient writers about Scythia (e.g., as to the eight months winter and the rainy summer) suit only the lands on the first part of this trade road ; moreover, the Greeks soon began to extend the name of Scythians to all the nations beyond in a northerly or north-easterly direc- tion. But such inaccuracy is not common till the fall of the Scythian race, when their name became a favourite designation of more remote and less known nations. Our best and chief informants, Herodotus and Hippocrates, clearly distinguish the Scolots or true Scythians from all their neighbours, and on them alone this article is based. The boundaries of Scythia are, broadly speaking, those of the steppe, which had as wide a range in antiquity as at the present day, cultivable land having always been confined to the immediate neighbourhood of the rivers. But to the west the Scythians went beyond the steppe, and held Great Wallachia between the Aluta and the Danube (Atlas and Ister). Here their northern neigh- bours were the Agathyrsians of Transylvania, who were perhaps Aryans, though in manners they resembled the Thracians. The Dniester was Scythian as far up the stream as the Greeks knew it. On the Bug were found first the mixed Grseco-Scythian Callipidae and Alazones as far as Exampseus (an eastern feeder of the Bug), then agri- cultural Scythians ('Apo-r^pes), who grew corn for export, and therefore were not confined to the steppe. This points to south-east Podolia as their dwelling-place. Beyond them on the upper Bug and above the Dniester were the Neuri, who passed for were-wolves, a superstition still current in Volhynia and about Kieff. On the left bank of the Dnieper the "forest-land" ('YAcuo.) reached as far as the modern Bereslaff ; then came the Scythians of the Dnieper (the Borysthenians), who tilled the soil (of course only close to the river), and extended inland to the Panticapes (Inguletz ?) 2 and up the stream to the district of Gerrhi (near Alexandrovsk). Herodotus does not know the falls of the Dnieper ; beyond Gerrhi he places a desert which seems to occupy the rest of the steppe. Still farther north were the wandering Androphagi (Cannibals), pre- sumably hunters and of Mordvinian race. 3 The nomadic Scythians proper succeeded their agricultural brethren to the east as far as the Gerrhus (Konskaya), and their land was watered by the Hypacyris (Molotchnaya). 4 The royal horde was east of the Gerrhus and extended into the Crimea as far as the fosse which cut off Chersonesus Trachea from the rest of the peninsula, and remains of which can still be traced east of Theodosia. The southern neighbours of the royal Scythians were the savage Taurian mountaineers. Along the coast of the Sea of Azoff the royal horde stretched eastward as far as Cremni (Tagan- rog) ; farther inland their eastern border was the Don. They extended inland for twenty marches, as far probably as the steppe itself, and here their neighbours were the Melanchlseni (Black-cloaks). The true Scythians led the usual life of nomads, moving 2 Herodotus (iv. 54) makes it an eastern instead of a western feeder of the Dnieper. 8 The eastern Mordvinians (Ersians) still passed for cannibals in the time of the Arabian travellers. 4 Herodotus (iv. 56) represents the Gerrhus as a branch of the Dnieper flowing into the Hypacyris, which is not impossible (Von Baer, Histor. Fr., p. 66). But Herodotus himself never travelled beyond Olbia, and what he there learned about the rivers was necessarily vague, except for the parts which the Eastern trade route from Olbia touched. He filled up this imperfect information on analogy, suppos- ing that all these rivers came from lakes, as the Bug did, with which he knew a lake was connected called "mother" of that river (iv. 51, 52, 54, 55, 57).