Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

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tlie 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 sued 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
with 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 lyrcae,
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, (pOeiporpay^ovcn is to be taken literally. Plan
de 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 Elxagnus
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 Graeco-Scythian Callipidae and Alazones as
far as Exampaeus (an eastern feeder of the Bug), then agri¬
cultural Scythians (’ApoTrjpes), 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” (eYA.ata) 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
(Inguletz1?) 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.
3 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).