Note 436 — ON AIRS, WATERS, AND PLACES.

This description evidently applies to the wandering tribes which roam over the steppes of Tartary. The passage is of classical celebrity, for I cannot but fancy that certainly Virgil (Georg., iii., 349–83), and perhaps Horace (Od. iii., 24), had it in view when they drew their pictures of the nomadic life of the Scythians. The extraordinary cold of that region, notwithstanding its southern latitude, has not been exaggerated by ancient authors; but to account for it, as the modern traveller, Clark, remarks, is still a problem which no one has solved. Strabo mentions that carts were driven across the Palus Mæotis (Geogr., vii., 3). The chariots covered in from the inclemency of the weather with a roof of felt, are described also by Strabo (Geogr., l. c.); and, according to Dr. Coray, similar contrivances are still to be found among the Kalmucs and other savage nations. (Notes sur le Traité des Airs, etc., h. 1.) A preparation from milk resembling the hippace is still used by the inhabitants of that region. On the people who lived upon this composition from milk, see in particular Strabo, vii., 3.