Histories

And in proportion as the sun draws to itself more water in summer than in winter, the water that commingles with the Ister is many times more abundant in summer than it is in winter; these opposites keep the balance true, so that the volume of the river appears always the same.

One of the rivers of the Scythians, then, is the Ister. The next is the +Dnestr (river), Europe Tyras;[*](The +Dnestr (river), Europe Dniester.) this comes from the north, flowing at first out of a great lake, which is the boundary between the Scythian and the Neurian countries; at the mouth of the river there is a settlement of Greeks, who are called Tyritae.

The third river is the Hypanis; this comes from Scythia (region (general)), AsiaScythia, flowing out of a great lake, around which wild, white horses graze. This lake is truly called the mother of the Hypanis.

Here, then, the Hypanis rises; for five days' journey its waters are shallow and still sweet; after that for four days' journey seaward it is amazingly bitter,

for a spring runs into it so bitter that although its volume is small its admixture taints the Hypanis, one of the few great rivers of the world. This spring is on the border between the farming Scythians [*](See Hdt. 4.17.) and the Alazones; the name of it and of the place where it rises is in Scythian Exampaeus; in the Greek tongue, Sacred Ways.

The +Dnestr (river), Europe Tyras and the Hypanis draw near together in the Alazones' country; after that they flow apart, the intervening space growing wider.