4.50.3
In the summer, the abundant snow that has fallen in winter melts and pours from all sides into the Ister; so this snow-melt pours into the river and helps to swell it and much violent rain besides, as the summer is the season of rain.
4.50.4
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.
ch. 51
4.51.1
One of the rivers of the Scythians, then, is the Ister. The next is the Tyras; note 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.
ch. 52
4.52.1
The third river is the Hypanis; this comes from Scythia, flowing out of a great lake, around which wild, white horses graze. This lake is truly called the mother of the Hypanis.
4.52.2
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,
4.52.3
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 note and the Alazones; the name of it and of the place where it rises is in Scythian Exampaeus; in the Greek tongue, Sacred Ways.
4.52.4
The Tyras and the Hypanis draw near together in the Alazones' country; after that they flow apart, the intervening space growing wider.
ch. 53
4.53.1
The fourth is the Borysthenes river. This is the next greatest after the Ister, and the most productive, in our judgment, not only of the Scythian but of all rivers, except the Egyptian Nile, with which no other river can be compared.
4.53.2
But of the rest, the Borysthenes is the most productive; it provides the finest and best-nurturing pasture lands for beasts, and the fish in it are beyond all in their excellence and abundance. Its water is most sweet to drink, flowing with a clear current, whereas the other rivers are turbid. There is excellent soil on its banks, and very rich grass where the land is not planted;
4.53.3
and self-formed crusts of salt abound at its mouth; it provides great spineless fish, called sturgeons, for salting, and many other wonderful things besides.
4.53.4
Its course is from the north, and it is known as far as the Gerrhan land; that is, for forty days' voyage; beyond that, no one can say through what nations it flows; but it is plain that it flows through desolate country to the land of the farming Scythians, who live beside it for a ten days' voyage.
4.53.5
This is the only river, besides the Nile, whose source I cannot identify; nor, I think, can any Greek. When the Borysthenes comes near the sea, the Hypanis mingles with it, running into the same marsh;
4.53.6
the land between these rivers, where the land projects like a ship's beak, is called Hippolaus' promontory; a temple of Demeter stands there. The settlement of the Borystheneïtae is beyond the temple, on the Hypanis.
ch. 54
4.54.1
This is the produce of these rivers, and after these there is a fifth river called Panticapas; this also flows from the north out of a lake, and the land between it and the Borysthenes is inhabited by the farming Scythians; it flows into the woodland country, after passing which it mingles with the Borysthenes.
