Nevertheless, M. Humboldt dissents from the opinion of Niebuhr and Boeckh, and considers the Scythians of Herodotus to be of Indo-Germanic, not of Mongolian race: Klaproth seems to adopt the same view (see Humboldt, Asie Centrale, vol. i, p. 401, and his valuable work, Kosmos, p. 491, note 383). He assumes it as a certain fact, upon what evidence I do not distinctly see, that no tribe of Turk or Mongol race migrated westward out of Central Asia until considerably later than the time of Herodotus. To make out such a negative, seems to me impossible: and the marks of ethnographical analogy, so far as they go, decidedly favor the opinion of Niebuhr. Ukert also (Skythien, pp. 266-280) controverts the opinion of Niebuhr. At the same time it must be granted that these marks are not very conclusive, and that many nomadic hordes, whom no one would refer to the same race, may yet have exhibited an analogy of manners and characteristics equal to that between the Scythians and Mongols. The principle upon which the Indo-European family of the human race is defined and parted off, appears to me inapplicable to any particular case wherein the _language_ of the people is unknown to us. The nations constituting that family have no other point of affinity except in the roots and structure of their language; on every other point there is the widest difference. To enable us to affirm that the Massagetæ, or the Scythians, or the Alani, belonged to the Indo-European family, it would be requisite that we should know something of their language. But the Scythian language may be said to be wholly unknown; and the very few words which are brought to our knowledge do not tend to aid the Indo-European hypothesis. [461] See the story of the accidental discovery of this Scythian sword when lost, by Attila, the chief of the Huns (Priscus ap. Jornandem de Rebus Geticis, c. 35, and in Eclog. Legation. p. 50). Lucian in the Toxaris (c. 38, vol. ii, p. 546, Hemst.) notices the worship of the akinakes, or scymetar, by the Scythians in plain terms without interposing the idea of the god Arês: compare Clemen. Alexand. Protrept. p. 25, Syl. Ammianus Marcellinus, in speaking of the Alani (xxxi, 2), as well as Pomponius Mela (ii, 1) and Solinus (c. 20), copy Herodotus. Ammianus is more literal in his description of the Sarmatian sword-worship (xvii, 12). “Eductisque mucronibus, quos pro numinibus colunt,” etc. [462] Herodot. iv, 3-62, 71-75; Sophoklês, Œnomaus,—ap. Athenæ. ix, p. 410; Hippokratês, De Aëre, Locis et Aquis, ch. vi, s. 91-99, etc. It is seldom that we obtain, in reference to the modes of life of an ancient population, two such excellent witnesses as Herodotus and Hippokratês about the Scythians.