“Then all those are to be summoned together who have the fleetest horses in the land, for a wager of skill, within the distance of five or six miles from these heaps; and they all ride a race toward the substance of the deceased. Then comes the man that has the winning horse toward the first and largest heap, and so each after other, till the whole is seized upon. He procures, however, the least heap who takes that which is nearest the town; and then everyone rides away with his share, and keeps the whole of it. On account of this custom fleet horses in that country are wonderfully dear. When the wealth of the deceased has been thus exhausted, then they carry out his corpse from the house and burn it, together with his weapons and clothes; and generally they spend his whole substance by the long continuance of the body within the house, together with what they lay in heaps along the road, which the strangers run for, and take away. “It is also an established custom with the Estonians that the dead bodies of every tribe or family shall be burned, and if any man findeth a single bone unconsumed, they shall be fined to a considerable amount. These Estonians also have the power of producing artificial cold; and it is thus the dead body continues so long above ground without putrefying, on which they produce this artificial cold; and, though a man should set two vessels full of ale or of water, they contrive that either shall be completely frozen over; and this equally the same in the summer as in the winter.” Now will we speak about those parts of Europe that lie to the south of the river Danube; and first of all, concerning Greece. The sea which flows along the eastern side of Constantinople (a Grecian city) is called Propontis. To the north of this Grecian city an arm of the sea shoots up westward from the Euxine; and to the west by north the mouths of the river Danube empty themselves south-east into the Euxine. To the south and west of these mouths are the Moessians, a tribe of Greeks; to the west of the city are the Thracians; and to the west also are the Macedonians. To the south of this city, towards the southern part of that arm of the sea which is called the Egean, Athens and Corinth are situated. And to the west by south of Corinth is the land of Achaia, near the Mediterranean. To the west of Achaia, along the Mediterranean, is Dalmatia, on the north side of the sea; to the north of Dalmatia are the boundaries of Bulgaria and Istria. To the south of Istria is that part of the Mediterranean which is called the Adriatic; to the west are the Alps; and to the north that desert which is between the Carinthians and the Bulgarians.