The Twitter Herodotus

4.31 Those feathers I mentioned that fill the air north of Scythia? I think the Scythians are talking about snow.

4.32 Nobody around Scythia has anything to say re. the Hyperboreans, but Hesiod and Homer  mention them (maybe: if Homer wrote the Epigoni).

4.33 The Delians say the Hyperboreans send offerings to Delos. The gifts are passed along from nation to nation until they get to Delos.

4.34 Delian girls and boys cut their hair to honor two Hyperborean girls who died at Delos. The hair is left on the girls' tomb.

4.35 Two other Hyperborean girls, Arge and Opis, had come to Delos earlier, and the Delians had granted them various honors.

4.36 So much for the Hyperboreans: I won't mention Abaris, who went around the world without eating. BTW world maps are inaccurate. In fact:

4.37 The Persians' land extends to the Persian Gulf. Between them and the Black Sea are the Medes, the Saspires, and the Colchians.

4.38 There are two peninsulas in this area. The first is Asia Minor, which thirty nations inhabit.

4.39 The second peninsula contains Persia, Assyria, and Arabia, and it ends at the Red Sea.

4.40 East of this, Asia is bounded by the Caspian and Erythraean Seas. It's inhabited as far as India. East of India it's uninhabited.