Productions ifidisenmis to Britain 



ti^ 



came originally from Lydia. He also adds, " Glandem, quae 

 proprie intelligitur, ferunt robur, quercus, esculus, cerrus, ilex, 

 suber." * Pausanias tells us that the acorn was for ages 

 almost the sole food of the Arcadians ; not, however, those 

 TMv dpvMv TTua-Mv [of all trees], but only of that which was called 

 fYiyo^ [fagus] {Pausaii. lib. viii. c. 1. p. 592.); and a traveller 

 in Spain (Sir Thomas Gascoigne) relates that the peasants of 

 Catalonia and Valencia live great part of the year on the acorns 

 of the evergreen oak ; and that he and his fellow-traveller 

 found them very sweet and palatable.f The author, also, of 

 the number of the Library of Entertaining Knowledge upon 

 trees:}: says, " The Quercus /lex (evergreen oak), which is 

 still common in Spain, in Italy, in Greece, in Syria, in the 

 south of France, and on the shores of the Mediterranean, 

 bears a fruit which, in its agreeable flavour, resembles nuts. 

 There is another evergreen oak (Quercus i?allota) very com- 

 mon in Spain and Barbary, of which the acorns are most 

 abundant and nutritive. During the late war in Spain, the 

 French armies were fortunate in finding subsistence upon the 

 iBallota acorns in the woods of Salamanca." This, then, in all 

 probability, is the " fagus " spoken of in the Commentaries of 

 Caesar ; certainly not a native of Britain ; and more likely, 

 being a common article of food, to be mentioned than that 

 which we now know as the beech. From the same passage 

 in Caesar we find that neither the copper mines of Cornwall 

 nor, in fact, any in the kingdom, were then worked, or, indeed, 

 known ; and that even iron was not found in abundance. In 

 the time of Agricola, it appears that pearls and the precious 

 metals were to be met with. The consideration of this pas- 

 sage we will leave to another opportunity. Whatever pro- 

 gress in civilisation the natives, from the preceding passages, 

 appear to have reached, it must be understood to refer to the 

 inhabitants on the sea-coast exclusively. The natives of the 

 interior were perfect savages, lurking in the recesses of the 

 woods, clad in skins, painting or tattooing their bodies, and 

 neither sowing nor planting; verifying the description of the 

 poet Spenser — 



" But far in land a salvage nation dwelt 

 Of hideous giaunts and halfe-beastly men, 

 That never tasted grace, nor goodness felt ; 

 But wild like beastes lurking in loathsome den. 



* " The acorn properly so called is produced by the Robur," &c. 

 + Swinburne's Travels in Spain, Letter ii. p. 85. 

 I Library of Entertaining Knowledge, vol. ii. p. 4. 

 9 See a note in Mitford's History of Greece, vol. i. p. 8., for further 

 information respecting the use of acorns as food. 



