The Glow Spreads West 6i 



liked to stroll among his cypresses, to the revoltingly successful gen- 

 eral, Caius Julius Caesar, who was wont to "throw a company of 

 Balearic slingers" across rivers to the discomfort of some Gallic 

 tribe that was only trying to defend its crops, its maidens, and its 

 territory. But eventually Rome had to breed a Pliny. A really suc- 

 cessful civilization must sooner or later, and inevitably, produce such 

 a type. 



Gains Plinius Secundus, commonly known as Pliny the Elder, 

 who lived from 23 to 79 a.d., penned a whole shelf of volumes into 

 which he gathered information upon practically everything he could 

 lay his hands on, a most astounding assemblage of facts gleaned from 

 any and every source quite irrespective of their merits or veracity. 

 Never was there more entertaining readingr, not even in our own 

 small predigested periodicals. In Pliny anything may be encountered 

 — word-for-word plagiarisms from Aristotle and the older classics, 

 the shrewdest observations upon current events, and the most arrant 

 nonsense that any gullible idiot could unearth from under Egyptian 

 stones or from the darker recesses of barbarian fetishism. In this out- 

 pouring we find, moreover, many items of the utmost interest that 

 reveal the wisdom and beliefs of a successful empire and display the 

 accumulated knowledge then current in the world. 



Pliny goes into the details of the trade route to India with some 

 care. The chapter is not, but might well be, headed, "How to Get to 

 India and Back in a Year." It lists by name the winds to be used, 

 specifying that the journey should start from Cape Fartak in Arabia, 

 using the west wind Favonius, or Hippalus, and that the course 

 should be steered to Patale on the Malabar coast. The return is to be 

 made in December, using the southeast wind named Vulturnus. 

 Pliny then goes into the marvels to be encountered on this journey 

 and the wildlife of India. Would that we had space to give some of 

 his descriptions of the latter; that of the rhinoceros is hard to beat 

 even in modern literature. We must, however, confine our narrative 

 to what he had to say upon our own particular subject, the whales, 

 which in some respects surely cannot be surpassed in any other 

 work, ancient or modern. This delicious publicist, whom many per- 

 sons of lesser mentality have presumed to call naive, launches out 

 with altogether carefree abandon to deal with the whole matter of 

 whales in a most comprehensive manner. There can be no question, 



