310 ploy's natural history. [Book XVI. 



and when the waves cover the surrounding country far and 

 wide, like so many mariners on board ship are they : when, 

 again, the tide recedes, their condition is that of so many 

 shipwrecked men, and around their cottages they pursue the 

 fishes as they make their escape with the receding tide. It is 

 not their lot, like the adjoining nations, to keep any flocks for 

 sustenance by their milk, nor even to maintain a warfare with 

 wild beasts, every shrub, even, being banished afar. With the 

 sedge 4 and the rushes of the marsh they make cords, and 

 with these they weave the nets employed in the capture of the 

 fish ; they fashion the mud, 5 too, with their hands, and drying 

 it by the help of the winds more than of the sun, cook their 

 food by its aid, and so warm their entrails, frozen as they 

 are by the northern blasts; their only 6 drink, too, is rain- 

 water, which they collect in holes dug at the entrance of their 

 abodes : and yet these nations, if this very day they were van- 

 quished by the Eoman people, would exclaim against being 

 reduced 7 to slavery ! Be it so, then — Fortune is most kind to 

 many, just when she means to punish them. 8 



CHAP. 2. WONDERS CONNECTED WITH TREES IN THE NORTHERN 



REGIONS. 



Another marvel, too, connected with the forests ! They 

 cover all the rest of Germany, and by their shade augment the 

 cold. But the highest of them all are those not far distant 

 from the Chauci already mentioned, and more particularly in 

 the vicinity of the two lakes 9 there. The very shores are lined 

 with oaks, 10 which manifest an extraordinary eagerness to 



4 " Ulva." This appears to be a general name for all kinds of aquatic 

 fresh- water plants; as "alga" is that of the various sea-weeds. 



5 He alludes to turf for firing ; the Humus turfa of the naturalists. 



6 Of course this applies only to those who dwelt near the sea-shore, and 

 not those more inland. 



7 Guichardin remarks, that Pliny does not here bear in mind the sweets 

 of liberty. 



8 So Laberius says, " Fortuna multis parcere in pcenam solet;" "For- 

 tune is the saving of many, when she means to punish them." 



9 He alludes to the vicinity of the Zuyder Zee. See B. iv. c. 29. The 

 spots where these forests once stood are now cultivated plains, covered with 

 villages and other works of the industry of man. 



10 " Quercus." We shall see, in the course of this Book, that its identity 

 has not been satisfactorily established. 



