430 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book IX. 



so many dishes, so many exquisite flavours derived from fish, 

 all of which are valued in proportion to the danger undergone 

 by those who have caught them. 



(35.) But still, how insignificant is all this when we come 

 to think of our purple, our azure, 12 and our pearls ; it was not 

 enough, forsooth, for the spoils of the sea to be thrust down 

 the gullet but they must be employed as well to adorn the 

 hands, the ears, the head, the whole body, in fact, and that 

 of the men pretty nearly as much as the women. What has 

 the sea to do with our clothes ? 13 What is there in com- 

 mon between waves and billows and a sheep's fleece? This 

 one element ought not to receive us, according to ordinary 

 notions, except in a state of nakedness. Let there be ever 

 so strong an alliance between it and the belly, on the score of 

 gluttony, still, what can it possibly have to do with the 

 back ? It is not enough, forsooth, that we are fed upon what 

 is acquired by perils, but we must be clothed, too, in a similar 

 way ; so true it is, that for all the wants of the body, that 

 which is sought at the expense of human life, is sure to 

 please us the most. 



CHAP. 54. PEARLS; HOW THEY ARE PEODOCED, AND WHEKE. 



The first rank then, and the very highest position among all 

 valuables, belongs to the pearl. It is the Indian Ocean that 

 principally sends them to us : and thus have they, amid those 

 monsters so frightful and so huge which we have already de- 

 scribed, 14 to cross so many seas, and to traverse such lengthened 

 tracts of land, scorched by the ardent rays of a burning sun : 

 and then, too, by the Indians themselves they have to be sought 

 in certain islands, and those but very few in number. The 

 most productive of pearls is the island of Taprobane, and that 

 of Stoidis, as already mentioned 16 in the description of the 



12 Ajasson says, that the words " purpuras, conchylia," here signify not 

 the fish themselves, but the various tints produced by them ; the purpura 

 and the conchylium being, in fact, exactly the same fish, though, as will be 

 explained in c. 60 of the present Book, by various modes of treatment, 

 various colours were extracted from them. See also B. xxi. c. 22. 



13 Dalechamps notices here an ancient proverb, which says, u Qui nare 

 vult, se exuit." " He who wishes to swim, takes off his clothes/' 



14 In c. 2 of the present Book, 



15 In B. vi. cc. 24 and 28. 



