348 HISTORY OF 



gigantine statures (such as for certain have been found in 

 Sicily and elsewhere, in ancient sepulchres and caves), yet 

 within these last three thousand years, a time whereof we 

 have sure memory, those very places have produced none 

 such, although this thing also hath certain turns and 

 changes, by the civilizing of a nation, no less than the 

 former. And this is the rather to be noted, because men 

 are wholly carried away with an opinion, that there is a con 

 tinual decay by succession of ages, as well in the term of 

 man s life, as in the stature and strength of his body; and 

 that all things decline and change to the worse. 



24. In cold and northern countries men live longer com 

 monly than in hot, which must needs be, in respect the 

 skin is more compact and close, and the juices of the body 

 less dissipable, and the spirits themselves less eager to con 

 sume, and in better disposition to repair, and the air (as 

 being little heated by the sunbeams) less predatory* And 

 yet under the equinoctial line, where the sun passeth to and 

 fro, and causeth a double summer, and double winter, and 

 where the days and nights are more equal (if other things 

 be concurring), they live also very long, as in Peru and 

 Taprobane. 



25. Islanders are, for the most part, longer lived than 

 those that live in continents ; for they live not so long in 

 Russia as in the Orcades, nor so long in Africa, though 

 under the same parallel, as in the Canaries and Terceras ; 

 and the Japonians are longer lived than the Chineses, though 

 the Chineses are made upon long life. And this thing is 

 no marvel, seeing the air of the sea doth heat and cherish 

 in cooler regions, and cool in hotter. 



26. High situations do rather afford long livers than low, 

 especially if they be not tops of mountains, but rising 

 grounds, as to their general situations ; such as was Arcadia 

 in Greece, and that part of ^Etolia, where we related them 

 to have lived so long. Now there would be the same reason 

 for mountains themselves, because of the pureness and 

 clearness of the air, but that they are corrupted by acci 

 dent, namely, by the vapours rising thither out of the val 

 leys, and resting there ; and, therefore, in snowy mountains 

 there is not found any notable long life, not in the Alps, not 

 in the Pyrenean mountains, not in the Apennine ; yet in the 

 tops of the mountains running along towards ^Ethiopia, and 

 the Abyssines, where, by reason of the sands beneath, little 

 or no vapour riseth to the mountains ; they live long, even 

 at this very day, attaining many times to a hundred and 

 fifty years. 



