BOOK XVI 



I. Among the trees already mentioncd arc includcd ForesttTees. 

 the fruit-trees and those which by their mellower 

 juices first added the element of pleasure to food 

 and taught us to mingle reUshcs with our necessary 

 nutriment, whether they did so of their own accord 

 or whether they learnt from mankind to acquire 

 agreeable flavours by means of adoption and inter- 

 marriage " — and this is a service which we have 

 also rendered to ^ beasts and birds. Next would have 

 come an account of the acorn-bearing trees which 

 first produced food for mortal man and were the foster- 

 mothers of his helpless and savage lot, if we were 

 not compelled by a sense of wonder learnt from ex- 

 perience to tum first to the question, what is the nature 

 and what are the characteristics of the Hfe of people 

 Hving without any trees or any shrubs. 



We have indeed stated that in the east, on the Cotmtries 

 shores of the ocean, a number of races are in this 

 necessitous condition ; but so also are the races of 

 people called the Greater and the Lesser Chauci, 

 whom we have seen in the north. There twice in xiii. 139. 

 each period of a day and a night the ocean with its 

 vast tide sweeps in a flood over a measureless expanse, 

 covering up Nature's age-long controversy and the 

 region disputed as belonging whether to the land or to 

 the sea. Thcre this miserable race occupy elevated 



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