BOOK XXII 



I. Nature and our earth might have filled the 

 measure of our wonder at them in anyone who 

 reviews even the preceding volume only, with all 

 Nature's gifts in it, and all the kinds of plants 

 created for the needs or pleasures of mankind. But 

 how many more kinds remain, and how much more 

 wonderful they are in their discovery ! For of the 

 plants mentioned already the greater number, 

 owing to their excellence as food, perfume or orna- 

 ment, have led to repeated experiments ; of the rest 

 it is their efficacy that proves that nothing is created 

 by Nature without some more hidden reason than 

 those just mentioned. 



II. Now I notice that some foreign peoples use 

 certain plants on their persons both to make them- 

 selves more handsome and also to keep up traditional 

 custom. At any rate among barbarian tribes the 

 women stain the face, using, some one plant and some 

 another ; and the men too among the Daci and the 

 Sarmatae tattoo their own bodies. In Gaul there 

 is a plant like the plantain, called glastum ; " with 

 it the wives of the Britons, and their daughters-in- 

 law, stain all the body, and at certain reHgious 

 ceremonies march along naked, with a colour resem- 

 bling that of Ethiopians. 



III. Moreover we know that clothes are dyed vegetabie 

 with a wonderful dye from a plant, and, to say ** 

 nothing of the fact that, of the berries of Galatia,* 

 Africa, and Lusitania, the " coccum " is specially re- 



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