339 
BOOK XVI. 
THE NATURAL HISTOEY OF THE FOEEST TEEES. 
CHAP. 1. COTOTRIES THAT HAVE NO TEEES. 
We have given the precedence in this account to the fruit- 
trees and others which, by their delicious juices, first taught 
man to give a relish to his food and the various aliments 
requisite for his sustenance, whether it is that they spontane- 
ously produce these delightful flavours, or whether we have 
imparted them by the methods of adoption and intermarriage,^ 
thus bestowing a favour, as it were, upon the very beasts and 
birds. The next thing, then, would be to speak of the glandi- 
ferous trees, the trees which proflered the earliest nutriment 
to the appetite of man, and proved themselves his foster- 
mothers in his forlorn and savage state — did I not feel myself 
constrained on this occasion to make some mention of the sur- 
prise which I have felt on finding by actual experience what 
is the life of mortals when they inhabit a country that is with- 
out either tree or shrub. 
(1.) I have already stated^ that in the East many nations 
that dwell on the shores of the ocean are placed in this neces- 
sitous state ; and I mj^self have personally witnessed the con- 
dition of the Chauci,^ both the Greater and the Lesser, situate 
in the regions of the far ]N"orth. In those climates a vast tract 
of land, invaded twice each day and night by the overflowing 
waves of the ocean, opens a question that is eternally proposed 
to us by Nature, whether these regions are to be looked upon 
as belonging to the land, or whether as forming a portion of 
the sea? 
Here a wretched race is found, inhabiting either the m.ore 
elevated spots of land, or else eminences artificially constructed, 
and of a height to which they know by experience that the 
highest tides will never reach. Here they pitch their cabins ; 
1 The methods of grafting and inoculation. 
2 B. xiii. c. 50. They dwelt between the Ems and the Elbe. 
3 See B. iv. c. 29. 
z 2 
