43D 
PLINY S NATTJEAL HISTORT. 
[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, and our pearls ; it was not 
enough, forsooth, for the spoils of the sea to he 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 "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. PEAKLS ; HOW THEY ABE PEODDCED, AND WHEKE. 
The first rank then, and the very highest position among aU 
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,^* 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 in the description of the 
12 Ajasson says, that the words purpuras, concliylia," here signify not 
the fish themselves, but the various tints produced by them ; the purpura 
and the conchy Hum 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, " Qui nare 
vult, se exuit." " He who wishes to swim, takes ofi" his clothes." 
1* In c. 2 of the present Book. 
15 In B. vi. cc. 24 and 28. 
