Chap. V
1. This island is rich in corn and wood, is well adapted for the maintenance of flocks and cattle, and in some places produces vines. It also abounds with marine and land birds, and contains copious springs, and numerous rivers, stored with fish, and plentifully supplied with salmon and eels.
2. Sea-cows or seals,397 and dolphins are caught, and whales, of which mention is made by the satirist:
“Quanto delphinis balæna Britannica major.”
3. There are besides several sorts of shell-fish, among which are muscles, containing pearls often of the best kind, and of every colour: that is, red, purple, violet, green (prasini), but principally white, as we find in the venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History.
4. Shells398 are still more abundant, from which is prepared a scarlet dye of the most beautiful hue, which never fades from the effect of the sun or rain, but becomes finer as it grows older.
5. In Britain are salt and warm springs, from which are formed hot baths, suited to all ages, with distinct places for the two sexes.399
6. White lead is found in the midland regions, and iron in the maritime, but in small quantities gold and silver are also produced, but brass is imported. Jet of the purest quality abounds; it is of a shining black, and highly inflammable.400 When burned, it drives away serpents, and when warmed by friction attracts bodies, like amber.
7. Britain being situated almost under the north pole, the nights are so light in summer, that it is often doubtful whether the evening or morning twilight prevails; because the sun, in returning to the east, does not long remain below the horizon. Hence, also, according to Cleomenes, the longest day in summer, and the longest night in winter, when the sun declines towards the south, is eighteen hours; and the shortest night in summer, and day in winter, is six hours. In the same manner as in Armenia, Macedon, Italy, and the regions under the same parallel, the longest day is fifteen, and the shortest nine hours.
8. But I have given a sufficient account of Britain and the Britons in general. I shall now descend to particulars; and in the succeeding pages, shall describe the state and revolutions of the different nations who inhabited this island, the cities which ennobled it, with other particulars, and their condition under the Roman dominion.
Footnotes
397 We do not find that Pennant mentions, among the amphibious animals, the Vituli Marini, by which Richard probably meant seals.
398 Richard calls these shells Cochleæ, or snails, though he probably alludes to the species styled by naturalists Murea, which contained the famous Tyrian purple, so much valued by the ancients. Yet, whatever our island may have formerly produced, we discern no traces in later ages, of any testaceous animal yielding a purple or scarlet dye.
399 Richard here doubtless principally alludes to Bath, the Aquæ Solis of the ancients.
400 This substance appears to have been wrought into ornaments for the person. In the barrows, jet beads of a long elliptical form were found, together with others of amber, and a coarse blue glass.