Moreouer they marked, or (as it were) painted their bodies in diuerse
sorts and with sundrie shapes and figures of beasts and fowles, and
therefore they vsed not to weare anie garments, that such painting of
their bodies might the more apparantlie be seene, which they esteemed
a great brauerie.
They were as the same Herodianus writeth, a people giuen much to war,
[Sidenote: The furniture of the sauage Britains.]
and delighted in slaughter and bloudshed, vsing none other weapons
or armour but a slender buckler, a iaueline, and a swoord tied to
their naked bodies: as for headpeece or habergeon, they esteemed not,
bicause they thought the same should be an hinderance to them when
they should passe ouer anie maresh, or be driuen to swim anie waters,
or flee to the bogs.
Moreouer, to suffer hunger, cold, and trauell, they were so vsed and
inured therewith, that they would not passe to lie in the bogs and
mires couered vp to the chin, without caring for meate for the space
of diuerse daies togither: and in the woods they would liue vpon
roots and barks of trees. Also they vsed to prepare for themselues a
certeine kind of meate, of the which if they receiued but so much as
amounted to the quantitie of a beane, they would thinke themselues
satisfied, and feele neither hunger nor thirst. The one halfe of
the Ile or little lesse was subiect vnto the Romans, the other was
gouerned of themselues, the people for the most part hauing the rule
in their hands.
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