He bids
me observe their thighes in a microscope. (Upon the Brenta river, by
Padua in Italy, they have hives of bees in open boates; the bees goe
out to feed and gather till the honey-dews are spent neer the boate;
and then the bee master rows the boate to a fresh place, and by the
sinking of the boate knows when to take the honey, &c.- J. EVELYN.)
CHAPTER XIV.
OF MEN AND WOEMEN.
[THE following instances of remarkable longevity, monstrous births,
&c. will suffice to shew the nature of this Chapter. It must be
admitted that its contents are unimportant except as matters of
curious speculation, and as connected with the several localities
referred to.-J. B.]
A PROVERB: -•
'Salisbury Plain
Never without a thief or twain.'
As to the temper and complexion of the men and woemen, I have spoken
before in the Prolegomena.
As to long?evity, good aire and water doe conduce to it: but the
inhabitants are also to tread on dry earth; not nitrous or vitriolate,
that hurts the nerves. South and North Wiltshire are wett and dampish
soiles. The stone walles in the vale here doe also cast a great and
unwholsome dampe. Eighty-four or eighty-five is the age the
inhabitants doe rarely exceed. But I have heard my worthy friend
George Johnson of Bowdon, Esq., one of the judges in North Wales, say
that he did observe in his circuit, sc. Montgomery, Flint, and
Denbigh, that men lived there as commonly to an hundred yeares as with
us to eighty.
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