A new edition of Toland's History of the druids: - Free History Ebooks

216 THE HISTORYwhale; as no harbors or bays are superior, Avhetherregard be had to number or conimodiousness.Add to this their variety of excellent roots andplants, particularly those of marine growth, everyone of them serving for food or physic. Theirpastures are so kindly, that they might live onmilk alone, with that inconceivable quantity ofeggs they yearly gather of the desart rocks andilets.But flesh and fish, milk-meats, eggs, and salladsin tliegreatest abundance (some will be aptto say) are slender and comfortless food withoutthe staff of bread. On this assertion, tho' I mightfairly dispute it from the practice of whole nations,and the experience of particular persons nostrangers to me, I will not however insist; bread,among their. other productions, being plentifulenough in the Hebrides, which sometimes cannotbe said of the neighbouring ilands. The groundis generally allow'd to be much richer than on theScottish continent, some parts whereof are notseldom supply'd hence with corn*: and I havealso such proofs of it from Dr. Martin (who, whenhe wrote liisDescription of (hose Ilands, was f:irfrom dreaming of the Hyperboi'eans) as will sufficientlyjustify the expression of Diodorus abouttheir crops or harvests. Levvis is very fruitful:and tho'barley, oats, and rye, be the only grainsown there at present: yet the ground both inthat, and in most of the oilier ilands tis tit to bear* See Dr. Martiu's Drscrij'tion^ page 140, + Page i 3, 357j &c.