To themselves it is of no use: they gather it rough, they expose it in
pieces coarse and unpolished, and for it receive a price with wonder. You
would however conceive it to be a liquor issuing from trees, for that in
the transparent substance are often seen birds and other animals, such as
at first stuck in the soft gum, and by it, as it hardened, became quite
enclosed. I am apt to believe that, as in the recesses of the East are
found woods and groves dropping frankincense and balms, so in the isles
and continent of the West such gums are extracted by the force and
proximity of the sun; at first liquid and flowing into the next sea, then
thrown by winds and waves upon the opposite shore. If you try the nature
of amber by the application of fire, it kindles like a torch; and feeds a
thick and unctuous flame very high scented, and presently becomes
glutinous like pitch or rosin.
Upon the Suiones, border the people Sitones; and, agreeing with them in
all other things, differ from them in one, that here the sovereignty is
exercised by a woman. So notoriously do they degenerate not only from a
state of liberty, but even below a state of bondage.
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