[8.] In the sea off Lusitania acorn-bearing oaks grow, upon which the tunnies feed and fatten themselves, which may, therefore, well be called sea-hogs, as they feed like hogs on acorns....
These acorns are sometimes carried by the tide as far as the coast of Latium, unless they may be thought to be the produce of Sardinia or neighbouring islands....
In Lusitania both animals and man are extraordinarily productive, owing to the excellent temperature of the air; the fruits never wither; there is not more than three months in the year in which roses, white violets (or gilly-flowers), and asparagus do not grow; while the fish caught in its sea is far superior to what is found in our waters for quantity, quality, and beauty. There, too, a Sicilian medimnus of barley is sold for a drachma, and one of wheat for nine Alexandrine obols. A metreta of wine costs a drachma, and a good kid or hare an obol, and a lamb from three to four obols; a fat pig weighing a hundred minae costs five drachmae, and a sheep two. A talent of figs is sold for three obols, a calf for five drachmae, a draught-ox for ten. The flesh of wild animals is not thought worth fixing a price upon at all, but the people give it to each other for nothing and as a present.[224]...
[9.] The Turduli live on the immediate northTribes in Baetica. of the Turdetani....
The fertility of their country has had a civilising influence on the Turditani and on their Celtic kinsfolk, and taught them the art of social life....
The Pillars are at either side of the straits....
There is a fountain in the Heracleum at Gades, the water of which is sweet and is reached by steps.A tidal spring at Gades. This fountain has a tide which rises and falls exactly in the reverse order of the sea tide. When it is high tide at sea it is low tide in the fountain, and high in the fountain when it is low at sea. The explanation of this is that the wind, which rises from the bowels of the earth to the surface, is prevented from finding its natural egress when the earth is covered with water at the rise of the tide, and being thus turned back into the interior of the earth, it stops up the underground channels of the fountain and produces a deficiency of water; but when the earth is again uncovered, the wind having once more found an easy egress, sets the veins of the fountain free again, and the water spurts up freely....
There are very large silver mines about twenty stades from New Carthage, extending to a circuit of four hundred stades,The process of producing silver in the mines near New Carthage. in which forty thousand men are continually employed, who produce for the benefit of the Roman people twenty-five thousand drachmae a day. It would take too long to describe the whole process of working them, but I may mention that the alluvial soil containing the silver ore is first broken up, and sifted in sieves held in water; that then the deposit is again broken, and being again filtered with running water, is broken a third time. This is done five times; the fifth deposit is smelted, and, the lead having been run off, pure silver remains....
TheThe Guadiana and Guadalquivir. Anas and Baetis both flow from Celtiberia, their streams being about nine hundred stades apart....