articularly serpents, yet not one is ever born
in the lands of that town, and if ever one is imported and put there, it
dies at once; and not only this, but if soil is taken from this spot to
another place, the same is true there. It is said that this kind of soil
is also found in the Balearic Islands. The above mentioned soil has a
still more wonderful property, of which I have learned in the following
way.

25. Caius Julius, Masinissa's son, who owned all the lands about that
town, served with Caesar the father. He was once my guest. Hence, in our
daily intercourse, we naturally talked of literary subjects. During a
conversation between us on the efficacy of water and its qualities, he
stated that there were springs in that country of a kind which caused
people born there to have fine singing voices, and that consequently
they always sent abroad and bought handsome lads and ripe girls, and
mated them, so that their progeny might have not only fine voices but
also beautiful forms.

26. This great variety in different things is a distribution due to
nature, for even the human body, which consists in part of the earthy,
contains many kinds of juices, such as blood, milk, sweat, urine, and
tears. If all this variation of flavours is found in a small portion of
the earthy, we should not be surprised to find in the great earth itself
countless varieties of juices, through the veins of which the water
runs, and becomes saturated with them before reaching the outlets of
springs. In this way, different varieties of springs of peculiar kinds
are produced, on account of diversity of situation, characteristics of
country, and dissimilar properties of soils.

27. Some of these things I have seen for myself, others I have found
written in Greek books, the authorities for these writings being
Theophrastus, Timaeus, Posidonius, Hegesias, Herodotus, Aristides, and
Metrodorus. These men with much attention and endless pains showed by
their writings that the peculiarities of sites, the properties of
waters, and the characteristics of countries are conditioned by the
inclination of the heaven. Following their investigations, I have set
down in this book what I thought sufficient about different kinds of
water, to make it easier, by means of these directions, for people to
pick out springs from which they can conduct the water in aqueducts for
the use of cities and towns.

28. For it is obvious that nothing in the world is so necessar