1Their strength lies in their infantry; 1some tribes also fight from chariots. 1The driver is the man of higher rank; his dependants do the fighting. 1Once they obeyed kings, now they are pulled apart into factions and rivalries by their chieftains. 2Nor is anything more useful to us against the most powerful tribes than that they do not take counsel in common. 2Rarely do two or three states meet to repel a common danger: so, while they fight one by one, they are all conquered together. 3The sky is foul with frequent rain and mist; 3severe cold is absent. 3The length of the days exceeds the measure of our part of the world; 3the night is bright and, in the furthest part of Britain, short, so that you can distinguish the end and the beginning of daylight only by a slight interval.
4And if clouds do not obstruct it, they assert that the sun's brightness is seen throughout the night, and that it does not set and rise but passes across. 4Evidently the flat extremities of the earth, casting a low shadow, do not raise the darkness high, and night falls below the sky and the stars. 5The soil, apart from the olive, the vine and the other plants accustomed to grow in warmer lands, tolerates crops and is fertile: they ripen slowly but spring up quickly; 5and the cause of both is the same, the abundant moisture of the land and the sky. 6Britain produces gold and silver and other metals, the prize of victory.
6The Ocean also produces pearls, but they are dusky and leaden in hue. 7Some think that those who gather them lack skill; 7for in the Red Sea they are torn from the rocks alive and breathing, while in Britain they are collected as they are cast ashore: for my part, I would more readily believe that quality is lacking in the pearls than greed in us.