ll and
taste, like to the air in sight, such as is soon hot, soon cold, and which
Hippocrates so much approves, if at least it may be had. Rain water is
purest, so that it fall not down in great drops, and be used forthwith, for
it quickly putrefies. Next to it fountain water that riseth in the east,
and runneth eastward, from a quick running spring, from flinty, chalky,
gravelly grounds: and the longer a river runneth, it is commonly the
purest, though many springs do yield the best water at their fountains. The
waters in hotter countries, as in Turkey, Persia, India, within the
tropics, are frequently purer than ours in the north, more subtile, thin,
and lighter, as our merchants observe, by four ounces in a pound,
pleasanter to drink, as good as our beer, and some of them, as Choaspis in
Persia, preferred by the Persian kings, before wine itself.

[2904] "Clitorio quicunque sitim de fonte levarit
Vina fugit gaudetque meris abstemius undis."

Many rivers I deny not are muddy still, white, thick, like those in China,
Nile in Egypt, Tiber at Rome, but after they be settled two or three days,
defecate and clear, very commodious, useful and good. Many make use of deep
wells, as of old in the Holy Land, lakes, cisterns, when they cannot be
better provided; to fetch it in carts or gondolas, as in Venice, or camels'
backs, as at Cairo in Egypt, [2905]Radzivilius observed 8000 camels daily
there, employed about that business; some keep it in trunks, as in the East
Indies, made four square with descending steps, and 'tis not amiss, for I
would not have any one so nice as that Grecian Calis, sister to Nicephorus,
emperor of Constantinople, and [2906]married to Dominitus Silvius, duke of
Venice, that out of incredible wantonness, _communi aqua uti nolebat_,
would use no vulgar water; but she died _tanta_ (saith mine author)
_foetidissimi puris copia_, of so fulsome a disease, that no water could
wash her clean. [2907]Plato would not have a traveller lodge in a city that
is not governed by laws, or hath not a quick stream running by it; _illud
enim animum, hoc corrumpit valetudinem_, one corrupts the body, the other
the mind. But this is more than needs, too much curiosity is naught, in
time of necessity any water is allowed. Howsoever, pure water is best, and
which (as Pindarus holds) is better than gold; an especial ornament it is,
and "very commodious to a city" (according to [2908]Vegetius) "when fresh
springs are inc