while I was taking these amusements, my heart leapt up with joy, and I
found that I could work better and with far greater mastery than when I
spent my whole time in study and manual labour. In this way my gun, at
the end of the game, stood me more in profit than in loss.

It was also the cause of my making acquaintance with certain hunters
after curiosities, who followed in the track [1] of those Lombard
peasants who used to come to Rome to till the vineyards at the proper
season. While digging the ground, they frequently turned up antique
medals, agates, chrysoprases, cornelians, and cameos; also sometimes
jewels, as, for instance, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds, and rubies. The
peasants used to sell things of this sort to the traders for a mere
trifle; and I very often, when I met them, paid the latter several times
as many golden crowns as they had given giulios for some object.
Independently of the profit I made by this traffic, which was at least
tenfold, it brought me also into agreeable relations with nearly all the
cardinals of Rome. I will only touch upon a few of the most notable and
the rarest of these curiosities. There came into my hands, among many
other fragments, the head of a dolphin about as big as a good-sized
ballot-bean. Not only was the style of this head extremely beautiful,
but nature had here far surpassed art; for the stone was an emerald of
such good colour, that the man who bought it from me for tens of crowns
sold it again for hundreds after setting it as a finger-ring. I will
mention another kind of gem; this was a magnificent topaz; and here art
equalled nature; it was as large as a big hazel-nut, with the head of
Minerva in a style of inconceivable beauty. I remember yet another
precious stone, different from these; it was a cameo, engraved with
Hercules binding Cerberus of the triple throat; such was its beauty and
the skill of its workmanship, that our great Michel Agnolo protested he
had never seen anything so wonderful. Among many bronze medals, I