And the wind and the rain have made strange work with the poor old world ever since. And that is about all that we, who are not very much wiser than Shakespeare's fool, can say about the matter. But again--the London Pride grows here, and so does another saxifrage very like it, which we call Saxifraga Geum. Now, when I saw those two plants growing in the Western Pyrenees, between France and Spain, and with them the beautiful blue butterwort, which grows in these Kerry bogs--we will go and find some--what could I say but that Spain and Ireland must have been joined once?
I suppose it must be so.
Again. There is a little pink butterwort here in the bogs, which grows, too, in dear old Devonshire and Cornwall; and also in the south-west of Scotland. Now, when I found that too, in the bogs near Biarritz, close to the Pyrenees, and knew that it stretched away along the Spanish coast, and into Portugal, what could my common sense lead me to say but that Scotland, and Ireland, and Cornwall, and Spain were all joined once? Those are only a few examples. I could give you a dozen more. For instance, on an island away there to the west, and only in one spot, there grows a little sort of lily, which is found I believe in Brittany, and on the Spanish and Portuguese heaths, and even in North-west Africa.
And that Africa and Spain were joined not so very long ago at the Straits of Gibraltar there is no doubt at all.
But where did the Mediterranean Sea run out then?
Perhaps it did not run out at all; but was a salt-water lake, like the Caspian, or the Dead Sea. Perhaps it ran out over what is now the Sahara, the great desert of sand, for, that was a sea-bottom not long ago.
But then, how was this land of Atlantis joined to the Cape of Good Hope?
I cannot say how, or when either. But this is plain: the place in the world where the most beautiful heaths grow is the Cape of Good Hope? You know I showed you Cape heaths once at the nursery gardener's at home.
Oh yes, pink, and yellow, and white; so much larger than ours.
Then it seems (I only say it seems) as if there must have been some land once to the westward, from which the different sorts of heath spread south-eastward to the Cape, and north-eastward into Europe. And that they came north-eastward into Europe seems certain; for there are no heaths in America or Asia.
But how north-eastward?
Think. Stand with your face to the south and think. If a thing comes from the south-west--from there, it must go to the north- east-towards there. Must it not?
Oh yes, I see.
Now then--The farther you go south-west, towards Spain, the more kinds of heath there are, and the handsomer; as if their original home, from which they started, was somewhere down there.
More sorts! What sorts?
How many sorts of heath have we at home?
Three, of course: ling, and purple heath, and bottle heath.
And there are no more in all England, or Wales, or Scotland, except-- Now, listen. In the very farthest end of Cornwall there are two more sorts, the Cornish heath and the Orange-bell; and they say (though I never saw it) that the Orange-bell grows near Bournemouth.
Well. That is south and west too.
So it is: but that makes five heaths. Now in the south and west of Ireland all these five heaths grow, and two more: the great Irish heath, with purple bells, and the Mediterranean heath, which flowers in spring.
Oh, I know them. They grow in the Rhododendron beds at home.
Of course. Now again. If you went down to Spain, you would find all those seven heaths, and other sorts with them, and those which are rare in England and Ireland are common there. About Biarritz, on the Spanish frontier, all the moors are covered with Cornish heath, and the bogs with Orange-bell, and lovely they are to see; and growing among them is a tall heath six feet high, which they call there bruyere, or Broomheath, because they make brooms of it: and out of its roots the "briar-root" pipes are made. There are other heaths about that country, too, whose names I do not know; so that when you are there, you fancy yourself in the very home of the heaths: but you are not. They must have come from some land near where the Azores are now; or how could heaths have got past Africa, and the tropics, to the Cape of Good Hope?
It seems very wonderful, to be able to find out that there was a great land once in the ocean all by a few little heaths.
Not by them only, child. There are many other plants, and animals too, which make one think that so it must have been. And now I will tell you something stranger still. There may have been a time--some people say that there must--when Africa and South America were joined by land.
Africa and South America! Was that before the heaths came here, or after?
I cannot tell: but I think, probably after. But this is certain, that there must have been a time when figs, and bamboos, and palms, and sarsaparillas, and many other sorts of plants could get from Africa to America, or the other way, and indeed almost round the world. About the south of France and Italy you will see one beautiful sarsaparilla, with hooked prickles, zigzagging and twining about over rocks and ruins, trunks and stems: and when you do, if you have understanding, it will seem as strange to you as it did to me to remember that the home of the sarsaparillas is not in Europe, but in the forests of Brazil, and the River Plate.
Oh, I have heard about their growing there, and staining the rivers brown, and ****** them good medicine to drink: but I never thought there were any in Europe.
There are only one or two, and how they got there is a marvel indeed. But now-- If there was not dry land between Africa and South America, how did the cats get into America? For they cannot swim.
Cats? People might have brought them over.
Jaguars and Pumas, which you read of in Captain Mayne Reid's books, are cats, and so are the Ocelots or tiger cats.
Oh, I saw them at the Zoological Gardens.
But no one would bring them over, I should think, except to put them in the Zoo.
Not unless they were very foolish.
And much stronger and cleverer than the savages of South America.