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 making 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.