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 making them good medicine to drink:  but I never thought there were any in Europe.