If you can find a shorter one I shall be very much obliged to you, for I hate long words. But what it means is,—Telling how the land has changed in shape, by the plants and animals upon it. And if you ever read (as you will) Mr. Wallace’s new book on the Indian Archipelago, you will see what wonderful discoveries men may make about such questions if they will but use their common sense. You know the common pink heather—ling, as we call it?

Of course.

Then that ling grows, not only here and in the north and west of Europe, but in the Azores too; and, what is more strange, in Labrador. Now, as ling can neither swim nor fly, does not common sense tell you that all those countries were probably joined together in old times?

Well: but it seems so strange.

So it is, my child; and so is everything. But, as the fool says in Shakespeare—

“A long time ago the world began,
With heigh ho, the wind and the rain.”

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 bruyère, 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.

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. No, those jaguars and pumus have been in America for ages: and there are those who will tell you—and I think they have some reason on their side—that the jaguar, with his round patches of spots, was once very much the same as the African and Indian leopard, who can climb trees well. So when he got into the tropic forests of America, he took to the trees, and lived among the branches, feeding on sloths and monkeys, and never coming to the ground for weeks, till he grew fatter and stronger and far more terrible than his forefathers. And they will tell you, too, that the puma was, perhaps—I only say perhaps—something like the lion, who (you know) has no spots. But when he got into the forests, he found very little food under the trees, only a very few deer; and so he was starved, and dwindled down to the poor little sheep-stealing rogue he is now, of whom nobody is afraid.

Oh, yes! I remember now A. said he and his men killed six in one day. But do you think it is all true about the pumas and jaguars?

My child, I don’t say that it is true: but only that it is likely to be true. In science we must be cautious and modest, and ready to alter our minds whenever we learn fresh facts; only keeping sure of one thing, that the truth, when we find it out, will be far more wonderful than any notions of ours. See! As we have been talking we have got nearly home: and luncheon must be ready.

* * * * *

Why are you opening your eyes at me like the dog when he wants to go out walking?

Because I want to go out. But I don’t want to go out walking. I want to go in the yacht.

In the yacht? It does not belong to me.

Oh, that is only fun. I know everybody is going out in it to see such a beautiful island full of ferns, and have a picnic on the rocks; and I know you are going.

Then you know more than I do myself.

But I heard them say you were going.

Then they know more than I do myself.

But would you not like to go?

I might like to go very much indeed; but as I have been knocked about at sea a good deal, and perhaps more than I intend to be again, it is no novelty to me, and there might be other things which I liked still better: for instance, spending the afternoon with you.

Then am I not to go?

I think not. Don’t pull such a long face: but be a man, and make up your mind to it, as the geese do to going barefoot.

But why may I not go?

Because I am not Madam How, but your Daddy.

What can that have to do with it?

If you asked Madam How, do you know what she would answer in a moment, as civilly and kindly as could be? She would say—Oh yes, go by all means, and please yourself, my pretty little man. My world is the Paradise which the Irishman talked of, in which “a man might do what was right in the sight of his own eyes, and what was wrong too, as he liked it.”

Then Madam How would let me go in the yacht?

Of course she would, or jump overboard when you were in it; or put your finger in the fire, and your head afterwards; or eat Irish spurge, and die like the salmon; or anything else you liked. Nobody is so indulgent as Madam How: and she would be the dearest old lady in the world, but for one ugly trick that she has. She never tells any one what is coming, but leaves them to find it out for themselves. She lets them put their fingers in the fire, and never tells them that they will get burnt.

But that is very cruel and treacherous of her.

My boy, our business is not to call hard names, but to take things as we find them, as the Highlandman said when he ate the braxy mutton. Now shall I, because I am your Daddy, tell you what Madam How would not have told you? When you get on board the yacht, you will think it all very pleasant for an hour, as long as you are in the bay. But presently you will get a little bored, and run about the deck, and disturb people, and want to sit here, there, and everywhere, which I should not like. And when you get beyond that headland, you will find the great rollers coming in from the Atlantic, and the cutter tossing and heaving as you never felt before, under a burning sun. And then my merry little young gentleman will begin to feel a little sick; and then very sick, and more miserable than he ever felt in his life; and wish a thousand times over that he was safe at home, even doing sums in long division; and he will give a great deal of trouble to various kind ladies—which no one has a right to do, if he can help it.

Of course I do not wish to be sick: only it looks such beautiful weather.

And so it is: but don’t fancy that last night’s rain and wind can have passed without sending in such a swell as will frighten you, when you see the cutter climbing up one side of a wave, and running down the other; Madam How tells me that, though she will not tell you yet.

Then why do they go out?

Because they are accustomed to it. They have come hither all round from Cowes, past the Land’s End, and past Cape Clear, and they are not afraid or sick either. But shall I tell you how you would end this evening?—at least so I suspect. Lying miserable in a stuffy cabin, on a sofa, and not quite sure whether you were dead or alive, till you were bundled into a boat about twelve o’clock at night, when you ought to be safe asleep, and come home cold, and wet, and stupid, and ill, and lie in bed all to-morrow.

But will they be wet and cold?

I cannot be sure; but from the look of the sky there to westward, I think some of them will be. So do you make up your mind to stay with me. But if it is fine and smooth to-morrow, perhaps we may row down the bay, and see plenty of wonderful things.

But why is it that Madam How will not tell people beforehand what will happen to them, as you have told me?

Now I will tell you a great secret, which, alas! every one has not found out yet. Madam How will teach you, but only by experience. Lady Why will teach you, but by something very different—by something which has been called—and I know no better names for it—grace and inspiration; by putting into your heart feelings which no man, not even your father and mother, can put there; by making you quick to love what is right, and hate what is wrong, simply because they are right and wrong, though you don’t know why they are right and wrong; by making you teachable, modest, reverent, ready to believe those who are older and wiser than you when they tell you what you could never find out for yourself: and so you will be prudent, that is provident, foreseeing, and know what will happen if you do so-and-so; and therefore what is really best and wisest for you.

But why will she be kind enough to do that for me?

For the very same reason that I do it. For God’s sake. Because God is your Father in heaven, as I am your father on earth, and He does not wish His little child to be left to the hard teaching of Nature and Law, but to be helped on by many, many unsought and undeserved favours, such as are rightly called “Means of Grace;” and above all by the Gospel and good news that you are God’s child, and that God loves you, and has helped and taught you, and will help you and teach you, in a thousand ways of which you are not aware, if only you will be a wise child, and listen to Lady Why, when she cries from her Palace of Wisdom, and the feast which she has prepared, “Whoso is simple let him turn in hither;” and says to him who wants understanding—“Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled.”

“Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding; I have strength. By me kings reign, and princes decree justice. By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth. I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me. Riches and honour are with me; yea, durable riches and righteousness.”

Yes, I will try and listen to Lady Why: but what will happen if I do not?

That will happen to you, my child—but God forbid it ever should happen—which happens to wicked kings and rulers, and all men, even the greatest and cleverest, if they do not choose to reign by Lady Why’s laws, and decree justice according to her eternal ideas of what is just, but only do what seems pleasant and profitable to themselves. On them Lady Why turns round, and says—for she, too, can be awful, ay dreadful, when she needs—

“Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would have none of my reproof—” And then come words so terrible, that I will not speak them here in this happy place: but what they mean is this:—

That these foolish people are handed over—as you and I shall be if we do wrong wilfully—to Madam How and her terrible school-house, which is called Nature and the Law, to be treated just as the plants and animals are treated, because they did not choose to behave like men and children of God. And there they learn, whether they like or not, what they might have learnt from Lady Why all along. They learn the great law, that as men sow so they will reap; as they make their bed so they will lie on it: and Madam How can teach that as no one else can in earth or heaven: only, unfortunately for her scholars, she is apt to hit so hard with her rod, which is called Experience, that they never get over it; and therefore most of those who will only be taught by Nature and Law are killed, poor creatures, before they have learnt their lesson; as many a savage tribe is destroyed, ay and great and mighty nations too—the old Roman Empire among them.

And the poor Jews, who were carried away captive to Babylon?

Yes; they would not listen to Lady Why, and so they were taken in hand by Madam How, and were seventy years in her terrible school-house, learning a lesson which, to do them justice, they never forgot again. But now we will talk of something pleasanter. We will go back to Lady Why, and listen to her voice. It sounds gentle and cheerful enough just now. Listen.

What? is she speaking to us now?

Hush! open your eyes and ears once more, for you are growing sleepy with my long sermon. Watch the sleepy shining water, and the sleepy green mountains. Listen to the sleepy lapping of the ripple, and the sleepy sighing of the woods, and let Lady Why talk to you through them in “songs without words,” because they are deeper than all words, till you, too, fall asleep with your head upon my knee.

But what does she say?

She says—“Be still. The fulness of joy is peace.” There, you are fast asleep; and perhaps that is the best thing for you; for sleep will (so I am informed, though I never saw it happen, nor any one else) put fresh gray matter into your brain; or save the wear and tear of the old gray matter; or something else—when they have settled what it is to do: and if so, you will wake up with a fresh fiddle-string to your little fiddle of a brain, on which you are playing new tunes all day long. So much the better: but when I believe that your brain is you, pretty boy, then I shall believe also that the fiddler is his fiddle.

CHAPTER XII—HOMEWARD BOUND

Come: I suppose you consider yourself quite a good sailor by now?

Oh, yes. I have never been ill yet, though it has been quite rough again and again.

What you call rough, little man. But as you are grown such a very good sailor, and also as the sea is all but smooth, I think we will have a sail in the yacht to-day, and that a tolerably long one.

Oh, how delightful! but I thought we were going home; and the things are all packed up.

And why should we not go homewards in the yacht, things and all?

What, all the way to England?

No, not so far as that; but these kind people, when they came into the harbour last night, offered to take us up the coast to a town, where we will sleep, and start comfortably home to-morrow morning. So now you will have a chance of seeing something of the great sea outside, and of seeing, perhaps, the whale himself.

I hope we shall see the whale. The men say he has been outside the harbour every day this week after the fish.

Very good. Now do you keep quiet, and out of the way, while we are getting ready to go on board; and take a last look at this pretty place, and all its dear kind people.

And the dear kind dogs too, and the cat and the kittens.

* * * * *

Now, come along, and bundle into the boat, if you have done bidding every one good-bye; and take care you don’t slip down in the ice-groovings, as you did the other day. There, we are off at last.

Oh, look at them all on the rock watching us and waving their handkerchiefs; and Harper and Paddy too, and little Jimsy and Isy, with their fat bare feet, and their arms round the dogs’ necks. I am so sorry to leave them all.

Not sorry to go home?

No, but—They have been so kind; and the dogs were so kind. I am sure they knew we were going, and were sorry too.

Perhaps they were. They knew we were going away, at all events. They know what bringing out boxes and luggage means well enough.

Sam knew, I am sure; but he did not care for us. He was only uneasy because he thought Harper was going, and he should lose his shooting; and as soon as he saw Harper was not getting into the boat, he sat down and scratched himself, quite happy. But do dogs think?

Of course they do, only they do not think in words, as we do.

But how can they think without words?

That is very difficult for you and me to imagine, because we always think in words. They must think in pictures, I suppose, by remembering things which have happened to them. You and I do that in our dreams. I suspect that savages, who have very few words to express their thoughts with, think in pictures, like their own dogs. But that is a long story. We must see about getting on board now, and under way.

* * * * *

Well, and what have you been doing?

Oh, I looked all over the yacht, at the ropes and curious things; and then I looked at the mountains, till I was tired; and then I heard you and some gentleman talking about the land sinking, and I listened. There was no harm in that?

None at all. But what did you hear him say?

That the land must be sinking here, because there were peat-bogs everywhere below high-water mark. Is that true?

Quite true; and that peat would never have been formed where the salt water could get at it, as it does now every tide.

But what was it he said about that cliff over there?

He said that cliff on our right, a hundred feet high, was plainly once joined on to that low island on our left.

What, that long bank of stones, with a house on it?

That is no house. That is a square lump of mud, the last remaining bit of earth which was once the moraine of a glacier. Every year it crumbles into the sea more and more; and in a few years it will be all gone, and nothing left but the great round boulder-stones which the ice brought down from the glaciers behind us.

But how does he know that it was once joined to the cliff?

Because that cliff, and the down behind it, where the cows are fed, is made up, like the island, of nothing but loose earth and stones; and that is why it is bright and green beside the gray rocks and brown heather of the moors at its foot. He knows that it must be an old glacier moraine; and he has reason to think that moraine once stretched right across the bay to the low island, and perhaps on to the other shore, and was eaten out by the sea as the land sank down.

But how does he know that the land sank?

Of that, he says, he is quite certain; and this is what he says.—Suppose there was a glacier here, where we are sailing now: it would end in an ice cliff, such as you have seen a picture of in Captain Cook’s Voyages, of which you are so fond. You recollect the pictures of Christmas Sound and Possession Bay?

Oh yes, and pictures of Greenland and Spitzbergen too, with glaciers in the sea.

Then icebergs would break off from that cliff, and carry all the dirt and stones out to sea, perhaps hundreds of miles away, instead of letting it drop here in a heap; and what did fall in a heap here the sea would wash down at once, and smooth it over the sea-bottom, and never let it pile up in a huge bank like that. Do you understand?

I think I do.

Therefore, he says, that great moraine must have been built upon dry land, in the open air; and must have sunk since into the sea, which is gnawing at it day and night, and will some day eat it all up, as it would eat up all the dry land in the world, if Madam How was not continually lifting up fresh land, to make up for what the sea has carried off.

Oh, look there! some one has caught a fish, and is hauling it up. What a strange creature! It is not a mackerel, nor a gurnet, nor a pollock.

How do you know that?

Why, it is running along the top of the water like a snake; and they never do that. Here it comes. It has got a long beak, like a snipe. Oh, let me see.

See if you like: but don’t get in the way. Remember you are but a little boy.

What is it? a snake with a bird’s head?

No: a snake has no fins; and look at its beak: it is full of little teeth, which no bird has. But a very curious fellow he is, nevertheless: and his name is Gar-fish. Some call him Green-bone, because his bones are green.

But what kind of fish is he? He is like nothing I ever saw.

I believe he is nearest to a pike, though his backbone is different from a pike, and from all other known fishes.

But is he not very rare?

Oh no: he comes to Devonshire and Cornwall with the mackerel, as he has come here; and in calm weather he will swim on the top of the water, and play about, and catch flies, and stand bolt upright with his long nose in the air; and when the fisher-boys throw him a stick, he will jump over it again and again, and play with it in the most ridiculous way.

And what will they do with him?

Cut him up for bait, I suppose, for he is not very good to eat.

Certainly, he does smell very nasty.

Have you only just found out that? Sometimes when I have caught one, he has made the boat smell so that I was glad to throw him overboard, and so he saved his life by his nastiness. But they will catch plenty of mackerel now; for where he is they are; and where they are, perhaps the whale will be; for we are now well outside the harbour, and running across the open bay; and lucky for you that there are no rollers coming in from the Atlantic, and spouting up those cliffs in columns of white foam.

* * * * *

“Hoch!”

Ah! Who was that coughed just behind the ship?

Who, indeed? look round and see.

There is nobody. There could not be in the sea.

Look—there, a quarter of a mile away.

Oh! What is that turning over in the water, like a great black wheel? And a great tooth on it, and—oh! it is gone!

Never mind. It will soon show itself again.

But what was it?

The whale: one of them, at least; for the men say there are two different ones about the bay. That black wheel was part of his back, as he turned down; and the tooth on it was his back-fin.

But the noise, like a giant’s cough?

Rather like the blast of a locomotive just starting. That was his breath.

What? as loud as that?

Why not? He is a very big fellow, and has big lungs.

How big is he?

I cannot say: perhaps thirty or forty feet long. We shall be able to see better soon. He will come up again, and very likely nearer us, where those birds are.

I don’t want him to come any nearer.

You really need not be afraid. He is quite harmless.

But he might run against the yacht.

He might: and so might a hundred things happen which never do. But I never heard of one of these whales running against a vessel; so I suppose he has sense enough to know that the yacht is no concern of his, and to keep out of its way.

But why does he make that tremendous noise only once, and then go under water again?

You must remember that he is not a fish. A fish takes the water in through his mouth continually, and it runs over his gills, and out behind through his gill-covers. So the gills suck-up the air out of the water, and send it into the fish’s blood, just as they do in the newt-larva.

Yes, I know.

But the whale breathes with lungs like you and me; and when he goes under water he has to hold his breath, as you and I have.

What a long time he can hold it.

Yes. He is a wonderful diver. Some whales, they say, will keep under for an hour. But while he is under, mind, the air in his lungs is getting foul, and full of carbonic acid, just as it would in your lungs, if you held your breath. So he is forced to come up at last: and then out of his blowers, which are on the top of his head, he blasts out all the foul breath, and with it the water which has got into his mouth, in a cloud of spray. Then he sucks in fresh air, as much as he wants, and dives again, as you saw him do just now.

And what does he do under water?

Look—and you will see. Look at those birds. We will sail up to them; for Mr. Whale will probably rise among them soon.

Oh, what a screaming and what a fighting! How many sorts there are! What are those beautiful little ones, like great white swallows, with crested heads and forked tails, who hover, and then dip down and pick up something?

Terns—sea-swallows. And there are gulls in hundreds, you see, large and small, gray-backed and black-backed; and over them all two or three great gannets swooping round and round.

Oh! one has fallen into the sea!

Yes, with a splash just like a cannon ball. And here he comes up again, with a fish in his beak. If he had fallen on your head, with that beak of his, he would have split it open. I have heard of men catching gannets by tying a fish on a board, and letting it float; and when the gannet strikes at it he drives his bill into the board, and cannot get it out.

But is not that cruel?

I think so. Gannets are of no use, for eating, or anything else.

What a noise! It is quite deafening. And what are those black birds about, who croak like crows, or parrots?

Look at them. Some have broad bills, with a white stripe on it, and cry something like the moor-hens at home. Those are razor-bills.

And what are those who say “marrock,” something like a parrot?

The ones with thin bills? they are guillemots, “murres” as we call them in Devon: but in some places they call them “marrocks,” from what they say.

And each has a little baby bird swimming behind it. Oh! there: the mother has cocked up her tail and dived, and the little one is swimming about looking for her! How it cries! It is afraid of the yacht.

And there she comes up again, and cries “marrock” to call it.

Look at it swimming up to her, and cuddling to her, quite happy.

Quite happy. And do you not think that any one who took a gun and shot either that mother or that child would be both cowardly and cruel?

But they might eat them.

These sea-birds are not good to eat. They taste too strong of fish-oil. They are of no use at all, except that the gulls’ and terns’ feathers are put into girls’ hats.