nd 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. The