The absence of living horses, or of any kind of ass or zebra, from the American Continent, when first colonised by Europeans in the sixteenth century, is a very singular fact. For we find a great number and variety of fossil remains of extinct horses in both North and South America. It seems possible that some epidemic disease swept them from the whole Continent not very many centuries before Europeans arrived—for there is evidence in South America of the co-existence there of peculiar kinds of horse with the “Indian” natives. It is even alleged that Cabot, in 1530, saw horses in Argentina, which were the last survivors of the native South American species. And it is also said that the Araucanian Indians of Patagonia have a peculiar breed of ponies, which may be derived in part from a native South American stock. I have never been able to procure a skull of this breed, or any detailed description of it. What is quite certain is that in the great cave of Ultima Speranza, in Patagonia—from which the hairy skin, dried flesh and blood, and unaltered dung as well as the bones, of the giant sloth Mylodon were obtained—a great number of the horny hoofs, and the teeth of a peculiar horse were also found some eight years ago, and are preserved in the Natural History Museum, together with the remains of the giant sloth. The condition of these remains is such that they cannot be many centuries old. The animals appear to have been contemporaneous with an early race of Indians who made use of the cave before the arrival of Europeans. A skull of one and a skeleton of another of the peculiar extinct South American horses (called Onohippidium and Hippidium), which survived until a late period in Patagonia and may possibly have been seen by Cabot, are shown in the Natural History Museum. Their bones are found in the superficial gravel and sand of the pampas.
To revert for a moment to the history of the English thoroughbred. It appears that in England in the middle of the eighteenth century a happy new infusion of the Arab race with that of existing stock (which already contained some Arab blood mixed with that of the Northern race) produced once and for all a very perfect and successful breed. That breed did not derive speed from the Arab, but “stamina,”—probably a powerful heart. It did not derive its size from the Arab, but the cross proved to be a large horse. It has never been improved since by any further admixture of Arab or Southern blood. Hence the (at first sight) misleading name “thoroughbred.” This name is not intended to imply that the breed is not originally a “blend,” but that those horses so called are pure-bred from the happy and wonderful mixture which a hundred and fifty years ago was embodied in the great sires Matchem, Herod, and Eclipse.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The names “malander” and “salander” have been recently applied by zoological writers, apparently by misconception, to these “callosities” or “chestnuts.” Those names are used by veterinary surgeons to describe a diseased condition of this part of the horse’s leg (Italian “mal andare”), and do not apply to the “chestnut” itself, which is sometimes called “castor.”
[XI]
A RIVAL OF THE FABLED UPAS TREE
We are so accustomed nowadays to danger to life and health from minute, invisible germs, and to exerting all our skill in order to destroy them, that the knowledge of the existence of large and beautiful trees in our midst which can, and do, cause terrible disease and suffering by their mere presence, comes as a shock, and produces a peculiar sense of insecurity greater even than that excited by unseen micro-organisms. For the trees of which I am about to speak are cultivated in our gardens, trained up against the walls of our houses with loving care, and admired for the beautiful autumn tints of their leaves. Yet it is now certain that they are the cause in many persons of most terrible suffering and illness. I am glad to be able to warn my readers in regard to these plants, and I shall be very much interested to hear whether the information which I am about to give proves to be of value in any particular case.
A married couple, friends of my own, went to live, about fourteen years ago, in a newly built, detached house, standing in its own garden, in the neighbourhood of an English city. After they had been there two years the lady developed a very painful eruption or eczema on the face, which, in the course of a few weeks, caused the eyes, nose, and lips to swell to an extraordinary degree, accompanied by the formation of blisters and breaking of the skin. The affection spread to the body, and caused constant pain and corresponding prostration. Her medical attendants were unable either to cure or to account for her condition. After some months she left home, and entirely recovered. But every year the same distressing and disfiguring illness attacked her (commencing in the month of June), and disappeared as soon as she left her house, only to return when she came back to it. The doctors spoke of her affliction as a mysterious form of erysipelas, and even suggested blood-poisoning as the cause. For long periods she was so ill and in so much pain that she was unable to see her friends, and her life was at times in danger.
Two years ago a weekly newspaper published an account, written by a correspondent, of an illness from which he had suffered—exactly agreeing with that which had for so many years tortured my friend’s wife. This writer stated that he had ascertained that the disease was due to the action of a poison given off by a creeper which grew on the walls of his house. He had supposed this plant to be a Virginian creeper; but he had discovered that it was in reality the Californian poison-vine called by botanists Rhus toxicodendron. The terribly poisonous nature of this plant is well-known to the people of the United States. It is one of the sumach trees, of which other poisonous kinds are known, whilst more than one species is used (especially in Japan) for preparing a resinous varnish which is used in the manufacture of “lacquered” articles. The writer in the weekly paper stated that he had cut down and burnt the poison-vine which grew on the walls of his house, and that his sufferings had ceased. My friend happened to read this account, and immediately examined his own house. He found a creeper resembling a Virginian creeper, but having three leaflets or divisions of the leaf instead of five, growing around his drawing-room window, and actually spreading its branches and leaves over the window of his wife’s bedroom. He sent specimens of the creeper to Kew, where it was at once identified as the Rhus toxicodendron or American poison-vine or poison-ivy. He caused the plant to be removed and burnt, and, except for a slight attack in July, due no doubt to fragments of the leaves still carried about in the form of dust, his wife has recovered her health.