Ganoids

“ To waste or neglect stable and home made manures, or throw away bones or other valuable fertilizers, because we could buy guano, would be as insensible as it would for a man to throw away a handful of bank bills, because he happened to have just then a pocket full of gold and silver coin. ”

“ Palsgrave gives “Gant byrde,” without a corresponding French term. Lesclar. de la Lang. Fr., 1530. fol. xxxv. (Table of Subst.) . Our author in his Elynour Rummyng has—
“In came another dant,
Wyth a gose and a gant.”
v. 515. vol. i. 111; where gant is plainly used for gander. In the present passage, however, gaunte must have a different signification (“The gose and [131] the gander” being mentioned v. 435) , and means, I apprehend,—wild-goose: Du Cange has “Gantæ, Anseres silvestres,” &c.; and see Roquefort in v. Gans. But Nares, MS. note on Skelton, explains gaunte—gannet. ”

“ The formost horns or feelers, were like those of the former Gnat.
One of these Gnats I have suffer’d to pierce the skin of my hand, with its proboscis, and thence to draw out as much blood as to fill its belly as full as it could hold, making it appear very red and transparent; and this without any further pain, then whilst it was sinking in its proboscis, as it is also in the stinging of Fleas: a good argument, that these creatures do not wound the skin, and suck the blood out of enmity and revenge, but for meer necessity, and to satisfy their hunger. ”

“ Gather the host; lay siege to Zaragoz with all thy might, and conquer the last stronghold of the pagans; so win Spain, and end this long and weary war."
But Ganelon drew near to the king and spake: "Heed not the counsel of any babbler, unless it be to thine own profit. What has Marsilius promised? Will he not give up his gods, himself, his service and his treasure? Could man ask more? Could we get more by fighting him? How glorious would it be to go to war with a beaten man who offers thee his all! How wise to wage a war to win what one can get without! ”

“ Now, we usually refrain from arguing with people whose principles are wrong from the outset. Still, having been compelled by the natural course of events to enter into some kind of a discussion with them, we must add this further to what was said—that it is not only cathartic drugs which naturally attract their special qualities, but also those which remove thorns and the points of arrows such as sometimes become deeply embedded in the flesh. Those drugs also which draw out animal poisons or poisons applied to arrows all show the same faculty as does the lodestone. ”

“ In other places the bodies of dead men, some of whom yet grasped each other by the throat, were half-buried in masses of geranium or carnation plants, the crimson of whose petals formed but a variety of colour with the crimson and purple hues of the still warm life-blood with which the green leaves were all drenched and befouled. ”

“ If farmers will not use some of these simple tests, or employ a chemist to detect suspected adulteration; or if they will buy guano of men who have no character to lose, and who offer to sell below a price to afford them a living profit, they cannot be pitied if they are cheated. ”

“ The shepherds of the Gangarids own immense flocks, for it is considered one of the blackest crimes to kill a sheep—and their wool, as fine as silk, is sought after all over the East. The soil is so rich that corn and fruits grow for the asking, while diamonds can be chipped from every rock. They have no army and need none, for a hundred unicorns can put to flight the largest host that ever was assembled.
'And now, Princess, if you are to travel as the oracle desires, will you not give me the happiness of guiding you thither? ”

“ Cried the king: "Our men make battle!" Ganelon Retorts in haste: "If thus another dared To speak, we should denounce it as a lie." Aoi. The Count Rollánd in his great anguish blows His olifant so mightily, with such Despairing agony, his mouth pours forth The crimson blood, and his swol'n temples burst. Yea, but so far the ringing blast resounds; Carle hears it, marching through the pass, Naimes harks, The French all listen with attentive ear. "That is Rollánd's horn!" Carle cried, "which ne'er yet Was, save in battle, blown!" But Ganelon Replies: "No fight is there! ”

“ At sight of flying fish rising in flight, perhaps before albacore, or of a gannet or a booby that had been successful in fishing, he begins to drop, at first in circles; when still at a considerable height, he closes his wings, makes his body miraculously small, falls like a stone or a bullet, and comes up before the poor gannet, threatening, the robber that he is! The gannet instantly drops the fish, the frigate dives through the air, and, getting it before it has fallen far, rises to eat. ”

“ But if the nutritive juice, so presented, does not remain in the part, but withdraws to another one, and keeps flowing away, and constantly changing and shifting its position, neither adhesion nor complete assimilation will take place in front of them. Here too, then, the [animal’s] nature has need of some other faculty for ensuring a prolonged stay of the presented juice at the part, and this not a faculty which comes in from somewhere outside but one which is resident in the part which is to be nourished. ”

“ Presently the Relict would die of poison or rent bowels or skin lesions, while the Organism relaxed in the dank black grass. Or the Organism might seek to eat the Relict; and the Relict would run off in terror, unable to abide any part of the world—running, bounding, breasting the thick air ”

“ They were beings, prematurely aged who should have been but in their prime. Their bodies were little more than skin and bone—skeletons clothed in hairy hide, and their faces were stamped with the symbol of death—a dark patch in each hollow parchment cheek. Each drawn face and emaciated body bore the unmistakable signs of famine and disease—hunger-marks—which made those who wore them, hideous in face and form. ”

“ Observing a spot covered with small trees, over which a great number of carrion birds hovered, we approached and found the carcass of a poor old guanaco, which had most likely paid the debt of [Pg 146] nature without compulsion, and was stripped of its flesh by the birds. The chief broke some of the bones and eagerly sucked the marrow, and then picked up the remainder to add to the domestic stock of grease. ”

“ It chanced one evening that he seen a gankeynogue in the field, sitting in under a bush, and he says:
“Yon lad will surely be worth a powerful weight of gold.”
With that he went over and caught a hold of the gankey.
“Let you discover a treasure,” says he, “or else I’ll keep you like a dog on a chain from this out.”
“Keep away!” says the gankey. “How would a poor creature like myself be finding treasure for a strong farmer!” [198]
“Let you not let on to be miserable,” says the man, “for well I know it’s great wealth you enjoy.” ”

“ It is very different with the gannet; he never in all his life—and it may be a life of a century or longer for all we know to the contrary—wastes as much energy as would be the equivalent of a single feather's weight in trying to take a morsel out of the beak of another gannet or bird of any kind. One might say that his faculties are so perfect, his power so great, that he has no need to descend to such courses. ”

“ The wicked shade may be sentenced to kneel for long periods on iron shot, or to be placed up to the neck in filth, or pounded till the blood runs out, or to have the mouth forced open with iron pincers and filled with needles, or to be bitten by rats, or nipped by locusts while in a net of thorns, or have the heart scratched, or be chopped in two at the waist, or have the skin of the body torn off and rolled up into spills for lighting pipes, etc. ”

“ Gangoil was surrounded by forest, in some places so close as to be impervious to men and almost to animals in which the undergrowth was thick and tortuous and almost platted, through which no path could be made without an axe, but of which the greater portions were open, without any under-wood, between which the sheep could wander at their will, and men could ride, with a sparse surface of coarse grass, which after rain would be luxuriant, but in hot weather would be scorched down to the ground. ”

“ Full of this thought, she turned to the young merchant and said, "Alas! Ganem, we are undone." Ganem looked through the lattice, and was seized with dread, when he beheld the caliph's guards with their naked cimeters, and the grand vizier, with the civil magistrate at the head of them. At this sight he stood motionless, and had not power to utter one word. "Ganem," said the favourite, "there is no time to be lost; if you love me, put on the habit of one of your slaves immediately, and disfigure your face and arms with soot. ”

“ A pitiable sight it is to see them! Smoking hot, reeking with sweat, dripping with liquefied dust, they pull, jerk, groan, fall back, and dash forward, tumble down, kick, plunge, and bite; then buckle to it again, under the galling lash; and so live and so struggle these poor beasts, for their pittance of barley and hay, till they drop down dead. How they would welcome death if they had souls! ”

“ A subject injected with alcoholic sublimate, then opened, emptied, and macerated, afterwards exposed to the air, dries easily;7 but it assumes a deep gray colour, and the tissues become hardened to such a degree, that it hardly preserves a human form. These are the rigorous results of experience. In the preservation by the aid of deuto-chloride, one portion of the subject is sacrificed to preserve a few remains; the most noble of all the organs, the brain, the throne of thought, cedes its importance to a few bones clothed with dried muscles, and a skin transformed, and not easily known again. ”

“ It is probable those will be disappointed who expect to do everything with guano—make fine crops and improve the land, while they take everything off, and dispense almost, if not entirely, with the more permanent manures, all equally within their reach. True, we may exist for a time, only half fed and half clothed; but it is just as reasonable to expect to improve under such a regimen, as to calculate upon continued, not to say increased fertility of the soil, without an ample supply, of the right kind of manure. ”

“ We cant sit here and wait for the crows."
Anderson sighed heavily.
"What can we do?" he asked. "We must spell a bit. The horses are done. As it is I 'm afraid yours will have to be left and well have to go on foot. There must be water about somewhere, for look at the crows; but we can't find it, and we couldn't have searched more carefully."
"Why not shoot the old horse if he 's no good? His blood might——"
"Nonsense, man. Aren't you bushman enough yet to know that drinking blood 's only the beginning of the end? Once we do that——"
"Well, after?" asked Helm. ”

“ Croft had finished.
My poor, numbed brain tried to grapple with this sudden influx of new knowledge. In my supreme ignorance I had hitherto looked on the body as just a fairly simple contrivance of beef, bone, blood and brain, with a digestive apparatus for turning Foods into Human Being. Instead of that, we appeared to be one conglomeration of complicated and mysterious glands. All else was merely subsidiary.
As a little child speaks to its teacher, I said:
"How many of these do you propose grafting into Gran'pa?" ”

“ The field is to such men simply a cow that gives them milk, but which they would feed with its own flesh taken from its ribs; and the folly of such a proceeding would strike them only when the light shines through the hollow skeleton of their victim." "In the flesh and the produce of the field, we have for centuries supplied to the large towns the constituent elements of guano, and have never brought this guano back again, and we now send vessels to Chili, Peru, and Africa for this substance. ”

“ Just say I died, don't say how it hurt."
"All right, mate," said the other, for he had no comfort to give.
And then they walked on again in silence till the moon declined before the coming day, the cruel day, which brought the heat and the following crows again. Dawn brought them to a patch of "dead finish," as the settlers call a dense and thorny scrub with pretty green leaves, through which it is well nigh impossible to force a way even under the most favourable circumstances; and which presented an utterly impassable barrier to men in their condition. ”

“ Those who are interested pecuniarily, which the writer is not, in the increased sale of guano in the United States, have no fears that our recommendations to make manure at home—to use lime, plaster, bones, clover, and every other source of fertility within their reach, will decrease the sale of guano. On the contrary, those who are most disposed to use all these sources of fertility, are the very men most disposed to use a substance which all experience has proved superior to all others. ”

“ Writing on the subject of "bought manures," as everything is termed not produced upon the farm, and how dubiously they are looked upon by some persons calling themselves good farmers, for fear of being humbugged, Mr. Reynolds says, in a letter dated July, 1850, "Since 1843, I have been trying to find out which is the best of all these 'new things,' and have now, after having been very considerably humbugged, settled down upon bones and guano—although, even the last named in a very dry year, has also 'cheated me' ”