104 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
be so, the Tercentenary of Cinchona has been a generation
overdue. So far as this point is concerned all we need say is:
"Better late than never."
But the historian has to face another difficulty. These two
stories have all the appearance of being variants of one: they
certainly agree in attributing the cure to the intervention of an
Indian cacique. He knows that the Scottish ship's-surgeon
Arrot, when at Lima in 1735, was given to understand that the
Indians of Peru were aware of the remedial virtues of Cinchona
Bark: he knows that the French botanist Joseph de Jussieu,
to whom we owe the tale of the cure of the Jesuit father at
Malacotas in 1600, was actually in Loja itself about 1739. But
the historian has the testimony of the great Humboldt, who
was at Loja in 1799, that the Indians who collected the "pale
bark" derived from that district would sooner die than use
that drug; that Poeppig in 1830 found that the Indians of
Huanuco, to the south of Loja, had a strong prejudice against
using the "grey bark" collected there; and that Spruce in
1861 found it impossible to convince the collectors of the "red
bark" on the slopes of Chimborazo, well to the north of Loja,
that the product could be wanted in Europe for a pharmaceutical
purpose. No historian would venture to question the testimony
of three naturalists so careful and competent as Humboldt,
Poeppig and Spruce, any more than he would dream of doubting
the good faith of witnesses so unbiassed as Arrot and Joseph de
Jussieu : his only regret is that no evidence one way or the other
has been recorded as regards the "yellow bark" collected in
Bolivia. But any historian acquainted with the conditions
in countries at all like Peru can appreciate the possibility that
the statements of both groups of witnesses are equally correct :
the bulk of a population may be unversed in the properties of
particular natural products, yet that population may include
initiates, acquainted with the virtues of such products, who feel
indisposed to share their knowledge with the mass of their
fellow-countrymen and disinclined to disclose their secrets to
strangers.
In cases of the kind the Natural Historian, aware that when
man has grasped a fact of consequence, he desires to explain
its origin, naturally looks for some tradition. He seems to
find this in the Peruvian tale of the accidental discovery of