All turn’d their sides, and to each other spoke,
I saw their Words break out in Fire and Smoke.
Sure, ’tis their Voice that Thunders from on high,
Or these, the younger Brothers of the Skie.
Deaf with the noise, I took my hasty Flight,
No Mortal Courage can support the Fright.
Spaniards carry Oxen, and Sheep to the American Isles.
But the resolving these Doubts, starts a harder Question, viz. Grant that the Americans were by Tempest driven thither, How then came the Beasts thither? It is certain, that those which are beneficial for humane use, as Dogs for to Hunt, great Cattel, Sheep, for Food, and other Necessaries, might easily be carry’d thither, for so the Spaniards brought Cows, Horses, Swine, and other Cattel; and also Poultery from Spain, to the new-discover’d Isles, Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, Margaretta, and La Dominica, when at their arrival, formerly no four-footed Beasts were found there, whose fertile Soyl hath so multiply’d their increase, that the Doggs running Wilde, and breeding as fast, do great hurt to the Grazing Herds, which they onely shoot for their Skins, leaving their Flesh, the best of Meats, onely to Manure the Ground on which they lie.
The Transporting of tame and profitable Cattel might easily be allow’d of, but who would load their Ships with Lions, Tygers, Bears, Wolves, Foxes, and other Serpents and Voracious Beasts? it is certain that some may be tam’d before they were Ship’d.
How wild Beasts came in America, and the Isles.