"at a slow fire; and as the miserable victims poured forth dreadful 86 screams, which disturbed the commanding officer in his afternoon "slumbers, he sent word that they should be strangled; but the offi"cer on guard (I KNOW HIS NAME, AND I KNOW HIS RELATIONS IN "SEVILLE) would not suffer it; but causing their mouths to be gagged, "that their cries might not be heard, he stirred up the fire with his own “hands, and roasted them deliberately till they all expired.—I SAW IT "MYSELF."!!!: It may be necessary perhaps, on my own account, to add, that I have no other edition of Las Casas, than that which was published at Antwerp, in 1579. From a copy of that edition I have extracted the foregoing horrid relation; my hand trembling as I write, and my heart devoutly wishing it could be proved to be false. CHAPTER IV. Land animals used as food.-Fishes and wild fowl.-Indian method of fishing and fowling.-Esculent vegetables, &c. -Conclusion. IN N tracing the several tribes of quadrupeds, properly so called, which anciently existed in the West Indies, it will be found that the Windward or Charaibean islands, possessed all that were possessed by the larger islands, and some species which in the latter were unknown. It is likewise observable, that all the animals of the former are still found in Guiana, and few or none of them in North America: These are additional proofs that the Windward islands were anciently peopled from the South. The enumeration of them follows: 1, the Agouti; 8, the smaller Monkey of several varieties, These I think are their most general appellations; but from the variety of Indian languages, or dialects rather of the same language, which anciently prevailed in the islands and on the neighbouring continent, some of these animals have been distinguished by so many different names, that, in reading the accounts of them transmitted by the French and Spanish historians, it is often difficult to understand of which in particular they mean to speak. The agouti is sometimes called couti, and coati. It was corrupted into uti and utia, by the Spaniards; and at present it is known in some parts of the West Indies by the terms pucarara and Indian coney. It is the mus aguti of Linnæus, and the cavy of Pennant and Buffon. To these writers it is sufficient to refer, for a description of its nature and properties.—I shall briefly observe that, in comparing it with the quadrupeds of Europe, it seems to constitute an intermediate species between the rabbit and the rat; and of the animals which I have enumerated above, this and the last are, I fear, the only ones that have escaped the common fate of all the nobler inhabitants of these unfortunate islands, man himself (as we have seen) not excepted! The agouti is still frequently found in Porto-Rico, Cuba and Hispaniola, and sometimes in the mountains of Jamaica. In most of the islands to windward, the race, though once common to them all, is now I believe utterly extinct. The pecary, which was not known in the larger islands, has been honoured with no less variety of names than the agouti. According to Rochefort it was also called javari and pacquirè. By Dampier it is named pelas. By Acosta saino and zaino. It is the sus tajacu of Linnæus, and the pecary and Mexican musk-hog of our English naturalists. Of this animal a very full and particular account has been given by Mons. Buffon in his Natural History, and by Dr. Tyson in the Philosophical Transactions. I have heard that it still abounds in many of the provinces of Mexico; but in the West Indian islands I believe the breed has been long since exterminated. Those that I have seen were carried thither from the continent as objects of curiosity; and they appeared to me to differ from the European hog, prin→ cipally, in the singular but well-known circumstance of their having a musky discharge from an aperture or gland on the back, erroneously supposed to be the navel; and in the colour of their bristles; the pecary being indeed highly ornamented; for the bristles of those that I beheld, were of pale blue tipt with white. It is also related of this animal, that it possesses far greater courage than the hog of Europe; and when hunted by dogs, will frequently turn and compel its enemy to retreat. Thus its native bravery bringing it within the reach of fire-arms, contributed doubtless to its final destruction in the islands. Of the armadillo, the species anciently known in these islands was, I think, that which is called by systeVol. I. 13 matical writers the nine banded. It is covered with a jointed shell, or scaly armour, and has the faculty of rolling itself up, like the hedge-hog. As food it is said to be very wholesome and delicate. It was once found in all parts of the West Indies. The opossum (or manitou) is distinguishable from all other animals, by a wonderful property. Under the belly of the female there is a pouch, wherein she receives and shelters her young.||-Both this and the former animal are too well known to the curious in natural researches, to render it necessary for me to be more particular. I believe the opossum, like the pecary, was unknown to the larger islands. The racoon was common in Jamaica in the time of Sloane, who observes that it was eaten by all sorts of people. Its abode was chiefly in hollow trees, from whence, says Sloane, it makes paths to the canefields, where it chiefly subsists; a circumstance which, while it indicates that its number was considerable, easily accounts for its destruction. The musk-rat is the piloris of naturalists: it burrows in the earth, and smells so strongly of musk, that its retreat is easily discovered. According to the French writers, these abounded anciently in Martinico and the other Windward islands to a great degree; and its resemblance to the common rat of || I have since learnt that the female Kangaroo from New Holland, is provided in the same manner. * P. Labat, tom. ii. p. 302. |