Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/120

 produces no resin in the northern states, where it is equally indigenous, here, as in Mexico and the Levant, exudes the odoriferous Storax of the shops.

As to the breed of domestic animals, no selection of those commonly raised has yet been attended to, nor any foreign ones introduced from parallel climates, so as to afford us any idea of the resources and conveniences which might here be brought into existence. The horned cattle increase and fatten without any labour or attention, more than the trouble of occasionally ascertaining their existence in the wilderness through which they are at liberty to roam without limit. It is in consequence of this unrestrained liberty, and the advantage of a perpetual supply of food, that the horse has become already naturalized in the southern parts of this territory, and the adjoining province of Spain. By this means, however, the domestic breed has been, in some respects considerably deteriorated; the horses of this country are rather small, though very hardy, and capable of subsisting entirely upon cane or grass, even when subjected to the hardest labour. They were commonly sold from 30 to 50 and 100 dollars a piece, though paid for in the depreciated currency of the country, bearing a discount of from 10 to 20 per cent.

{80} The singular temperature and general mildness of this climate, which may be presumed from a cursory inspection of its flora and agriculture, and then again the occurrence of considerable frosts in the winter, are circumstances which justly excite astonishment when we survey the same parallels of latitude in the transatlantic regions. Here, in the latitude of the Cape of Good Hope, in that of Sidon, and even south of Candia and Cyprus, with its groves of myrtle, near to the latitude of Madeira, and in