Page:The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques and discoveries of the English nation 15.djvu/156

 yeres he had a hundreth thousand at the least, and of other cattel was able to kil without spoile of the increase 1500. yeerely, which hee killeth for the skinnes, and of the flesh saueth onely the tongues, the rest hee leaueth to the foule to deuour. And this I am able to affirme, not only vpon the Gouernours owne report, who was the first that brought the increase thither, which so remaineth vnto this day, but also by that I saw my selfe in one field, where an hundred oxen lay one by another all whole, sauing the skinne and tongue taken away.

And it is not so marueilous a thing why they doe thus cast away the flesh in all the ylands of the West Indies, seeing the land is great, and more then they are able to inhabite, the people fewe, hauing delicate fruites and meates ynough besides to feede vpon, which they rather desire, and the increase which passeth mans reason to beleeue, when they come to a great number: for in S. Domingo an yland called by the finders thereof Hispaniola, is so great quantitie of cattell, and such increase therof, that notwithstanding the daily killing of them for their hides, it is not possible to asswage the number of them, but they are deuoured by wilde dogs, whose number is such by suffering them first to range the woods and mountaines, that they eate and destroy 60000. a yeere, and yet small lacke found of them. And no marueile, for the said yland is almost as bigge as all England, and being the first place that was founde of all the Indies, and of long time inhabited before the rest, it ought therefore of reason to be most populous: and to this houre the Viceroy and counsell royall abideth there as in the chiefest place of all the Indies, to prescribe orders to the rest for the kings behalfe, yet haue they but one Citie and 13. villages in all the same yland, whereby the spoile of them in respect of the increase is nothing.

The 15. of the foresaid moneth wee departed from Curaçao, being not a little to the reioycing of our Captaine and vs, that wee had there ended our trafique: but notwithstanding our sweete meate, wee had sower sauce, for by reason of our riding so open at sea, what with blastes whereby our anckers being a ground, three at once came home, and also with contrary windes blowing, whereby for feare of the shore we were faine to hale off to haue anker-hold, sometimes a whole day and a night we turned vp and downe; and this happened not once, but halfe a dozen times in the space of our being there.