HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



119 



did the fourteen fpecies of apes, which are now in Ame- 

 rica, pafs there, and not the eighteen fpecies which 

 count BufFon enumerates in Afia and Africa, although 

 they are all of one clime, and were equally at liberty 

 and freedom to pafs ? How came the floths to pafs, 

 which are fo fluggifli, and not the antelopes which are 

 fo fwift? If the beads proceeded from Armenia to- 

 wards America, the fpecies deftined for America muft 

 neceflariiy have performed a journey of fix thoufand 

 miles, fpreading from Armenia through Mefopotamia 

 and Syria to Egypt, from thence through the centre of 

 Africa to the fuppofed fpace of land which formerly 

 united the two continents, and from that, laftly, to 

 Brazil; and although to other beafts there appears no 

 difficulty of their having made that progrefs in ten, 

 twenty, or forty years, neverthelefs with refpeft to the 

 floths, it is not to be comprehended how they could, 

 even in conflant motion, execute this in lefs than fix 

 centuries. If we give credit to the count de BufFon, 

 the floths cannot advance more than a perch in an hour, 

 or fix Parifian feet, wherefore, to make a progrefs of 

 fix thoufand miles, they would require about fix hun- 

 dred and eighty years and more, if we believe what 

 MafFei, Herrera, and Pifon have written, who affirm, 

 that that miferable quadruped can hardly go the length 

 of a ftonethrow in fifteen days or a fortnight. 



This is what may be objected to our fyflera, but fomc 

 of the above mentioned arguments are more forcible 

 againft all the other opinions, except the one which em- 

 ploys the angels in the tranfportation of beads. If they 

 were men who tranfported beafts, why, inftead of wolves 

 and foxes, did they not carry horfes, oxen, flieep, and 

 goats? And why did they not leave a fpecies of each 

 individual in the old continent ? If fuch animals are 



fuppofed 



