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PORTER S JOURNAL^ 



obtain their supply. Owing to this circumstance, future 

 navigators may perhaps obtain here an abundant supply of 

 goat's meat ; for, unmolested as they will be in the interior 

 of this island, to which they will no doubt confine them- 

 selves on account of the water, it is probable their increase 

 will be very rapid. Perhaps nature, whose ways are mys- 

 terious, has embraced this first opportunity of stocking this 

 island with a race of animals, who are, from their nature, 

 almost as well enabled to withstand the want of water as 

 the tortoises with which it now abounds ; and possibly she 

 has so ordained it, that the breed which shall be produced 

 between the Welch goat and the Peruvian ram shall be 

 better adapted to the climate than any other. 



I shall leave others to account for the manner in which all 

 those islands obtained their supply of tortoises and guanas, 

 and other animals of the reptile kind ; it is not my business 

 even to conjecture as to the cause. I shall merely state, 

 that those islands have every appearance of being newly 

 created, and that those perhaps are the only part of the 

 animal creation that could subsist on them, Charles' and 

 James' being the only ones where I have yet been enabled 

 to find, or been led to believe could be found, sufficient 

 moisture even for goats. Time, no doubt, will order it 

 otherwise ; and many centuries hence may see the Galli- 

 pagos as thickly inhabited by the human species as any 

 other part of the world. At present, they are only fit for 

 tortoises, guanas, lizards, snakes, &;c. Nature has created 

 them elsewhere, and why could she not do it as well at 

 those islands ? 



There was one fact, which was noticed by myself and 

 many others, the day preceding the departure of the goats, 

 and must lead us to believe that something more than 

 chance directed their movements. It was observed that 

 they all drank an unusual quantity of water ; the old Welch 

 goat particularly did not seem satisfied until she had drunk 

 upwards of half a gallon, (which for a goat, it must be ad- 

 mitted, is an extraordinary draught,) and the others a quan- 

 tity not far short of it, which seems as though they had de- 

 termined to provide themselves with a supply that would 

 enable them to reach the mountams. This fact, which 

 bears something the appearance of the marvellous, I do 

 aver to be as strictly true as any other I have stated, and 



