PORTER’S JOURNAL. 
23 7 
were all very tame, and kept about the landing-place, we every 
night left them on shore. There was one young male, and three 
females, one of which was of the Welch breed, and was with young 
by a Peruvian ram with five horns, which we had taken in one of 
our prizes; the rest were of the Spanish breed. The sheep was 
also left on shore with them ; but one morning, after they had 
been there several days and nights, the person who attended them 
went on shore, as usual, to give them their water; but no goats 
were to be found ; they had all, as with one accord, disappeared. 
Several persons were sent in different directions, for two or three 
days, to search for them, but without success: they undoubtedly 
took to the mountains in the interior, where unerring instinct led 
them to the springs or reservoirs from whence the tortoises ob- 
tain their supply ; and owing to this circumstance, future navi¬ 
gators 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 themselves on account of the 
water, it is probable their increase will be very rapid ; and per¬ 
haps nature, whose ways are mysterious, has embraced this first 
opportunity of inhabiting 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 
perhaps she has so ordained it, that the breed which shall be pro¬ 
duced between the Welch goat and the Peruvian ram shall be bet¬ 
ter 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 per¬ 
haps 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, suffi¬ 
cient moisture even for goats. Time, no doubt, will order it oth¬ 
erwise ; and many centuries hence may see the Gallapagos as 
thickly inhabited by the human species as any other part of the 
world. At present, they are only fit for tortoises, guanas, lizards. 
