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Show 276 D!SSERT. . III. ... H I S T 0 R y 0 F M E X I C 0. their kind and in greater plenty, particularly oranges, leiilons, melons, and fugar canes ; thirdly, that if America had not whe~t, Eu-rope h ad not mat·,z e, w)11'ch is not lefs ufeful or wholefome; 1f Arbne - rica had not pomegranates, lemons, &; c: .1 't has them now·· ut E urope !'lever. 11 a d , has , nor can have ' chmmoyas, Ahuacates, mufas, chicozapotes, &c. F . 11 M. de Bnffon and Mr. de Paw, and other European ma y, . 1 • ' • • • A . · fi philofophers and hiil:orians, who mve1gh fo much agm~fi meuca or its barrennefs, its woods, its madhes, and deferts, w11l pleafe to remember, that the miferable countries of Laplan?, Norway, Ic~lan_d, Nova Zembla, Spitzbergen, and the vaft hornd deferts of Stben~', Tartary, Arabia, Aft·ica, and others are countries of the old contt ... nent and make at leaft the fourth part of its extent. Yet what cou;tries are thofe ? Let us attend to the eloquent defcription which Buffon gives of the deferts of Arabia: " a countr~, he fays, without ~~ verdure, and without water; a fun always burnmg, an atmofphere u always dt'Y, [andy plains, mountains frill ~o:e par~hed, ove: w.hich " the eye roams in vain to fix upon a fingle hvmg objetl:; a land, if we u may f.1y fo, pale and excoriated with the winds, which ~refents n_o· "· thing to the fight but bones, fcattered !l:ones, and rocks m pyram1ds ... , or in ruins; a defert entirely bare, in which the adventurous travel" ler never bates under the fhade, where there is nothing that can be u made companiable to him, or preferve his remembrance of living " nature: a folitude great) y more frightful than that of the woods; for ~· the trees are at leaft animated fubfiances, which afford fome con" folation to man, but here he .finds himfelf alone, detached, more " naked and rpore bewildered, in places that are wafl:e and without " boundary; all the foil which he views appears to him like his fe" pulchre; the light of the day, more melancholy than the lhades of " night, does not return hllt to make him fee his nakedncfs and impo" tence, and fet before him his horrible fituation, ·lengthening to his " fight the limits of the void, and enlarging around him the abyfs of " immenfity which feparate him from the habitable world; a {pace [o " immeafurable, that in vain he would attempt to pafs it; for hun'' ger, ·'thir!l:, and bmning heat, !horten the motnents which remain to " him between defperation and death (s)." (J) Buifon HiJl. Nat, tom. :xxii. DISSER .. [ 277 ] D I S S E R T A T I 0 N IV. Of the Aminals. ·of Me,\'ico. I 0 N E of the arguments moil: infified on by Buffon and de PFtw, to illufrrate the unhappy nature of the American foil, and the malignity of its clime, is the pretended degeneracy of animals, both of thofc which are native to that land, and thofe which have been tranfported ·there from the ancient continent. In the prefcnt Diifertation we ,fhall examine their proofs, and detetl: fame of their errqrs and contraditl: ions. S E C T. I. Of the Amina/s proper to Mexico. ALL the animals which are found in the· new, have pa1fed there· from the old world, as we have efiablifhed in the firfi Difiertc\tlon;. and it is confe'ffed alfo . by Mr. Bufr'cm himfelf, in the twenty-ninth volume of his Natural Hill:ory; and it ought likewife to be credited, jf we rely on the authority of the facred writings in ~this point, 'We call thofe animals proper to Mexico which were found there by the Spaniards; not becaufe they draw their origin from that land, as we are given to underfiand by Mr. de Paw in al1 his wo~k, and by Mr. Buffon in the fil'.fr twenty-eight VRlumes of his Hifiory; ·but only to difiinguilh thofe animals which, from time immemorial, were bred· in thofe countries, from thofe others which were afte-rwards tranfportcct there from Europe: we !hall therefore call the latter European, the former American. The fir!l: ground of difparagement to America, · with the count de 13uffon, is the fmall number of its quadrupeds, compared with thofe of the old continent. He reckons two hundred fpecies of quadrupeds hitherto di(covered .over all the globe, of· which one hundred and thirty belong' to the old continent, and only {eventy tQ the new world. And' s I |