052]Ithaca no hares, Pontus asses,
Scythia swine? whence comes this variety of complexions, colours, plants,
birds, beasts, [3053]metals, peculiar almost to every place? Why so many
thousand strange birds and beasts proper to America alone, as Acosta
demands _lib. 4. cap. 36._ were they created in the six days, or ever in
Noah's ark? if there, why are they not dispersed and found in other
countries? It is a thing (saith he) hath long held me in suspense; no
Greek, Latin, Hebrew ever heard of them before, and yet as differing from
our European animals, as an egg and a chestnut: and which is more, kine,
horses, sheep, &c., till the Spaniards brought them, were never heard of in
those parts? How comes it to pass, that in the same site, in one latitude,
to such as are _Perioeci_, there should be such difference of soil,
complexion, colour, metal, air, &c. The Spaniards are white, and so are
Italians, when as the inhabitants about [3054]_Caput bonae spei_ are
blackamoors, and yet both alike distant from the equator: nay they that
dwell in the same parallel line with these Negroes, as about the Straits of
Magellan, are white coloured, and yet some in Presbyter John's country in
Ethiopia are dun; they in Zeilan and Malabar parallel with them again
black: Manamotapa in Africa, and St. Thomas Isle are extreme hot, both
under the line, coal black their inhabitants, whereas in Peru they are
quite opposite in colour, very temperate, or rather cold, and yet both
alike elevated. Moscow in 53. degrees of latitude extreme cold, as those
northern countries usually are, having one perpetual hard frost all winter
long; and in 52. deg. lat. sometimes hard frost and snow all summer, as
Button's Bay, &c., or by fits; and yet [3055]England near the same
latitude, and Ireland, very moist, warm, and more temperate in winter than
Spain, Italy, or France. Is it the sea that causeth this difference, and
the air that comes from it: Why then is [3056]Ister so cold near the
Euxine, Pontus, Bithynia, and all Thrace; _frigidas regiones_ Maginus calls
them, and yet their latitude is but 42. which should be hot: [3057]
Quevira, or Nova Albion in America, bordering on the sea, was so cold in
July, that our [3058]Englishmen could hardly endure it. At Noremberga in
45. lat. all the sea is frozen ice, and yet in a more southern latitude
than ours. New England, and the island of Cambrial Colchos, which that
noble gentleman Mr. Vaughan, or Orpheus junior, describ