is one circumstance he
relates which was so strangely verified by our own observation that I
cannot help reciting it. He tells us, among other things, as he often
caught more goats than he wanted, he sometimes marked their ears and let
them go. This was about thirty-two years before our arrival at the
island. Now it happened that the first goat that was killed by our people
at their landing had his ears slit; whence we concluded that he had
doubtless been formerly under the power of Selkirk. This was indeed an
animal of a most venerable aspect, dignified with an exceeding majestic
beard, and with many other symptoms of antiquity. During our stay on the
island we met with others marked in the same manner, all the males being
distinguished by an exuberance of beard and every other characteristic of
extreme age. But the great numbers of goats, which former writers
described to have been found upon this island, are at present very much
diminished. For the Spaniards being informed of the advantages which the
buccaneers and privateers drew from the provisions which goats' flesh
here furnished them with, they have endeavoured to extirpate the breed,
thereby to deprive their enemies of this relief. For this purpose they
have put on shore great numbers of large dogs, who have increased apace,
and have destroyed all the goats in the accessible part of the country;
so that there now remain only a few among the crags and precipices where
the dogs cannot follow them.

(Note. 'The buccaneers.' The name "buccaneer" originally meant one who
dried or smoked flesh on a "boucan," a kind of hurdle used for this
purpose by the natives of Central and South America. The English, French,
and Dutch smugglers who, in spite of the monopoly so jealously guarded by
the Spaniards (see Introduction above) traded in the Caribbean seas, used
to provision at St. Domingo largely with beef, jerked or sun-dried on the
boucans. These men formed an organised body, under a chief chosen by
themselves, and, under the name of the buccaneers, were for
three-quarters of a century the terror of the Spaniards. In 1655 they
were powerful enough to give material assistance to the English fleet
which conquered Jamaica. In 1671 they raised a force of 2,000 men,
marched across the isthmus, and besieged and took Panama; their success,
as usual, being marked by horrible atrocities. In 1685 a Spanish fleet of
fourteen sail, which had been fitted out to put them down, found