102 HISTORY OF AMERICA.
B o o k of regular application to labor; and confider agri-IV. culture as a fecondary and inferior occupation.Accordingly, the provifion for fubfiftence, arifxngfrom cultivation, was fo limited and fcanty amongthe Americans, that, upon any accidental failureof their ufual fuccefs in hunting, they were oftenreduced to extreme diftrefs.
In the iflands, the mode of fubfifting was confi-derably different. None of the large animals whichabound on the continent were known there. Onlyfour fpecies of quadrupeds, befides a kind of fmalldumb dog, exifted in the iflands, the biggeft ofwhich did not exceed the fize of a rabbit 12 ’. Tobunt fuch diminutive prey, was an occupationwhich required no effort either of activity orcourage. The chief employment of a hunter inthe iffes was to kill birds, which on the continentare deemed ignoble game, and left chiefly to thepurfuit of boys 128 . This want of animals, as well astheir peculiar fituation , led the iflanders to dependprincipally upon fifliing for their fubfiftence 2 ”. Theirrivers, and the fea with which they are furrounded,fupplied them with this fpecies of food. At fomeparticular feafons, turtle, crabs, and other Ihell-fifli,abounded in fuch numbers, that the natives couldfupport themfelves with a facility in which theirindolence delighted 2, \ At other times, they ate
Oviedo, lib. xii. in proem.
828 Ribas, Hill de los Triumph, p. ij. De laPotherie,ii. iii. 2o.
Oviedo, lib.xiii. c. i. Gomara, Hill. Gener.c. 28.
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