Colonel Ballard told him that when the Spaniards left the island they abandoned not only their slaves but their dogs, great beasts as big as Irish greyhounds. These went wild and hunted of themselves the cattle that were in the savannahs and woods. Apparently these capable dogs had been used by their masters to hunt the Indians, for there was always a certain share of the booty on these occasions due to the master of the dogs. There were wild horses too in the woods, and the English settlers took the best and destroyed them, using them ruthlessly in the mills. Man has ever been cruel to the luckless beasts that fell into his hands. And Sloane remarks how smooth were the skins of these horses in comparison with the rough coated little horses introduced by the conquerors from New England. There were cattle too and the settlers as well as the buccaneers hunted these, killing them apparently rather wantonly, but probably there was not much else for the soldiers to feed on. “This way of taking the wild black Cattle,” says Sloane, “cutting their tendons or Lancing is what is used by the Spaniards in their islands and Continents, and by Privateers and Bucaniers; but in Jamaica there remain very few wild Cattle to be taken and those are in the Northside of the Island in the less frequented parts. The manner in which the Spaniards and English killed these Cattle, besides the wild Dogs who used of themselves to hunt and kill them, was with a Lance or Halberd, on the end of which was an Iron sharpened and made in the shape of a Crescent or Half Moon. These wild Cattle are said much to exceed the others in taste.” He tells too of the slaves, for negro slaves they had in those days as well as Indians and indentured white servants. “The Indians are not the natives of the island, they being destroyed by the Spaniards, but are usually brought by surprise from the Mosquitoes or Florida” (what blackguards were these old colonists) “or such as were slaves to the Spaniards and taken from them by the English.... They are of an olive colour, have long black lank hair, and are very good Hunters, Fishers, or Fowlers, but are naught at working in the Fields or Slavish Work, and if checkt or drub'd are good for nothing, therefore are very gently treated and well fed.”... “Of the Negros... those who are Creolians, born in the island, or taken from the Spaniards, are reckoned worth more than the others in that they are seasoned to the Island.”