The Flood acknowledg’d there.
Although from the foremention’d places, and after the same manner, America might be furnish’d with Inhabitants; so it also gives us a more certain assurance, that the Planting of America was not onely soon after the Flood, but that they came also thither by Land: And how strangely would it be against the Majesty and Wisdom of Divine Providence, to leave half the Universal Globe, a World fully supply’d with all sorts of Creatures, fit for Food and Service, Plants, Herbs, and the richest Minerals, like a House new built, and well furnish’d, without a Master or any Inhabitant, viz. Man, who being of Celestial Extract, should be able to acknowledge and glorifie the Creator, by admiring the Creature in his great Works: Besides, the confus’d Notions and Fables of Giants, Perpetrators of all manner of Crimes, and wallowing in all kind of sensual Debaucheries, are always remembred among the Antiquities of the Americans, and that they had some slender hints of antient Truth, not onely of the Giants before the Flood, but of those that soon after the rank fatness of the Earth, produc’d and fed to that pitch of Arrogance, that the covenanting Brethren defi’d God, fortifying themselves to fight him by the advantage of that their long congested Pile, Babel, which in a short time was transverted by the Heathen Poets into their Gigantomachia, heaping Hills on Hills, like the American Traditions: From which we may conjecture, that they came thither in the time of Noah; for why may not any believe, when Noah liv’d three hundred years after he Landed on Mount Ararat, that he took care to People the World? And who will make him ignorant of this New World, who living five hundred years before, might not improbably by his own industry and the help of the former long-liv’d Patriarchs, been well able to make a general Survey of the Old; and he could better furnish America, it being nearer Mount Ararat, than supply Italy, Spain, Germany, or any Northern Territories in Europe, so that America might be known to the first people after the Flood, nay, inhabited by them, though since that, the knowledge was lost.
Pliny complaining of the Supine negligence, and stupendious sloth which reign’d then and long before as he had observ’d, among all people, and in every place, who were so far from making inquiry after discoveries of Lands for new Plantations, that they lost the old, when they had begun to settle, though under the greatest serenity of Peace; The Sea by that means lying open beyond what any juncture of former times could be proud of.
Canary Islands, by whom discover’d.
Hesperian Gardens, what they signifie.
Yet the Fortunate, or Canary Islands were in the first ages after Noah, frequented with Vessels, which in later times were altogether neglected, till Guillaum Betancourt, a Gentleman of Picardye, brought them again to be taken notice of by a fresh Trade. The Fable of the Hesperian Gardens, and the Dragon that kept the Golden Fruit, with constant Vigils, is nothing but an allusion to the Sea, which with Serpentine Embraces, not onely secur’d these scatter’d Isles, but swallow’d up several Adventurers that too hardy made their unhappy approaches for discovery.
Another Allegation for the Planting of America by Land, both whose sides are wash’d on the East and West, by the South and Atlantick Ocean, may be thus probably made out: The Atlantick rowls over with almost Fathomless Waters, three thousand Leagues of Ground; the South-Sea not much less, which well may be, being indeed but one continu’d Sea, encompassing, till meeting there, the Universal Ball; whence springs a more likelyhood, that America might be Planted from the Southern parts, from the Straights of Magellan, and Le-Mayr.
Relatio de Terra Australe.
The Description of the unknown South.
Peter Fernandes de Quir relates, That he and a Commander, Lodowick Paes le Torres saw a part of the South Countrey, and in it innumerable Inhabitants, Whites, Blacks, Sallows, with long, black, curl’d, Woolly, and yellow Hair. They know no Walls or Fortresses for Defence, Laws or Kings, but are divided into Tribes: They use indeed Bows, Arrows, Clubs, and a kind of Spears: Their Houses are cover’d with Palm-Tree-Leaves; their Housholdstuff consists onely of a few Earthen Pots, and such Trinkets; yet they have some little skill in Weaving, and though they go naked, pride themselves in Neck-Laces and Bracelets, made of Mother of Pearl: But these for their Complexions and Constitution of Body, Customs, and manners, are rather deriv’d from the Americans, than they from them, and therefore we must seek for their Original from the North; from which are but two ways, one from Ysland and Groenland, which Grotius endeavors to prove, but contradicted; the other out of Tartary, which certainly was the first Nursery, from whence the Americans were Transplanted.