The rest which Plato relates on this subject will be discussed in the sequel, for I now proceed to our principal point, which is to establish the conclusion that as these people carried their banners and trophies into Europe and Africa which are not contiguous, they must have overrun the Indies of Castille and peopled them, being part of the same main land. They used much policy in their rule. But at the end of many ages, by divine permission, and perhaps owing to their sins, it happened that a great and continuous earthquake, with an unceasing deluge, perpetual by day and night, opened the earth and swallowed up those warlike and ambitious Atlantic men. The Atlantic Island remained absorbed beneath that great sea, which from that cause continued to be unnavigable owing to the mud of the absorbed island in solution, a wonderful thing.
This special flood may be added to the five floods recorded by the ancients. These are the general one of Moses, the second in Egypt of which Xenophon makes mention, the third flood in Achaia of Greece in the time of Ogyges Atticus, described by Isidore as happening in the days of Jacob, the fourth in Thessaly in the time of Deucalion and Pyrrha, in the days of Moses according to Isidore, in 782 as given by Juan Annius. The fifth flood is mentioned by Xenophon as happening in Egypt in the time of Proteus. The sixth was this which destroyed so great a part of the Atlantic Island and sufficed so to separate the part that was left unsubmerged, that all mortals in Asia, Africa and Europe believed that all were drowned. Thus was lost the intercourse and commerce of the people of these parts with those of Europe and Africa, in such sort that all memory of them would have been lost, if it had not been for the Egyptians, preservers of the most ancient deeds of men and of nature. The destruction of the Atlantic Island, over at least 1000 leagues of longitude, was in the time when Aod[25] governed the people of Israel, 1320 years before Christ and 2162 years after the Creation, according to the Hebrews. I deduce this calculation from what Plato relates of the conversation between Solon and the Egyptian priest. For, according to all the chronicles, Solon lived in the time of Tarquinius Priscus the King of Rome, Josiah being King of Israel at Jerusalem, before Christ 610 years. From this period until the time when the Atlantics had put a blockade over the Athenians 9000 lunar years had passed which, referred to solar years, make 869. All added together make the total given above. Very soon afterwards the deluge must have come, as it is said to have been in the time of Aod[25] or 748 years after the general deluge of Noah. This being so it is to be noted that the isle of Caliz, the Canaries, the Salvages, and Trinidad must have been parts of the absorbed land.
[Note 25: Ehud.]
It may be assumed that these very numerous nations of Atlantis were sufficient to people those other lands of the Western Indies of Castille. Other nations also came to them, and peopled some provinces after the above destruction. Strabo and Solinus say that Ulysses, after the fall of Troy, navigated westward to Lusitania, founded Lisbon, and, after it had been built, desired to try his fortune on the Atlantic Ocean by the way we now go to the Indies. He disappeared, and it was never afterwards known what had become of him. This is stated by Pero Anton Beuter, a noble Valencian historian and, as he mentions, this was the opinion of Dante Aligheri, the illustrious Florentine poet. Assuming this to be correct we may follow Ulysses from island to island until he came to Yucatan and Campeachy, part of the territory of New Spain. For those of that land have the Grecian bearing and dress of the nation of Ulysses, they have many Grecian words, and use Grecian letters. Of this I have myself seen many signs and proofs. Their name for God is "Teos" which is Greek, and even throughout New Spain they use the word "Teos" for God. I have also to say that in passing that way, I found that they anciently preserved an anchor of a ship, venerating it as an idol, and had a certain genesis in Greek, which should not be dismissed as absurd at first sight. Indeed there are a sufficient number of indications to support my conjecture concerning Ulysses. From thence all those provinces of Mexico, Tabasco, Xalisco, and to the north the Capotecas, Chiapas, Guatemalas, Honduras, Lasandones, Nicaraguas, Tlaguzgalpas, as far as Nicoya, Costa Rica, and Veragua.
Moreover Esdras recounts that those nations which went from Persia by the river Euphrates came to a land never before inhabited by the human race. Going down this river there was no way but by the Indian Sea to reach a land where there was no habitation. This could only have been Catigara, placed in 90° S. by Ptolemy, and according to the navigators sent by Alexander the Great, 40 days of navigation from Asia. This is the land which the describers of maps call the unknown land of the south, whence it is possible to go on settling people as far as the Strait of Magellan to the west of Catigara, and the Javas, New Guinea, and the islands of the archipelago of Nombre de Jesus which I, our Lord permitting, discovered in the South Sea in the year 1568, the unconquered Felipe II reigning as King of Spain and its dependencies by the demarcation of 180° of longitude.
It may thus be deduced that New Spain and its provinces were peopled by the Greeks, those of Catigara by the Jews, and those of the rich and most powerful kingdoms of Peru and adjacent provinces by the Atlantics who were descended from the primeval Mesopotamians and Chaldæans, peoplers of the world.
These, and other points with them, which cannot be discussed with brevity, are true historical reasons, of a quality worthy of belief, such as men of reason and letters may adopt respecting the peopling of these lands. When we come to consider attentively what these barbarians of Peru relate of their origin and of the tyrannical rule of the Incas Ccapacs, and the fables and extravagances they recount, the truth may be distinguished from what is false, and how in some of their fables they allude to true facts which are admitted and held by us as such. Therefore the reader should peruse with attention and read the most strange and racy history of barbarians that has, until now, been read of any political nation in the world.
VI.
THE FABLE OF THE ORIGIN OF THESE BARBAROUS INDIANS OF PERU, ACCORDING TO THEIR BLIND OPINIONS.
As these barbarous nations of Indians were always without letters, they had not the means of preserving the monuments and memorials of their times, and those of their predecessors with accuracy and method. As the devil, who is always striving to injure the human race, found these unfortunates to be easy of belief and timid in obedience, he introduced many illusions, lies and frauds, giving them to understand that he had created them from the first, and afterwards, owing to their sins and evil deeds, he had destroyed them with a flood, again creating them and giving them food and the way to preserve it. By chance they formerly had some notice, passed down to them from mouth to mouth, which had reached them from their ancestors, respecting the truth of what happened in former times. Mixing this with the stories told them by the devil, and with other things which they changed, invented, or added, which may happen in all nations, they made up a pleasing salad, and in some things worthy of the attention of the curious who are accustomed to consider and discuss human ideas.