22 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I02 



Chapter X 



Continuing the Description of the Origin and Ancestry of the First 

 Settlers in the Indies. 



56. Besides what has been stated, there is another basis for the 

 proof of the descent of the Indians ; for Ophir, son of Joktan and 

 grandson of Eber, colonized the Oriental ocean seaboard, and his 

 sons and descendants went over and colonized the lands of the Indies, 

 as is told by Genebrard in book I of his "Chronology," Arias Montano 

 in volume 7, book Phalcus, chapter 9, and other important authorities ; 

 they traveled via India and China until they crossed at the Channel 

 or Strait of Anian ; for at that point one is in sight of the northern 

 territory of the New World, up beyond the Kingdom of Quivira; 

 and from there they proceeded slowly colonizing, in the year 2024 

 after the Creation, 367 after the passing of the Flood, 430 before the 

 Flight of the Sons of Israel out of Egypt, and 1943 B.C. It may be 

 that since that year of 2024 just mentioned was the date when Abra- 

 ham left Haran for Canaan, at the age of 75, on account of the wide- 

 spread dearth and famine which was abroad in the world, the sons 

 and descendants of Ophir also may have left for that same reason, 

 fleeing from the famine in search of new lands, and by the route 

 indicated they reached the Indies and settled there, so that up to the 

 present year of 1630, the Indies will have been inhabited 3,573 years. 



67. Or else the sons and descendants of Ophir, forced by this 

 universal dearth and famine caused by the crop failure all over the 

 world at that time, and having been brought up on the ocean coast 

 and thus losing fear of it, and having learned in many cases the art 

 of navigation from Noah and his sons, who were still living, and thus 

 becoming great mariners, they went on shipboard and sailed to the 

 W. ; there they arrived at the territories of the New World, in Brazil, 

 the Rio de la Plata and other regions, and kept colonizing them and 

 intercommunicating back and forth. And as the universal Flood had 

 only recently abated and they still had it fresh in their memories, 

 from having heard about it from their elders and in particular from 

 Shem, who with his father Noah and his brothers had escaped alive 

 in the Ark ; and when they crossed to colonize the Indies, Shem was 

 alive and it was only 17 years since Noah's death, and so, as it was 

 only a short time since the Flood had abated, when they went and 

 colonized the Indies they had it so clearly in memory that they have 

 kept it in tradition, passed down from one to another, up to the 

 present day, for the Indians remember and know about it, through 

 the tradition of their ancestors, although with the long lapse of time 



