WHOLE VOL. THE WEST INDIES VAZQUEZ DE ESPINOSA 25 



first syllable; if you change it to n, you will say Indio (Indian) 

 instead of ludio (Judio, Jew), as is clear from the letters and the 

 names ; but while that is not a sufficient argument, it does at least 

 weigh in favor of our opinion. It is no slight evidence in favor of 

 our thesis that when they conquered the provinces where at present 

 the city of Antioquia has been founded, in the New Kingdom of 

 Granada, the local king (or cacique) was named Isac and his wife 

 ludit (Judith). 



61. Nor is there much weight in the argument that Ophir is the 

 same as Peru, as maintained by our most learned Spanish writer 

 Arias Montano in volume VII, book Phalcus, chapter IX : for 

 although his opinion is of very great authority, and should have the 

 respect due to so important and learned a scholar, in the discussion 

 of a matter so remote from us, we should put more faith in experi- 

 ence and the observation of our own eyes, than in the opinions of 

 scholars who have neither seen nor experienced. Furthermore, the 

 name Peru, although there are rivers of that name in that region, e.g., 

 near the Equator, as described by the writers on Peru, and the river 

 of San Miguel de Piura, was quite rare in that kingdom, and the 

 Indians did not know it or recognize it. Calling all that extensive 

 kingdom "Peru" dates from after its discovery and conquest by the 

 Spaniards, and not before ; in my judgment, and I hold this opinion 

 as assured, it was in that locality of Piura, an insignificant spot, that 

 they built and set up the first altar on which was ofifered a sacrifice 

 pleasing to God, and that was the original beginning of it ; and as 

 sign of occupation commemorating the introduction of the light of the 

 blessed Gospel and the driving out of the obscurity and darkness of 

 heathendom, in which the enemy of the human race held them in 

 deceit and bondage, God desired to honor the city of Piura, where 

 He had been offered the first sacrifice, even though in buildings poor 

 and humble ; and so all that rich and far-flung empire was named 

 after it from that time on. And so little weight is to be given to the 

 explanation offered by the learned Arias Montano, that Ophir is 

 Peru — Peruaim or Paruaim. 



62. Nor is our thesis invalidated by the statements of the Very 

 Rev. Fr. M. Malvenda, "De Antichristo," book III, chapter XVI, 

 (and De Marineo, "De Rebus Hispanicis," book XIX, chapter XVI), 

 that in the Spanish Main, where Fray Juan de Quevedo, of the 

 Order of St. Francis, was Bishop, some miners, dismantling a gold 

 mine, found a coin with the image and name of Augustus Caesar, 

 which came into the possession of Don Juan Rufo, Archbishop of 

 Cosenza; and since that was such a remarkable and extraordinary 



