3$2 TRAVELS through 



give us their own chimerical imaginations as 

 fomething real. Among the fingular opinions 

 which this fubjed has gi\ien rife to, I fhall men- 

 tion that of Marc Lefcarhot^ in his Hiftory of 

 New France j Father Laffiteau fhall ilill be my 

 guide on this occafion, and from his work on 

 the manners of the favage Americans^ I fliall 

 take what I have to fay on this matter. " Lef- 

 '' carhot has not fcrupled to advance very pofi- 

 *' tively, and in a manner that goes beyond con- 

 *' jedture, that Noah was not unacquainted with 

 •^^ the weftern continent, (where Lefcarbpt was 

 "' bornj i and that at leail he knew it by fame. 

 *' That, having lived three hundred and fifty 

 *' years after the deluge, he himfelf had taken 

 " care to people, or rather to re-people that 

 *' country : that, being a good workman, and 

 ♦' an excellent pilot, and being charged to re- 

 ** pair the defolation of the earth, he may be 

 *^ fuppofed to have condudted his children thi- 

 *' ther •, and it may have been as eafy to him to 

 .*' have gone through the ftreights of Gibraltar to 

 *' New France^ Cape Verd^ and Brazil^ as it was 

 " to his children to go and fettle in Jafan^ or 

 ** as it was to himfelf to come from the raoun- 

 '' tains of Armenia into Italy ^ where he founded 

 5^ the Janiculum upon the banks of the fiber ^ if 



