OVALLE*S HISTORICAL RELATION OF CHILE. 10/ 



it poflibly could be, that upon fo flight a contrivance, which can hardly lafl: three or 

 four days in the water, thofe people fhould maintain themfelves for fo long as the de- 

 luge lafted. As for the manner and time, how and when the defcendants of Noah 

 paifed to people this new world, or how their generations have extended fo far, it is a 

 mofl difficult thing to make out ; for the Indians being without written records, as 

 other nations have, there is no diving by their memories into their antiquities, which 

 even when they are committed to writing, ufe to produce variety of opinions about the 

 origin and beginning of things. Befides, there was in Europe, even among the moft 

 learned, fo great an ignorance of all that regarded America, that it was judged fcarce 

 inhabitable, if it was at all ; and fo they could give us no light of a thing they had 

 no notion of, or which they thought impoffible ; but after the difcovery of this new 

 world, people began to reafon, and every one made his guelfes or reafonings as well 

 as he could. Some have faid, with reference to what is hinted by Plato, in his Timaeus, 

 (as is related by our father Acofta, in his firfl book of the New World, in the twenty- 

 fecond chapter,) that people pafled from Europe and Africa, to certain iflands ; and 

 fo from one to another, till they came to the Terra Firma of America. 



The fame author advances fomething more probable, in his nineteenth chapter; 

 where he fays, that fuppofmg we all came from the firfl man Adam, and that the pro- 

 pagation of the fpecies of mankind, after the deluge, was made by thofe only who were 

 faved out of the ark of Noah, it is not improbable, that the firfl inhabitants of Ame- 

 rica came to thofe parts, not with defign, or by their own induflry, becaufe of thedittle 

 ufe of navigation that was in thofe days, and particularly through fo great a fea ; but 

 that they were cafl by fome florm on thofe coafls, as it happened fince in its firfl difco- 

 very, as we (hall fee hereafter in its proper place. He brings, to prove this, the 

 example of feveral fhips, which, contrary to their courfe, have been driven to very 

 remote ihores. - This is every day's experience, and will not furprife thofe who know 

 any thing of the flrength of the winds and currents in thofe feas ; and that which the 

 fame father Acofta alledges of himfelf, that he had fuch a paffage, that in fourteen 

 days he came within fight of the firfl iflands of the gulph of Mexico, going from 

 Spain. 



This, though probable, has yet a flrong objedion againfl it, which is about the 

 wild beafls, fuch as tigers, lions, wolves, and. others of that nature, which could not 

 be carried in fhips_, becaufe they were of no ufe to mankind, but rather mifchievous : 

 and though fome may anfwer with St. Auflin, in his fixteenth book De Civitate Deiy 

 chap. 7. when he folves the difficulty how thefe animals came into iflands, and fays, 

 that they might either fwim thither, or be carried by hunters, or that they might be 

 created a-new by God Almighty, as they were in the beginning of the world ; which 

 is the befl folution, if it were as probable as it is eafy to fay. But firfl, there is againfl 

 it the opinions of philofophers, who will not allow any great animals to be propagated 

 any other way than by generation. And befides, if God, as without doubt he might, 

 had created them a-new, what neceffity was there for him to command Noah to take 

 fo many pairs of all living creatures, all male and female ? which care feems fuper- 

 fluous, if God defigned to make a fecond creation of all thofe fpecies after the deluge. 

 It is more probable, thefe creatures might arrive at the iflands fwimming, and the 

 birds flying, particularly to the nearefl iflands ; but this does not prove, that they 

 could arrive at thofe remote parts of America, there being fuch a vafl ocean, that it 

 is not poffible that either beafls or birds fhould have fo much flrength as to fwim or 

 fly over it ; for this reafon he concludes in the end of the one and twentieth chapter, 

 that the men, as well as animals, palTed either by land or water to America, near 



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