( 7 ) 



dies \ the other in Latin, the title of which is, Be 

 fromulgando Evangelio apud Bar bar os, five de prccu- 

 randa Indorum falute. This author, in the firft 

 book of his hiftory, after taking notice of the opi- 

 nion of Parmenides, Ariftotle, and Pliny, who be- 

 lieved there were no inhabitants between the Tro- 

 picks, and that there never had been any naviga- 

 tion farther to the weftward of Africa than the 

 Canary lflands, gives it as his opinion, that the 

 pretended prophecy of Medea in Seneca, could be 

 no more than a bare conjecture of that poet, who, 

 feeing that the art of navigation was beginning to 

 receive confiderable improvements, and not being 

 able to perfuade himfelf that there was no land be- 

 yond the Weftern Ocean, imagined that in a fhort 

 time fome difcoveries would be made on that fide 

 of the globe. At the fame time, this Spanifh hifto- 

 rian looks upon the pafTage I have already cited 

 from the Timaeus of Plato, as a mere fiction, in 

 which, in order to fave his reputation, the difci- 

 ples of that philofopher, zealous for his glory, 

 ftrained their imagination to find out fome inge- 

 nious allegory. 



In his fixteenth chapter, Father A coda begins to 

 examine by what means the firft inhabitants of 

 America might have found a pafTage to that im- 

 menfe Continent, and at the firft view he rejects 

 the direct and premeditated way of the fea, becaufe 

 no ancient author has made mention of the com- 

 pafs. However, he fees no improbability in faying, 

 that fome veffels might have been thrown upon the 

 coaft of America by ftrefs of weather, and on this 

 pecafion he mentions *, as a certain fact, the ftory 

 pf a pilot, driven by a tempeft on the Brazils, who, 



* Chap. xix. 



B 4 it. 



