HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



ly enough to people all the world, as has been already 

 dernonflrated by fome writers; at leaf! after ten or twelve 

 centuries, fome of thofe families which fcattered them- 

 felves towards the mod eaftern parts of Afia, might pafs 

 to that part of the world which we call at prefent Ame- 

 rica, whether it was, as we believe, united to the other, 

 or feparated by a fmall arm of the fea from it. But how 

 do thofe authors prove that America was peopled before 

 the deluge ? Becaufe they fay there were giants in A- 

 merica, and the race of giants was antediluvian. Becaufe 

 God, others will fay, did not create the earth to remain 

 uninhabited ; and it is not probable that, after creating 

 America for that purpofe, he would leave it fo long 

 without inhabitants. Admitting the facred text to be 

 taken in the vulgar fenfe, and that the giants were men 

 of extraordinary lize and bignefs, this would by no means 

 confirm fuch opinion, becaufe we read in the facred writ- 

 ings alfo of giants pofterior to the deluge. Neither 

 does the text of Ifaiah prove any thing in favour of that 

 opinion, becaufe although God created the earth to be 

 inhabited, no one can divine the time prefixed by him for 

 the execution of his defigns. 



The traveller Gemelli fays, on the evidence of fome 

 ancient pictures of the Mexicans, that the city of Mexico 

 was founded in the year II Calli, correfponding to the 

 year 1325 of the creation or the world, that is, more 

 than three hundred years before the deluge ; but this 

 erroneous abfurdity was not an error of his mind but a 

 flip of his pen, as plainly appears from the context of 

 his narration ; wherefore he is unjuftly reprobated by 

 Mr. de P. who alfo accufes Siguenza of the fame error, 

 whereas we are very certain this raoft learned Mexican 

 was of a very different opinion. It is true that the city 



of 



