1876.] 
The Cradle of Civilisation . 
45i 
from Tyre, with women and children. They were on their 
way to Athens, but when they heard how things stood there 
they went on with Geert. The sea-king of the Tyrians 
brought them through the Strait, which at that time ran 
into the Red Sea (now re-established as the Suez Canal). 
At last they landed at the Punjab, called in our language 
the Five Rivers, because five rivers flow together into the 
sea. Here they settled, and called it Geertmania. The 
King of Tyre afterwards, seeing that all his best sailors 
were gone, sent all his ships with his wild soldiers to catch 
them, dead or alive. When they arrived at the Strait both 
the sea and the earth trembled. The land was upheaved, 
so that all the water ran out of the Strait, and the muddy 
shores were raised up like a rampart. This happened on 
account of the virtues of the Geertmen, as every one can 
plainly understand.” Thus it would appear that at one 
time the Red Sea communicated with the Mediterranean, 
and that Africa was an island, but that in B.c. 1551, or about 
that time, the passage was closed up. If the exodus of the 
Israelites out of Egypt is taken at the date ordinarily as- 
signed to it, viz., b.c. 1564, we shall see that this region 
within some thirteen years witnessed the flight of two 
nations, each saved by a miracle of a converse nature. The 
Israelites, fleeing on land, are preserved by the influx of 
waters ; the Frisians, escaping by sea, are saved by a ram- 
part of land upheaved behind them ! This is, to say the least, 
a very curious coincidence. Dr. Ottema very zealously 
supports this view of the Frisian colonisation of India. 
He says in his Introduction : — 
“ The historians of Alexander’s expedition do not speak 
of Frisians or Geertmen, though they mention Indoscythians, 
thereby describing a people who live in India, but whose 
origin is in the distant unknown North. 
“ In the accounts of Lindgert no names are given of the 
places where the Frisians lived in India. We only know 
that they first established themselves to the east of the 
Punjab, and afterwards moved to the west of these rivers. 
We find in Ptolemy, exactly 24 0 N. on the west side of the 
Indus, the name Minnagara ; and about 6 degrees east of 
that, in 22 0 N., another Minnagara. This name is pure 
Fries, the same as Walhallagara, Folsgara, and comes from 
Minna, the name of an Eeremoeder (high-priestess), in whose 
time the voyages of Tennis and his nephew Inca took 
place. 
“This coincidence (!) is too remarkable to be accidental, 
and not to prove that Minnagara was the head-quarters of 
2 Q 2 
