withal, That the true Religion was declar’d to them from Heaven. [Sidenote: _Americans_ Flood is taken out of the Scripture.] This Relation, though mix’d with Fables, shews (but very darkly) that they have some knowledge of the Flood: For who are those six else that leap’d out of a Window to replenish the Generations of Mankind, but _Shem_, _Ham_, and _Japhet_, with their Wives? [Sidenote: _Peruvians_ Opinion.] [Sidenote: And also the _Mexicans_, of their Original.] [Sidenote: Lib. 1. cap. 7.] The _Americans_ can give but a little better Account of their first Original; and indeed it is no wonder, because for want of Books they can relate nothing certain, but only what they have Registred in their usual _Quipocamagos_, which is not above four hundred years old. _Acosta_ asking what Original they judg’d they were of, and from what Countrey and People deriv’d? receiv’d no other Answer, but that _America_ only was their native Countrey, and that they were deriv’d from no other elsewhere. But though the _Peruvians_ are of this Opinion, yet the _Mexicans_ are of another mind, giving the _Spaniards_ a far better Account when first they came thither, wherein we must a little deviate, _viz._ How they were remov’d from some other place, as _Robert Comtæus_ relates, who with many Learned and seemingly true Arguments affirms, That the Original of the _Americans_ must be sought for either among the _Phenicians_, _Sydonians_, _Tyrians_, or _Carthaginians_, being indeed all one People. _Herodotus_ saith thus of the _Phenicians_, “They liv’d formerly, according to their own Relation, along the Shore of the _Red-Sea_; from whence removing, they planted the Sea-Coast of the _Syrians_.” _Festus Avienus_ the _Latin_ Poet agrees with this Opinion, where he saith, _On the_ Phenicians _Coasts the Ocean beats_, _Who through the_ Red-Sea _Sailing, chang’d their Seats. They were the first that ventur’d through the Seas, And freighted Ships with richer Merchandize: Fair or foul Weather, They without controule! Sought Foreign Trade, directed by the Pole_. [Sidenote: Original and Habitations of the _Phenicians_, of whom, according to several Learned, the _Americans_ are extracted.] _Aristotle_ from a _Greek_ Word calls them _Phenicians_, from their being red or bloody with the Slaughter of all Strangers that Landed on their Coast; but rather, and so indeed they are call’d _Phenicians_, or _Erythreans_, from _Esau_, or _Edom_, from whom they are deriv’d; for these two Words, or Denominations, signifie in _Greek, Red_; the two last, the like in _Hebrew_. _Phenix_ himself first planted all the Countrey lying between the River _Eleutherus_, and the _Egyptian_ City _Pelusium_; and afterwards _Damiata_, wash’d by the _Mediterrane_: But since, these Boundaries are alter’d, on the North, by _Judea_; Westward, by the _Mediterrane_; Southerly, by _Egypt_; and towards the East, by the Desart _Arabia_.