In Yucatan he also finds the name Ioctan, identical with that of Ophir’s father.[165] However, with a determination not to be surpassed by any other theorist who might assume the unity of the race as the basis of his conjectures, he offers a plan for populating the new world so comprehensive that no room was left for originality in any who might follow him in the same field. Hispaniola, Cuba and neighboring isles, he believed to have been peopled by the Carthaginians. The natives of other parts proceeded from the ten lost tribes; others from the people whom Ophir commanded to colonize Peru; others from the people living in the isle Atlantis; others from regions adjoining that island, and by means of it passed to America; others from the Greeks; others from the Phœnicians, and still others from the Chinese and Tartars.[166] Lescarbot cites five opinions on the subject, all based more or less on scriptural authority, and adds his own that the Americans were the descendants of Noah. He thinks it not impossible for voyagers to have reached the western continent when Solomon’s ships were sent on voyages of three years’ duration.[167] Herrera, with characteristic soberness, states that because of the lack of knowledge concerning the proximity of the continents at the “ends of the earth” he is unable to say positively from whom the natives were descended, but it seems most reasonable to him to suppose that they are the descendants of men who passed to the West Indies by the proximity of the land.[168] Villagutierre reiterates the same opinion, believing that Noah’s descendants were able to reach the new world either by land in some unknown quarter, or by swimming, or by embarking in canoes and balsas, for short distances. He supposes that animals reached the new continent in the first two ways.[169] Torquemada, after a long discussion of the subject, falls in with this view, adding, however, the opinion that, because of their color, they in all probability were descended from the sons and grandsons of Ham.[170] Pineda adopts substantially the preceding opinion, but improves upon it somewhat by pointing out the particular branch of the family of Ham, to which we may trace the origin of the first Americans. For some reason, perhaps no more apparent to himself than us, he designates Naphtuhim, son of Mezraim and grandson of Ham, as their progenitor. He thinks that the colonization was accomplished soon after the confusion of tongues, and may have been effected in any of the numerous ways we have previously mentioned. He cites the tradition of Votan as a proof.[171] Siguenza y Gongora and Sister Agnes de la Cruz, according to Clavigero, were the authors of this opinion, who further designated Egypt as the starting-point for that important expedition of colonists.[172]