with gold, which are now known by the name of Molucca. Josephus understands Ophir to be one of those great headlands in India, which by a general name are called Chersonesi, or Peninsula; of which there are two very notorious, Callecut and Malacon. Pererius takes it rightly for an island, as St. Jerome doth, but he sets it at the headland of Malacca; but Ophir is found among the Moluccas further

east.

Arias Montanus, out of 2 Chronicles iii. 6. gathers, that Ophir was Peru in America, looking into the west ocean, commonly called Mare del Sur, or the south sea; by others, Mare pacificum. The words in 2 Chronicles are these; And he overlaid the house with precious stones for beauty; and the gold was gold of Parvaim. Junius takes this gold to be the gold of Havilah, remembered by Moses in the description of paradise; "And the gold of that land is good; finding a town in Characene, a province of Susiana, called Barbatia, so called, as he thinks, by corruption for Parvaim; from whence those kings, subjected by David, brought this gold, with which they presented him, and which David preserved for the enriching of the temple.

But this fancy of Peru hath deceived many men before Montanus and Plessis, who also took Ophir for Peru. And that this question may be a subject of no further dispute, it is very true, that there is no region in the world of that name; sure I am, at least, that America hath none, no not any city, village, or mountain so called. But when Francis Pisarro first discovered those lands to the south of Panama, arriving in that region which Atabaliba commanded, a prince of magnificence, riches, and dominion, inferior to none, some of the Spaniards, utterly ignorant of that language, demanding by signs, as they could, the name of the country, and pointing with their hand athwart a river, or torrent, or brook, that ran by, the Indians answered Peru, which was either the name of that brook, or of water in general. The Spaniards thereupon conceiving that the people had rightly understood them, set it down in the diurnal

m Gen. ii. 11, 12. Plin. l. 6. c. 28.

of their enterprise, and so in the first description made, and sent over to Charles the emperor, all that west part of America to the south of Panama had the name of Peru, which hath continued ever since, as divers Spaniards in the Indies assured me; which also Acosta the Jesuit, in his natural and moral history of the Indies, confirmeth. And whereas Montanus also findeth, that a part of the Indies, called Jucatan, took that name of Joctan, who, as he supposeth, navigated from the utmost east of India to America: it is most true, that Jucatan is nothing else in the language of that country, but, What is that? or, What say you? For when the Spaniards asked the name of that place, (no man conceiving their meaning,) one of the savages answered, Jucatan, which is, What ask you? or, What say you? The like happened touching Paria, a mountainous country on the south side of Trinidado and Margarita; for when the Spaniards inquiring, as all men do, the names of those new regions which they discovered, pointed to the hills afar off, one of the people answered, Paria, which is as much to say, as high hills or mountains. For at Paria begins that marvellous ledge of mountains, which from thence are continued to the Strait of Magellan, from eight degrees of north latitude to fiftytwo of south; and so hath that country ever since retained the name of Paria.

The same happened among the English, which I sent under sir Richard Greeneville to inhabit Virginia. For when some of my people asked the name of that country, one of the savages answered, Wingandacon, which is as much to say, as, You wear good clothes, or gay clothes. The same happened to the Spaniard in asking the name of the island Trinidado; for a Spaniard demanding the name of that self-place which the sea encompassed, they answered Caeri, which signifieth an island. And in this manner have many places newly discovered been entitled, of which Peru is one. And therefore we must leave Ophir among the Moluccas, whereabouts such an island is credibly affirmed to be.

Now although there may be found gold in Arabia itself,

(towards Persia,) in Havilah, now Susiana, and all along that East Indian shore; yet the greatest plenty is taken up at the Philippines, certain islands planted by the Spaniards from the East Indies. And by the length of the passage which Solomon's ships made from the Red sea, (which were three years in going and coming,) it seems they went to the uttermost east, as the Moluccas or Philippines. Indeed these that now go from Portugal, or from hence, finish that navigation in two years, and sometimes less; and Solomon's ships went not above a tenth part of this our course from hence. But we must consider, that they evermore kept the coast, and crept by the shores, which made the way exceeding long. For before the use of the compass was known, it was impossible to navigate athwart the ocean; and therefore Solomon's ships could not find Peru in America. Neither was it needful for the Spaniards themselves, had it not been for the plenty of gold in the East India islands, far above the mines of any one place of America, to sail every year from the west part of America thither, and there to have strongly planted and inhabited the richest of those islands; wherein they have built a city called Manilia. Solomon therefore needed not to have gone further off than Ophir in the east, to have sped worse; neither could he navigate from the east to the west in those days, whereas he had no coast to have guided him.

Tostatus also gathereth a fantastical opinion out of Rabanus, who makes Ophir to be a country, whose mountains of gold are kept by griffins; which mountains Solinus affirmeth to be in Scythia Asiatica, in these words: Nam cum auro et gemmis affluant, griphes tenent universa, alites ferocissima, Arimaspi cum his dimicant, &c. "For where"as these countries abound in gold and rich stone, the 66 griffins defend the one and the other, a kind of fowl, the "fiercest of all other; with which griffins a nation of peo"ple called Arimaspi make war." These Arimaspi are said to have been men with one eye only, like unto the Cyclops of Sicilia, of which Cyclops Herodotus and Aristeus make mention; and so doth Lucan in his third book,

and n Valerius Flaccus and Diodorus Siculus, in the story of Alexander Macedon. But for mine own opinion, I believe none of them. And for these Arimaspi, I take it, that this name, signifying one-eyed, was first given them by reason that they used to wear a vizard of defence, with one sight in the middle to serve both eyes, and not that they had by nature any such defect. But Solinus borroweth these things out of Pliny, who speaks of such a nation in the extreme north, at a place called Gisolitron, or the cave of the north-east wind. For the rest, as all fables were commonly grounded upon some true stories, or other things done, so might these tales of the griffins receive this moral: That if those men, which fight against so many dangerous passages for gold, or other riches of this world, had their perfect senses, and were not deprived of half their eyesight, (at least of the eye of right reason and understanding,) they would content themselves with a quiet and moderate estate; and not subject themselves to famine, corrupt air, violent heat and cold, and to all sorts of miserable diseases. And though this fable be feigned in this place, yet if such a tale were told of some other places of the world, where wild beasts or serpents defend mountains of gold, it might be avowed. For there are in many places of the world, especially in America, many high and impassable mountains, which are very rich and full of gold, inhabited only by tigers, lions, and other ravenous and cruel beasts, unto which if any man ascend, (except his strength be very great,) he shall be sure to find the same war which the Arimaspi make against the griffins; not that the one or other had any sense of the gold, or seek to defend that metal, but being disquieted, or made afraid of themselves or their young ones, they grow enraged and adventurous. In like sort it may be said that the alligators, which the Egyptians call the crocodiles, defend those pearls which lie in the lakes of the inland; for many times the poor Indians are eaten up by them, when they dive for the pearl. And though the alligators know not the pearl, yet they find sa

vour in the flesh and blood of the Indians, whom they de

vour.

§. 6.

Of Havilah the son of Joctan, who also passed into the East Indies; and of Mesha and Sepher named in the bordering of the families of Joctan; with a conclusion of this discourse touching the plantation of the world.

OF Havilah, the son of Joctan, there is nothing else to be said, but that the general opinion is, that he also inhabited in the East Indies in the continent, from which Ophir passed into the islands adjoining. And whereas Ganges is said to water Havilah, by it is meant Havilah in the East Indies, which took name of Havilah the son of Joctan; but Havilah which Pison compasseth was so called of Havilah the son of Chush, as is formerly proved by this place of scripture; P Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah, as thou comest to Shur, which is before Egypt. But that Saul ever made war in the East Indies, no man hath suspected. For an end we may conclude, that of the thirteen sons of Joctan, these three, Saba, Havilah, and Ophir; though at the first seated by their brethren about the hill Masius, or Mesh, Gen. x. 30. to wit, between Cilicia and Mesopotamia; yet at length either themselves or their issues removed into the East Indies, leaving the other families of Joctan to fill the countries of their first plantation, which the scripture defines to have been from Mesh unto Sephar. And although St. Jerome takes Mesh to be a region of the East Indies, and Sephar a mountain of the same, (which mountain Montanus would have to be the Andes in America,) those fancies are far beyond my understanding. For the word east in the scriptures, where it hath reference to Judea, is never further extended than into Persia. But Mesch is that part of the mountain of Masius in the north of Mesopotamia, out of which the river Chaboras springeth, which runneth by Charran; and in the same region we also find for Sephar, (remembered by Moses,) Sipphara by Ptolemy, standing to the east of the mountain Masius;