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ROSICRUCIAN APOLOGISTS : JOHN HE YDON. 361
had the glory of the repulse of those forces I can say
nothing;
but certain it is there never came back either
ship or man from that voyage. Neither had those of Coya
had better fortune if they had not met with enemies of
great clemency. The King of this island, by name Phroates,
who was raised three times from death to life, a wise man
and great warrior, knowing his own strength and that of his
enemies, handled the matter so as he cut off their landforces
from their ships, and entoyled both their navy and camp
with a greater power than theirs, compelling them to render
themselves without striking stroke. After they were at his
mercy, contenting himself only with their oath that they
should no more beare armes against him, he dismissed them
in all safety ; but the Divine revenge overtook, not long
after, these proud enterprises, for within less than the space
of one hundred years the island was utterly destroyed by
a particular deluge or inundation, these continents then
having far greater rivers and far higher mountaines to pour
down waters than any part of the Old World. The inun-
dation was not past forty foot deep in most places, so that,
although it destroyed man and beast generally, yet some
few wilde inhabitants of the wood escaped. Birds also
escaped by flying to the high trees and woods. As for men,
although they had buildings in many places higher than
the waters, yet that inundation had a long continuance,
whereby they of the vaile that were not drowned perished
for want of food. So marvel you not at the thin popula-
tion of America, nor at the rudeness of the people, younger
a thousand years, at the least, then the rest of the world,
for there was so much time between the universal flood and
their particular inundation. The poor remnant of humane
seed which remained in their mountaines peopled the country