0 leagues.

From all this it may be inferred that the Indies of Castille formed a
continent with the Atlantic Island, and consequently that the same
Atlantic Island, which extended from Cadiz over the sea we traverse to
the Indies, and which all cosmographers call the Atlantic Ocean because
the Atlantic Island was in it, over which we now navigate, was land in
ancient times. Finally we shall relate the sequel, first giving an
account of the sphere at that time and of the inhabitants.

IV.

FIRST INHABITANTS OF THE WORLD AND PRINCIPALLY OF THE ATLANTIC ISLAND.

Having described the four parts of the world, for of Catigara, which is
the fifth, we shall not speak except in its place which the ancients
assigned to it, it will be right to come to the races which peopled
them. All of which I have to treat has to be personal and heathen
history. The chief value and perfection of history consists in its
accuracy, thoroughly sifting each event, verifying the times and periods
of what happened so that no doubt may remain of what passed. It is in
this way that I desire to write the truth in so far as my ability
enables me to do so respecting a thing so ancient as the first peopling
of these new lands. I wish, for the better illustration of the present
history, to precede it with the foundations that cannot be denied,
counting the time in conformity with the chronology of the Hebrews in
the days before our Saviour Jesus Christ, and the times after his most
holy nativity according to the counting used by our mother the holy
church, not making account of the calculations of Chaldean or Egyptian
interpreters.

Thus, passing over the first age from Adam to the Deluge, which covers
1656 years, we will begin from the second age, which is that of the
patriarch Noah, second universal father of mortals. The divine
scriptures show us that eight persons were saved from the flood, in the
ark. Noah and his wife Terra or Vesta, named from the first fire lighted
by crystal for the first sacrifice as Berosus would have; and his three
sons to wit, Cam and his wife Cataflua, Sem and his wife Prusia or
Persia, Japhet and his wife Fun a, as we read in the register of the
chronicles. The names of some of these people remain, and to this day we
can see clearly whence they were derived, as the Hebrews from Heber, the
Assyrians from Amur, but most of them have been so changed that human
intelligence is insufficient to investigate by this way.