A History of New York by Washington Irving Page A

enlightened literati, that Noah travelled into China, at the time of the building of the Tower of Babel (probably to improve himself in the study of languages) and the learned Dr. Shackford gives us the additional information, that the ark rested upon a mountain on the frontiers of China.
    From this mass of rational conjectures and sage hypotheses, many satisfactory deductions might be drawn; but I shall content myself with the unquestionable fact stated in the Bible, that Noah begat three sons—Shem, Ham, and Japhet.
    It may be asked by some inquisitive readers, not much conversant with the art of history writing, what have Noah and his sons to do with the subject of this work? Now though, in strict justice, I am not bound to satisfy such querulous spirits, yet as I have determined to accommodate my book to every capacity, so that it shall not only delight the learned, but likewise instruct the simple, and edify the vulgar; I shall never hesitate for a moment to explain any matter that may appear obscure.
    Noah we are told by sundry very credible historians, becoming sole surviving heir and proprietor of the earth, in fee simple, after the deluge, like a good father portioned out his estate among his children. To Shem he gave Asia, to Ham, Africa, and to Japhet, Europe. Now it is a thousand times to be lamented that he had but three sons, for had there been a fourth, he would doubtless have inherited America; which of course would have been dragged forth from its obscurity on the occasion; and thus many a hard working historian and philosopher, would have been spared a prodigious mass of weary conjecture, respecting the first discovery and population of this country. Noah, however, having provided for his three sons, looked in all probability, upon our country as mere wild unsettled land, and said nothing about it, and to this unpardonable taciturnity of the patriarch may we ascribe the misfortune, that America did not come into the world, as early as the other quarters of the globe.
    It is true some writers have vindicated him from this misconduct towards posterity, and asserted that he really did discover America. Thus it was the opinion of Mark Lescarbot, a French writer possessed of that ponderosity of thought, and profoundness of reflection, so peculiar to his nation, that the immediate descendants of Noah peopled this quarter of the globe, and that the old patriarch himself, who still retained a passion for the sea-faring life, superintended the transmigration. The pious and enlightened father Charlevoix, a French Jesuit, remarkable for his veracity and an aversion to the marvellous, common to all great travellers, is conclusively of the same opinion; nay, he goes still further, and decides upon the manner in which the discovery was effected, which was by sea, and under the immediate direction of the great Noah. “I have already observed,” exclaims the good father in a tone of becoming indignation, “that it is an arbitrary supposition that the grand children of Noah were not able to penetrate into the new world, or that they never thought of it. In effect, I can see no reason that can justify such a notion. Who can seriously believe, that Noah and his immediate descendants knew less than we do, and that the builder and pilot of the greatest ship that ever was, a ship which was formed to traverse an unbounded ocean, and had so many shoals and quicksands to guard against, should be ignorant of, or should not have communicated to his descendants the art of sailing on the ocean?” Therefore they did sail on the ocean—therefore they sailed to America-therefore America was discovered by Noah!
    Now all this exquisite chain of reasoning, which is so strikingly characteristic of the good father, being addressed to the faith, rather than the understanding, is flatly opposed by Hans De Laet, who declares it a real and most ridiculous paradox, to suppose that Noah ever entertained the thought of