untry was very populous, there happened a great flood; the
sea breaking out beyond its bounds, so that the land was covered with
water and all the people perished. To this the Guacas, inhabiting the
vale of Xausca, and the natives of Chiquito, in the province of Callao,
add that some persons remained in the hollows and caves of the highest
mountains, who again peopled the land. Others of the mountain people
affirm that all perished in the deluge, only six persons being saved on
a float, from whom descended all the inhabitants of that country."[698]

On the mainland near Lima, and on the neighboring island of San Lorenzo,
Mr. Darwin found proofs that the ancient bed of the sea had been raised
to the height of more than eighty feet above water within the human
epoch, strata having been discovered at that altitude, containing pieces
of cotton thread and plaited rush, together with sea-weed and marine
shells.[699] The same author learnt from Mr. Gill, a civil engineer,
that he discovered in the interior near Lima, between Casma and Huaraz,
the dried-up channel of a large river, sometimes worn through solid
rock, which, instead of continually ascending towards its source, has,
in one place, a steep downward slope in that direction, for a ridge or
line of hills has been uplifted directly across the bed of the stream,
which is now arched. By these changes the water has been turned into
some other course; and a district, once fertile, and still covered with
ruins, and bearing the marks of ancient cultivation, has been converted
into a desert.[700]

_Java_, 1699.--On the 5th of January, 1699, a terrible earthquake
visited Java, and no less than 208 considerable shocks were reckoned.
Many houses in Batavia were overturned, and the flame and noise of a
volcanic eruption were seen and heard in that city, which were
afterwards found to proceed from Mount Salek,[701] a volcano six days'
journey distant. Next morning the Batavian river, which has its rise
from that mountain, became very high and muddy, and brought down
abundance of bushes and trees, half burnt. The channel of the river
being stopped up, the water overflowed the country round the gardens
about the town, and some of the streets, so that fishes lay dead in
them. All the fish in the river, except the carps, were killed by the
mud and turbid water. A great number of drowned buffaloes, tigers,
rhinoceroses, deer, apes, and other wild beasts, were brought down by
the curren