f the magnificent temple, palace, city, and hill;
and the manifold streams of goodly navigable rivers, (which as so many
chains environed the same site and temple); and the several degrees of
ascent, whereby men did climb up to the same, as if it had been a scala
coeli, be all poetical and fabulous: yet so much is true, that the said
country of Atlantis, as well that of Peru, then called Coya, as that of
Mexico, then named Tyrambel, were mighty and proud kingdoms in arms,
shipping and riches: so mighty, as at one time (or at least within the
space of ten years) they both made two great expeditions; they of
Tyrambel through the Atlantic to the Mediterrane Sea; and they of Coya
through the South Sea upon this our island: and for the former of
these, which was into Europe, the same author amongst you (as it
seemeth) had some relation from the Egyptian priest whom he cited. For
assuredly such a thing there was. But whether it were the ancient
Athenians that had the glory of the repulse and resistance of those
forces, I can say nothing: but certain it is, there never came back
either ship or man from that voyage. Neither had the other voyage of
those of Coya upon us had better fortune, if they had not met with
enemies of greater clemency. For the king of this island, (by name
Altabin,) a wise man and a great warrior, knowing well both his own
strength and that of his enemies, handled the matter so, as he cut off
their land-forces from their ships; and entoiled both their navy and
their tamp with a greater power than theirs, both by sea and land: arid
compelled them to render themselves without striking stroke and after
they were at his mercy, contenting himself only with their oath that
they should no more bear arms against him, dismissed them all in safety.

"But the divine revenge overtook not long after those proud
enterprises. For within less than the space of one hundred years, the
great Atlantis was utterly lost and destroyed: not by a great
earthquake, as your man saith; (for that whole tract is little subject
to earthquakes;) but by a particular' deluge or inundation; those
countries having, at this day, far greater rivers and far higher
mountains to pour down waters, than any part of the old world. But it
is true that the same inundation was not deep; not past forty foot, in
most places, from the ground; so that although it destroyed man and
beast generally, yet some few wild inhabitants of the wood escaped.
B