Page:A View of the State of Ireland - 1809.djvu/328

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CAMPION'S HISTORE

of his named Cesara misdoubting the worst, and hearing her Vncle prophesie that all should be drowned for sinne, determined with her adherents, to seeke adventures into some forraine Island, perswaded that if shee might happely finde a Countrie never yet inhabited, and so with sinne undefiled, the generall sentence of Gods anger should there take no place. Whereupon she furnished a navy, and fled into Ireland, with three men, Bithi, Laigria, Fintan, and fifty women, left unto her after many shipwrackes. The shore where she landed, & where she lyeth entombed, is at this day called Navicularum littus. The very stones wherein the memorie hereof hath beene preserved from the violence of waters, were said to be seene of some. Within forty dayes after her footing in Ireland, the deluge prevailed universally, and all this coast was cast away.[1] Now to ommit that part of this device, which is too flat, and ridiculous, if we consider that before the flood, no part of the Earth was knowen, nor touched beside Syria,[2] where the first age dwelled, that sailing was then utterly unheard of in the world, the first vessell being by Gods owne direction wrought, that she might have sped at home, would she repent with more ease and surety, that Iapheth with the Hebrewes, and Iason with the Greekes, were the first pilots: that the Records hereof graven in stone, is but a borrowed invention from Iosephus. These things I say consi-

  1. An. Dom. 1656.
  2. Rab. Isaac, in Gen. 5.