Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/543

Rh best part of what he describes. Though he denounces the figures of Gomora as eight times too large, his own remain plainly extravagant: for instance, the number and population of the valley cities which he gives would be more than the natural conditions of the country could support. One hundred and thirty-eight years after the conquest Thomas Gage confessed himself sorely puzzled to account for the disappearance of these cities as described; and Mr. Lewis H. Morgan, in his "Houses and House-Life of the Aborigines," even rejects the idea of their actual existence. Mr. Morgan, I might say, discredits these three authors in nearly everything except the main acts of the Spaniards, and these, he says, are all that can be accepted as historical, while "the descriptions of Indian society and government are imaginary and delusive."

I was glad to see that Mr. David A. Wells, in the April, 1886, number of this magazine, took the same view. He says that the popular idea of the civilization of ancient Mexico has very little foundation, and the fascinating narrations of Prescott as well as the Spanish chronicles from which he drew his so-called historic data, are little other than the merest romance, not much more worthy, in fact, of respect and credence than the equally fascinating stories of 'Sindbad the Sailor.' And in defense of this conclusion he calls attention, among other things, to the fact that the relics in the Museum of Mexico, which are probably the best collection of the remains of the so-called Aztec people that ever has been gathered, are very little better than those from the Western mounds and some of the Indian tribes of the United States.

Though it is a harder task to impeach the motives and work of Bernal Diaz than those of Cortes and Gomora, we must nevertheless consider that his original manuscript slumbered unpublished in private hands for fifty years after his death, and then was printed for the first time in Spain under a censorship decree by Alonzo Remon, a Franciscan priest. Brasseur de Bourbourg says he saw the original manuscript in Guatemala; and Scherzer, who also saw it there, informs us that the text, as published, is very incorrect. Moreover, in Rivadeneyra's "Historiadores Primitivos de Indias," tom, ii, we find that the above edition of Padre Remon, first appeared in 1675 in Guatemala, although it was printed in 1632! Thereupon, Señor Fuentes, a descendant of Bernal Diaz, said that "it contained in some parts more and in others less than my great-grandfather wrote." He added, also, that the title on the original cover, which the family have preserved and kept in sight, is simply "Ancianidad Manuscrito," and not "Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva España, por el Capitan Bernal Diaz del Castilo, un de los Conquistadores." We learn also from the above authority that the inaccuracy commences at the very beginning of the narrative, for the opening words are not those given in the printed edition.