Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/18

x true. To Bernal Diaz del Castillo, however, days and weeks were as hours to us. For to-day's reader, to save his precious and pleasing story, we have to elide certain parts.

In the past we have often been told that the Conquest of Mexico was a most glorious exploit, due wholly to an absolutist, a poser of quasi omniscient intellect and callous emotion, a leader driving subordinated soldiers. The following pages show, rather, a human Cortes—able, untiringly active in mind and body, gently intimate and comrade-like of heart, subtle in speech, but ardent, imaginative and ambitious enough to grasp opportunities and mould them to his own advantage. These pages prove, also, by constant reference to "our Captain" and his seeking and accepting counsel from his company of soldiers, that the Conquest was a democratic, community affair, each soldier of fortune present by his own choice and with vote and speech indicating his personal, independent wish in general matters; that the little band of self-respecting, adventurous Spaniards who set out to conquer the Aztec empire were self-reliant, "common soldiers," each of a dozen or so having money enough in pocket to buy himself that noble aider to the Conquest, a horse, but all seemingly served by a substantially founded education, and gifted with the ability to do their own