Page:Vol 1 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/613

Rh At noon on the 3d the march was resumed, with quickened steps and with less interruption. Though persistent in harassing, the pursuers fled whenever thethe account of the route followed to Tlascala Cortés is still the best guide, for he not only kept a record, but wrote his report while the occurrences were yet fresh. He is wanting in details, however, and fails to give names to localities. These omissions are remedied by Sahagun, who now seems more reliable. Other authors are vague or misleading for the route, but the occasional incidents told by them are noteworthy. Bernal Diaz indicates only one stopping place, Quauhtitlan evidently, before Otumba is reached. Camargo skips to a place adjoining Otumba, and Ixtlilxochitl takes the army to Quauhximalpan, a place which modern maps locate south of Remedios. He resumes the northern route, but names some towns that cannot be identified. Gomara adheres pretty well to Cortés, but his commentator, Chimalpain, supplies names for places, which differ from Sahagun and indicate a deviation from the extreme northern course, as will be seen. Torquemada follows chiefly Sahagun, whom he recommends. Orozco y Berra has closely studied the journey, and throws much light on it, more so than any other writer; yet his conclusions are not always satisfactory. Itinerario del Ejercito Español, in ''Mex. Not. Ciudad.,'' 246 et seq. I have already spoken at length, in Native Races, iii. 231-6, on the life and writings of Father Sahagun, and will here refer only to the twelfth book of his Historia General, inserted by Bustamante, at the beginning of the set, under the title of Historia de la Conquista de Mexico. This copy is from one found by Muñoz in the Franciscan convent of Tolosa, in Navarre. Another copy of the twelfth book, in possession of Conde de Cortina, claimed as the true original, was published separately by the same editor, at Mexico, 1840, with lengthy notes from Clavigero and other writers to complete the chain of events, and to comment on the suppression in the former issue of statements concerning Spanish misdeeds. It has also an additional chapter. Neither copy, however, corresponds quite to that used by Torquemada, who in more than one instance quotes passages that are startling compared with the modified expressions in the others. The severity of the friar toward Spanish conquerors was no doubt a strong reason for the suppression of his work. The twelfth book begins with Grijalva's arrival and the omens preceding it, and carries the narrative of the conquest down to the fall of Mexico. According to his own statement, on page 132, it is founded to a great extent on the relations given him by eye-witnesses, soldiers who had assumed the Franciscan robe and associated daily with the friar; but much is adopted, with little or no critique, from superstitious natives, the whole forming a rather confusing medley, so that it is difficult to extract the many valuable points which it contains. This difficulty is, of course, not encountered by such followers as Bustamante and Brasseur de Bourbourg, and similar supporters of native records or anti-Spanish versions.

In the Native Races I give the traits which characterize the French abbé and his famous works on Central American culture and antiquities, and it remains only to refer briefly to his version of the conquest, comprised in the fourth volume of the Histoire des Nations Civilisées. His pleasing style lends attraction to every page, but his faults become more conspicuous from the comparison presented by a vast array of authorities, revealing the indiscreet and enthusiastic readiness to accept native tales, or anything that favors the hypotheses by which he is ruled, and in the disposition to build magnificent structures on airy foundation. His version, indeed, strives rather to narrate the conquest from a native standpoint, and to use Spanish chronicles only as supplementary authority. To this end he relies chiefly on the now well known writings of Sahagun, Ixtlilxochitl, Camargo, and Torquemada, and it is but rarely that he is able to quote the often startling original manuscripts possessed only by himself.