Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/656

636 thrown but little light upon the subject. More valuable is an extract giving the confessions of the prisoners and the sentences decreed against them, together with interesting acts and documents, in which the original orthography and punctuation are retained. The editor also gives foot-notes wherever he regarded them necessary. At the end of the volume is a ballad or romance in verse, the subject of which is the execution of the two brothers Ávila, written about the beginning of the seventeenth century.

Subsequently Orozco y Berra's studies were directed to scientific subjects, and he published several valuable treatises on ethnography, hydrography, and kindred topics. Still later, however, as the fruit of many years of diligent researches during his leisure hours, a work appeared which entitles him to he numbered among the distinguished historians of his country. It bears the title Historia Antigua y de la Conquista de México, Mexico, 1880, 8vo, 4 vols., pp. ix. 584, 603, 527, 694, and comprises four parts: La Civilizacion, El Hombre Prehistórico en México, Historia Antigua, and Conquista de México, based on the best authorities extant. The first three divisions give an interesting description of the general condition of ancient Mexico and part of Central America, of the rites, religion, social and intellectual standing; the prehistorical inhabitants, their relations to those of the Old World; the history of the different regions, beginning with the early traditions of the Mayas, and ending with the Anáhuac empire previous to its overthrow by the Spaniards. Numerous foot-notes are given in support of the text; also interesting bibliographical notices, and essays on ancient laws, taken from unpublished documents, and on hieroglyphic writings and chronology of the Aztecs and Mayas, all of which gives indubitable evidence of the author's painstaking labor. The fourth volume, remarkable, like the third part, for a great number of explanatory notes, begins with the earliest expeditions, from which originated the final conquest of the Mexican empire, and concludes with the departure of Cristóbal de Tapia.

It is to be regretted that the narrative of this eventful period should have been given so largely in extracts, rather than in the author's own words. His interpretations are usually fair, and his criticisms on Prescott and others searching and pertinent. Perhaps for the early part of the conquest he is inclined to favor unduly the somewhat prejudiced narrative of Las Casas, and the statements of various persons made during the residencia of Cortés are frequently given more credit than they deserve, though here the letters of the conqueror himself and the versions of Bernal Diaz, Herrera, Gomara, and other standard chroniclers have been used, and also the native records. Taken as a whole, it is a work reflecting the highest credit both on the author, and on the government which in just appreciation facilitated its publication.