Note 838 — Chapter XXVI · LA NOCHE TRISTE. June 30, 1520.

Camargo intimates that several Tlascalan chiefs of the expedition testified to the feat. Hist. Tlax., 168; and Gomara adds that several followers tried to imitate it, but failed, and were drowned. Hist. Mex., 160. Contradictory as Bernal Diaz is about the incidents of the night, he strenuously insists that the channel was examined during the following siege and found to be too wide and too deep to allow of such a leap. Hist. Verdad., 107. This solitary denial of a story which has been adopted by almost every writer, from Oviedo to Prescott, finds support in testimony during the hero’s residencia, wherein it is distinctly stated that he crossed the channel on a fixed beam. His own testimony gives assent to the charge so formulated, although hitherto he had no doubt allowed the other version to be believed. Ramirez, Proceso, 4, 53, 68 et seq.