Note 152 — Chapter VIII · THE COMBATANTS SALUTE. April-May, 1519.

‘Entremetida, é desembuelta,’ slabbers that lecherous old soldier Bernal Diaz. To call women loose comes well from men who spend their lives in making them so. If, as has been stated, the women of her native district have borne a reputation not altogether enviable, whose fault is it? Not theirs, truly. That this girl was the mistress of men, under the circumstances, detracts not one iota from her good name in the minds of right-thinking persons; nay, it detracts nothing from her purity of mind, her honesty, or her innate morality. ‘Reprehensible medio de asegurarla en su fidelidad,’ says Solis, Hist. Conq. Mex., i. 119, otherwise so ready to cover up the defects of his hero.