Note 388 — Chapter II
Reading edition
Bernal Diaz, ubi supra.—“Andres de Tapia, que me lo dijo, i Gonçalo de Umbria, las contáron vn Dia, i halláron ciento i treinta i seis mil Calaberas, en las Vigas, i Gradas.” Gomara, Crónica, cap. 82.{*}
{*} [Gomara is so often accused of exaggeration and falsehood that it is satisfactory to find his exactness, in the present instance, established by the evidence of Tápia himself, who thus describes the manner in which the estimate was made: “E quien esto escribe, y un Gonzalo de Umbréa, contaron los palos que habie, é multiplicando á cinco cabezas cada palo de los que entre viga y viga estaban, ... hallamos haber ciento treinta y seis mill cabezas, sin las de las torres.” (Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc. para la Hist. de México, tom. iii.) The original of this “Relacion,” recently discovered, is in the library of the Academy of History at Madrid. It is an unfinished narrative, valuable as the production of one of the chief companions of Cortés, and for the confirmation it affords of other contemporaneous accounts of the Conquest.—K.]