Note 967 — Chapter III

“No writer,” says Bandelier (Peabody Mus. Repts. ii. 674), “has been more prolific in pictures of pomp, regal wealth and magnificence, than Bernal Diaz. Most of the later writers have placed undue reliance on his statements, assuming that the truthfulness of his own individual feelings was the result of cool observation. Any one who has read attentively his Mémoirs will become convinced that he is in fact one of the most unreliable eye-witnesses, so far as general principles are concerned.... Cortes had personal and political motives to magnify and embellish the picture. If his statements fall far below those of his troopers in thrilling and highly-colored details, there is every reason to believe that they are the more trustworthy.... In the descriptions by Cortes we find, on the whole, nothing but a barbarous display common to other Indian celebrations of a similar character.”