Note 863 — Chapter III

See Vol. II. p. 417. Cf. Prescott’s Mexico, i. 50; Bancroft (Nat. Races, ii. ch. 14) epitomizes the information on the laws and courts of the Nahua; Bandelier (Peabody Mus. Repts., ii. 446), referring to Zurita’s Report, which he characterizes as marked for perspicacity, deep knowledge, and honest judgment, speaks of it as embodying the experience of nearly twenty years,—eleven of which were passed in Mexico,—and in which the author gave answers to inquiries put by the king. “If we could obtain,” says Bandelier, “all the answers given to these questions from all parts of Spanish America, and all as elaborate and truthful as those of Zurita, Palacio, and Ondegardo, our knowledge of the aboriginal history and ethnology of Spanish America would be much advanced.” Zurita’s Report in a French translation is in Ternaux-Compans’ Collection; the original is in Pacheco’s Docs. inéditos, but in a mutilated text.