Note 44 — INTRODUCTION.

Of these, twenty-nine are also given in fac-simile; there are besides about two hundred and fifty fac-similes of autographs. The volume is priced at 150 marks and 300 francs. Cf. Leclerc, no. 2,688. H. H. Bancroft (Mexico, ii. 606) says of the volume: “There are about two hundred and twenty-four pages of geographical notes, vocabulary, biographical data, a glossary, and cuts, maps, and indexes. The letters and fac-similes, from the first to the last, are valuable in a historic sense, and the vocabulary is useful; but the biographical and historical data are not always reliable, numerous errors having been detected in comparing with official records and with memoranda of witnesses of the events related.” Mr. Bancroft’s own library is said to contain twelve hundred volumes of manuscript amassed for his own work; but a large portion of them, it is supposed, do not concern the Spanish history of the Pacific coast.