Note 1 — Chapter XXI

We must be pardoned for laying such stress on the character of the young chieftain of Guetzalli, who has doubtless been already recognised, and whose name we are now authorised, to our great delight, to reveal. After the hapless end of the Marquis de Pindray the colony of Cocospera unanimously chose as his successor Monsieur O. de la Chapelle, a young man whom his eminent qualifications recommended for all suffrages. It is he who figures in our story under the pseudonym of de Laville. Monsieur O. de la Chapelle died at an early age. This premature end was deeply felt by all his friends, among whom the author, though he knew him but very slightly, is happy to call himself, and to testify it by showing the heroic part he played in the glorious expedition which forms the subject matter of this work.—G.A.