" For the evidence here promised we have searched
with a patience of investigation which, if applied to the problem of
perpetual motion or squaring the circle, could not, we humbly think,
have been wholly unproductive; and these are the results. "The author of
'Bernal Diaz' says the march to Jalapa was accomplished in one day;--a
proof that he never saw the country.... Cortez makes the ascent the work
of three days, and says he did not reach Sienchimalen until the fourth
day." The main discrepancy here is Mr. Wilson's own handiwork, as he
has confounded the "Sienchimalen" of Cortes with Jalapa, instead of
identifying it with the "Socochima" of Bernal Diaz. But so far as there
is any real discrepancy, it may be sufficient to remark, in explanation
of it, that Bernal Diaz professes to have written many years after the
events which he narrates, and at a distance from the scene, while the
letters of Cortes were written in the country, and while the events were
taking place. On another occasion, Bernal Diaz represents the Tlascalans
as complaining that they could "get no cotton for their clothing." "If
this writer," says Mr.
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