On every page there are such evident efforts at truthfulness as to raise a suspicion that something more than, a simple narrative was the object of writing this book fifty years after the conquest. By supposing the author to be only sixteen years old when he came to America, Lockhart makes him only seventy years of age when he wrote the work. But if we suppose him to have been of a reasonable age when he began his adventures, he must have been between eighty and ninety years old when this book is alleged to have been written. Gomara had overdone the matter in the superhuman achievements which he had ascribed to Cortéz, while Las Casas had proved the conqueror and his party to have been a gang of cruel monsters. Now, something had to be done to avert the odium that was beginning to attach to this crusade against the enemies of the Church. In Spain, where a padlock was upon every man's mouth, and where each one buried his suspicions in the most secret recesses of his heart, and trembled lest, even in his dreams, a thought of impiety might reach the ear of a familiar, history could always be made to conform to the interests of the Church.
Since the records of the Spanish Inquisition have become the property of the public, and the manner in which the facts of history were trifled with is now understood, it is a question more easily asked than answered, Who wrote such and such a book?
WHO WROTE BERNAL DIAZ?
Who, then, wrote the history of Bernal Diaz? We have seen that it cuts down the monstrous exaggerations of Cortéz more than a half, yet we shall see that the statements of Diaz are still incredible. It is a very