vision. To our thinking Diaz' work is that of a writer of notable stature—of a spirit as sincere as his body was enduring, who, fifty years after he had had no mean part in one of the greatest expeditions known to mankind, himself wrote with astounding vizualizing power of what he and his comrades did and suffered. His story is that of a man of ardent piety and of a sense of justice and endeavor after right, according to the standards of his generation, that add significance to every sentence—the chronicle of a veteran soldier of sturdy, single-hearted faith in himself and his comrades and his Captain Cortes, a human of simple tastes and a heart with a brotherhood for the cannibal Aztec.
Like certain other noteworthy writings the narrative of Bernal Diaz del Castillo had an unusual history. Before publication in its original Spanish the manuscript copy sent to Spain is said to have suffered the solicitude of a friar of the Order of Mercy, who garbled facts, suppressed parts, interpolated others, changed names and took privileges editors have unfortunately been known to take. This Padre Remón's version, first published in 1632, was the one various translators, as our earlier English, the French, German and others, used in turning the story into their mother tongues. Within the last quarter of a century, however, the True History—that of the old Conquistador himself, preserved in
