ter Kirk, whose _History of Charles
the Bold_ is in many respects a worthy companion to the works
of Prescott and Motley. Mr. Kirk had been Mr. Prescott's
secretary.]

[Sidenote: Adolf Bandelier's researches.]

The state of society which Cortes saw has, indeed, passed away, and its
monuments and hieroglyphic records have been in great part destroyed.
Nevertheless some monuments and some hieroglyphic records remain, and
the people are still there. Tlascalans and Aztecs, descendants in the
eleventh or twelfth generation from the men whose bitter feuds gave such
a golden opportunity to Cortes, still dwell upon the soil of Mexico, and
speak the language in which Montezuma made his last harangue to the
furious people. There is, moreover, a great mass of literature in
Spanish, besides more or less in Nahuatl, written during the century
following the conquest, and the devoted missionaries and painstaking
administrators, who wrote books about the country in which they were
working, were not engaged in a wholesale conspiracy for deceiving
mankind. From a really critical study of this literature, combined with
archaeological investigation, much may be expected; and a noble beginning
has already been made. A more extensive acquaintance with Mexican
literature would at times have materially modified Mr. Morgan's
conclusions, though without altering their general drift. At this point
the work has been taken up by Mr. Adolf Bandelier, of Highland,
Illinois, to whose rare sagacity and untiring industry as a field
archaeologist is joined such a thorough knowledge of Mexican literature
as few men before him have possessed. Armed with such resources, Mr.
Bandelier is doing for the ancient history of America work as
significant as that which Mommsen has done for Rome, or Baur for the
beginnings of Christianity. When a sufficient mass of facts and
incidents have once been put upon record, it is hard for ignorant
misconception to bury the truth in a pit so deep but that the delving
genius of critical scholarship will sooner or later drag it forth into
the light of day.[107]

[Footnote 107: A summary of Mr. Bandelier's principal results,
with copious citation and discussion of original Spanish and
Nahuatl sources, is contained in his three papers, "On the art
of war and mode of warfare of the ancient Mexicans,"--"On the
distribution and tenure of land, and the customs