oquence, and which, as
the Spanish editor says, "could not have been more forcibly expressed,
nor with greater elegance." Some readers may at first feel inclined to
censure our author for going into minute particulars in describing the
fitting out of the expedition under Cortes; for instance, his describing
the qualities and colours of the horses; but all this, it will be seen,
was of the utmost importance to his history, and of the horses he was
bound to take special notice, for they performed a conspicuous part in
the conquest. The honest old soldier even devotes a couple of his last
chapters to the whole of his companions in arms, in which he mentions
them all by name, describes their persons, their bravery, and the manner
in which they died.

To conclude these few remarks on this work, I must observe, that it not
only surpasses Cortes' despatches in completeness, but also in truth and
naivete. He represents the whole to you with a simplicity truly sublime;
at times he astonishes with a power of expressing his sentiments
peculiar to himself, and with a pathos that goes to the very heart.

Bernal Diaz was of a respectable family, and born in Medina del Campo, a
small town in the province of Leon. He was what in Spain is termed an
hidalgo--though by this little more was signified than a descent from
Christian forefathers, without any mixture of Jewish or Moorish blood.
With respect to the precise year of his birth he has left us in the
dark, but, according to his own account, he first left Castile, for the
New World, in the year 1514; and as, on his first arrival in Mexico, in
the year 1519, he still calls himself a young man, we may safely
conclude that he was born between 1495 and 1500. In the year 1568 he
completed his work, at which time there were only six of the
Conquistadores alive, and he must then have been about seventy years of
age, but there is every reason for supposing that he reached the
advanced age of eighty-six. Endowed with singular nobleness of mind, he
had the happiness to enjoy an unblemished reputation.

The excellent Torquemada, in speaking of him in his voluminous work
entitled 'Monarchia Indiana,' says, "I saw and knew this same Bernal
Diaz in the city of Guatimala; he was then a very aged man, and one who
bore the best of reputations." Quoting him in another passage, he has,
"Thus says Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a soldier on whose authority and
honesty we can place reliance." He was a man de