INTRODUCTION IX 



vibora (plant; 1792), and zarzuela (teal; 1020). I hope to publish 

 this list in full elsewhere. 



It was originally hoped to publish the Spanish text opposite the 

 translation, and I deeply regret that this plan had to be abandoned. 

 In the first draft of the translation and index, which assumed the 

 presence of the Spanish text opposite, I kept the original spelling of 

 proper names ; but with the decision to omit the Spanish came a re- 

 quest to put all proper names in their modern form, which required 

 hundreds of corrections in the text and the recopying of the index. 

 Then my own practice in spelling, punctuation, word division, and word 

 usage, had to be altered to conform with the prescriptions followed in 

 this series ; and I fear that numerous inconsistencies remain. I have 

 tried to reproduce in the translation as much as I could of the classical 

 Spanish style of the old Carmelite, without doing violence to English 

 idiom. I have kept the Spanish titles of Corregidor and Alcalde 

 Mayor (see index) but have translated Adelantado as Commander; 

 indeed, Ovando is called both Adelantado and Comendador in the 

 same paragraph (see index). I translate Audiencia by Circuit Court 

 rather than Supreme Court ; it was not a Supreme Court, cases being 

 appealed, e.g., from the Audiencia of Guatemala to that of Mexico 

 City and from there to Spain or Rome ; and the Justices did actually 

 go on circuit ; of course an Audiencia was like our Great and General 

 Court of Massachusetts Bay — the chief governmental and judicial 

 authority for its territory, whose boundaries in every case Vazquez 

 is very precise in giving. While I have in general translated in full 

 all words and passages deleted in the MS, enclosing them within 

 square brackets, I have often omitted deleted y (and or but), and 

 words which were obvious errors immediately corrected. Spanish 

 terms defining measure, coinage, etc. — vara, league, real, peso, and the 

 like — are explained in the index, which serves as a glossary and a 

 concise explanatory commentary. 



There are indications that the MS had not received its final revision. 

 Paragraphs 359-360 repeat 345-347, and the chapter on Trujillo and 

 Saiia is duplicated (1167 fif.) ; 1427 ff. show confusion; 1679 is left 

 unfinished. 362 has a blank for the number of cannon in the fort; 

 372, for the surname of Brother Aparicio ; 1352-1353, for a date 

 and name; 1427, for the latitude of Guamanga ; 1590, for the date of 

 Inca Garcilaso's death. In 11 37 he omits the name of the founder; 

 in 1 193 he evidently could not remember the name of a certain fruit ; 

 in 1274 he admits forgetting the names of certain religious bene- 

 factors, recorded however in the Book of Life. 



