202 A Century of Science 



see that he is unable to get rid of just such a 

 feeling. 



His story moves on in a region that is unreal to 

 him, and therefore tantalizing to the reader ; his 

 Montezuma is a personality like none that ever ex 

 isted beneath the moon. This is because Prescott 

 simply followed his Spanish authorities not only in 

 their statements of physical fact, but in their inevi 

 table misconceptions of the strange Aztec society 

 which they encountered; the Aztecs in his story 

 are unreal, and this false note vitiates it all. In 

 his Peruvian story Prescott followed safer leaders 

 in Garcilasso de la Vega and Cieza de Leon, and 

 made a much truer picture ; but he lacked the 

 ethnological knowledge needful for coming into 

 touch with that ancient society, and one often feels 

 this as the weak spot in a narrative of marvellous 

 power and beauty. 



Now it was Parkman s good fortune at an early 

 age to realize that in order to do his work it was 

 first of all necessary to know the Indian by per 

 sonal fellowship and contact. It was also his good 

 fortune that the right sort of Indians were still 

 accessible. What would not Prescott have given, 

 what would not any student of human evolution 

 give, for a chance to pass a week or even a day in 

 such a community as the Tlascala of Xicotencatl 



