PREFACE. 



I BERNAL DIAZ del CASTILLO, regidor of this loyal city of 

 Guatimala, and author of the following moft true hiftory, during the 

 time I was writing the fame, happened to fee a work compofed by 

 Francifco Lopez de Gomara, the elegance of which made me blufli for 

 the vulgarity of my own, and throw down my pen in defpair. But 

 when I had read it, I found that the whole was a mifreprefentation, 

 and alfo that in his extraordinary exaggerations of the numbers of the 



natives, anrl of iliofe Wliu w^l<^ kllKJ in tLc difRrcnt battles, his acCOUnt 



was utterly unworthy of belief. We never much exceeded four hun- 

 dred men, and if we had found fuch numbers bound hand and foot, 

 we could not have put them to death. But the fad: was, we had 

 enough to do to proted: ourfelves, for I vow to God, and fay Amen 

 thereto, that we were every day repeating our prayers, and fupplicating 

 to be delivered from the perils that furrounded us. Alaric a moft brave 

 king, and Attila a proud warrior, never killed fo many of their foes 

 as we are faid by that hiftorian to have done in New Spain. He alfo 

 fays we burned many cities and temples; and this he does to aftonifh 

 his reader; not feeming to recoiled: that any of the true conquerors 

 exifted, to contradid: him. He alfo enhances the merit of one officer 

 at the expence of another ; fjpeaking of fome as captains who were not 

 with us. 



A « He 



