When at last the Cocome chieftains began to oppress their subjects, the Totul Xius gave them shelter, and finally assisted them in a revolt, which succeeded and made Uxmal the supreme city, and Mayapan became a ruin, or at least was much neglected. The dynasty of the Totul Xius then flourished, but was in its turn overthrown, and a period of factions and revolutions followed, during which Mayapan was wholly obliterated, and the Totul Xius settled in Mani, where the Spaniards found them when they invaded Yucatan to make an easy conquest of a divided people.[856] CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION. FROM the conquerors of New Spain we fail to get any systematic portrayal of the character and history of the subjugated people; but nevertheless we are not without some help in such studies from the letters of Cortes,[857] the accounts of the so-called anonymous conqueror,[858] and from what Stephens[859] calls “the hurried and imperfect observations of an unlettered soldier,” Bernal Diaz.[860] [Illustration: MS. OF BERNAL DIAZ. Fac-simile of the beginning of Capitulo LXXIV. of his _Historia Verdadera_, following a plate in the fourth volume of J. M. de Heredia’s French translation (Paris, 1877).] We cannot neglect for this ancient period the more general writers on New Spain, some of whom lived near enough to the Conquest to reflect current opinions upon the aboriginal life as it existed in the years next succeeding the fall of Mexico. Such are Peter Martyr, Grynæus, Münster, and Ramusio. More in the nature of chronicles is the _Historia General_ of Oviedo (1535, etc.).[861] The _Historia General_ of Gomara became generally known soon after the middle of the sixteenth century.[862] The _Rapport_, written about 1560, by Alonzo de Zurita, throws light on the Aztec laws and institutions.[863] Benzoni about this time traversed the country, observing the Indian customs.[864] We find other descriptions of the aboriginal customs by the missionary Didacus Valades, in his _Rhetorica Christiana_, of which the fourth part relates to Mexico.[865] Brasseur says that Valades was well informed and appreciative of the people which he so kindly depicted.[866] By the beginning of the seventeenth century we find in Herrera’s _Historia_ the most comprehensive of the historical surveys, in which he summarizes the earlier writers, if not always exactly.[867] Bandelier (_Peabody Mus. Repts._, ii. 387) says of the ancient history of Mexico that “it appears as if the twelfth century was the limit of definite tradition. What lies beyond it is vague and uncertain, remnants of tradition being intermingled with legends and mythological fancies.” He cites some of the leading writers as mainly starting in their stories respectively as follows: Brasseur, B. C. 955; Clavigero, A.D. 596; Veytia, A.D. 697; Ixtlilxochitl, A.D. 503. Bandelier views all these dates as too mythical for historical investigations, and