seeking to receive compensation for his services and losses, drew up an _Informacion de los servicios del adelantado Rodrigo de Bastidas_;[657] and eight years later presented another.[658] From this material it is possible to construct a clear and connected account of this voyage, especially when supplemented by Oviedo and Las Casas.[659] This was the first voyage which really came within the scope of Hubert H. Bancroft’s _Central America_; and therefore he has described it at some length.[660] This book is a vast and invaluable mine of information, to be extracted only after much labor and trouble, owing to a faulty table of contents, and the absence of side-notes or dates to the pages; and there is at present no index. The text is illustrated with a mass of descriptive and bibliographical notes which are really the feature of the work, and give it its encyclopedic value. Considering its range and character, the book has surprisingly few errors of any kind; and indeed the only thing which prevents our placing implicit reliance on it is Mr. Bancroft’s assertion[661] that “very little of the manuscript as it comes to me, whether in the form of rough material or more finished chapters, is the work of one person alone;” while we are not given the means of attaching responsibility where it belongs, as regards both the character of the investigation and the literary form which is presented. As to the ultimate authorship of the text itself, we are only assured[662] that “at least one half of the manuscript has been written by my own hand.”[663] * * * * *