But we have been anxious to discover some more definite and substantial grounds for Mr. Wilson's hypothesis. In a couple of closely-printed pages, devoted to the subject, he asks himself, again and again, the questions,--"Who, then, was Bernal Diaz?"--"Who, then, wrote the history of Bernal Diaz?" Failing to extract any reply from the singular individual to whom these queries are addressed, he winds up with the solemn and emphatic declaration, "On the evidence hereafter to be presented, we have with much deliberation concluded to _denounce_ Bernal Diaz as a _myth_." For the evidence here promised we have searched with a patience of investigation which, if applied to the problem of perpetual motion or squaring the circle, could not, we humbly think, have been wholly unproductive; and these are the results. "The author of 'Bernal Diaz' says the march to Jalapa was accomplished in one day;--a proof that he never saw the country.... Cortez makes the ascent the work of three days, and says he did not reach Sienchimalen until the fourth day." The main discrepancy here is Mr. Wilson's own handiwork, as he has confounded the "Sienchimalen" of Cortés with Jalapa, instead of identifying it with the "Socochima" of Bernal Diaz. But so far as there is any real discrepancy, it may be sufficient to remark, in explanation of it, that Bernal Diaz professes to have written many years after the events which he narrates, and at a distance from the scene, while the letters of Cortés were written in the country, and while the events were taking place. On another occasion, Bernal Diaz represents the Tlascalans as complaining that they could "get no cotton for their clothing." "If this writer," says Mr. Wilson, "had really been acquainted with the tribes of the table-land, he must have known that the fibres of the _maguey_ were, among them, substitutes for that article, and are even now used at the city of Mexico in the manufacture of some fine fabrics." We do not see how Bernal Diaz could be expected to know that the fibres of the _maguey_ are now used in Mexican manufactures; neither can we comprehend how his statement, that the Tlascalans had _no_ cotton, is at variance with Mr. Wilson's assertion, that they used the _maguey_ as a substitute. We can imagine, however, that an old soldier, writing for the "uninitiated," might prefer to speak of cotton, for which he had a Spanish word, rather than enter into explanations in regard to an Indian substitute for cotton, resembling it in appearance; while it is not easy to believe, on Mr. Wilson's bare assertion, that an article in common use throughout the Valley of Mexico was wholly unknown to the inhabitants of the table-land.