However, as we have already intimated, it is seldom that his authorities are submitted to this "ordeal," which we admit to be a trying one. Usually they are informed that their assertions "rest on air,"--that they are "foolish" and "baseless,"--"wild figments," or "intolerable nonsense." Cortés states that some of his men, who had been taken prisoners by the Mexicans, were offered up as sacrifices to the Aztec deities. Mr. Wilson, after telling that their hearts were cut out, and their bodies "tumbled to the ground," complains that "to this most probable act of an Indian enemy, is _foolishly_ added--it was done in sacrifice to their idols, though the very existence of Indian idols is _still_ problematical!" Cortés, who had seen too many Indian idols to entertain any doubts of their existence, ought, nevertheless, not to have mentioned them, because to Mr. Wilson the matter is still a problem. Whenever that gentleman finds it inconvenient to "reduce" the statements of the Spanish historians to "realities," he omits them altogether. Thus, he says not a word of those fearful spectacles which struck horror to the hearts of the Spaniards in their visit to the _teocallis_,--the pyramidal mound garnished with human skulls, the hideous idols and the blood-stained priests, the chapels drenched with gore, and other evidences of a diabolical worship. Not unfrequently he fills up what he considers as gaps in the ordinary narratives. Thus, he pictures the dying Cuitlahua as "stoically wrapping himself in his feathered mantle," and "rejoicing at his expected welcome to the celestial hunting-grounds," where he "felt that he was worthy a name among the immortal braves." This "wild figment" from Mr. Wilson's "fertile fancy" was, perhaps, suggested by Theobald's famous emendation in the description of Falstaff's death-scene,--"a babbled o' green fields." On such occasions, Mr. Wilson explains that he is relating the occurrences "as they are understood by one familiar with Indian affairs." A remarkable example of this method of narration shall close our citations from his work.