Bernal Diaz del Castillo Being Some Account of Him, Taken, from His True History of the Conquest of New Spain (Classic Reprint)

Few books have had more difficulties to face than had the celebrated History of the Conquest of New Spain, that Bernal Diaz wrote in his old age. The period at which he wrote (1568 circa) is renowned for the difficulties to be encountered in its caligraphy. The handwriting of Bernal Diaz is exceedingly hard to read, twisted and gnarled, and full of strange abbreviations. Moreover, he spells exactly as he must have spoken, setting down aguelo for abuelo (grandfather) and bronsne for bronce (bronze), exactly as a Castilian countryman might do even at the present day. As he was old and war-worn and had been wounded many times, it is not unlikely that his hands were somewhat crippled, or at the least stiff, and anyhow, more used to hold the lance and bridle, than the pen. Although the work was known and appreciated almost as soon as it was finished, for both Herrera in his General History of the Indies Fray Juan de Torquemeda and the Licentiate Antonio de Leon Pinelo all quote from it, it long remained in manuscript. The original MS. was preserved most carefully, in Guatemala, first by the descendants of the author, and later by the municipality of the place, where it exists to-day. In the sixteenth century Historia General de los hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas y Tierra firme del Mar Oceano, Madrid,
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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