Though the writer had much to say of the voyage, the most prominent characteristic of the writing was its rambling and incoherent references to the troubles of his earlier years. It was a veritable appeal _ad misericordiam_, and was full of inaccuracies, not to say positive misstatements. He says,-- “I was twenty-eight years old when I came into your Highnesses’ services, and now I have not a hair upon me that is not gray, my body is infirm, and all that was left to me, as well as to my brother, has been taken away and sold, even to the frock that I wore, to my great dishonour. Solitary in my trouble, sick, and in daily expectation of death, I am surrounded by millions of hostile savages full of cruelty. Weep for me whoever has charity, truth, and justice.” Surely this is not the outpouring of a great soul. On the contrary, it is simply pitiful; for it is impossible to forget that in earlier years he had described these “millions of hostile savages” as the embodiment of hospitable kindness. It was not until the innocent natives had learned by bitter experience that there was no device of avarice or cruelty or licentiousness of which they were not made the victims that their unsuspecting hospitality was turned into a prudent hostility. If Columbus was only twenty-eight when he entered the service of the Spanish monarchs, he must have been born in 1456; he must have been only eighteen when he had the correspondence with Toscanelli; and at the time of his writing, he must have been only forty-seven. Recurring to geographical affairs, he writes: “The world is but small; out of seven divisions of it, the dry part occupies six, and the seventh is entirely covered with water. I say that the world is not so large as vulgar opinion makes it.” Referring to his search for gold, he exclaims: “Gold is the most precious of all commodities; gold constitutes treasure; and he who possesses it has all the needs of this world, as also the means of rescuing souls from Purgatory and introducing them to the enjoyments of Paradise.”