The author writes as if addressing readers who were entirely ignorant of his subject. He treats extensively of the natural features of the country, the soil, the rivers, the lakes, and the mountains. He presents statistics of agricultural products, of the output of the mines, of the plants, fishes, and birds. [Sidenote: Ovalle’s credulity] A striking characteristic of the _Histórica relación_ is the indication it furnishes of the author’s superstition, his credulity concerning the reported miracles wrought by the image of the Virgin, and by divine interference and predestination, where later generations have seen merely a physical or worldly cause. The extreme to which he is led in this direction, and the large number of miracles he discovers in the course of events detract greatly from the historical character of his work. This quality persuaded the English translator to conclude his translation with the death of Caupolicán; “for in the course of the narrative so many superstitious notions are inculcated, so many improbable miracles are set forth as the basis of great undertakings, and the entire work is so thoroughly permeated by a monkish spirit, that it would rather condemn than recommend a project for its publication.”[101] [Sidenote: Contents of the _Histórica relación_] In spite of these defects the translator finds the work ‘so admirably performed, that it may be a model for most relations of that kind’. The author’s plan of his work is set forth in his preface, where he announces the principal topics of the several books: “the first and second books will show the natural state of the kingdom of Chile, both as to its climate and products; the third will describe the qualities of its first inhabitants; the fourth and fifth will describe the first entrance of the Spaniards into it, and the conquest of it by them; the sixth will contain the various events of the war; the seventh will show the first means of peace attempted by Father Lewis de Valdivia; the last, the first means of planting the Christian faith and its propagation among the Indians.” [Sidenote: Ovalle’s mysticism]