falsehood is, that Hispaniola is four hours (difference in longitude)
distant from Spain; while the admiral reckoned it to be five. The
_thirteenth_, to add one to the dozen, is that the western point of Cuba
is six hours distant from Hispaniola; making a farther distance of
longitude from Hispaniola to Cuba, than from Spain to Hispaniola.

By the foregoing examples of negligence, in inquiring into the truth of
those particulars which are plain and easy to have been learnt, we may
divine what inquiry he made into those which are obscure and in which he
contradicts himself, as already proved. But, laying aside this fruitless
controversy, I shall only add that, in consideration of the many
falsehoods in the Chronicle and Psalter of Justiniani, the senate of Genoa
have imposed a penalty upon any person within their jurisdiction who shall
read or keep those books, and have ordered that they shall be carefully
sought after and destroyed.

To conclude this disquisition, I assert that the admiral, so far from
being a person occupied with the vile employments of mechanics or
handicraft trades, was a man of learning and experience, and entirely
occupied in such studies and exercises as fitted him for and became the
glory and renown of his most wonderful discoveries; and I shall close this
chapter with an extract from a letter which he wrote to the nurse of
Prince John of Castile. "I am not the first admiral of my family, let them
give me what name they please. After all, that most prudent king David was
first a shepherd, and was afterwards chosen king of Jerusalem; and I am a
servant to the same Lord who raised him to so great dignity."

In his person the admiral was above the middle stature and well shaped,
having rather a long visage, with somewhat full cheeks, yet neither fat
nor lean. His complexion was very fair with delicately red cheeks, having
fair hair in his youth, which became entirely grey at thirty years of age.
He had a hawk nose, with fair eyes. In his eating and drinking, and in his
dress, he was always temperate and modest. In his demeanour he was affable
to strangers and kind and condescending to his domestics and dependents,
yet with a becoming modesty and dignified gravity of manner, tempered with
easy politeness. His regard for religion was so strict and sincere, even
in keeping the prescribed fasts and reciting all the offices of the church,
that he might have been supposed professed in one of the religiou