Part 1 — Transcriber's Notes:
Reading edition
Obvious punctuation and spelling errors have been fixed throughout.
Inconsistent hyphenation has been left as in the original text.
The illustrations referred to as being on page 610 and 872 in the list of illustrations does not exist.
Incorrect page numbers in the list of illusatrations have been corrected to the real page numbers in the original text.
Page 838: The discovery of Venzuela by Ojeda is listed as 1449, independant references place this at 1499. Changed the text to match historical references.
Page 862: The resignation of Ramon Frier is listed as 1816, independant references place this at 1826. Changed the text to match historical references.