1. Difficult ocean passage
2. Deriding earlier reports
3. Reporting advantages of European technology
4. Describing New World geography
5. Mixing practical advice with rhetorical landscape descriptions
6. Nature and "savages" as friendly and ferocious
7. Expedition plagued by intrigue and disunity
8. Emphasizing flaws and virtues of the expedition leaders
9. Comparison of virtues of life in a strange foreign land with the
idleness and corruption of the old world
10. New World plenitude: the catalogue of delights
11. Initial successes followed by defeats