“On Sunday morning [the thirtieth of September], four rush-tails came to the ship, and as they flew there together, it was thought that land was near, especially when, not long afterward, four pelicans flew by, and an abundance of weeds was seen, lying in a line west-northwest and east-southeast, and also a great number of those fishes they call _emperadores_, which have a very hard skin and are not fit to eat. However much the admiral regarded these signs, still he never forgot those in the heavens and the course of the stars. He therefore observed in this place, to his great astonishment, that the stars of Charles’s wain, at night, appeared in the west, and in the morning they were directly northeast, from which he inferred that their whole night’s course was but three lines or nine hours—that is, so many parts of twenty-four,—and this he did every night. He also perceived that at night-fall the compass-needle varied a whole point to the northwest, and at day-break it came right with the star. These things confounded the pilots until he told them that the cause of it was the circuit the star took about the pole, which was some satisfaction to them, for this variation made them apprehend some danger at such an unknown distance from home, and in such strange regions.... “On Monday, the first of October, at sunrise, a pelican came to the ship, and two more about ten in the morning, and long beds of weeds extended from east to west. That day, in the morning, the pilot of the admiral’s ship said that they were five hundred and seventy-eight leagues west of the island of Ferro. The admiral said, by his reckoning, they were five hundred and eighty-four leagues; but in secret he concluded it was seven hundred and seven, which is one hundred and twenty-nine leagues more than the pilot reckoned. The other two vessels differed much in their computations, for the pilot of the caravel Nina, on the following Wednesday afternoon, said they had sailed five hundred and forty leagues, and the other of the caravel Pinta said six hundred and thirty-four.... “On Thursday afternoon, the fourth of October, a flock of more than forty sparrows and two pelicans flew so near the ship that a seaman killed one of them with a stone; and before this they had seen another bird like a rush-tail, and another like a swallow, and a great many flying-fish fell into the vessels. The next day there came a rush-tail and a pelican from the west, and great numbers of sparrows were seen.