“On Sunday, the seventh of October, about sunrise, some signs of land appeared westward, but being undefined, no one said any thing, for fear of the consequence of asserting what did not exist, and also for fear of losing the thirty crowns which their catholic majesties had promised as an annuity during the life of him who should first discover land. In order to prevent the men from crying land, land, at every turn, as they would likely have done without cause to secure the gift, it was ordered that whoever said he saw land, if it were not ascertained to exist in three days from that time, should lose the reward, even if afterward he should be declared to be the first discoverer of land. All on board of the admiral’s ship being thus forewarned, none dared to cry out land, but those in the caravel Nina, which was a better sailer, and kept ahead, once believing that they actually saw land, fired a gun, and displayed their colors to indicate land. But the farther they sailed the more their joyous expectations diminished and the indication of land disappeared. However, it pleased God to give them soon after some comforting assurances, for they saw great flocks of large fowl and others of small birds flying from the west toward the southwest. Therefore, the admiral, being now so far from Spain, and sure that such small birds would not go far from land, altered his course, which until that time had been westward, and stood to the southwest, saying, that his reason for changing his course was that he would deviate but a little from his first intention and that he would be following the example of the Portuguese, who had discovered the greater number of their islands by means of such birds, and more especially as the birds he saw flew generally in the same direction. He also had always proposed to himself to find land according to the place they were in; since, as they well knew, he had often told them that he never expected to find land until he was seven hundred and fifty leagues westward of the Canary Islands, within which distance, he had further said, he should discover Española, which, at this time, he called Cipango....