On the morning of Sunday, September 30th, four rabo-de-juncos came to the ship; and from so many of them coming together it was thought the land could not be far distant, especially as four alcatrases followed soon afterward. Great quantities of weeds were seen in a line stretching from west-north-west to east-north-east, and a great number of the fishes which are called _emperadores_, which have a very hard skin and are not fit to eat. Though the admiral paid every attention to these indications, he never neglected those in the heavens, and carefully observed the course of the stars. He was now greatly surprised to notice at this time that Charles' Wain, or the Ursa Major constellation, appeared at night in the west, and was north-east in the morning. He thence concluded that their whole night's course was only nine hours, or so many parts in twenty four of a great circle; and this he observed to be the case regularly every night. It was likewise noticed that the compass varied a whole point to the northwest at nightfall, and came due north every morning at daybreak. As this unheard-of circumstance confounded and perplexed the pilots, who apprehended danger in these strange regions and at such unusual distance from home, the admiral endeavored to calm their fears by assigning a cause for this wonderful phenomenon. He alleged that it was occasioned by the polar star making a circuit round the pole, by which they were not a little satisfied. Soon after sunrise on Monday, October 1st, an alcatras came to the ship, and two more about ten in the morning, and long streams of weeds floated from east to west. That morning the pilot of the admiral's ship said that they were now five hundred seventy-eight leagues west from the island of Ferro. In his public account the admiral said they were five hundred eighty-four leagues to the west; but in his private journal he made the real distance seven hundred seven leagues, or one hundred twenty-nine more than was reckoned by the pilot. The other two ships differed much in their computation from each other and from the admiral's pilot. The pilot of the Nina, in the afternoon of the Wednesday following, said they had only sailed five hundred forty leagues, and the pilot of the Pinta reckoned six hundred thirty-four. Thus they were all much short of the truth; but the admiral winked at the gross mistake, that the men, not thinking themselves so far from home, might be the less dejected.