For several days after this event they were wafted pleasantly by the trade winds, which blow continually from east to west. The air was balmy, and soon vast fields of sea-weeds, and an occasional petrel upon the wing, heralded an approach to land; but head winds and days of profound calm deferred the joyful consummation of their hopes; and the seamen, wearied and home-sick, resolved to retrace their path, and seek the shores of Spain. Even the little land birds that came upon the spars, and sung merrily their welcome to the New World, and then left at evening for their distant perches in the orange groves, failed to inspire the mariners with confidence in the truth of their commander's reasonings, and open mutiny manifested itself. With gentle words, promises of rewards, and threats of punishment against the most refractory, Columbus kept them from actual violence for several days. One evening, just at sunset, Martin Alonzo Pinzon, mounted on September, 25. the stern of the Pinta, shouted, "Land! land! Senor, I claim the reward!" Along the southwestern horizon was stretched an apparent island. Columbus, throwing himself upon his knees, with all the crews, chanted _Gloria in Excelsis!_ In the morning the island had vanished, for it was nothing but a cloud. For a fortnight longer they floated upon an almost unruffled sea, when land birds came singing again, and green herbage floated by; but days passed on, and the sun, each evening, set in the waves. Again the seamen mutinied, and Columbus was in open defiance with his crew; for he told them that the expedition had been sent by their sovereigns, and, come what might, he was determined to accomplish his purpose. They were on the point of casting him into the sea, when, just at sunset, a coast-fish glided by; a branch of thorn, with berries upon it, floated near; and a staff, artificially carved, came upon the waters to tell them of human habitations not far off. The vesper hymn to the Virgin was now sung, and Columbus, after recounting the blessings of God thus far manifested on the voyage, assured the crews that he confidently expected to see land in the morning. On the high poop of his vessel he sat watching. * Columbus agreed to give a silk waistcoat, besides the royal pension of thirty dollars, to the person who first discovered land.-Munoz {xxv}near midnight, when he saw the glimmer of moving lights upon the verge of the horizon. Fearing his hopes might have deceived his vision, he called Pedro Gutierrez, gentleman of the king's bed-chamber, and also Rodrigo Sanchez, of Segovia, to confirm his discovery. They also saw the gleams of a torch.