In This
Disconsolate Condition, It Pleased God Again To Comfort Them With The
Flights Of Many Birds, And Among Them Some Which Were Certainly Land Birds,
And Which Made For The South West.
Upon this, concluding he could not now
be far from land, Columbus altered his course from west to south-
West;
alleging the difference was not great, and that the Portuguese had
discovered most of their lands by following the flight of birds, and that
those he now followed took the very direction in which he had always
expected to find the land. He added that he had always told them he did
not expect to find the land till he had sailed 750 leagues westward of the
Canaries, where he expected to find the island of Cipango, and must
certainly have been upon it by this time; but knowing it to stretch north
and south, he had not turned southwards lest he might get foul of it; yet
he now believed it to lie among other islands towards the left, in the
direction these birds flew; and since they were so numerous, the land must
needs be near. On Monday the 8th October, about a dozen small birds of
several different colours came to the ship, and hovering a while about it,
afterwards flew away, and many others were seen flying to the south-west.
On the same evening, many large birds were seen, and flocks of small birds,
all coming from the northward, and many tunnies were seen.
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