Friday the twenty-first another alcatraz and a rabo de junco were seen,
and vast quantities of weeds as far as the eye could carry towards the
north.
These appearances were sometimes a comfort to the people, giving
them hopes of nearing the wished-for land; while at other times the weeds
were so thick as in some measure to impede the progress of the vessels,
and to occasion terror lest what is fabulously reported of St Amaro, in
the frozen sea, might happen to them, that they might be so enveloped in
the weeds as to be unable to move backwards or forwards; wherefore they
steered away from those shoals of weeds as much as they could.
Next day, being Saturday the twenty-second September, they saw a whale and
several small birds. The wind now veered to the south-west, sometimes more
and sometimes less to the westwards; and, though this was adverse to the
direction of their proposed voyage, the admiral to comfort the people,
alleged that this was a favourable circumstance; because among other
causes of fear, they had formerly said they should never have a wind to
carry them back to Spain, as it had always blown from the east ever since
they left Ferro. They still continued however to murmur, alleging that
this south-west wind was by no means a settled one, and as it never blew
strong enough to swell the sea, it would not serve to carry them back
again through so great an extent of sea as they had now passed over.
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