The People In The Pinta Saw A Cane
And A Staff In The Water, And Took Up Another Staff Very Curiously Carved,
And A Small Board, And Great Plenty Of Weeds Were Seen Which Seemed To
Have Been Recently Torn From The Rocks.
Those of the Nina, besides similar
signs of land, saw a branch of a thorn full of red berries, which seemed
to have been newly torn from the tree.
From all these indications the
admiral was convinced that he now drew near to the land, and after the
evening prayers he made a speech to the men, in which be reminded them of
the mercy of God in having brought them so long a voyage with such
favourable weather, and in comforting them with so many tokens of a
successful issue to their enterprize, which were now every day becoming
plainer and less equivocal. He besought them to be exceedingly watchful
during the night, as they well knew that in the first article of the
instructions which he had given to all the three ships before leaving the
Canaries, they were enjoined, when they should have sailed 700 leagues
west without discovering land, to lay to every night, from midnight till
day-break. And, as he had very confident hopes of discovering land that
night, he required every one to keep watch at their quarters; and, besides
the gratuity of thirty crowns a-year for life, which had been graciously
promised by their sovereigns to him that first saw the land, he engaged to
give the fortunate discoverer a velvet doublet from himself.
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