But The
Greatest And Best Direction Of All Is, To Mark The Variation Of The
Needle Or Mariners Compass; Which,
In the meridian of the island of St
Michael, one of the Azores in the same latitude with Lisbon, points
Due
north, and thence swerveth so much towards the east, that, between the
foresaid meridian and the extreme south point of Africa, it varieth
three or four of the thirty-two points. Again, having passed a little
beyond the cape called _das Agulias_, or of the Needles, it returneth
again towards the north; and when it hath attained that, it swerveth
again toward the west proportionally, as it did before eastwards.
In regard to the first mentioned signs from fowls: The nearer we came to
the coast of Africa, the more kinds and greater number of strange fowls
appeared; insomuch that, when we came within not less than thirty
leagues, almost 100 miles, and 600 miles as we thought from any other
land, as good as 3000 fowls of sundry kinds followed our ship; some of
them so great, that, when their wings were opened, they measured seven
spans from point to point of their wings, as the sailors said. It is a
marvellous thing to think how God hath so provided for these fowls in
so vast an expanse of sea, that they are all fat. The Portuguese have
named them all, according to some obvious property. Thus they call some
_rushtails_, because their tails are small and long like a rush, and not
proportionate to their bodies; some _fork-tails_, because their tails
are very broad and forked; others again _velvet-sleeves_, because their
wings are like velvet, and are always bent like a mans elbow.
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