the ninth of September, about day-break, they were nine leagues west of the island of Ferro.  Now losing sight of land and stretching out into utterly unknown seas, many of the people expressed their anxiety and fear that it might be long before they should see land again; but the admiral used every endeavour to comfort them with the assurance of soon finding the land he was in search of, and raised their hopes of acquiring wealth and honour by the discovery.  To lessen the fear which they entertained of the length of way they had to sail, he gave out that they had only proceeded fifteen leagues that day, when the actual distance sailed was eighteen; and to induce the people to believe that they were not so far from Spain as they really were, he resolved to keep considerably short in his reckoning during the whole voyage, though he carefully recorded the true reckoning every day in private.

On Wednesday the twelfth September, having got to about 150 leagues west of Ferro, they discovered a large trunk of a tree, sufficient to have been the mast to a vessel of 120 tons, and which seemed to have been a long time in the water.  At this distance from Ferro, and for somewhat farther on, the current was found to set strongly to the north-east.  Next day, when they had run fifty leagues farther westwards, the needle was observed to vary half a point to the eastward of north, and next morning the variation was a whole point east.  This variation of the compas had never been before observed, and therefore the admiral was much surprised at the phenomenon, and concluded that the needle did not actually point towards the polar star, but to some other fixed point.  Three days afterwards, when almost 100 leagues farther west, he was still more astonished at the irregularity of the variation; for having observed the needle to vary a whole point to the eastwards at night, it pointed directly northwards in the morning.  On the night of Saturday the fifteenth of September, being then almost 300 leagues west of Ferro, they saw a prodigious flash of light, or fire-ball, drop from the sky into the sea, at four or five leagues distance from the ships towards the south-west.  The weather was then quite fair and serene like April, the sea perfectly calm, the wind favourable from the north-east, and the current setting to the north-east The people in the Nina told the admiral that they had seen the day before a heron, and another bird which they called Rabo-de-junco[1].  These were the first birds which had been seen during the voyage, and were considered as indications of approaching land.