or less in the way of the trade-winds.  It would be of great service to navigation if sensible men would take notice of these currents, and enquire into the reason of their appearances.  In old books of voyages we find many more wonders than in those of later date, not because the course of nature is at all changed, but because nature was not then so well understood.  A thousand things were prodigious a century ago, which are not now at all strange.  Thus the storms at the Cape of Good Hope, which make so great a figure in the histories of the Portuguese discoveries, are now known to have been merely the effect of endeavouring to double that Cape at a wrong season of the year.

In the East and West Indies, the natives are able to foretell hurricanes and tornadoes, not from any superior skill, but by observing certain signs which usually precede them.  There is often so little apparent connection between the sign and the event, that men who value themselves on their wisdom are apt to slight such warnings as impertinent and absurd.  But they had better enquire diligently into facts, and neither receive nor reject them too hastily.  In the present case, it is a clear matter of fact that the sea, in the latitude of 18 deg.  N. between Africa and America, is frequently covered with weeds to a great extent, and there is good reason for enquiry as to whence these weeds come.  In the first voyage made by the famous Columbus for the discovery of the new world, he met with this grass or sea-weed floating on the sea, without which he could not have prevailed on his sailors to continue the voyage; and it is very remarkable, that, by pursuing his course through these weeds, he arrived in the Gulf of Bahama, the place whence our present author supposes this sea-grass to come.[3]

[Footnote 3:  In his first voyage, Columbus kept the parallel of about 37 deg.  N. but was considerably farther south in his subsequent voyage.—­E.]

Continuing their course to the north, they encountered hard gales of wind, by which they were driven into lat. 37 deg.  N. where they fell in with two islands, which proved to be Flores and Corres;[4] and as their fresh provisions were now nearly spent, they stopped three days at the larger island to procure refreshments.  There are two of the islands named Acores by the Spaniards, which signifies the islands of hawks.  The Dutch call them Vlanneische eslanders, or Flemish islands, because Fayal was first peopled by Flemings, and their descendants remain in the island to this day, and are easily distinguished from the other inhabitants by their shape and air.  They dwell upon a little river running down a mountain, called Ribera dos Flamenas by the Portuguese, or river of the Flemings.

[Footnote 4:  Flores is in lat. 39 deg. 10’, Corvo in 39 deg. 35’, both N.]