so
long as this ten-knot breeze lasts, he can walk the high poop of the
Santa Maria with serenity, and snap his fingers at the dirty rabble
below.

On Monday they made sixty leagues, the Admiral duly announcing
forty-eight; on Tuesday twenty leagues, published as sixteen; and on
this day they saw a large piece of a mast which had evidently belonged
to a ship of at least 120 tons burden. This was not an altogether
cheerful sight for the eighteen souls on board the little Nina, who
wondered ruefully what was going to happen to them of forty tons when
ships three times their size had evidently been unable to live in this
abominable sea!

On Thursday, September 13th, when Columbus took his observations, he made
a great scientific discovery, although he did not know it at the time.
He noticed that the needle of the compass was declining to the west of
north instead of having a slight declination to the east of north, as all
mariners knew it to have. In other words, he had passed the line of true
north and of no variation, and must therefore have been in latitude
28 deg. N. and longitude 29 deg. 37' W. of Greenwich. With his usual
secrecy he said nothing about it; perhaps he was waiting to see if the
pilots on the other ships had noticed it, but apparently they were not so
exact in their observations as he was. On the next day, Friday, the wind
falling a little lighter, they, made only twenty leagues. "Here the
persons on the caravel Nina said they had seen a jay and a ringtail, and
these birds never come more than twenty-five leagues from land at most."
--Unhappy "persons on the Nina"! Nineteen souls, including the captain,
afloat in a very small boat, and arguing God knows what from the fact
that a jay and a ringtail never went more than twenty-five leagues from
land!--The next day also was not without its incident; for on Saturday
evening they saw a meteor, or "marvellous branch of fire" falling from
the serene violet of the sky into the sea.

They were now well within the influence of the trade-wind, which in these
months blows steadily from the east, and maintains an exquisite and balmy
climate. Even the Admiral, never very communicative about his
sensations, deigns to mention them here, and is reported to have said
that "it was a great pleasure to enjoy the morning; that nothing was
lacking except to hear the nightingales, and that the weather was like
April in Andalusia." On this day they saw some green