. 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.

After this, as the admiral was in his cabin about ten o'clock at night, he
saw a light on shore; but it was so unsteady that he could not certainly
affirm that it came from land. He called to one Peter Gutierres and
desired him to try if he could perceive the same light, who said he did;
but one Roderick Sanchez of Segovia, on being desired to look the same way
could not see it, because he was not up time enough, as neither the
admiral nor Gutierres could see it again above once or twice for a short
space, which made them judge it to proceed from a candle or torch
belonging to some fisherman or traveller, who lifted it up occasionally
and lowered it again, or perhaps from people going from one house to
another, because it appeared and vanished again so suddenly. Being now
very much on their guard, they still held on their course until about two
in the morning of Friday the twelfth of October, when the Pinta which was
always far a-head, owing to her superior sailing, made the signal