On the 16th, they first came upon those immense plains of seaweed (the
fucus natans), which constitute the Mar de Sargasso, and which occupy a
space in the Atlantic almost equal to seven times the extent of France.
The aspect of these plains greatly terrified the sailors, who thought they
might be coming upon submerged lands and rocks; but finding that the
vessels cut their way well through this seaweed, the sailors thereupon
took heart. On the 17th, they see more of these plains of seaweed, and
thinking themselves to be near land, they are almost in good spirits, when
finding that the needle declines to the west a whole point of the
compass and more, their hopes suddenly sink again: they begin "to murmur
between their teeth," and to wonder whether they are not in another world.
Columbus, however, orders an observation to be taken at day-break, when
the needle is found to point to the north again; moreover he is ready with
a theory sufficiently ingenious for that time, to account for the
phenomenon of variation which had so disturbed the sailors, namely, that
it was caused by the north star moving round the pole. The sailors are,
therefore, quieted upon this head.


SIGNS OF LAND.

In the morning of the same day they catch a crab, from which Columbus
infers that they cannot be more than eighty leagues distant from land. The
18th, they see many birds, and a cloud in the distance; and that night
they expect to see land. On the 19th, in the morning, comes a pelican (a
bird not usually seen twenty leagues from the coast); in the evening,
another; also drizzling rain without wind, a certain sign, as the diary
says, of proximity to land.