Page 342 - Third Book of Reading Lessons

RE DING LESSONS. 341
times of di culty and danger. To unskilful Spanish sailors, accustomed only to coasting voyages in the Mediterranean, the maritime science of Columbus, the uit of thirty years' experience, appeared im­ mense. As soon as they put to sea, he regulated ev­ erything by his sole authority; he superint nded the execution of every order, and, allowing himself only a few hours r sleep, he was, at all other times, upon deck.
8. As his course lay through seas ,vhich had not been visited be re, the sounding line, or instruments r observation, were continually in his hands. He attended to the motion of the tides and currents, watched the ight of birds, the appearance of shes, of sea-weeds, and of everything that oated on the waves, and accurately noted every occurrence in a
journal that he kept.
9. By the urteenth day of September, the eet was above two hundred leagues to the west of the Canary Isles, a greater distance from land than any Spaniard had ever been be re that time. Here the sailors were struck with an appearance no less aston­ ishing than new. They observed that the magnetic needle, in their compasses, did not point exactly to
the north star, but varied towards the west.
10. This appearance, which is now miliar, lled the companions of Columbus with terror. They were in an ocean boundless and unknown, nature itself seemed to be altered, and the oly guide which they had left was about to il them. Columbus, with no less quickness than ingenuity, invented a reason r this appearance, which, though it did not satisfy himself, seemed so plausible to them, that it dispelled their ars, and silenced their murmurs.
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