Page:An English Garner Ingatherings from Our History and Literature (Volume 1 1877).pdf/144

 and were come again to the third degree [north] or somewhat more, we saw crabs swimming on the water as though they had been sodden [boiled], but this was no sign of land. After, about the eleventh degree, for the space of many days, more than ten thousand fishes by estimation followed round about our ship; whereof we caught so many, that for fifteen days we did eat nothing else, and they served our turn very well: for at this time we had neither meat nor almost any thing else to eat, our navigation growing so long that it drew near to seven months, whereas commonly they go it in five; I mean when they sail the inner way [through the Mozambique Channel]. But these fishes were not sign of land, but rather of deep sea.

At length we took a couple of birds, which were a kind of hawks; whereof they joyed much, thinking that they had been of India,, but indeed they were of Arabia, as we found afterwards. And we that thought we had been near India, were in the same latitude near Socotra, an isle in the mouth of the Red Sea. But there GOD sent us great winds from the north-east or north-north-east, whereupon unwillingly they bare up toward the east, and thus we went ten days without seeing sign of land, whereby they perceived their error: for they had directed their course before, always north-east, coveting to multiply [pass over] degrees of latitude; but partly the difference [variation] of the needle, and most of all the running seas [currents], which at that time ran north-west, had drawn us to this new danger, had not GOD sent us this wind, which at once waxed larger [veered] and restored us to our right course.

These running seas [currents] be so perilous that they deceive the most part of the Governors [pilots of the caracks] and some be somlittle curious, contenting themselves with ordinary experience that they care not to seek out any means to know when they swerve, neither by the compass nor by any other trial.

The first sign of land was certain fowls [birds] which they knew to be of India. The second was boughs of palms and sedges. The third, snakes swimming on the water, and a substance which they call by the name of a coin of money, as broad and as round as a groat, wonderfully printed and stamped of Nature like unto some coin. And these two last