A.D. 



1 579- 



THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



signe in the aire, or in the sea, which they have not 

 written, which have made the voyages heretofore. 

 Wherfore, partly by their owne experience, and pon- 

 dering withall what space the ship was able to make 

 [II. ii. ioo.] with such a winde, and such direction, and partly by 

 the experience of others, whose books and navigations 

 they have, they gesse whereabouts they be, touching 

 degrees of longitude, for of latitude they be alwayes 

 sure : but the greatest and best industry of all is to 

 marke the variation of the needle or compasse, which 

 in the Meridian of the Hand of S. Michael, which is one 

 of the Azores in the latitude of Lisbon, is just North, 

 and thence swarveth towards the East so much, that be- 

 twixt the Meridian aforesayd, and the point of Africa 

 it carrieth three or foure quarters of 32. And againe 

 in the point of Afrike, a little beyond the point that 

 is called Cape das Agulias (in English the needles) it 

 returneth againe unto the North, and that place passed, 

 it swarveth againe toward the West, as it did before 

 proportionally. As touching our first signes, the neerer 

 we came to the people of Afrike, the more strange 

 kindes of fowles appeared, insomuch that when we came 

 within no lesse then thirty leagues (almost an hundred 

 miles) and sixe hundred miles as we thought from any 

 Hand, as good as three thousand fowles of sundry kindes 

 followed our ship : some of them so great that their 

 wings being opened from one point to the other, con- 

 tained seven spannes, as the Mariners sayd. A mar- 

 vellous thing to see how God provided, so that in so 

 wide a sea these fowles are all fat, and nothing wanteth 

 them. The Portugals have named them all according 

 to some propriety which they have : some they call 

 Rushtailes, because their tailes be not proportionable to 

 their bodies, but long and small like a rush, some 

 forked tailes because they be very broad and forked, 

 some Velvet sleeves, because they have wings of the 

 colour of velvet, and bowe them as a man boweth his 

 elbow. This bird is alwayes welcome, for he appeareth 



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