LIFE A N D V O Y A G E S
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[BOOK V I I .
came entangled in the most perplexed navigation, in which he was exposed to continual perils and difficulties from sand-banks, coun ter currents, and sunken rocks.
The ships were compelled, in a
manner, to grope their way, with men stationed at the mast-head, and the lead continually going.
Sometimes they were obliged to
shift their course, within the hour, to all points of the compass; sometimes they were straitened in a narrow channel, where it was necessary to lower all sail, and tow the vessels out, lest they should run aground ; notwithstanding all which precautions, they frequently touched upon sand-banks, and were extricated with great difficulty.
The variableness of the weather added to the
embarrassment of the navigation; though after a little while it began to assume some method in its very caprices.
In the morn
ing the wind rose in the east with the sun, and following his course through the day, died away at sunset in the west.
Heavy clouds
gathered with the approach of evening, sending forth sheets of lightning, and distant peals of thunder, and menacing a furious tempest; but as the moon rose, the whole mass broke away, part melting in a shower, and part dispersing by a breeze which sprang up from the land. There was much in the character of the surrounding scenery to favor the idea of Columbus, that he was in the Asiatic archipe lago.
As the ships glided along the smooth and glassy canals
which separated these verdant islands, the magnificence of their vegetation, the soft odors wafted from flowers, and blossoms, and aromatic shrubs, and the splendid plumage of the scarlet cranes, or rather flamingoes, which abounded in the meadows, and of other tropical birds which fluttered among the groves, resembled what is described of Oriental climes. These islands were generally uninhabited.
They found a