This was the signal agreed upon for the discovery of land, and it seemed as though their search was at last at an end.

But it was a mistake.

In the afternoon the land that the people of the Nina thought they had seen had disappeared, and the horizon was empty except for a great flight of birds that was seen passing from the north to the south-west.

The Admiral, remembering how often birds had guided the Portuguese in the islands in their possessions, argued that the birds were either going to sleep on land or were perhaps flying from winter, which he assumed to be approaching in the land from whence they came.

He therefore altered.
his course from west to west-south-west.