The sailors are, therefore, quieted upon this head.
SIGNS OF LAND.
In the morning of the same day they catch a crab, from which Columbus infers that they cannot be more than eighty leagues distant from land.

The 18th, they see many birds, and a cloud in the distance; and that night they expect to see land.

On the 19th, in the morning, comes a pelican (a bird not usually seen twenty leagues from the coast); in the evening, another; also drizzling rain without wind, a certain sign, as the diary says, of proximity to land.
The admiral, however, will not beat about for land, as he concludes that the land which these various natural phenomena give token of, can only be islands, as indeed it proved to be.

He will see them on his return; but now he must press on to the Indies.

This determination shows his strength of mind, and indicates the almost scientific basis on which his great resolve reposed.
CONSPIRACY AMONG THE MEN.
Accordingly, he was not to be diverted from the main design by any partial success, though by this time he knew well the fears of his men, some of whom had already come to the conclusion, "that it would be their best plan to throw him quietly into the sea, and say he unfortunately fell in, while he stood absorbed in looking at the stars." Indeed, three days after he had resolved to pass on to the Indies, we find him saying, for Las Casas gives his words, "Very needful for me was this contrary wind, for the people were very much tormented with the idea that there were no winds on these seas that could take them back to Spain." HIS DETERMINATION TO PROCEED.
On they go, having signs occasionally in the presence of birds and grass and fish that land must be near; but land does not come.