f them to have escaped alive. And thus they were divinely succored by
the coming of some showers and by the days being cloudy. He determined
from this, if God should give him wind in order to escape from this
suffering, to run to the west some days, and then if he found himself in
any moderation of temperature to return to the south, which was the way
he desired to follow. "May our Lord," says he, "guide me and give me
grace that I may serve Him, and bring pleasing news to your Highnesses."
He says he remembered, being in this burning latitude, that when he came
to the Indies in the past voyages, always when he reached 100 leagues
toward the west from the Azores Islands he found a change in the
temperature from north to south, and for this he wished to go to the west
to reach the said place.

The Admiral must have been on that same parallel or rather meridian, on
which Hanno the Carthaginian was with his fleet, who departing from Cadiz
and going out into the Ocean to the left[328-1] of Lybia or Ethiopia
after thirty days' voyaging toward the south, among other distresses that
he suffered the heat and fire were so intense that it seemed as if they
were roasting; they heard such thundering and lightning that their ears
pained them and their eyes were blinded and it appeared no otherwise than
as if flames of fire fell from heaven. Amianus narrates this--a Greek
historian, a follower of the truth, and very famous--in the _History of
India_ near the end, and Ludovico Celio quotes it in Book I., ch. XXII.,
of the _Lectiones Antiguas_.[329-1] Returning to these days of toil:--

Saturday, which they counted July 14, the Guards[329-2] being on the left
hand, he says the _North_ was in seven degrees: he saw black and white
jays,[329-3] which are birds that do not go far from land, and from this
he considered it a sign of land. He was sick at this point of the
journey, from gout and from not sleeping; but because of this he did not
cease to watch and work with great care and diligence.

Sunday and Monday, they saw the same birds and more swallows, and some
fish appeared which they called _botos_,[329-4] which are little smaller
than great calves, and which have the head very blunt. The Admiral says
here incidentally that the Azores Islands which in ancient times were
called Caseterides,[329-5] were situated at the end of the fifth
clime.[329-6]

Thursday, July 19, there was such intense and ardent heat that they
thought the men