ACROSS THE ISTHMUS
The way home--Sufferings and adventures
At "about Ten a Clock" in the morning of 17th April 1681, the mutineers
went over the side into their "Lanch and Canoas, designing for the River
Santa Maria, in the Gulf of St Michael." "We were in number," says
Dampier, who was of the party, "44 white Men who bore Arms, a _Spanish
Indian_, who bore Arms also; and two _Moskito Indians_," who carried
pistols and fish spears. Lionel Wafer "was of Mr Dampier's Side in that
Matter," and acted as surgeon to the forty-seven, until he met with his
accident. They embarked in the ship's launch or long boat, one canoa
"and another Canoa which had been sawn asunder in the middle, in order
to have made Bumkins, or Vessels for carrying water, if we had not
separated from our Ship." This old canoa they contrived to patch
together. For provisions they brought with them "so much Flower as we
could well carry"; which "Flower" "we" had been industriously grinding
for the last three days. In addition to the "Flower" they had "rubbed up
20 or 30 pound of Chocolate with Sugar to sweeten it." And so provided,
they hoisted their little sails and stood in for the shore. "The Sea
Breeze came in strong" before they reached the land, so that they had to
cut up an old dry hide to make a close-fight round the launch "to keep
the Water out." They took a small timber barque the next morning, and
went aboard her, and sailed her over to Gorgona, where they scrubbed
her bottom. They learned from their prisoners that the Spaniards were
on the alert, eagerly expecting them, and cruising the seas with fast
advice boats to get a sight of them. Three warships lay at Panama, ready
to hunt them whenever the cruisers brought news of their whereabouts. A
day or two later, the pirates saw "two great ships," with many guns in
their ports, slowly beating to the southward in search of their company.
The heavy rain which was falling kept the small timber barque hidden,
while the pirates took the precautions of striking sail, and rowing
close in shore. "If they had seen and chased us," the pirates would have
landed, trusting to the local Indians to make good their escape over the
isthmus.
After twelve days of sailing they anchored about twenty miles from the
San Miguel Gulf, in order to clean their arms, and dry their clothes and
powder, before proceeding up the river, by the way they had come. The
next morning they set sail into the Gulf, and anchored off an island,
intending to search the river's mouth for Spaniards before adventuring
farther. As they had feared, a large Spanish man-of-war lay anchored at
the river's mouth, "close by the shore," with her guns commanding the
entrance. Some of her men could be seen upon the beach, by the door of a
large tent, made of the ship's lower canvas. "When the Canoas came
aboard with this News," says Dampier, "some of our Men were a little
dis-heartned; but it was no more than I ever expected." An hour or two
later they took one of the Spaniards from the ship and learned from him
that the ship carried twelve great guns, and that three companies of
men, with small arms, would join her during the next twenty-four hours.
They learned also that the Indians of that district were friendly to the
Spaniards. Plainly the pirates were in a dangerous position. "It was not
convenient to stay longer there," says Dampier. They got aboard their
ship without loss of time, and ran out of the river "with the Tide of
Ebb," resolved to get ashore at the first handy creek they came to.
Early the next morning they ran into "a small Creek within two Keys, or
little Islands, and rowed up to the Head of the Creek, being about a
Mile up, and there we landed May 1, 1681." The men flung their food and
clothes ashore, and scuttled their little ship, so that she sank at her
moorings. While they packed their "Snap-sacks" with flour, chocolate,
canisters of powder, beads, and whittles for the Indians, their slaves
"struck a plentiful Dish of Fish" for them, which they presently
broiled, and ate for their breakfasts. Some of the men scouted on ahead
for a mile or two, and then returned with the news that there were no
immediate dangers in front of them. Some of the pirates were weak and
sick, and "not well able to march." "We," therefore, "gave out, that if
any Man faultred in the Journey over Land he must expect to be shot to
death; for we knew that the Spaniards would soon be after us, and one
Man falling into their hands might be the ruin of us all, by giving an
account of our strength and condition: yet this would not deter 'em from
going with us."
At three that afternoon they set out into the jungle, steering a N.E.
course "by our Pocket Compasses." The rain beat upon them all the rest
of that day, and all the night long, a drenching and steady downpour,
which swamped the "small Hutts" they contrived to patch together. In the
morning they struck an old Indian trail, no broader than a horse-girth,
running somewhat to the east. They followed it through the forest till
they came to an Indian town, where the squaws gave them some corn-drink
or miscelaw, and sold them a few fowls and "a sort of wild Hogs." They
hired a guide at this village, "to guide us a day's march into the
Countrey." "He was to have for his pains a Hatchet, and his Bargain was
to bring us to a certain Indians habitation, who could speak Spanish."
They paid faithfully for the food the Indians gave them, and shared "all
sorts of our Provisions in common, because none should live better than
others," and so stand a better chance of crossing the isthmus. When they
started out, after a night's rest, one of the pirates, being already
sick of the march, slipped away into the jungle, and was seen no more.
They found the Spanish-speaking Indian in a bad mood. He swore that he
knew no road to the North Sea, but that he could take them to Cheapo, or
to Santa Maria, "which we knew to be Spanish Garrisons: either of them
at least 20 miles out of our way." He was plainly unwilling to have any
truck with them, for "his discourse," was in an angry tone, and he "gave
very impertinent answers" to the questions put to him. "However we were
forced to make a virtue of necessity, and humour him, for it was neither
time nor place to be angry with the Indians; all our lives lying in
their hand." The pirates were at their wits' end, for they lay but a few
miles from the guard ship, and this surly chief could very well set the
Spaniards on them. They tempted him with green and blue beads, with gold
and silver, both in the crude and in coin, with beautiful steel axe
heads, with machetes, "or long knives"; "but nothing would work on him."
The pirates were beginning to despair, when one of them produced "a
Sky-coloured Petticoat," and placed it about the person of the chief's
favourite wife. How he had become possessed of such a thing, and whether
it came from a Hilo beauty, and whether she gave it as a love token, on
the ship's sailing, cannot now be known. It may have been an article
brought expressly from Jamaica for the fascination of the Indians. But
_honi soit qui mal y pense_. The truth of the matter will never be
learned. It is sufficient that the man produced it in the very nick of
time, and laid the blue tissue over the copper-coloured lady. She was so
much pleased with it "that she immediately began to chatter to her
Husband, and soon brought him into a better Humour." He relented at
once, and said that he knew the trail to the North Sea, and that he
would gladly guide them thither were a cut upon his foot healed. As he
could not go himself he persuaded another Indian to guide them "2 Days
march further for another Hatchet." He tried hard to induce the party to
stay with him for the rest of the day as the rain was pouring down in
torrents. "But our business required more haste, our Enemies lying so
near us, for he told us that he could go from his house aboard the
Guard-Ship in a Tides time; and this was the 4th day since they saw us.
So we marched 3 Miles further and then built Hutts, where we stayed all
Night," with the thatch dripping water on to them in a steady trickle.
On taking to the road again, wet and starving as they were, they found
themselves in a network of rivers, some thirty of which they had to
wade, during the day's march. The heavy rain drenched them as they
clambered along across the jungle. They had but a little handful of fire
that night, so that they could not dry nor warm themselves. They
crouched about the "funk of green-wood," shivering in the smoke, chewing
bullets to alleviate their hunger. They slept there in great misery,
careless of what happened to them. "The Spaniards were but seldom in our
thoughts," says Dampier, for the pirates thought only of guides and
food, and feared their own Indian servants more than the enemy. A watch
of two pirates kept a guard all that night, with orders to shoot any
Indian who showed a sign of treachery. They rose before it was light and
pushed on into the woods, biting on the bullet, or the quid, to help
them to forget their hunger. By ten o'clock they arrived at the house of
a brisk young Indian, who had been a servant to the Bishop of Panama,
the man who gave the gold ring to Sawkins. Here they had a feast of yams
and sweet potatoes, boiled into a broth with monkey-meat, a great
comfort to those who were weak and sickly. They built a great fire in
one of the huts, at which they dried their clothes, now falling to
pieces from the continual soakings. They also cleaned their rusty
gun-locks, and dried their powder, talking cheerily together, about the
fire, while the rain roared upon the thatch. They were close beside the
Rio Congo "and thus far," says Dampier, the most intelligent man among
them, "we might have come in our Canoa, if I could have persuaded them
to it."
As they sat in the hut, in the warmth of the blaze, that rainy May day,
Lionel Wafer met with an accident. He was sitting on the ground, beside
one of the pirates, who was drying his powder, little by little, half a
pound at a time, in a great silver dish, part of the plunder of the
cruise. "A careless Fellow passed by with his Pipe lighted," and dropped
some burning crumb of tobacco on to the powder, which at once blew up.
It scorched Wafer's knee very terribly, tearing off the flesh from the
bone, and burning his leg from the knee to the thigh. Wafer, who was the
surgeon of the party, had a bag full of salves and medicines. He managed
to dress his wounds, and to pass a fairly comfortable night, "and being
unwilling to be left behind by my Companions, I made hard shift to jog
on, and bear them Company," when camp was broken at daybreak.
Lame as he was, he kept up with his mates all that day, fording rivers
"several times," and crossing country which would tax the strongest man,
in good condition. "The last time we forded the River, it was so deep,
that our tallest Men stood in the deepest place, and handed the sick,
weak and short Men"; by which act of comradeship "we all got over safe."
Two of the pirates, "Robert Spratlin and William Bowman," could get no
farther, and were left behind at the river. Dampier notes that his
"Joint of Bambo, which I stopt at both Ends, closing it with Wax, so as
to keep out any Water," preserved his "Journal and other Writings from
being wet," though he had often to swim for it.
Drenched and tired, they pitched their huts by the river-bank, poor
Wafer in torment from his knee, and the rest of them hungry and cold.
They had hardly finished their huts, when the river came down in a great
wall of water, some sudden flood, due to a cloud-burst higher up. The
flood sucked away their huts, and forced them to run to higher ground.
They passed that night "straggling in the Woods, some under one Tree,
some under another," with the thunder roaring overhead, and the
lightning making a livid brightness all about them. The rain fell in
torrents, and the pirates were far too wretched to keep watch. "So our
Slaves, taking Opportunity, went away in the Night; all but one, who was
hid in some hole, and knew nothing of their design, or else fell
asleep." Among these slaves was a black man, Lionel Wafer's assistant,
who carried the salves and medicaments. He took these with him when he
slunk away, nor did he forget the "Chirurgeon's Gun and all his Money."
He left poor Wafer destitute there, in the forest, "depriv'd of
wherewithal to dress my sore."
In the morning, they found that the river had fallen, but not so much as
they had hoped. It was still too deep to ford, and the current ran very
swiftly, but Dampier and some other swimmers managed to swim across.
They then endeavoured to get a line over, by which to ferry the men who
could not swim, and the arms and powder they had left on the other
bank. They decided to send a man back with a line, with instructions to
pass the goods first, and then the men. "One George Gayny took the end
of a Line and made it fast about his Neck, and left the other end
ashore, and one Man stood by the Line, to clear it away to him." When
Gayny was about half way across, the line, which was kinky with the wet,
got entangled. The man who was lighting it out checked it a moment to
take out the kink, or to clear it. The check threw Gayny on his back,
"and he that had the Line in his hand," instead of slacking away, or
hauling in, so as to bring Gayny ashore, "threw it all into the River
after him, thinking he might recover himself." The stream was running
down with great fierceness. Gayny had a bag of 300 dollars on his back,
and this bag, with the weight of the line, dragged him under. He was
carried down, and swept out of sight "and never seen more by us." "This
put a period to that contrivance," adds Dampier grimly.
As they had no wish to emulate poor Gayny, they sought about "for a Tree
to fell across the River." They cut it down, as soon as they had found
it, "and it reached clean over." The goods and pirates were then crossed
in safety. All hands soon forgot poor Gayny, for they came across a
plantain walk in a clearing, and made a good breakfast, and stripped it
of every fruit. They dismissed their guide here, with the gift of an axe
head, and hired an old Indian to guide them farther towards the North
Sea. The next day they reckoned themselves out of danger, and set forth
cheerily.
For the last two days Wafer had been in anguish from his burnt knee. As
the pirates made ready to leave their bivouac, on the tenth morning of
the march, he declared that he could not "trudge it further through
Rivers and Woods," with his knee as it was. Two other pirates who were
broken with the going, declared that they, also, were too tired out to
march. There was no talk, among the rest of the band, about shooting the
weary ones, according to the order they had made at starting. Instead of
"putting them out of their misery," they "took a very kind Leave,"
giving the broken men such stores as they could spare, and telling them
to keep in good heart, and follow on when they had rested.
One of Wafer's comrades on this occasion was "Mr Richard Jopson, who had
served an Apprenticeship to a Druggist in London. He was an ingenious
Man, and a good Scholar; he had with him a Greek Testament which he
frequently read, and would translate _extempore_ into _English_, to such
of the Company as were dispos'd to hear him." The other weary man was
John Hingson, a mariner. They watched their mates march away through the
woods, and then turned back, sick at heart, to the shelter of the huts,
where the Indians looked at them sulkily, and flung them green
plantains, "as you would Bones to a Dog." One of the Indians made a mess
of aromatic herbs and dressed Wafer's burn, so that, in three weeks'
time, he could walk.
Dampier's party marched on through jungle, wading across rivers, which
took them up to the chest, staggering through swamps and bogs, and
clambering over rotten tree trunks, and across thorn brakes. They were
wet and wretched and half starved, for their general food was macaw
berries. Sometimes they killed a monkey, once Dampier killed a turkey,
and once they came to a plantain patch where "we fed plentifully on
plantains, both ripe and green." Their clothes were rotted into shreds,
their boots were fallen to pieces, their feet were blistered and raw,
their legs were mere skinless ulcers from the constant soaking. Their
faces were swelled and bloody from the bites of mosquitoes and
wood-ticks. "Not a Man of us but wisht the Journey at an End." Those who
have seen "Bad Lands," or what is called "timber," or what is called
"bush," will know what the party looked like, when, on the twenty-second
day, they saw the North Sea. The day after that they reached the Rio
Conception, and drifted down to the sea in some canoas, to an Indian
village, built on the beach "for the benefit of Trade with the
Privateers." About nine miles away, the Indians told them, was a French
privateer ship, under one Captain Tristian, lying at La Sounds Key. They
stayed a night at the village, and then went aboard the French ship,
which was careened in a creek, with a brushwood fire on her side,
cleaning away her barnacles for a roving cruise. Here they parted with
their Indian guides, not without sorrow, for it is not pleasant to say
"So Long" to folk with whom one has struggled, and lived, and suffered.
"We were resolved to reward them to their hearts' Content," said
Dampier, much as a cowboy, at the end of the trail, will give sugar to
his horse, as he bids him good-bye. The pirates spent their silver
royally, buying red, blue and green beads, and knives, scissors, and
looking-glasses, from the French pirates. They bought up the entire
stock of the French ship, but even then they felt that they had not
rewarded their guides sufficiently. They therefore subscribed a
half-dollar piece each, in coin, as a sort of makeweight. With the toys,
and the bags of silver, the delighted Indians passed back to the
isthmus, where they told golden stories of the kind whites, so that the
Indians of the Main could not do enough for Wafer, and for the four
pirates left behind on the march.
Dampier's party had marched in all 110 miles, over the most damnable and
heart-breaking country which the mind of man can imagine. They had
marched "heavy," with their guns and bags of dollars; and this in the
rainy season. They had starved and suffered, and shivered and agonised,
yet they had lost but two men, poor Gayny, who was drowned, and
(apparently) one who had slipped away on the third day of the march.
This man may have been the Spanish Indian. A note in Ringrose's
narrative alludes to the capture of one of Dampier's party by the
Spanish soldiers, and this may have been the man meant.
Two days later, when the Indian guides had gone, and the privateer was
fit for the sea, they set sail for "the rendezvous of the fleet," which
had been fixed for Springers' Key "another of the Samballoes Isles."
Perhaps the English pirates hove up the anchor, the grand privilege of
the guests, aboard ship, to the old anchor tune, with its mournful and
lovely refrain--
"I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid."
The old band of never-strikes were outward bound on another foray.
As for Wafer, and his two companions, they stayed with the Indians for
some days, living on plantains (given very grudgingly), and wondering
whether the Indians would kill them. The natives were kindly, as a rule,
to the French and English, but it was now the rainy season, when they
liked to stay in their huts, about their fires. The pirates "had in a
Manner awed the Indian guides they took ... and made them go with them
very much against their Wills." The Indians had resented this act of the
pirates, and as days went by, and the guides did not return, they judged
that the white men had killed them. They prepared "a great Pile of Wood
to burn us," says Wafer, meaning to avenge their fellows, whom they "had
supposed dead." But a friendly old chief dissuaded them from this act, a
few hours before the intended execution.
While the three were living thus, in doubt whether they would be
speared, or held as slaves, or sold to the Spaniards, the two pirates,
Spratlin and Bowman, who had been left behind at the Rio Congo, arrived
at the village. They had had a terrible journey together, "among the
wild Woods and Rivers," wandering without guides, and living on roots
and plantains. On their way, they had come upon George Gayny "lying dead
in a Creek where the Eddy had driven him ashore," "with the Rope twisted
about him, and his Money at his Neck." They left the body where it lay,
with its sack of silver dollars for which the poor man had come so far,
and suffered so bitterly. They had no use for dollars at that time
"being only in care how to work their way through a wild un-Known
Country."
After a time, the Indians helped the five men a two days' march on their
journey, and then deserted them, leaving them to find the path by
themselves, with no better guide than a pocket compass. While crossing a
river by the bole of a fallen tree, the man Bowman "a weakly Man, a
Taylor by Trade," slipped into the current, and was carried off, with
"400 Pieces of Eight" in his satchel. He was luckier than poor Gayny,
for he contrived to get out. In time they reached the North Sea, and
came to La Sounds Key, according to the prophecy of an Indian wizard.
Here they found Dampier's sloop, and rejoined their comrades, to the
great delight of all hands. "Mr Wafer wore a clout about him, and was
painted like an Indian," so that "'twas the better Part of an Hour,
before one of the Crew cry'd out Here's our Doctor." There was a great
feast that night at La Sounds Key, much drinking of rum and firing of
small arms, and a grand ringing of bells in honour of the happy return.
In spite of all they could do, poor Mr Jopson, or Cobson, only lived for
three or four days after he reached the ship. "His Fatigues, and his
Drenching in the Water" had been too much for the poor man. He lay
"languishing" in his cot for a few days, babbling of the drugs of
Bucklersbury, and thumbing his Greek Testament, and at last passed in
his checks, quietly and sadly, and "died there at La Sounds Key." They
buried the poor man in the sands, with very genuine sorrow, and then
bade the Indians adieu, and gave their dead mate a volley of guns, and
so set sail, with the colours at half-mast, for "the more Eastern Isles
of the Samballoes."
As for Captain Bartholomew Sharp, in the ship the _Trinity_, he
continued to sail the South Seas with the seventy pirates left to him.
Some days after Dampier's party sailed, he took a Guayaquil ship, called
the _San Pedro_, which he had taken fourteen months before off Panama.
Aboard her he found nearly 40,000 pieces of eight, besides silver bars,
and ingots of gold. He also took a great ship called the _San Rosario_,
the richest ship the buccaneers ever captured. She had many chests of
pieces of eight aboard her, and a quantity of wine and brandy. Down in
her hold, bar upon bar, "were 700 pigs of plate," rough silver from the
mines, not yet fitted for the Lima mint. The pirates thought that this
crude silver was tin, and so left it where it lay, in the hold of the
_Rosario_ "which we turned away loose into the sea," with the stuff
aboard her. One pig of the 700 was brought aboard the pirates "to make
bullets of." About two-thirds of it was "melted and squandered," but
some of it was left long afterwards, when the _Trinity_ touched at
Antigua. Here they gave what was left to "a Bristol man," probably in
exchange for a dram of rum. The Bristol man took it home to England "and
sold it there for £75 sterling." "Thus," said Ringrose, "we parted with
the richest booty we got in the whole voyage." Captain Bartholomew Sharp
was responsible for the turning adrift of all this silver. Some of the
pirates had asked leave to hoist it aboard the _Trinity_. But it chanced
that, aboard the _Rosario_, was a Spanish lady, "the beautifullest
Creature" that the "Eyes" of Captain Sharp ever beheld. The amorous
captain was so inflamed by this beauty that he paid no attention to
anything else.
In a very drunken and quarrelsome condition, the pirates worked the
_Trinity_ round the Horn, and so home to Barbadoes. They did not dare to
land there, for one of the King's frigates, H.M.S. _Richmond_, was lying
at Bridgetown, and the pirates "feared lest the said frigate should
seize us." They bore away to Antigua, where Ringrose, and "thirteen
more," shipped themselves for England. They landed at Dartmouth on the
26th of March 1682. A few more of the company went ashore at Antigua,
and scattered to different haunts. Sharp and a number of pirates landed
at Nevis, from whence they shipped for London. The ship the _Trinity_
was left to seven of the gang who had diced away all their money. What
became of her is not known.
Sharp and a number of his men were arrested in London, and tried for
piracy, but the Spanish Ambassador, who brought the charge, was without
evidence and could not obtain convictions. They pleaded that "the
Spaniards fired at us first," and that they had acted only in
self-defence, so they 'scaped hanging, though Sharp admits that they
"were very near it." Three more of the crew were laid by the heels at
Jamaica, and one of these was "wheedled into an open confession," and
condemned, and hanged. "The other two stood it out, and escaped for want
of witnesses."
Of the four men so often quoted in this narrative, only one, so far as
we know, died a violent death. This was Basil Ringrose, who was shot at
Santa Pecaque a few years later. It is not known how Dampier, Wafer, and
Sharp died, but all lived adventurously, and went a-roving, for many
years after the _Trinity_ dropped her anchor off Antigua.
They were of that old breed of rover whose port lay always a little
farther on; a little beyond the sky-line. Their concern was not to
preserve life, "but rather to squander it away"; to fling it, like so
much oil, into the fire, for the pleasure of going up in a blaze. If
they lived riotously let it be urged in their favour that at least they
lived. They lived their vision. They were ready to die for what they
believed to be worth doing. We think them terrible. Life itself is
terrible. But life was not terrible to them; for they were comrades; and
comrades and brothers-in-arms are stronger than life. Those who "live at
home at ease" may condemn them. They are free to do so. The old
buccaneers were happier than they. The buccaneers had comrades, and the
strength to live their own lives. They may laugh at those who, lacking
that strength, would condemn them with the hate of impotence.