THE BUCCANEERS TIRE OF THE LIFE ON SHORE, AND DETERMINE TO GO AGAIN
TO SEA.
Searching about the place I often discovered little matters, which
I stored in the canoe and brought to our new settlement, such as
axes and hammers, harpoons for striking fish, fragments of cordage,
rope and canvas; and twice I dug up from the ruins, boxes containing
seamen’s clothes, which were very welcome to us all; in one of these
trunks I discovered some Spanish books, including a grammar and
dictionary, and of these I hastened to avail myself, inasmuch as I
saw that a knowledge of this language might soon be of the greatest
service to me. Neither did my companions grudge that I thus applied
much of my time to study, for none of them knew more than a few words
of Spanish, and they were quite aware of the advantage of having one
at least of that party conversant with that tongue.
Thus, time passed away tolerably pleasantly. The season for the
arrival of the ships expected to load with the boucan prepared for
them at the village on the east side of the bay, having passed, and
none of them appearing, we concluded that stragglers from our old
company had succeeded in making their way to Jamaica, Tortugas, and
other islands, and had informed the merchants and planters there of
the attacks of the Spaniards, and the utter ruin of the settlement,
adding, very probably, that they were the sole survivors of the
massacre. It, therefore, became a question with us what to do. The
Frenchmen were for journeying along the coast to the westward, and
then watching an opportunity to go across to Tortugas; but Stout Jem
told them they might do so if they pleased, but he would prefer an
island where his own countrymen had something to say in matters, an
opinion which the rest of the English, as well as the Dutchmen and
the Indians, who do not love the French, joined in very cordially.
The Frenchmen, who, to do them justice, were very good fellows, on
this gave up their proposition and swore that they would follow Stout
Jem to the death.
‘Say you so, my boys?’ cried the Dover mariner. ‘Then so be it; and
what I propose is this. Here be nine stout men of us, for I count the
Indians as good as white blood. Our peaceful trade in beef and hides,
hath been ruined by these accursed Spaniards, so I vote for the sea
again.’
This proposal meeting with a clamour of approbation, Stout Jem flung
aloft his hat.
‘We have had enough of the shore this bout, mates,’ quoth he. ‘I want
to hear the wind whistle through tarry ropes again, and feel a stout
ship dancing under my feet.’
‘Yah, yah,’ said the Hollander. ‘We zaal be Zee Roovers once more;’
and all the company flung up their hats like our leader, and swore
that they would take deep vengeance on Jack Spaniard. For my part,
I was well pleased, for I felt I was a sailor, and that I had no
business to be following a hunter’s life ashore. I had not very much
taste for shooting bullocks, and still less for breaking them up,
cooking and storing them; and, although I had always cheerfully taken
my turn to watch the boucan fire, my mind would often stray away upon
the ocean, and I would pant for the fresh sea-breeze, and the dash of
the foaming brine. As for my comrade, Nicky, he was that easy kind of
going man, that he seemed to care very little whether he was on land
or sea. He worked, ate, drank, sang and slept, and then rose merrily
next day to go through the same routine. But Stout Jem, who was the
life and soul, as well as the captain of our party, was a sailor all
over. He had been many years in the Caribbean sea, was a good pilot,
understood every current, and every indication of the weather; and
moreover, knew by heart every buccaneering trick for easing of their
cargoes the treasure-ships of the Dons.
But before we could go to sea, we must have a vessel; and saving the
canoe, which was hardly fit for a cruiser we were as unprovided as
though we lived on the top of a mountain. There was nothing therefore
for it, as we could not go in a ship to the Spaniards, but to wait
until the Spaniards should come in a ship to us, that is to say,
in such a small ship as we could master, and afterwards manage. We
might indeed have not found much difficulty in entering an English
privateer, many of whom we knew were hovering on the coast; but being
acquainted with each other well, we preferred in the first place to
capture such a small craft as we could man, afterwards making such
additions to our crew as might from time to time be resolved on. In
the meanwhile, we continued to hunt and prepare the flesh of wild
cattle and boars, so that we should have a good stock of provisions
when we were ready to go to sea.
Being, as I have said, always fonder of water than land, I often
induced the Mosquito Indians to allow me to go with them in their
canoe, when they went to strike fish and manatee. Generally the
Indians permit no one to accompany them in these expeditions, and
if they are forced to allow a white man into the canoe, they will
purposely miss their aim at every fish or animal they strike, and so
return empty handed. However, I being a great favourite with Blue
Peter, who had indeed saved my life in the fever; and losing no
opportunity, by such petty gifts as I had it in my power to make, of
showing my gratitude, he made no objections to my accompanying him
and his comrade in many of their expeditions.
We used to start before sunrise, Blue Peter in the bows of the canoe,
and Jack in the stern, both paddling quickly, while I sat amidships
in the bottom. No Europeans I ever saw can paddle so silently,
swiftly, and surely as the Indians on the Mosquito coast. They hold
the shaft of the paddle almost upright, never touching the gunwale
therewith, or splashing rudely in the water. On the contrary, the
broad part of the paddle dips as clean as a knife, and the canoe
glides with a perfectly smooth and rapid motion, so that, did you
not observe how fast the water ripples by, you would hardly think
you were moving at all. When pursuing the manatee, our usual game,
the head of the canoe was turned up the creek, to the higher banks,
where the shore was sedgy and low, where the mangroves reared their
dismal groves, and where, the water gradually becoming brackish and
muddy, there is found floating and waving from the banks, the long
narrow-bladed grass on which the manatee loves to feed. The creature
we hunted is a harmless beast, like a great seal. It is a misfortune
for himself that he has tender white flesh, tasting like veal, and
that his skin makes very good thongs and straps, which the Buccaneers
use for divers purposes. Were it not so, he might float unmolested
in the warm muddy water, nibbling the streaming grass, as the lazy
current carries his heavy form slowly up and down the mangrove
canals, twinkling his little pig-like eyes, and anxiously jerking his
great stupid-looking head, if a cayman rolls with a splash from the
muddy bank into the river, or a squatting flock of wild-ducks rise
with a whirr from the sedgy surface of a neighbouring pool.
But the poor manatee, being good to eat, must submit to be harpooned
and eaten. When we came to the feeding-ground which he loves, the
Indians would paddle with double caution, and Blue Peter, who was
the striker, would carefully examine his harpoon, and see that it
lay convenient to his hand. The spear used for capturing the manatee
is about eight feet long. The iron barb, a heavy and sharp piece of
metal, is attached to the thicker end, and to the other is fastened
a circular knob called the bobwood, round which is wound a strong
line, one end of which is fast to the bobwood, the other to the iron
of the harpoon. When the weapon is flung, the barb alone sinks into
the creature’s flesh, the staff coming unloosed from the iron, and
the line rapidly unwinding from the bobwood, as the stricken creature
dives in its agony and fear. The Indians then paddle after the staff,
and having seized it, gradually wear out the strength of the game,
and kill it.
I shall not soon forget the first manatee hunt I saw. We embarked at
early dawn, and glided silently along the green shore, from which the
mist of the night was lifting and rolling in white clouds far up the
mountains. After long skirting the mangrove wood, we turned from the
main channel into a narrow creek, slipping along in perfect silence.
Listen as I would, I could not even hear the water at the canoe’s
bow, her mould was so perfect, and so steady the strokes which
propelled her. The drip of the water from the paddles, as they were
lifted, alone made a slight tinkling sound. The sea-breeze had not
yet begun to blow, and the sun came down scorchingly upon the tangled
wood and the green water, the surface of which glanced like bright,
clear oil. Presently Blue Peter laid his paddle noiselessly down,
and took up the harpoon. I looked anxiously ahead. Clustered round
the trunk of a vast mangrove, which rose up out of the water, there
was a tangled heap of soaking grass and weeds. The kneeling Indian
crouched as if he were a graven image of ebony or bronze, and I saw
the floating weeds move, and heard a grinding, spluttering sound, as
of a cow grazing. Then the Indian moved a finger of his left hand,
which he had kept outstretched; his comrade at the stern saw the
sign, and a peculiar sweep of the paddle sent the canoe slantingly
towards the weeds. As she diverged from her course, Blue Peter stood
erect, and raising his right arm, with all the muscles swelling out
like knots and lumps of iron, darted the harpoon, as it appeared to
me, into the centre of the moving weeds. Instantly there was a great
splash and plunge, and the canoe rocked upon a wave, which scattered
the floating herbage, so that I saw disappearing in the water the
broad brown back of a creature as large as a cow. Blue Peter, the
instant he struck, sank again upon his knees, and snatching up
the paddle, prepared to move. Meantime I could see nothing of the
harpoon, for it had been carried under water. The Mosquito men then
talked to each other in their own tongue, pointing to the direction
in which the manatee appeared to have dived, and then began to
paddle lustily. About five minutes might have elapsed, when Blue
Peter exclaimed, ‘Ho!—there!’ and pointed. I, looking in the same
direction, descried the staff of the harpoon seeming to fly along the
surface of the water, the round bobwood throwing up a foam two feet
high. Then the Mosquito-men pulled hard in chase. I could never have
thought that their gaunt, brown bodies had so much strength in them.
The muscles of their naked arms and chests strained and swelled, the
paddle-shafts cracked, and the canoe seemed at every stroke to be
lifted out of the water. Still they did not gain upon the harpoon
towed by the manatee, but, on the contrary, rather lost, so that
I began to fear that we would never see either harpoon or quarry;
but, on a sudden, the motion of the former stopped, and it floated
tranquilly upon the water. The manatee, being fatigued, had sunk to
the bottom, and lay there. We now paddled carefully up, and Blue
Peter caught the staff, and began to pull upon the line. Immediately
that the wounded creature felt the smart, it started again. I saw
the line vibrate and stretch out in a direction abeam of the canoe;
but, in a moment, Jack, who held the steering-paddle, swept the
bows round in the direction taken by the manatee, while Blue Peter
fastened the line to the prow of the canoe. There was a jerk or two,
though not so much as I expected, and straightway we began to move
ahead, Peter crouching in the bows, signing to Jack how to steer.
For near a quarter of an hour did the wounded beast drag us through
the water, sometimes so swiftly that the foam whizzed past us—anon
changing his course so suddenly, that had not the canoe been steered
with perfect skill, he would have dragged us under water. Then, his
strength beginning to ebb from him fast, we hauled upon the line,
and gradually closed with our prey, whose blood was now reddening
the water. I pitied the poor creature, as he put his head above the
surface, and grunted and moaned after his fashion, but he was soon
out of his pain. Slipping alongside of the carcass, Blue Peter passed
his long knife around its throat, and after one or two struggles and
plunges, the manatee turned over upon its back, dead. We towed him
ashore, and securing him to a tree, presently paddled off in search
of more game of the same sort.
But upon the whole, I better loved our fishing expeditions than the
hunt of the manatee. The poor defenceless brute always inspired me
with pity. There is a meekness about his face which moves one. He
makes no attempt to turn to bay or show fight, but is slaughtered as
unresistingly as a calf, and the haunts he loves are the muddy and
unwholesome canals among the mangrove swamps. But in spearing fish we
often rowed down the bay to the rocky points and ledges of reef which
formed the outermost horns of the lagoon. There the clear, blue sea,
white spangled by the merry strength of the sea-breeze, stretched
illimitably out, and the everlasting surf flung aloft its clouds of
sparkling spray, high up among the rocks, now and then giving the
bushes a taste of the savour of brine. It was in the still pools and
channels, formed by breakwaters of rock, that the canoe was then
navigated. Let the sea-breeze be blowing, and the surging swells be
tossing in, as hard and fast as they might, there was always calm
water behind the reefs—so calm and so clear! I might think that I was
looking into the swirlings of our trout-pool in the Balwearie Burn,
but for the bright, jagged coral, and the strange sea-weeds at the
bottom, and the still stranger fishes floating, as it were, in pure
mid air, but a fathom down beneath the keel of the canoe. Gliding
over these translucent waters, sometimes scraping the battered side
of our skiff against the rough coral edges; sometimes receiving a
sparkling shower of spray when a bigger wave than ordinary burst
upon the outside reef, the Mosquito men were in their glory. Blue
Peter stood erect in the bow, his black, flashing eyes fixed on
the water as though he would note every scollop in the edge of the
jagged sea-weed, or every wavy ridge on the bed of white sand, and
his long thin fish-spear darting occasionally down into the flood
to be straightway drawn, bending and quivering, back with a noble
fish, writhing and floundering, impaled upon the barbs. Always upon
these expeditions I kept a good look-out seaward, and often mounted
pinnacles of rock that I might have the better view. Once or twice I
saw a sail, apparently set on board a small vessel, slipping quickly
down to the westward, or beating painfully to windward; but the barks
were too far at sea for me to make out aught of their character or
country.
During this period of my sojourn in Hispaniola it was our custom to
spend the evenings together in the principal hut—that which was
first constructed, and which was of an ample bigness. Here, seated
round a great chest, which served for a table, we smoked our pipes,
drank pretty deep draughts of the rich palm wine, and told in turn
stories of our lives and adventures. The hut being only wattled,
and that very imperfectly, the strong land breeze blew through and
through it, causing the flame of our solitary lamp to waver and
flicker, and not unfrequently putting it out altogether. We sat
upon bundles made of our clothes, or heaps of dried grass, and
must, in sooth, have appeared a parcel of strange ragamuffins, with
our faces burnt to mahogany colour by the sun; our hair and beards
long, tangled, and matted; and our clothes, being coarse doublets
and short jackets, cut in uncouth shapes, and often red and greasy
with the blood and fat of the animals which it was our business to
kill. Stout Jem, being reckoned the head and commander of our party,
sat on a kind of settle for a throne, and the rest of us crowded as
near the great chest as we could, the two Mosquito men excepted,
who commonly sat apart squatted on their hams, and speaking to each
other softly in their own tongue. Sometimes we would play dice on
these evenings, not for money, of which we had none, but for the
carcasses of the cattle which we had killed and flayed; but as the
play was always fair and the dice true, it was generally found that
no one either lost or gained much in the long run. It was, however,
the storytelling nights I loved the best. Many of the tales then told
were indeed very vulgar and common, and unworthy of being recorded,
turning solely upon butcheries of the Spaniards at sea, and upon
great seasons of debauch, after a successful cruise, in Tortugas
or Jamaica. Not a few tales were also told of ghosts and omens,
and such extravagances, which the superstitious nature of sailors
causes them to believe and to hearken greedily to. I heard many such
histories both at this time and afterwards, and I design to insert
one here, not because I think it at all credible, but because it is a
very good specimen of the histories of ghosts, phantoms, and other
supernatural appearances which were current among the Buccaneers.
This story was told by Stout Jem very solemnly, and listened to with
no less eagerness; and in recounting it I will endeavour to put the
matter into the narrator’s words, of which, for an uncultivated
seaman, he had a good flow. Stout Jem called his history ‘The Legend
of Foul-Weather Don,’ and to it I will devote the next chapter.