_Andreaeales._--The species of the single genus _Andreaea_ (fig. 14) are
small, dark-coloured mosses growing for the most part in tufts on bare
rocks in alpine and arctic regions. Four species occur on alpine rocks in
Britain. The spore on germination gives rise to a small mass of cells from
which one or more short filaments grow. The filament soon broadens into a
ribbon-shaped thallus, several cells thick, which is closely applied to the
rock. Erect branches may arise from the protonema, and gemmae may be
developed on it. The stem of the plant, which arises in the usual way, has
no conducting strand and the leaves may or may not have midribs. The leaf
grows by a dome-shaped instead of by the usual two-sided initial cell. The
antheridia are long-stalked. The upper portion of the archegonial wall is
carried up as a calyptra on the sporogonium, which, as in _Sphagnum_, has
no seta and is raised on a pseudopodium. The development of the sporogonium
proceeds as in the Bryales, but the dome-shaped archesporium extends over
the summit of the columella and an air-space is wanting. The capsule does
not open by an operculum but by four or six longitudinal slits, which do
not reach either the base or apex. In one exotic species the splits occur
only at the upper part of the capsule, and the terminal cap breaks away.
This isolated example thus appears to approach the Bryales in its mode of
dehiscence.
_Bryales._--In contrast to the preceding two this group includes a very
large number of genera and species. Thus even in Britain between five and
six hundred species belonging to more than one hundred genera are found.
They occur in the most varied situations, on soil, on rocks and trees, and,
in a few instances (_Fontinalis_), in water. Although exhibiting a wide
range in size and in the structural complexity of both generations, they
all conform to a general type, so that _Funaria_, described above, will
serve as a fair example of the group. The protonema is usually filamentous,
and in some of the simplest forms is long-lived, while the small plants
borne on it serve mainly to protect the sexual organs and sporogonia. This
is the case in _Ephemerum_, which grows on the damp soil of clayey fields,
and the plants are even more simply constructed in _Buxbaumia_, which
occurs on soil rich in humus and is possibly partially saprophytic. In this
moss the filamentous protonema is capable of assimilation, but the leaves
of the small plants are destitute of chlorophyll, so that they are
dependent on the protonema. The male plant has no definite stem, and
consists of a single concave leaf protecting the antheridium. The female
plant is rather more highly organized, consisting of a short stem bearing a
few leaves around the group of archegonia. The sporogonium is of large size
and highly organized, though it presents peculiar features in the
peristome. _Buxbaumia_ has been regarded by Goebel as representing a stage
which other mosses have passed, and has been described by him as the
simplest type of moss. In _Ephemerum_ also we may probably regard the
relation of the small plants to the protonema as a primitive one. On the
other hand, in the case of _Ephemeropsis_, which grows on the leaves of
living plants in Java, the high organization of the sporogonium makes it
probable that the persistent protonema is an adaptation to the peculiar
conditions of life. A highly developed protonema provided with leaf-like
assimilating organs is found in _Georgia_, _Diphyscium_ and _Oedipodium_,
all of which show peculiarities in the sporogonium as well. The cells of
the protonema of _Schistostega_, which lives in the shade of caves, are so
constructed as to concentrate the feeble available light on the
chloroplasts.
We may perhaps regard the persistent protonema bearing small leafy plants
as a primitive condition, and look upon those larger plants which remain
unbranched and bear the sexual organs at the apex (e.g. _Schistostega_) as
representing the next stage. From this condition different lines of
specialization in the form and structure of the plant can be recognized. A
large number of mosses stand at about the same grade as _Funaria_, in that
the plants are small, sparingly branched, usually radial, and do not show a
very highly differentiated internal structure. In others the form of the
plant becomes more complex by copious branching and the differentiation of
shoots of different orders. In these cases the shoot system is often more
or less dorsiventral, and the sexual organs are borne on short lateral
branches (e.g. _Thuidium tamariscinum_). The Polytrichaceae, on the other
hand, show a specialization in structure rather than in form. The high
organization of their conducting system has been referred to above, but
though many species are able to exist in relatively dry situations, the
plants are still dependent on the absorption of water by the general
surface. The parallel lamellae of assimilating cells which grow from the
upper surface of the leaf in these and some other mosses probably serve to
retain water in the neighbourhood of the assimilating cells and so prolong
their activity. As common adaptive features in the leaves the occurrence of
papillae or outgrowths of the cell-walls to retain water, and the white
hairlike leaf tips, which assist in protecting the young parts at the apex
of many xerophytic mosses, may be mentioned. The leaves of _Leucobryum_,
which occurs in pale green tufts in shaded woods, show a parallel
adaptation to that found in _Sphagnum_. They are several cells thick, and
the small assimilating cells lie between two layers of empty water-storage
cells, the walls of which are perforated by pores.
With the possible exception of _Archidium_, the sporogonium is throughout
the Bryales constructed on one plan. _Archidium_ is a small moss occurring
occasionally on the soil of wet fields. The protonema is not persistent,
and the plants are well developed, resembling those of _Pleuridium_. The
sporogonium has a small foot and practically no seta, and differs in the
development and structure of its capsule from all other mosses. The spores
are derived from the endothecium, but no distinction of a sterile columella
and an archesporium is established in this, a variable number of its cells
becoming spore-mother-cells while the rest serve to nourish the spores. The
layer of cells immediately around the endothecium becomes the spore-sac,
and an air-space forms between this and the wall of the capsule. The very
large, thin-walled spores escape on the decay of the capsule, which
ruptures the archegonial wall irregularly. On account of the absence of a
columella _Archidium_ is sometimes placed in a distinct group, but since
its peculiarities have possibly arisen by reduction it seems at present
best retained among the Bryales. In all other Bryales there is a definite
columella extending from the base to the apex of the capsule, the
archesporium is derived from the outermost layer of cells of the
endothecium, and an air space is formed between the spore-sac and the wall.
In the Polytrichaceae another air space separates the spore-sac from the
columella. There is great variety in the length of the seta, which is
sometimes practically absent. The apophysis, which may be a more or less
distinct region, usually bears stomata and is the main organ of
assimilation. In the Splachnaceae it is expanded for this purpose, while in
_Oedipodium_ it constitutes most of the long pale stalk which supports the
capsule. A distinct operculum is usually detached by the help of the
annulus, and its removal may leave the mouth of the capsule widely open.
More usually there is a peristome, consisting of one or two series of
teeth, which serves to narrow the opening and in various ways to ensure the
gradual shedding of the spores in dry weather. In most mosses the teeth are
portions of thickened cell-walls but in the Polytrichaceae they are formed
of a number of sclerenchymatous cells. In _Polytrichum_ a membranous
epiphragm stretches across the wide mouth of the capsule between the tips
of the short peristome teeth, and closes the opening except for the
interspaces of the peristome.
In a number of forms, which were formerly grouped together, the capsule
does not open to liberate the spores. These cleistocarpous forms are now
recognized as related to various natural groups, in which the majority of
the species possess an operculum. In such forms as _Phascum_ the columella
persists, and the only peculiarity is in the absence of arrangements for
dehiscence. In _Ephemerum_ [v.04 p.0653] (and the closely related
_Nanomitrium_ which has a small operculum) the columella becomes absorbed
during the development of the spores. Stomata are present on the wall of
the small capsule. Such facts as these suggest that in many cases the
cleistocarpous condition is the result of reduction rather than primitive,
and that possibly the same holds for _Archidium_.
The former subdivision of the Bryales into Musci Cleistocarpi and Musci
Stegocarpi according to the absence or presence of an operculum is thus
clearly artificial. The same holds even more obviously for the grouping of
the stegocarpous forms into those in which the archegonial group terminates
a main axis (acrocarpi) and those in which it is borne on a more or less
developed lateral branch (pleurocarpi). Modern classifications of the
Bryales depend mainly on the construction of the peristome.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.--_Funaria hygrometrica._ Longitudinal section
through the summit of a male branch. (After Sachs.)
e, Leaves.
d, Leaves cut through the mid-ribs.
c, Paraphyses.
b, Antheridia.]
It remains to be considered to what extent the several natural groups of
plants classed together in the Bryophyta can be placed in a phylogenetic
relation to one another. Practically no help is afforded by palaeobotany,
and only the comparison of existing forms can be depended on. The
indications of probable lines of evolution are clearest in the Hepaticae.
The Marchantiales form an obviously natural evolutionary group, and the
same is probably true of the Jungermanniales, although in neither case can
the partial lines of progression within the main groups be said to be quite
clear. Such a form as _Sphaerocarpus_, which has features in common with
the lower Marchantiales, enables us to form an idea of the divergence of
the two groups from a common ancestry. The Anthocerotales, on the other
hand, stand in an isolated position, and recent researches have served to
emphasize this rather than to confirm the relationship with the
Jungermanniales suggested by Leitgeb. The indications of a serial
progression are not so clear in the mosses, but the majority of the forms
may be regarded as forming a great phylogenetic group in the evolution of
which the elaboration of the moss-plant has proceeded until the protonema
appears as a mere preliminary stage to the formation of the plants.
Parallel with the evolution of the gametophyte in form and structure, a
progression can be traced in the sporogonium, although the simplest
sporogonia available for study may owe much of their simplicity to
reduction. The Andreaeales may perhaps be looked on as a divergent
primitive branch of the same stock. On the other hand, the Sphagnales show
such considerable and important differences from the rest of the mosses,
that like the Anthocerotales among the liverworts, they may be regarded as
a group, the relationship of which to the main stem is at least
problematical. Between the Hepaticae, Anthocerotales, Sphagnales and Musci,
there are no connecting forms known, and it must be left as an open
question whether the Bryophyta are a monophyletic or polyphyletic group.
The question of the relationship of the Bryophyta on the one hand to the
Thallophyta and on the other to the Pteridophyta lies even more in the
region of speculation, on slender grounds without much hope of decisive
evidence. In a general sense we may regard the Bryophyta as derived from an
algal ancestry, without being able to suggest the nature of the ancestral
forms or the geological period at which they arose. Recent researches on
those Algae such as _Coleochaete_ which appeared to afford a close
comparison in their alternation of generations with _Riccia_, have shown
that the body resulting from the segmentation of the fertilized ovum is not
so strictly comparable in the two cases as had been supposed. The series of
increasingly complex sporogonia among Bryophytes appears to be most
naturally explained on an hypothesis of progressive sterilization of
sporogenous tissue, such as has been advanced by Bower. On the other hand
there are not wanting indications of reduction in the Bryophyte sporogonium
which make an alternative view of its origin at least possible. With regard
to the relationship of the Bryophyta and Pteridophyta the article on the
latter group should be consulted. It will be sufficient to say in
conclusion that while the alternating generations in the two groups are
strictly comparable, no evidence of actual relationship is yet forthcoming.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.--_Funaria hygrometrica._ (After Goebel.)
A. Longitudinal section of the very young sporogonium (f, f') enclosed in
the archegonial wall (b, h).
B, C. Further stages of the development of the sporogonium (f) enclosed in
the calyptra formed from the archegonial wall (c) and still bearing the
neck (h). The foot of the sporogonium has penetrated into the underlying
tissue of the stem of the moss-plant.]
For further information consult: Campbell, _Mosses and Ferns_ (London,
1906); Engler and Prantl, _Die naturlichen Pflanzenfamilien_, Teil i. Abt.
3 (Leipzig, 1893-1907); Goebel, _Organography of Plants_ (Oxford, 1905).
Full references to the literature of the subject will be found in these
works. For the identification of the British species of liverworts and
mosses the following recent works will be of use: Pearson, _The Hepaticae
of the British Isles_ (London, 1902); Dixon and Jameson, _The Student's
Handbook of British Mosses_ (London, 1896); Braithwaite, _British Moss
Flora_ (London, 1887-1905).
(W. H. L.)
BRZOZOWSKI, THADDEUS (d. 1820), nineteenth general of the Jesuits, was
appointed in succession to Gabriel Gruber on the 2nd of September 1805. In
1801 Pius VII. had given the Jesuits liberty to reconstitute themselves in
north Russia (see JESUITS: _History_), and in 1812 Brzozowski secured the
recognition of the Jesuit college of Polotsk as a university, though he
could not obtain permission to go to Spain to agitate for the recognition
[v.04 p.0654] of the Spanish Jesuits. In 1814 Pius VII., in accordance with
the bull _Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum_, gave to Brzozowski among others
full authority to receive those who desired to enter the society. The
Russian government, however, soon began to be alarmed at the growth of the
Jesuits, and on the 20th of December 1815 published an edict expelling them
from St Petersburg. Brzozowski, having vainly requested to be allowed to
retire to Rome, died on the 5th of February 1820. He is interesting mainly
from the fact that he was general of the Society at the time of its
restoration throughout Europe.
BUBASTIS, the Graecized name of the Egyptian goddess Ubasti, meaning "she
of [the city] Bast" (B;s-t), a city better known by its later name,
P-ubasti, "place of Ubasti"; thus the goddess derived her name Ubasti from
her city (Bast), and in turn the city derived its name P-ubasti from that
of the goddess; the Greeks, confusing the name of the city with that of the
goddess, called the latter Bubastis, and the former also Bubastis (later
Bubastos). Bubastis, capital of the 19th nome of Lower Egypt, is now
represented by a great mound of ruins called Tell Basta, near Zagazig,
including the site of a large temple (described by Herodotus) strewn with
blocks of granite. The monuments discovered there, although only those in
hard stone have survived, are more important than at any other site in the
Delta except Tanis and cover a wider range, commencing with Khufu (Cheops)
and continuing to the thirtieth dynasty.
Ubasti was one of many feline goddesses, figured with the head of a
lioness. In the great development of reverence for sacred animals which
took place after the New Kingdom, the domestic cat was especially the
animal of Bubastis, although it had also to serve for all the other feline
goddesses, owing no doubt to the scarcity and intractability of its
congeners. Her hieratic and most general form was still lioness-headed, but
a popular form, especially in bronze, was a cat-headed women, often holding
in her right hand a lion aegis, i.e. a broad semicircular pectoral
surmounted by the head of a lioness, and on the left arm a basket. The cat
cemetery on the west side of the town consisted of numbers of large brick
chambers, crammed with burnt and decayed mummies, many of which had been
enclosed in cat-shaped cases of wood and bronze. Herodotus describes the
festival of Bubastis, which was attended by thousands from all parts of
Egypt and was a very riotous affair; it has its modern equivalent in the
Moslem festival of the sheikh Said el Badawi at Tanta. The tablet of
Canopus shows that there were two festivals of Bubastis, the great and the
lesser: perhaps the lesser festival was held at Memphis, where the quarter
called Ankhto contained a temple to this goddess. Her name is found on
monuments from the third dynasty onwards, but a great stimulus was given to
her worship by the twenty-second (Bubastite) dynasty and generally by the
increased importance of Lower Egypt in later times. Her character seems to
have been essentially mild and playful, in contrast to Sokhmi and other
feline goddesses. The Greeks equated Ubasti with their Artemis, confusing
her with the leonine Tafne, sister of Shöou (Apollo). The Egyptians
themselves delighted in identifying together goddesses of the most diverse
forms and attributes; but Ubasti was almost indistinguishable in form from
Tafne. The name of her son Iphthimis (Nfr-tm), pronounced Eftem, may mean
"All-good," and, in the absence of other information about him, suggests a
reason why he was identified with Prometheus.
See K. Sethe in Pauly-Wissowa's _Realencyclopädie_; E. Naville, _Bubastis_,
and _Festival Hall of Osorkon II._; Herodotus ii. 67, 137-156; Grenfell and
Hunt, _Hibeh Papyri_, i.
(F. LL. G.)
BUCARAMANGA, a city of Colombia, capital of the department of Santandér,
about 185 m. N.N.E. of Bogotá. Pop. (estimate, 1902) 25,000. It is situated
on the Lebrija river, 3248 ft. above sea-level, in a mountainous country
rich in gold, silver and iron mines, and having superior coffee-producing
lands in the valleys and on the lower slopes. The city is laid out with
wide, straight streets, is well built, and has many public buildings of a
substantial character.
BUCCANEERS, the name given to piratical adventurers of different
nationalities united in their opposition to Spain, who maintained
themselves chiefly in the Caribbean Sea during the 17th century.
The island of Santo Domingo was one of several in the West Indies which had
early in the 16th century been almost depopulated by the oppressive
colonial policy of Spain. Along its coast there were several isolated
establishments presided over by Spaniards, who were deprived of a
convenient market for the produce of the soil by the monopolies imposed by
the mother country. Accordingly English, Dutch and French vessels were
welcomed and their cargoes readily bought. The island, thinned of its
former inhabitants, had become the home of immense herds of wild cattle;
and it became the habit of smugglers to provision at Santo Domingo. The
natives still left were skilled in preserving flesh at their little
establishments called _boucans_. The adventurers learned "boucanning" from
the natives; and gradually Hispaniola became the scene of an extensive and
illicit butcher trade. Spanish monopolies filled the seamen who sailed the
Caribbean with a natural hate of everything Spanish. The pleasures of a
roving life, enlivened by occasional skirmishes with forces organized and
led by Spanish officials, gained upon them. Out of such conditions arose
the buccaneer, alternately sailor and hunter, even occasionally a
planter--roving, bold, unscrupulous, often savage, with an intense
detestation of Spain. As the Spaniards would not recognize the right of
other races to make settlements, or even to trade in the West Indies, the
governments of France, England and Holland would do nothing to control
their subjects who invaded the islands. They left them free to make
settlements at their own risk. Each nation contributed a band of colonists,
who selected the island of St Kitts or St Christopher, in the West Indies,
where the settlers of both nations were simultaneously planted. The English
and French were, however, not very friendly; and in 1629, after the
retirement of several of the former to an adjoining island, the remaining
colonists were surprised and partly dispersed by the arrival of a Spanish
fleet of thirty-nine sail. But on the departure of the fleet the scattered
bands returned, and encouragement was given to their countrymen in Santo
Domingo. For buccaneering had now become a most profitable employment,
operations were extended, and a storehouse secure from the attacks of the
Spaniards was required. The small island of Tortuga (north-west of
Hispaniola) was seized for this purpose in 1630, converted into a magazine
for the goods of the rivals, and made their headquarters, Santo Domingo
itself still continuing their hunting ground. A purely English settlement
directed by a company in London was made at Old Providence, an island in
the Caribbean Sea, now belonging to Colombia. It began a little before
1630, and was suppressed by the Spaniards in 1641.
Spain was unable to take immediate action. Eight years later, however,
watching their opportunity when many buccaneers were absent in the larger
island, the Spaniards attacked Tortuga, and massacred every settler they
could seize. But the others returned; and the buccaneers, now in open
hostility to the Spanish arms, began to receive recruits from every
European trading nation, and for three-quarters of a century became the
scourge of the Spanish-American trade and dominions.
France, throughout all this, had not been idle. She had named the governor
of St Kitts "Governor-General for the French West India Islands," and in
1641 he took possession of Tortuga, expelled all English from the island,
and attempted the same with less success in Santo Domingo. England was
absorbed in the Civil War, and the buccaneers had to maintain themselves as
best they could,--now mainly on the sea.
In 1654 the Spaniards regained Tortuga from the French, into whose hands it
again, however, fell after six years. But this state of affairs was too
insecure even for these rovers, and they would speedily have succumbed had
not a refuge been found for them by the fortunate conquest of Jamaica in
1655 by the navy of the English Commonwealth. These conquests were not made
without the aid of the buccaneers themselves. The taking and re-taking of
Tortuga by the French was always with the assistance of the roving
community; and at the conquest of Jamaica the English navy had the same
influence in its favour. The [v.04 p.0655] buccaneers, in fact, constituted
a mercenary navy, ready for employment against the power of Spain by any
other nation, on condition of sharing the plunder; and they were noted for
their daring, their cruelty and their extraordinary skill in seamanship.
Their history now divides itself into three epochs. The first of these
extends from the period of their rise to the capture of Panama by Morgan in
1671, during which time they were hampered neither by government aid nor,
till near its close, by government restriction. The second, from 1671 to
the time of their greatest power, 1685, when the scene of their operations
was no longer merely the Caribbean, but principally the whole range of the
Pacific from California to Chile. The third and last period extends from
that year onwards; it was a time of disunion and disintegration, when the
independence and rude honour of the previous periods had degenerated into
unmitigated vice and brutality.
It is chiefly during the first period that those leaders flourished whose
names and doings have been associated with all that was really influential
in the exploits of the buccaneers--the most prominent being Mansfield and
Morgan. The floating commerce of Spain had by the middle of the 17th
century become utterly insignificant. But Spanish settlements remained; and
in 1654 the first great expedition on land made by the buccaneers, though
attended by considerable difficulties, was completed by the capture and
sack of New Segovia, on the mainland of America. The Gulf of Venezuela,
with its towns of Maracaibo and Gibraltar, were attacked and plundered
under the command of a Frenchman named L'Ollonois, who performed, it is
said, the office of executioner upon the whole crew of a Spanish vessel
manned with ninety seamen. Such successes removed the buccaneers further
and further from the pale of civilized society, fed their revenge, and
inspired them with an avarice almost equal to that of the original settlers
from Spain. Mansfield indeed, in 1664, conceived the idea of a permanent
settlement upon a small island of the Bahamas, named New Providence, and
Henry Morgan, a Welshman, intrepid and unscrupulous, joined him. But the
untimely death of Mansfield nipped in the bud the only rational scheme of
settlement which seems at any time to have animated this wild community;
and Morgan, now elected commander, swept the whole Caribbean, and from his
headquarters in Jamaica led triumphant expeditions to Cuba and the
mainland. He was leader of the expedition wherein Porto Bello, one of the
best-fortified ports in the West Indies, was surprised and plundered.
This was too much for even the adverse European powers; and in 1670 a
treaty was concluded between England and Spain, proclaiming peace and
friendship among the subjects of the two sovereigns in the New World,
formally renouncing hostilities of every kind. Great Britain was to hold
all her possessions in the New World as her own property (a remarkable
concession on the part of Spain), and consented, on behalf of her subjects,
to forbear trading with any Spanish port without licence obtained.
The treaty was very ill observed in Jamaica, where the governor, Thomas
Modyford (1620-1679), was in close alliance with the "privateers," which
was the official title of the buccaneers. He had already granted
commissions to Morgan and others for a great attack on the Isthmus of
Panama, the route by which the bullion of the South American mines was
carried to Porto Bello, to be shipped to Spain. The buccaneers to the
number of 2000 began by seizing Chagres, and then marched to Panama in
1671. After a difficult journey on foot and in canoes, they found
themselves nearing the shores of the South Sea and in view of the city. On
the morning of the tenth day they commenced an engagement which ended in
the rout of the defenders of the town. It was taken, and, accidentally or
not, it was burnt. The sack of Panama was accompanied by great barbarities.
The Spaniards had, however, removed the treasure before the city was taken.
When the booty was divided, Morgan is accused of having defrauded his
followers. It is certain that the share per man was small, and that many of
the buccaneers died of starvation while trying to return to Jamaica.
Modyford was recalled, and in 1672 Morgan was called home and imprisoned in
the Tower. In 1674 he was allowed to come back to the island as
lieutenant-governor with Lord Vaughan. He had become so unpopular after the
expedition of 1671 that he was followed in the streets and threatened by
the relations of those who had perished. During his later years he was
active in suppressing the buccaneers who had now inconvenient claims on
him.
From 1671 to 1685 is the time of the greatest daring, prosperity and power
of the buccaneers. The expedition against Panama had not been without its
influence. Notwithstanding their many successes in the Caribbean and on
land, including a second plunder of Porto Bello, their thoughts ran
frequently on the great expedition across the isthmus, and they pictured
the South Sea as a far wider and more lucrative field for the display of
their united power.
In 1680 a body of marauders over 300 strong, well armed and provisioned,
landed on the shore of Darien and struck across the country; and the
cruelty and mismanagement displayed in the policy of the Spaniards towards
the Indians were now revenged by the assistance which the natives eagerly
rendered to the adventurers. They acted as guides during a difficult
journey of nine days, kept the invaders well supplied with food, provided
them with canoes, and only left them after the taking of the fort of Santa
Maria, when the buccaneers were fairly embarked on a broad and safe river
which emptied itself into the South Sea. With John Coxon as commander they
entered the Bay of Panama, where rumour had been before them, and where the
Spaniards had hastily prepared a small fleet to meet them. But the valour
of the buccaneers won for them another victory; within a week they took
possession of four Spanish ships, and now successes flowed upon them. The
Pacific, hitherto free from their intrusion, showed many sail of merchant
vessels, while on land opposition south of the Bay of Panama was of little
avail, since few were acquainted with the use of fire-arms. Coxon and
seventy men returned as they had gone, but the others, under Sawkins, Sharp
and Watling, roamed north and south on islands and mainland, and remained
for long ravaging the coast of Peru. Never short of silver and gold, but
often in want of the necessaries of life, they continued their practices
for a little longer; then, evading the risk of recrossing the isthmus, they
boldly cleared Cape Horn, and arrived in the Indies. Again, in 1683,
numbers of them under John Cook departed for the South Sea by way of Cape
Horn. On Cook's death his successor, Edward Davis, undoubtedly the greatest
and most prudent commander who ever led the forces of the buccaneers at
sea, met with a certain Captain Swan from England, and the two captains
began a cruise which was disastrous to the Spanish trade in the Pacific.
In 1685 they were joined in the Bay of Panama by large numbers of
buccaneers who had crossed the isthmus under Townley and others. This
increased body of men required an enlarged measure of adventure, and this
in a few months was supplied by the viceroy of Peru. That officer, seeing
the trade of the colony cut off, supplies stopped, towns burned and raided,
and property harassed by continual raids, resolved by vigorous means to put
an end to it. But his aim was not easily accomplished. In this same year a
Spanish fleet of fourteen sail met, but did not engage, ten buccaneer
vessels which were found in the Bay of Panama.
At this period the power of the buccaneers was at its height. But the
combination was too extensive for its work, and the different nationality
of those who composed it was a source of growing discord. Nor was the dream
of equality ever realized for any length of time. The immense spoil
obtained on the capture of wealthy cities was indeed divided equally. But
in the gambling and debauchery which followed, nothing was more common than
that one-half of the conquerors should find themselves on the morrow in
most pressing want; and while those who had retained or increased their
share would willingly have gone home, the others clamoured for renewed
attacks. The separation of the English and French buccaneers, who together
presented a united front to the Spanish fleet in 1685, marks the beginning
of the third and last epoch in their history.
The brilliant exploits begun by the sack of Leon and Realejo [v.04 p.0656]
by the English under Davis have, even in their variety and daring, a
sameness which deprives them of interest, and the wonderful confederacy is
now seen to be falling gradually to pieces. The skill of Davis at sea was
on one occasion displayed in a seven days' engagement with two large
Spanish vessels, and the interest undoubtedly centres in him. Townley and
Swan had, however, by this time left him, and after cruising together for
some time, they, too, parted. In 1688 Davis cleared Cape Horn and arrived
in the West Indies, while Swan's ship, the "Cygnet," was abandoned as
unseaworthy, after sailing as far as Madagascar. Townley had hardly joined
the French buccaneers remaining in the South Sea ere he died, and the
Frenchmen with their companions crossed New Spain to the West Indies. And
thus the Pacific, ravaged so long by this powerful and mysterious band of
corsairs, was at length at peace.
The West Indies had by this time become hot enough even for the banded
pirates. They hung doggedly along the coasts of Jamaica and Santo Domingo,
but their day was nearly over. Only once again--at the siege of
Carthagena--did they appear great; but even then the expedition was not of
their making, and they were mere auxiliaries of the French regular forces.
After the treachery of the French commander of this expedition a spirit of
unity and despairing energy seemed reawakened in them; but this could not
avert and scarcely delayed the rapidly approaching extinction of the
community.
The French and English buccaneers could not but take sides in the war which
had arisen between their respective countries in 1689. Thus was broken the
bond of unity which had for three-quarters of a century kept the subjects
of the two nations together in schemes of aggression upon a common foe. In
the short peace of 1697-1700 England and France were using all their
influence, both in the Old World and in the New, to ingratiate themselves
into the favour of the king of Spain. With the resumption of hostilities in
1700 and the rise of Spain consequent upon the accession of the French
claimant to the throne the career of the buccaneers was effectually closed.
But the fall of the buccaneers is no more accounted for fully by these
circumstances than is their rise by the massacre of the islanders of Santo
Domingo. There was that in the very nature of the community which, from its
birth, marked it as liable to speedy decline.
The principles which bound the buccaneers together were, first the desire
for adventure and gain, and, in the second place, hatred of the Spaniard.
The first was hardly a sufficient bond of union, among men of different
nationalities, when booty could be had nearly always by private venture
under the colours of the separate European powers. Of greater validity was
their second and great principle of union, namely, that they warred not
with one another, nor with every one, but with a single and a common foe.
For while the buccaneer forces included English, French and Dutch sailors,
and were complemented occasionally by bands of native Indians, there are
few instances during the time of their prosperity and growth of their
falling upon one another, and treating their fellows with the savagery
which they exulted in displaying against the subjects of Spain. The
exigencies, moreover, of their perilous career readily wasted their
suddenly acquired gains.
Settled labour, the warrant of real wealth, was unacceptable to those who
lived by promoting its insecurity. Regular trade--though rendered
attractive by smuggling--and pearl gathering and similar operations which
were spiced with risk, were open in vain to them, and in the absence of any
domestic life, a hand-to-mouth system of supply and demand rooted out
gradually the prudence which accompanies any mode of settled existence. In
everything the policy of the buccaneers, from the beginning to the end of
their career, was one of pure destruction, and was, therefore, ultimately
suicidal.
Their great importance in history lies in the fact that they opened the
eyes of the world, and specially of the nations from whom these buccaneers
had sprung, to the whole system of Spanish-American government and
commerce--the former in its rottenness, and the latter in its possibilities
in other hands. From this, then, along with other causes, dating primarily
from the helplessness and presumption of Spain, there arose the West Indian
possessions of Holland, England and France.
A work published at Amsterdam in 1678, entitled _De Americaensche Zee
Roovers_, from the pen of a buccaneer named Exquemelin, was translated into
several European languages, receiving additions at the hands of the
different translators. The French translation by Frontignières is named
_Histoire des avanturiers qui se sont signalez dans les Indes_; the English
edition is entitled _The Bucaniers of America._ Other works are Raynal's
_History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West
Indies_, book x., English translation 1782; Dampier's _Voyages_; Geo. W.
Thornbury's _Monarchs of the Main, &c._ (1855); Lionel Wafer's _Voyage and
Description of the Isthmus of America_ (1699); and the _Histoire de l'isle
Espagnole, &c._, and _Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle
France_ of Père Charlevoix. The statements in these works are to be
received with caution. A really authentic narrative, however, is Captain
James Burney's _History of the Buccaneers of America_ (London, 1816). The
_Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial Series (London, 1860 et seq.),
contains much evidence for the history of the buccaneers in the West
Indies.
(D. H.)
BUCCARI (Serbo-Croatian _Bakar_), a royal free town of Croatia-Slavonia,
Hungary; situated in the county of Modru[vs]-Fiume, 7 m. S.E. of Fiume, on
a small bay of the Adriatic Sea. Pop. (1900) 1870. The Hungarian state
railway from Zákány and Agram terminates 2½ m. from Buccari. The harbour,
though sometimes dangerous to approach, affords good anchorage to small
vessels. Owing to competition from Fiume, Buccari lost the greater part of
its trade during the 19th century. The staple industry is boatbuilding, and
there is an active coasting trade in fish, wine, wood and coal. The
tunny-fishery is of some importance. In the neighbourhood of the town is
the old castle of Buccarica, and farther south the flourishing little port
of Porto Ré or Kraljevica.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Buccina in the National Museum, Naples.