THE ISLE OF THE HOLY CROSS
St. Croix, or—to use its more euphonious Spanish name—Santa Cruz, seems
an island fashioned from green plush. If ever there was a true Emerald
Isle, it is this island of the Holy Cross; and while it lacks the
majestic mountains of the larger islands, their dense forests and their
impressive scenery, it possesses a wonderful beauty all its own. It is
like a perfect gem, a jewel of radiant green, in a band of silver set
in purest turquoise. Here Nature with a lavish hand has spread green of
every imaginable hue; green such as no artist ever conceived or could
reproduce. Then, to complete her chef-d’œuvre, she has added touches of
brilliant scarlet in flaming poinciana trees, soft browns in unplanted
fields, dull yellows in the groves of tibet-trees, and high lights in
the shape of snow-white plantation houses and sugar-mills, the whole
framed in dazzling coral sand, creamy surf, and water of wondrous hues,
from deepest sapphire to palest aquamarine.
No towering mountain peaks distract the eye or lead one’s gaze upward
to the clouds; no great cataracts hurtle over ragged precipices; no
rugged cliffs rear themselves above the sea, and no mysterious, shadowy
jungles clothe the hills. As in a true masterpiece, its composition is
simple, its harmony of tones is perfection, and as though scorning
comparison it hangs alone against a background of blue sky and bluer
sea in the midst of the Caribbean.
From East Point to Fredericksted, near its western end, Santa Cruz is
one unending succession of rounded green hills, smiling valleys,
golden-green cane-fields, and white beaches. Sugar is, or was, king in
this isle of the Holy Cross, and upward from the very edge of the sea
to the summits of its highest hills the fields spread like a patchwork
quilt over the land, outlined by smooth white roads or long lines of
royal palms, and dotted with the towers of ancient windmills, the tall
chimneys of the sugar-mills, white limestone estate houses, and groves
and clumps of trees. Along the coast low limestone bluffs alternate
with palm-fringed, white-beached coves, each lovelier than the
preceding, until, as a culmination of all, Fredericksted is disclosed
to view. Close to the sea, half hidden behind its screen of coco-palms,
the little town nestles against its background of vivid green beyond a
bay of marvelous, shimmering, multicolored water. Intensely tropical
and foreign-looking is this town—known locally as “West End” to
distinguish it from its only competitor, Christiansted or “Basse
End”—with its softly tinted buff, pink, and pale-blue residences; its
low, massive warehouses and stores with wide-arched doorways; its
flower-filled balconies and patios, and its quaint red Danish fort.
Here in the transparent water the Vigilant came to rest in her own home
port, where the Stars and Stripes flew in place of the scarlet flag of
Denmark. Somehow, to me, Old Glory appeared out of place here, for
always the Danish banner with its snowy cross had seemed most
appropriate for this little isle of Santa Cruz. But aside from the
different flag, a few khaki-clad “soldiers of the sea” in place of the
blue-uniformed, “woodeny” Danish troops, and the fact that the official
notices pasted on stuccoed walls were in English instead of Dansk, I
could see few changes in the place.
Except in its beauty from the sea, Fredericksted has little to offer in
the way of sights or attractions. Its streets of white lime are
blindingly glaring, and reflect the heat and light of the intense
tropical sunlight in a way that makes walking about at midday a
torture. It has no noteworthy or impressive buildings, and under its
new owners it appears no more prosperous than before. But as a resort
wherein to pass a few weeks or months to avoid the rigors of a Northern
winter St. Croix has many attractions. Its climate is noted for its
salubrity; there are splendid motor roads about the shores and across
the island from West End to Basse End; there is pigeon- and
deer-hunting to be had; the tepid water on its perfect beaches makes
sea-bathing an unending delight, and the hospitality and
good-fellowship of its people are charming. Of tropical pests there are
few. There are no poisonous reptiles, only one species of small,
harmless snake being found on the island; there are no venomous
insects; mosquitos are few, and though at certain seasons and in some
places sand-flies are troublesome, house-flies are scarcely known. But
do not assume from this that the island has no drawbacks, or is a
perfect Eden. Its blacks—and about ninety per cent. of its population
of fifteen thousand souls are of African blood—are discontented and
surly and lack the happy-go-lucky good nature of the other West Indian
natives. Since the United States came into possession they have caught
the Land-of-Liberty idea, and have organized labor-unions, declared
strikes, and made things generally unpleasant for the planters and
whites.
Moreover, the otherwise delightful isle is subject to severe hurricanes
and more or less disastrous earthquakes. In 1867, St. Croix was
virtually devastated by a quake followed by a tidal wave which lifted
the U. S. S. Monongahela from her moorings in the harbor, and, carrying
her completely over the tops of the coco-palms along the shore,
deposited her unharmed and right side up on dry land. From this unique
position, this unexpected and unwelcome dry-docking, the cruiser was
salvaged by digging a canal to the sea through which she was launched,
whereupon she proceeded on her way none the worse for the experience.
In 1772, over five hundred houses were destroyed by a hurricane which
whipped up such a sea that the water rose seventy feet above its normal
level and destroyed a vast amount of shipping. Oddly enough, this
hurricane was the direct means of bringing to our shores one of our
greatest celebrities, Alexander Hamilton. At the time, Hamilton, who
was then a lad of fifteen years, was an underpaid clerk in the
counting-house of one Nikolas Cruger of Christiansted, and his letter
to friends in the States, wherein he vividly described the devastation
of the storm, attracted so much attention that it resulted in his being
given a chance to come to this country and secure a college education.
Had it not been for that hurricane on Santa Cruz, the great statesman
no doubt would have lived and died an unknown accountant in the
Antilles.
Again and again the island has been swept by these “overgrowne and
monstrous stormes,” as Captain Smith called them, and though they occur
only during the summer, and therefore need not be taken into
consideration by winter tourists or visitors, yet they have done a
great deal to keep the island from gaining the prosperity it should
enjoy, and have wrought incalculable damage to crops and property.
Historically, Santa Cruz has a most interesting past. It has been
French, Spanish, Dutch, English, Danish, and American in turn, and
enjoys the distinction of having at one time been under the banner of
the Knights of Malta, who sought to establish a little kingdom of their
own here in the Caribbean.
Originally discovered by Columbus in 1493, the island of the Holy
Cross—a name, by the way, the significance of which is
puzzling—remained unknown until 1587, when Sir Walter Raleigh landed on
its shores on his way to Virginia. At that time, however, the island
was the abode of fierce cannibal Indians, who made forays to the
neighboring islands, especially Porto Rico, where they not only secured
a supply of captives for their larder but also hewed the big trees into
dugout canoes, a fact which would indicate that even at that period
there were no extensive forests on Santa Cruz. Europeans did not see
fit to attempt a settlement on the island until 1625, when Dutch,
French, and English colonists occupied it jointly and apparently in
peace. As no mention is made of trouble with the cannibals, we must
assume that they had disappeared, though how they were so suddenly
extirpated, or whether or not they betook themselves elsewhere, is a
mystery. As usual, however, the settlers soon began to quarrel and the
island was a scene of bloodshed and battles for possession for a
quarter of a century, or until 1651, when it was sold by the French to
the Knights of Malta. But after six years of occupancy, during which
they were on the verge of starvation most of the time, the knights
decided that establishing a West Indian kingdom was no sinecure, and,
seizing a ship which had arrived from France, they compelled the
mariners to take them with their goods and chattels to Brazil.
From that time until the Danes took possession in 1733–35, the island
frequently changed hands, and for the next hundred years hurricanes and
slave uprisings did almost as much to prevent any settled prosperity as
had the battles and wars before. Even now, under Uncle Sam’s régime,
there is much room for improvement; for the isle is far from peaceful
or prosperous. Perhaps, when we learn from bitter experience how to
handle tropical colonies, Santa Cruz may come into its own; or,
perchance through the cultivation of some commodity other than sugar,
the island may attain prosperity; but at present matters are far from
promising. As one of the greatest faults of Santa Cruz is its lack of
good harbors, which were essential to pirates, and as there was nothing
in particular to attract such visitors to the island, it is doubtful if
the buccaneers ever did more than touch here occasionally. I did not
come to the island because of its piratical associations, however, but
merely for a visit with old friends, the owners of my little ship, as
well as to break the long trip from St. Kitts to Santo Domingo. This
having been accomplished, we once more hoisted sail and, leaving the
isle of the Holy Cross behind, headed for Porto Rico, sixty miles away.
There was no need for Sam’s uncanny instinct now; the veriest tyro
could have steered a course straight for that largest of Uncle Sam’s
West Indian colonies, for scarcely had the green hills of Santa Cruz
vanished in a filmy cloud behind us when the lofty mountains of Porto
Rico rose against the sky before our bows. By mid-afternoon we were
close under the land, with its tiers of sky-piercing peaks rearing
their vast bulwarks beneath masses of heavy clouds, while above all
towered the phantasmal form of El Yunque (The Anvil) lifting its head
nearly three thousand feet above the ragged coast-line.
The island appeared vast as a continent, with its coasts stretching
eastward and westward to the horizon for one hundred miles, but in
comparison with the lush greenness of Santa Cruz, the down-like surface
and clear-cut forested mountains of St. Kitts, or the luxuriance of the
smaller Caribbees, Porto Rico is dismal, monotonous, far from
attractive, viewed from the sea.
There is no doubt that the island has beauties of its own, but it lacks
the transcendent loveliness of the smaller islands, isles not one
twentieth its size but whereon are mountains clothed, from
cloud-shrouded summits to breaking surf, with vast forests,—mountains
almost twice the height of Porto Rico’s loftiest peak,—and with a
thousand times the scenic glories of Porto Rico compressed within an
area of a few square miles, which the eye can take in as an entirety.
Driving over Porto Rico’s splendid roads by motor-car, the visitor is
impressed more with the engineering feats that made these highways
possible than with the scenery. The well-tilled tobacco-fields with
acres of cheese-cloth stretched over them, giving the appearance of
snow-covered hillsides, attract the eye more than the natural
vegetation, which is scant and uninteresting. There is little of the
intensely tropical vegetation, the luxuriance and riot of color one
associates with the West Indies; and while the mountains are rugged,
impressive, cut by stupendous cañon-like valleys, and in places wildly
grand, the great forests of gigantic trees, the feeling of being in an
untamed wilderness, and the charm of the primeval are lacking. One
feels, no matter where he may be upon this island, that Man has
conquered it, that there is nothing novel or unusual about it. While to
some the ever-present indications of prosperity, of civilization, of
Man’s conquest of mountains, plains, and valleys, appeals more strongly
than nature’s greatest beauties, personally I prefer to be where the
influence of human beings and the almighty dollar is less in evidence.
Nevertheless I have a warm spot in my heart for Porto Rico. Many
delightful days—yes, even months—have I spent there; many are my
friends upon the island, and thousands of miles have I toured over its
splendid roads. San Juan is a delightfully interesting and picturesque
city, with its ancient forts, its grim old Morro, its massive walls and
quaint lantern-like sentry-boxes; and there are other towns and cities
on the island which call to mind the days when America was in the
making. But Porto Rico had little to do with the buccaneers, unless we
include Sir Francis Drake and his lifelong friend Hawkins among them.
For these two the island held a dream of conquest, and at San Juan they
battered long and loudly at its doors and performed some mighty deeds
of daring, seamanship, and battle under the frowning walls and grim
guns of the never-conquered old Morro. But their efforts came to
little, and in their hopeless attempt to take the place Drake received
the wound that brought him to his death off Porto Bello, and Hawkins
lost his life and was buried off the eastern shores of the island he
had sought so long and hard to take. Never in all their long lives of
valiant fighting and reckless courage had the two suffered such
heartbreaking defeat and disappointment, for in the treasure-vaults at
San Juan were stored over four million dollars’ worth of plate,
bullion, and coins—greater riches by far than Drake had ever taken in
all his conquests, not excepting those of the famed Armada, which his
seamanship and fighting ability had scattered and destroyed a few years
before.
Neither Drake or Hawkins may be classed among the buccaneers,
however,—although to the Spaniards they were nothing more nor less than
pirates,—and so they really have no place in our story.
Three years after Drake’s failure—in 1598, to be exact—a far more
romantic figure decided to try his luck at capturing San Juan. This was
no less a personage than George, Earl of Cumberland, a Cambridge
graduate, a courtier, a gambler, and, to use a modern expression, an
all-round “sport.” He was extraordinarily brave, a good soldier, an
expert seaman, and renowned for his immense physical strength. He was
also a Knight of the Garter, and, for some reason which history fails
to relate, Queen Elizabeth had seen fit to present him with one of her
gloves, which, set with diamonds, he invariably wore like a plume in
his hat. During Drake’s encounter with the Armada this picturesque
young peer had commanded a British ship, and, having once tasted the
charms of sea-fighting, he then and there took to pirating, or
privateering, whichever you will. At the age of forty he had won
considerable fame and ever was distinguished by the claret-colored
glove of his sovereign which he wore through thick and thin, evidently
considering it a talisman. Perhaps it was his faith in this unique
decoration which led to his attack upon Porto Rico, when on March 6,
1598, he sailed forth from Plymouth, England, with a fleet of twenty
ships, the flag-ship bearing the odd name of The Scourge of Malice.
After a pleasant voyage, and the taking of a few prizes to break the
monotony of the long sea trip, the earl arrived at Dominica, gave his
men shore leave for a day or two, filled his casks with fresh water,
and then bore away for San Juan. Profiting by Drake’s dismal failure,
My Lord of Cumberland made no attempt to attack the Morro or the shore
batteries, but in true buccaneer fashion landed six hundred men at dead
of night a mile or more to the east of San Juan, and then, dividing his
forces into two detachments, rushed the city at dawn. The Dons, taken
completely unaware, resisted stubbornly, but the guns of the Morro and
the other forts were powerless to aid, and after two hours of savage
hand-to-hand fighting Cumberland was in possession of the supposedly
impregnable capital. The British lost no time in pillaging it as
thoroughly as any of the later buccaneers could have done. Then, out of
pure wantonness apparently, they fired all the wooden houses and
buildings, destroyed the paintings, furnishings, and other articles
they could not or did not care to carry off, seized or destroyed twelve
ships which were in the harbor, and made a determined but unsuccessful
attempt to raze the fortifications.
Meanwhile, all but a handful of the citizens had fled to the outlying
country-side, leaving the hated British monarchs of all they surveyed,
and we can easily picture the beruffled and begemmed pirate peer
strutting about with the queen’s glove still in his broad hat, vastly
pleased with himself for his prowess—as, in truth, he well might be.
Not only had he succeeded where the greatest of England’s sea-fighters
had signally failed, and secured vast treasure, but he saw in San Juan
a glorious spot for a stronghold from which to make remunerative raids
against the neighboring Spanish colonies and Spanish shipping.
But the dispossessed and robbed Porto Ricans had an ally that
Cumberland had not taken into account, which, all unseen and
unsuspected, was approaching, and which with all his courage and
resources he could not overcome or even hold at bay. Before he realized
it, the enemy was upon him: the deadly Yellow Jack had entered his camp
by stealth, and like wildfire the plague spread among his hapless men.
Within the fortnight Cumberland’s force had been reduced one half;
daily men died, raving and inhuman, their faces a ghastly yellow, eyes
starting from their hollow sockets, their frames shaken and wasted by
fever. Brave fighters though they were, the British were terrified by
this enemy they could not fight; and, hastily packing his few surviving
men upon his ships, the glove-plumed knight sailed away from the town
he had won, never to return.
Perhaps it was the knowledge of Drake’s failure, or the story—with
hair-raising embellishments, like as not—of Cumberland’s
plague-stricken force that discouraged the buccaneers. They no doubt
reasoned that a spot strong enough to repulse the famous Drake held
little promise for their ruffianly if brave and hardy crews. At any
rate, there is no record of their having made a serious effort to take
San Juan; and while, from time to time, some particularly ambitious or
daring pirate exchanged a few rounds of shot with the garrison of the
Morro, and raided outlying towns, the buccaneers never accomplished
anything of note and never looted enough treasure from the Porto Ricans
to pay for the ammunition wasted and the blood spilled in their
attempts. In fact, even the best of them, such as Morgan, Montbars,
Lolonais, Sharp, and other notorious leaders, looked upon this island
as too hard a nut for them to crack and confined their depredations to
more promising fields.
But one attempt of the buccaneers to raid Porto Rico, though not San
Juan, is well worth mentioning; for not only was it disastrous to the
pirates, but it gives an excellent idea of their methods and
persistence. As a matter of fact, it was in the first instance an
accidental invasion, for Monsieur Ogeron, the buccaneer governor of
Tortuga, having set forth at the head of a fleet, in a flag-ship named
for himself and manned by five hundred pirates, had no intention of
molesting the island, but was bound for the island of Curaçao, where he
hoped to wrest town and treasure from the Dutch. Fate, however,
interfered seriously with Monsieur’s plans. Running into a storm, his
new flag-ship was driven ignominiously upon the rocky Guandanillas
close to the western shore of Porto Rico.
Fortunately,—or, rather, unfortunately, as it turned out,—his men all
managed to reach dry land in safety, only to fall into the hands of
their enemies the Spaniards on the following day. Thinking that as
usual the buccaneers had landed on a piratical raid, the Dons fell upon
the castaways tooth and nail, and killed a large proportion of the five
hundred before they realized that they were dealing with unarmed,
shipwrecked men. When at last they discovered that their hated enemies
were quite incapable of defending themselves, they bound the buccaneers
securely and marched them inland, meanwhile feeding them so sparingly
on scraps from their own meals that the pirates were barely kept alive.
Ogeron, crafty old rascal that he was, pretended to be a half-witted
fellow, and his men stoutly maintained, when questioned, that their
leader had been drowned—an excellent example of the buccaneers’
faithfulness and loyalty to one another. Their captain, being looked
upon as a fool and harmless, was left free and was treated far better
than his comrades by the soldiers, who found much amusement in his
capers and drolleries. Among the pirates was a French surgeon who was
also left unbound in order that he might practise his profession among
the Dons. So the medico and the governor put their heads together, and,
having acquired a hatchet, slipped into the bush and managed to reach
the shore. Their intention was to fell trees and construct a craft and
then, putting to sea, gain Tortuga and rally their friends to attack
Porto Rico and rescue the captive crew.
Such an undertaking, which would have appeared impossible to most men,
did not daunt the resourceful pirates. Having managed to secure a
quantity of small fish, which they killed near shore with their
hatchet, and having kindled a fire by rubbing two sticks together, they
dined heartily, and the following day proceeded to fell trees for their
boat. Fortune, however, smiled upon them, and before the first tree was
cut they spied a large canoe, in which were two men, making directly
toward them. Hiding in the bushes until the canoe was pulled upon the
beach, the two buccaneers discovered that the occupants were harmless
fishermen, one a mulatto, the other a Spaniard. Leaving the white man
in charge of the boat, the colored fisherman picked up calabashes and,
all unsuspecting of the danger lurking in the underbrush, made his way
toward a spring. This was the buccaneers’ opportunity: they leaped upon
the mulatto, and to quote Esquemelling, “discharged a great blow on his
head with the hatchet and soon bereaved him of life.” The Spaniard,
alarmed at the noise, tried to escape, “but this he could not perform
so soon without being overtaken by the two and there massacred by their
hands.” Now in possession of a seaworthy craft, the buccaneers set sail
for Samana Bay in Santo Domingo, where there was a lair of their
associates. Here Ogeron made a most eloquent speech to his fellow
buccaneers, and persuaded them to join him in a raid on Porto Rico,
partly for loot and partly to rescue his ill-fated men, who had so
inadvertently fallen into their enemies’ hands.
But Ogeron’s luck seems to have deserted him once and for all, for the
expedition was a failure. The buccaneers were surprised by the watchful
Spaniards, a large number of the pirates were slain, and while Ogeron
escaped with a few of his fellows, the raid was abandoned and they
“hastened to set sail and go back to Tortuga with great confusion in
their minds, much diminished in their number and nothing laden with
spoils, the hopes whereof had possessed their hearts.”
The unfortunate survivors of the shipwreck were taken to San Juan and,
in a chain-gang, were forced to labor at building the great fortress of
San Cristobal; while at night they were closely guarded in dungeons by
their captors, who had a wholesome fear of the buccaneers and knew this
handful of maltreated prisoners was quite capable of wreaking vengeance
unless kept under lock and key. As Esquemelling puts it, “by night they
shut them up close prisoners fearing lest they should enterprise upon
the city. For of such attempts the Spaniards had had divers proofs on
other occasions which afforded them sufficient cause to use them after
that manner.”
That manacled, overworked, half-fed captives could commit any great
damage among the armed Spaniards in a city of thousands of inhabitants
may seem incredible; but as their chronicler says, the Dons had had
“divers proofs” on other occasions and they took no chances. Indeed,
each time a ship left port they packed some of the prisoners off to
Havana, to labor on the fortifications there; and they also transported
some of them to Spain, taking good care to disperse them far and wide.
But the buccaneers seem to have had a supernatural ability to find one
another; and, notwithstanding all the precautions of the Spaniards, the
deported ones, again to quote Esquemelling, “soon after met almost all
together in France and resolved among themselves to return again to
Tortuga with the first opportunity should proffer ... so that in a
short while the greatest part of these Pirates had nested themselves
again at Tortuga where after some time they equipped a new fleet to
revenge their former misfortunes on the Spaniards.” Of such stuff were
these adventurers made, and after a few such “divers proofs” we can
scarcely blame the Dons if they promptly killed all pirates who fell
into their hands. Unquestionably, the only good pirate was a dead
pirate.
Departing from Porto Rico, with far more interesting places ahead, we
coasted along the southern shores of this island of “Boriquen” from
which Ponce de Leon set forth in search of his fountain, and, only
stopping at Ponce overnight, sailed onward toward Santo Domingo.
Barely sixty miles of water separates Porto Rico from Santo
Domingo,—or, as the Spaniards called it, Hispaniola,—and midway in this
strait lies the island of Mona, from which the passage takes its name.
Barren, gray, and forbidding, Mona is little more than a mass of
austere rock rising above the sea, with Monita or Little Mona at her
feet. The only signs of life are the lighthouse and the flocks of
screaming sea-birds, but there is a stunted growth of scrub upon the
island, and hunting-parties come here at times; while the guano
deposits of Mona have been worked for years.
Beyond—vast, mysterious, overwhelming in its magnitude and majesty—is
Santo Domingo, second largest of the Antilles, nearly two hundred miles
in width, nearly five hundred in length; a territory close to thirty
thousand square miles in area, or three times the size of Belgium,
twice the size of Denmark, almost as large as Portugal or Ireland, and,
compared with more familiar places, about as large as the state of
Maine; or larger than Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode
Island combined.
Continental in the altitude of its mountains, with the summit of Loma
Tina towering to a height of eleven thousand feet, in the vastness of
its interior plains, its great valleys, its coastal lands, its rolling
savannas, and its huge rivers, Santo Domingo is by far the most
beautiful, the richest, and the most imposing of the West Indies. Here
was the very cradle of civilization in the New World; here ebbed and
flowed the life of New Spain. From Santo Domingo, Cortez, Balboa, and
all those other famous conquistadors of old set forth upon their
adventures. Here was founded the first European settlement in the New
World; here Columbus came to grief and lost one of his ships on that
first memorable voyage in 1492; here he was cast in chains into a
dungeon; here his son ruled as viceroy, and here the discoverer’s bones
still rest in the great cathedral. It was upon Santo Domingo’s shores,
too, that the first skirmish between the Indians and the white men
occurred. It was on this great island that the first gold was found in
the New World; and for centuries millions of treasure poured from its
mountains and streams, its valleys and hills into the treasury of
Spain, until Hispaniola became celebrated as the richest land in all
the world.
No other part of America is so closely associated with the making of
New Spain, so linked with those brave though cruel old Dons whose names
will never die. And in no other spot are there so many or so
well-preserved relics of the old days. The very house in which the son
of Columbus dwelt still stands above the quay at Santo Domingo City.
The massive wall which Drake found such an obstacle still hems the
capital about. The first cross erected in the New World is yet
preserved within the great cathedral. The stone cistern built by
Columbus to supply water is still there. One may wander through the
half-ruined arches of the first university in America, where Las Casas
taught; and over the doorway of many a stately, ancient house one may
still trace the elaborate coats of arms of Spanish hidalgos and
grandees who won everlasting fame by hewing an empire with fire and
sword from the untamed wilderness of the New World.
No part of the Western Hemisphere has a bloodier, more tragic history.
The soil of Santo Domingo has literally been soaked with the blood of
countless thousands of helpless Indians, tortured and put to death
without mercy by the ruthless Spaniards; torn to pieces by bloodhounds;
lashed to death in the mines; burned, quartered, flayed alive,
massacred wholesale—all in the name of Christianity. And as though
these atrocities were not enough, thousands of human beings were slain
in battle, and negro uprisings swept the fair land with death in awful
forms, and unspeakable cruelties and tortures. As one reads the record
of this magnificent island, one feels that it must be a place accursed.
It was here in Hispaniola, too, that the buccaneers had their
beginning; here that the Brethren of the Main first came into existence
and pledged themselves to that piratical brotherhood; and toward one of
their most notorious strongholds Sam shaped the Vigilant’s course, and
we entered the great Bay of Samana.