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Title: In the wake of the buccaneers
Author: Verrill, A. Hyatt (Alpheus Hyatt)
Language: English
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IN THE WAKE OF
THE BUCCANEERS
BY
A. HYATT VERRILL
AUTHOR OF “PANAMA, PAST AND PRESENT,” “ISLES
OF SPICE AND PALM,” “THE BOOK OF THE WEST
INDIES,” “THE REAL STORY OF THE PIRATE,” ETC.
ILLUSTRATED WITH DRAWINGS AND
PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR AND
RARE OLD ENGRAVINGS ☙ ☙ ☙ ☙
PUBLISHED BY THE CENTURY CO.
NEW YORK AND LONDON ☙ ☙ MCMXXIII
INTRODUCTION
There is no more entrancing body of water in either the Western or the
Eastern Hemisphere—than the Caribbean Sea, with a fringe of lovely
tropical islands on the one side and on the other the Spanish Main and
its picturesque centuries-old towns and fascinating sights. Aside from
its beauty, its delightful climate, and its ever-shifting scenes, the
Caribbean and its shores are redolent of romance. It was the
starting-point of those brave though ruthless adventurers who carved a
new world for Castile and Leon. For centuries it was the treasure-house
of the world and the battle-ground of the mightiest European powers.
Across this sapphire sea sailed the caravels of Columbus, the Golden
Hind of Drake, and the stately, plate-laden galleons of Spain.
And across this same sea coursed those fierce sea-rovers the
buccaneers.
Of all the dare-devil spirits who sailed the Caribbean and ravaged the
Spanish Main, the buccaneers were the most picturesque and romantic.
Villains though they were; reddened with the blood of the innocent and
helpless though their hands; black-hearted cutthroats beyond denial—yet
there is something about them that appeals to all, and that, despite
their ill deeds, fills one with admiration.
Perchance it is the fact that we all appreciate bravery—and,
notwithstanding their multitude of sins, the buccaneers were brave
beyond compare. Again, it may be that in all of us lurks a little of
the gambling spirit and we admire those who can take a chance, even
though we do not, and no greater gamblers ever lived than the
buccaneers. They staked their lives at every turn, they gambled with
death, and the greater the odds the more readily did they throw
themselves into the game. And it was this gambling spirit, this
recklessness that enabled them to defy the world of their day.
We hear much of the bold, wild ways of these adventurers; we have been
taught by history and tradition to consider them devoid of redeeming
qualities, and few of us realize that the buccaneers were far from
being true pirates, that they were not alike, that many were corsairs
through force of circumstances rather than by choice, that they had
their own laws and code of honor, and that they were a most important
factor in shaping the destiny of the New World. To them, incredible as
it may seem, we owe an immense debt of gratitude. Had it not been for
them the British never would have retained their foothold in the
Caribbean, and we, to-day, might be under Spanish rule. Many of them,
too, were educated men and left us records which are of incalculable
scientific or historic value; for example, Dampier, who was a keenly
observant field naturalist and devoted far more of his time to penning
descriptions of fauna and flora than to slitting Spanish throats; [1]
and Esquemelling, [2] the erstwhile accountant, who left us a classic
as a result of his years as a ship’s supercargo among the buccaneers.
Yearly, Americans by the thousands flock southward to tour or to stop
for a time in the West Indies or about the shores of the Caribbean, but
few of these are aware of the intimate associations with the buccaneers
which all these places hold. Yet we may dwell in the very hostelry
wherein pirate chieftains reveled and spent their ill-gotten gold; we
stroll through little towns which have echoed to the ribald songs and
lusty shouts of roistering pirate crews; we sail, in palatial
steamships, above the long-forgotten hulks of burned and scuttled
galleons, and we haggle with shopkeepers or native boatmen in whose
veins may flow the blood of Morgan, Hawkins, or Montbars.
Bereft of the buccaneers, the Caribbean and its shores lose their
greatest fascination, and as the most desirable localities are those
intimately associated with the sea-rovers and their deeds or misdeeds,
it seems fitting to travel about the Spanish Main and the West Indies
in the wake of the buccaneers.
It is to point out the romantic associations of these waters and
islands and make a visit to them more interesting, to weave a little of
the lives and deeds of the buccaneers into the story of the locality,
and to give brief sketches of the most noteworthy, while at the same
time describing the places, their attractions, and their present
condition, that this book has been prepared.
So much of a purely fictional nature has been related of these
sea-rovers that many of the statements contained herein will come as a
distinct surprise, for time and tales have woven a glamour and a deal
of misconception about them. But even stripped of all romance, with
their histories before us, the “Brethren of the Main” retain enough and
to spare of adventure, deeds of daring, and picturesque villainy, and
many of the true stories of these men are more thrilling, more
astounding than any the imagination could invent.
When such stories are made more vivid by a setting of actual
present-day scenes, or are read in the very places and in the same
surroundings in which the buccaneers held forth, their interest is
enhanced, while the whole neighborhood is given an added attraction.
The author, who has lived and traveled in the West Indies and about the
shores of the Caribbean for nearly thirty years, knows every island and
town intimately. Being deeply interested in the history of the vicinity
and particularly in the reckless freebooters who frequented it, he has
written this narrative of a most novel cruise. A cruise taken in a real
pirate ship manned by a native West Indian crew some of whom were
lineal descendants of notorious buccaneers; and while not all the
Caribbean islands or the lands and towns of the Spanish Main were
visited, those places are included which are of particular interest
from an historical point of view and their associations with the
freebooters.
The volume is not intended as a guide-book, but rather as a colorful
account of the places visited on this unusual cruise; a description of
many little-known, out-of-the-way corners; with mention of their most
interesting features, the customs of the people, a bit of their
turbulent past and their somnolent present, and their existing relics
of buccaneer days.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
I Among the Caribbees 3
Reasons. The romantic isles. The Vigilant. A real pirate ship. The
Virgin Islands. Dead Man’s Chest. Sam, the descendant of the pirate
chief. The Vigilant’s crew. Trouble comes to the Vigilant.
Arguments. My happy family.
II St. Thomas and Its Past 22
First view of St. Thomas. Charlotte Amalie. The people. Shops and
commodities. The home of bay-rum. Wet and dry. Odd wares. The
ships’ graveyard. Blackbeard’s Castle. The pirates’ haunts.
III The Buccaneers in the Virgin Isles 38
The lairs of the buccaneers. Buccaneers and pirates. Queer
conditions. When life was cheap. Interesting characters. A
buccaneer poet. Blackbeard and his ways. The end of Blackbeard.
IV On the Way to St. John 58
Farewell, St. Thomas. Sail Rock. The joke on the Frenchman. The
lure of the Caribbean. A man of peace. St. John. An island gem. At
Rendezvous Bay. Relics of the buccaneers. The bloody past. A
deserted Eden. The St. John of to-day.
V St. John and Some Discoveries 77
Buccaneer haunts. The pirates’ friends. Hamlin the corsair. The
friendly governor. Tales of treasure. Relics of the past. An
ancient souvenir. Reminiscences. The concert. A discovery.
VI Anegada and a Bit of Treasure-Trove 94
Tortola, the Isle of the Turtle-dove. The once prosperous port.
Onward to Anegada. The Fat Virgin. Norman Island and Kidd’s
treasure. The truth about Captain Kidd. The Don Quixote of the
Caribbean. The end of Prince Rupert of the Rhine. Anegada, the
Drowned Island. Through the guardian reef. Wreckers. Flotsam and
jetsam huts. Pirate forts and pirate cannon. The Portuguese
derelict. Treasure-trove.
VII Lonely Isles 114
Across the Anegada Passage to St. Martin. Anguilla, the Eel. The
island under two flags. St. Martin a charming island. Salt pans and
industries. Onward to St. Barts. A poverty-stricken spot. Once
Sweden’s colony. The gathering-place of the buccaneers. On the
beach. A privateers’ lair. Gustavia’s heyday. Montbars the
Exterminator. Statia. Where the Stars and Stripes were first
saluted. Orangetown and its treasure. The world’s greatest auction
sale. Statia’s knell. Saba the marvelous. The town in the crater.
Saba and its people. Strange industries.
VIII St. Kitts and the Gorgeous Isle 136
St. Kitts the beautiful. Basseterre. The island’s golden past. The
first settled of the British isles. French and English. Early days.
Brimstone Hill and its massive fort. An echo of the past. The
Travels of Captain Smith. Caribs and quarrels. The “overgrowne
stormes.” Convict slaves. The Gorgeous Isle. Nevis and its past.
Where Nelson married and Hamilton was born. The submerged city. A
miraculous escape. A moral pirate. Sharp the great adventurer.
IX The “Dangerous Voyage” and the Effect of a Nagging Tongue 152
Bartholomew Sharp and his great adventure. Across Darien. The
attack on the Spanish fleet. The Blessed Trinity and its marvelous
cruise. Down the west coast. Around the Horn. The log of the
Trinity. Mutiny. Religious buccaneers. Homeward through
storm-lashed seas. The end of the “dangerous voyage.” The “sea
artist” goes home. Stede Bonnet the gentleman pirate. The less of
two evils. The effect of a nagging tongue. In evil company. The
fate of the major. Over Saba Bank. Sam’s sixth sense. Good hauls.
Land ho!
X The Isle of the Holy Cross 171
St. Croix or Santa Cruz. An Emerald Isle. Where sugar was king.
Christiansted. Ashore. Attractions of the island. A target for
hurricanes. How Hamilton attracted attention. Cannibals. A
turbulent past. Dreams of a kingdom. Knights of Malta. The home
port of the Vigilant. Over the sea to Porto Rico. Porto Rico’s
beauties and attractions. A tamed island. Drake’s repulse. The man
with the queen’s glove in his hat. How the Earl of Cumberland took
San Juan. An enemy he could not conquer. Ogeron’s attempts. The
pirate prisoners. Ogeron’s escape. The rescuers. In the chain-gang.
Birds of a feather. Mona the forbidding. Hispaniola the mighty. A
miniature continent. The most historic spot in America. A land
drenched in blood.
XI The Gibraltar of the Buccaneers 195
Samana Bay and its environs. Where the first blood was spilled. The
Bay of the Arrows. Trade Wind Cay. The pirates’ stronghold. A
miniature Gibraltar. Legends and superstitions. Ruins on the cay.
Treasure. Joseph’s find. Those who frequented the isle. Round and
about Samana Bay. Samana and its people. Sanchez. A wild coast.
Caverns. The amber beach.
XII The Birthplace of the Buccaneers 210
The rugged island. The Dons in Santo Domingo. First gold in the New
World. La Vega la Antigua. Old Weapons. The Cibao. Along the coast
to Puerto Plata. The port. The Silver Shoals and Phipps’s treasure.
The first European settlement in America. Isabella. Monte Cristi
and El Morro. Tortuga the birthplace of the buccaneers. Cayona. The
origin of the buccaneers. Strategies. Pirate governors. The
buccaneers’ fort. The fate of the West India Company.
XIII The Brethren of the Main 226
The buccaneer island. Early forays. Humane practices. How the
pirates got their vessels. Daring assaults. The buccaneers’ ships.
A motley lot. Honor among thieves. The inventors of accident
insurance. Employees’ indemnities. Division of spoils. Oaths and
agreements. Rules. Penalties. Recompense. Temptations. A few of the
buccaneers. Rock Brasiliano the German. A degenerate brute. Bravery
of Brasiliano. Escape from Campeche. John Davis the Jamaican
pirate. A “kind and considerate man.” Lolonais the most cruel of
the buccaneers. An ex-slave. A protégé of the governor. A notable
feat. A monster in human form. Cannibalistic tendencies. Lolonais
shipwrecked. The awful fate of Lolonais. Quarrels among the
freebooters. The British buccaneers help take Jamaica. The pirates’
new lair.
XIV The Granddaddy of the Dollar 243
Through the Windward Passage. Cuba. Navassa the barren. The island
that sent the S. O. S. The buccaneers in Cuba. Morgan at Puerto
Principe. The Isle of Pines and its crocodiles. Gonaives. Over
historic seas. Pieces of eight. Origin of the dollar sign.
Doubloons and onzas. The forerunner of the metric system. Cross
money. Mixed coins. Canny Sam. A prospective wedding. Sail ho!
XV Where a Pirate Ruled 257
Lovely Jamaica. The long-suffering island. The Port Royal of
to-day. Fort Charles and its associations. Nelson’s quarter-deck.
Nelson at Port Royal. The fleet that never came. Scenes in Port
Royal. The Port Royal of the past. The metropolis of the
buccaneers. The richest and wickedest city in the world. Pirates’
pastimes. Vice and debauchery. The pirates’ church. Harry Morgan’s
way. The fate of Port Royal. The destruction of the town.
Survivors. Founding of Kingston. Fire, hurricane, and earthquake.
Columbus and his shipwreck. Cimmaroons and slave uprisings. The
grip of the trust.
XVI Jamaica and Its Pirate Governor 274
Kingston and its surroundings. The destruction of Kingston. In the
country. Motor roads. Newcastle. Cataracts. The three-fingered
bandit. The Natural Bridge. Spanish Town. Origin of names. The
sleepy town. Round and about Spanish Town. The cathedral. Epitaphs.
Penn and Venables. The angler soldier. Benbow and his bravery.
Benbow’s tomb. The battle with Du Casse. Death of Benbow. Sir Henry
Morgan. The pirate knight. His short career. Origin and life. How
Morgan won fame and fortune. Morgan’s first great deed. Sack of
Puerto Principe. Morgan’s quixotic nature. Little loot. The taking
of Porto Bello. Immense treasure. Attack on Panama. Morgan
arrested. The pirate honored. The buccaneer governor. Morgan
disgraced. The end of Morgan.
XVII The Bridge of the World 294
Farewell to the Vigilant. Westward by steamer. Old Providence. The
Spanish Main. Colon. A petty squabble. Colon and Cristobal. Porto
Bello. The Gold Road and its past. Grim tales. San Jerome. The fall
of Porto Bello. Morgan’s attack on Porto Bello. The valiant
governor. Morgan’s brutalities. Tortures. Ransoms. The viceroy’s
message. Morgan’s pleasantries. The ruins of Porto Bello. The
forgotten Gold Road.
XVIII The Castle of Gold 313
The riches of Panama. The greatest gold-producing country. Output
of mines. The treasure-house of Spain. Decadence of Panama. Indian
uprisings. Slaves. Emancipation. Lost mines. Revolutions. The
Panamanian people. A degenerate race. People of the interior.
Inhabitants of cities. Business and industry. Exceptions to the
rule. What the Americans have done. Lack of gratitude. Animosity. A
wonderful land. Darien the unknown. Indians. The bravos. The
pirates’ treatment of the Indians. Sharp’s trip across Darien. The
sack of El Real de Santa Maria. El Real to-day. A deserted
wonderland.
XIX Panama New and Old 332
How Ringrose described Panama. Changes of to-day. In the city. A
hustling modern town. Round the town. The old fort. Walls. Chiriqui
and Las Bovedas. Where the creek once flowed. The old city wall.
Churches. Odd architecture. Ruins. The Golden Altar of San José.
Old Panama. The bridge crossed by Morgan. Ruins. St. Anastasio’s
tower. Old fort and walls. Reconstruction of the ruins. The facts
about old Panama. Burning of the city. Relics. Old Panama as it
was. Wanton destruction. Morgan’s blackest deed.
XX How Morgan Kept His Promise 349
Morgan’s rise to fame. The gathering of the great fleet. The taking
of Old Providence. Treachery. The attack on San Lorenzo. A furious
battle. The accident that won the day. Bravery of Spanish troops.
Awful slaughter. Morgan’s arrival. Morgan garrisons the fort. Loss
of ships. Up the Chagres. Overland. Hardship and sufferings. In
sight of Panama. The battle before the city. The buccaneers’
victory. Deviltry let loose. Tortures and murder. Burning of the
city. The return. Morgan’s gallantry. Sir Henry’s treachery. The
pirate Judas. The dishonored chieftain. Monuments to the past.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Dangerous Voyage Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
The Cruise in the Wake of the Buccaneers 3
Blackbeard 48
The Vigilant 49
St. John—The careenage, Rendezvous Bay 80
Statia—Along the waterfront 80
St. John—A vista on the Peter Duerloo estate 81
Anegada—The guardian reef 112
Anegada—The forbidding coast 112
St. Martin—Salt ponds 113
St. Martin—A street in Gustavia 113
Saba—Saba Island from the sea 128
Saba—A Saban sedan-chair 128
Saba—“Going aboard” 129
Saba—The town of Bottom from Saba Peak 129
St. Kitts—Basseterre and Monkey Hill 144
St. Kitts—The Circus, Basseterre 144
Map of the South Sea and Coast of America, 1680 and 1681 145
Santa Cruz—Plantation 192
Porto Rico—City wall and house of Ponce de Leon 192
Porto Rico—The Morro, San Juan 193
Porto Rico—San Cristobal, where Ogeron’s men labored 193
Trade Wind Cay—The Gibraltar of the Buccaneers 208
Porto Rico—A “piragua,” the craft in which the buccaneers
first captured Spanish ships 209
St. Barts—Mending nets where the buccaneers divided loot 216
Carib canoes—It was in such craft that the first buccaneers
voyaged from St. Kitts to Hispaniola 216
Tortuga—The birthplace of the buccaneers 217
Francis Lolonois (commonly called Lolonais) 228
The cruelty of Lolonois 229
Rock Brasiliano 236
Bartolomew Portugues 237
The towne of Puerto del Principe taken and sackt 256
Spanish coins used in buccaneer days 257
Sr. Hen. Morgan 272
Jamaica—A road in the hills 273
Panama—Ruins of the fort at Porto Bello 304
Panama—The jungle, Darien, through which Sharp and his men
tramped 305
Panama—San Lorenzo fortress as it is to-day 312
Panama—The new city of Panama 313
Panama—A street in modern Panama City 313
Panama—Darien Indians wearing wooden crowns exactly as
described by Dampier and Ringrose in their accounts of
the buccaneers’ trip across the isthmus 320
Panama—The Tuira River down which Sharp and his men
traveled 321
Panama—Darien (Kuna) Indians, the Indians who guided Sharp
and his men 321
Panama—The ruins of the cathedral, and bit of wall,
Old Panama 336
Panama—All that is left of the ancient fort, Old Panama 336
Panama—Ruins left from Morgan’s raid, Old Panama 337
Panama—Ruins of the governor’s house, Old Panama 337
IN THE WAKE OF THE BUCCANEERS
CHAPTER I
AMONG THE CARIBBEES
I had started forth on a novel journey, a trip I had long wanted to
take—a cruise in the wake of the buccaneers. Many a time I had
traversed the Caribbean, steaming from port to port of those island
gems, the Lesser Antilles, that are strung, like emeralds and
sapphires, in a great curving chain stretching from our own St. Thomas,
five days south of New York, to Trinidad at the mouth of the Orinoco.
Many a time, too, I had skirted the coasts, climbed the mountains, and
explored the bush of Cuba, Porto Rico, Santo Domingo, and Jamaica. And
whenever I had stood upon a liner’s deck and watched the huge-sailed
island sloops and schooners courtesying to the sparkling waves and,
with lee rails awash, surging through the blue sea toward some distant
isle, I had envied those aboard. I had vowed that sooner or later I too
would stand upon the heaving deck of a nimble sailing-craft and cruise
hither and thither among the islands, going and coming as humor willed,
seeing the out-of-the-way places, the little-known islets, the hidden,
quiet bays and coves which no churning screws had disturbed and no
smoke-belching funnels had besmirched.
No locality is more filled with romance, more remindful of adventurous
deeds of the past, more closely associated with the early history of
our country than the Caribbean. Here is the islet first sighted by
Columbus after his long and thrilling voyage into the west. Here dwelt
the conquistadors, the explorers, the voyagers who with fire and blood
blazed their trails across the continents of North and South America.
Here one may still see the crumbling houses in which such noted old
dons as Ponce de Leon, De Soto, Pizarro, Cortez, and others dwelt when
Hispaniola (Santo Domingo) was the center of wealth and fashion in New
Spain. Here was established the first university of the New World
wherein Las Casas taught his pupils a century and more before the
Mayflower sailed into Plymouth harbor. Here the great nations of Europe
contended for control of the new-found lands, and here cruised the
buccaneers, ever seeking their prizes. But to sail these waters and
visit these isles in a modern steamship robs them of their greatest
charm. Who can visualize gilded, purple-sailed galleons swinging to
anchor when buff steel masts, huge funnels, and wireless aërials fill
the foreground? Who can picture swashbuckling, roistering pirates when
the streets they once trod swarm with jitneys? Who can imagine
mail-clad men about to embark on some great adventure when the jetty
bears a creaking, wheezing crane, and sweating negro stevedores bustle
and crowd and swear? No, to find the romance of these islands, to
visualize their past and appreciate their present, one must forego
luxuries and leave the beaten path, and, like the voyagers of old, seek
new scenes in a white-sailed craft whose motive power is the humming
trade wind and whose crew is made up of natives who, in appearance at
least, might well have stepped out of the past.
And at last Fate—in the guise of good-natured and sympathetic friends
in the islands—had made possible my dream and I was cruising one-time
pirate waters in a pirate ship. Yes, a real pirate ship, the Vigilant,
whose solid teak keel was laid well over a century ago; the oldest boat
plying the Caribbean, but still as stanch, seaworthy, and fast as when,
manned by sea-rovers, she had swept under her cloud of canvas upon some
lumbering merchantman or had showed her fleet heels to British
corvettes, as, laden with a cargo of “black ivory,” she had crept forth
from the fetid mouth of some African river, bound with her human
freight for the slave marts of the Antilles. Privateer, pirate, slaver,
and man-o’-war she had been in turn through the long years she had
sailed the seas. Within her hold were still visible the ring-bolts to
which the groaning blacks had been chained. In her timbers were still
the wounds of round shot and bullets, and despite her peaceful
present-day employment as a packet between the islands, she was yet the
typical pirate craft—the “long, low, black schooner with raking masts”
so dear to writers of lurid fiction. [3] And we were bound to that
erstwhile haunt of the sea-rovers, the Virgin Islands.
When Columbus, cruising westward on his second voyage, sighted these
green-clad islets rising above the blue Caribbean, he despaired of
finding saint’s names for all of them, and so called them collectively
“The Virgins,” in honor of the eleven thousand companions of St.
Ursula. The name was not inappropriate, for while there were not eleven
thousand of the isles, they were far too numerous to be counted. The
history of these bits of wave-washed coral and volcanic rock, since
their discovery by the great navigator, has been anything but happy and
peaceful. The Spaniards, finding neither gold nor precious stones upon
them, contented themselves with kidnapping the primitive inhabitants
and then, having depopulated the islands, left them severely alone.
Later, after a period of varying fortunes and misfortunes, they were
parceled off among the European powers, changed hands over and over
again, were sold, bartered, and fought for, and at last, with the
exception of St. Thomas, St. Croix, and one or two others, were dubbed
worthless and were virtually forgotten by the nations which had battled
so long and bloodily to retain them.
Here in close proximity, often but two or three miles apart, were
islands belonging to half a dozen powers,—British, French, Danish,
Swedish, Dutch,—with one owned jointly by Holland and France, while
close at hand, conveniently and temptingly near, in fact, were rich
Spanish possessions. And here, to the eleven thousand Virgins, came the
pirates and the buccaneers. So it was fitting that my cruise in the
ancient but rejuvenated Vigilant should begin with the Virgin Isles.
Presently, above the impossibly blue sea loomed a bit of land, a tiny,
gray-green, barren cay, rimmed with ragged, weather-beaten rocks in
whose coves and hollows coral beaches gleamed, white as the beating
surf, beyond the turquoise water. Leaning upon the schooner’s rail, I
gazed idly and curiously at the little isle, the one break upon the
shimmering sea, a lonely spot whose only signs of life were the
circling sea-birds hovering over it in clouds.
I turned to the fellow at the wheel—a giant of a man, black as ebony
and muscled like a Hercules, naked to the waist, his dungaree trousers
rolled to his knees and supported by a wisp of scarlet sash, his huge
flat feet wide-spread, and a flapping jipijapa hat upon his huge head.
His lusterless eyes, bloodshot from constant diving (for he was a
sponger by profession), and the huge hoops in his ears, gave him a
fierce, wild look, and, glancing at him, one might well have imagined
him a member of a pirate crew, a corsair steering toward some doomed
prize.
“Sam,” I asked, “what’s that island over there to port?”
The big negro slowly turned his head and gazed at the speck of rock and
sand.
“Tha’ ’s Dead Man’s Chest, Chief,” he replied in the soft drawl of the
Bahaman.
Dead Man’s Chest! Instantly, at his words, the song made famous by
Stevenson flashed through my mind: “Fifteen men on the Dead Man’s
Chest—Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”
Dead Man’s Chest! The little cay at once took on a new interest. Now I
could almost picture them yonder,—those shipwrecked men, fifteen of
them,—gaunt, fierce-visaged, unshorn; sprawled on the sand in the
scanty shade of the twisted sea-grape trees above the surf. Marooned,
cast away, but reckless daredevils to the last; gambling in the face of
death, tossing a gleaming golden doubloon in their final game of
chance—the stake, their lives against that one bottle of rum! And then
drink and the devil would have done for them as for the rest, and only
their whitening bones over which the sea-birds fought and screamed
would remain to tell their grim tale.
Dead Man’s Chest! What more fitting than that this bit of ocean-girt
land should have been the first of the isles made famous by the
buccaneers to greet my eyes, and what more appropriate than that I
should have sighted it from the deck of a real pirate craft! Fortunate
indeed had I been when her owners delivered the Vigilant into my hands
for my cruise, and I pondered, as we sped past wave-beaten Dead Man’s
Chest, on the story the Vigilant might tell could she but speak. Then
my thoughts were brought back to the present as Sam spoke:
“The’ says as how the’ ’s plenty o’ tr’asure yonder, on Dead Man’s
Chest,” he remarked, “but Ah can’ say as how true ’tis, Chief. Plenty
folks has s’arched for it, but Ah can’ say as the’ ’s foun’ it. I
’spec’ the’ ’s tr’asure a plenty on th’ cays here ’bout. The’ says as
how th’ pirates was num’rous roun’ here.”
“Yes, it was a great place for pirates,” I replied. “You know these
islands well, Sam. Have you ever run across any old guns or forts or
wrecks on any of them? By the way, what’s your last name?”
Sam grinned.
“Ah got a right funny name, Chief,” he responded. “Ah don’ ’spec’ you
ever hear it. It’s Lithgow, Chief.”
Lithgow! What a name to conjure with, in the old buccaneer days! Red
Lithgow, the bold, unprincipled pirate chieftain who hailed from
Louisiana and met death at the end of a rope from his own yard-arm!
Perchance—nay, in all probability—some of the old rascal’s blood still
flowed in Sam’s veins; for all through the islands one finds lineal
descendants (though they may be brown, black, or yellow) of the
buccaneers, whose progeny was legion.
But Sam was again speaking, replying to my first question and telling
me that hidden among the brush and weeds on St. John, St. Martin, and
others of the Virgins, were numerous old walls, ruins, and cannon
which, rumor had it, were relics of the pirates who once made the
islands their stronghold.
My itinerary included all of these in turn, and so the Vigilant’s
course remained unaltered and with the wind humming through the taut
rigging and filling the great straining sails, we rushed on toward St.
Thomas, looming like a cloud upon the horizon far ahead.
And now, as the schooner races onward toward the quaint port of
Charlotte Amalie, a word about the crew that manned the Vigilant; for
Sam was not by any means the only or the most important personage
besides myself. A mixed lot they were, but most valuable factors in my
cruise and an entertaining lot as well. Originally they were all Virgin
Islanders, save Sam, the Bahaman pilot and “captain,” and Joseph, the
long-legged, solemn-faced cook, who, notwithstanding his ebony skin and
kinky head, dubbed all of his race “stupid niggers,” who found
everything not to his liking “pure corruption,” and who proudly boasted
of being a Turks Island boy.
With the Chesterfieldian manners of a duke, painstakingly perfect
English, and the dignity of a Spanish grandee, Joseph looked down upon
the “stupid niggers” of the crew as from an impregnable height, and
fraternized with Sam only, the others being merely tolerated. A right
good cook and a faithful boy was Joe, and a never-ending source of
amusement because of his assumption of a sort of guardianship over me.
But ere the cruise was over he and Sam and one other were the only
remaining members of my original crew. Never did the Vigilant’s
mud-hook seek bottom in the limpid waters of some lovely isle that one
or more of my sailors did not desert. Not that they had aught of which
to complain, or found their duties on the ship irksome, but good
American dollars in their pockets, a rich green shore, and
chocolate-colored sirens were temptations beyond the black man’s power
to resist. Yet never were we short-handed. For every man who left, a
score clamored to be taken on, and had the Vigilant been on a pirating
adventure I could have filled her to the hatches with as varicolored
and vari-charactered a crew as ever swarmed over the bulwarks of a
stricken prize.
To the West Indians, every American is a millionaire and a
philanthropist, and in their eyes, apparently, he is morally bound to
carry each, all, and sundry to that dreamed-of-land the States, the
Mecca of every inhabitant of the islands. Wherever the Vigilant folded
her white wings and came to rest, we were besieged by a small army of
black, brown, yellow, and every intermediate shade, all begging to be
allowed to accompany us. For the West Indian is a restless soul, never
content unless on the move and caring not a jot where day or night may
find him, albeit he is intensely patriotic, and thinks his island
preferable to all others and his people the salt of the earth.
Thus it came about that, what with deserters and new-comers, the crew
was a sort of kaleidoscopic aggregation, shifting from yellow to brown,
from black to tan, from soft-voiced, slurring-tongued “patois men” to
h-dropping ’Badians and brogue-speaking Montserratans. And a happy
family they were at that—good-naturedly chaffing one another, having
long-winded arguments over the respective merits of their various
island homes, using preposterous, meaningless words of their own
invention. And all and each making life miserable for the hapless
natives of that “right little, tight little island” designated on the
maps as Barbados, affectionately dubbed “Little England” by its sons
and daughters, and also known as “Bimshire Land,” [4] whose natives
seem for some strange reason ever to be the butt and the jest of the
other islanders, and who are the pariahs of their race, if we are to
believe their fellow negroes of the Caribbees.
Never did my men tire of taunting some poor ’Badian with the doggerel
verse
A ha’penny loaf an’ a bit o’ salt fish,
Da’ ’s wha’ de ’Badian call’ a dish.
A bottle o’ soda divided ’twix’ t’ree,
Da’ ’s wha’ de ’Badian call’ a spree.
If the ’Badians happened to be in the minority, they bore it as best
they might or retorted that “You men awnt civ’lized. You don’ know
better’n to wear alpargats to a charch of a Sunday,” a response which
usually brought on a loud cracking of tough skulls, as, like enraged
goats, the men butted one another’s wool-covered craniums—a contest in
which the ’Badian always emerged victorious. For to accuse an islander
of wearing alpargatas (the sandal-like footgear brought from Venezuela)
to church, is an insult not lightly to be suffered. Indeed, if ever
there was a being who outshone Solomon in all his glory, it is the West
Indian negro on the Sabbath; and his highest ambition is, in order to
draw greater attention to his gorgeous raiment, to possess a pair of
brilliant, pumpkin-colored shoes which, to quote his own words, “goes
queek, queek when Ah walks in de charch.”
As might be expected, in the constant change and interchange of
multicolored flotsam and jetsam, we picked up many a strange and
interesting, not to say downright weird, character.
There, for example, was Trouble. He appeared one glorious golden morn
as we lay at anchor off St. John, like Aphrodite rising from the sea,
his scanty garments dripping with brine; for, being both boatless and
penniless, he had used nature’s gifts to win his way from shore to ship
like the amphibious creature he proved to be. But, aside from the
unexpected manner of his appearance, nothing could have resembled the
goddess of the sea less. In fact, he was unquestionably the ugliest and
most repulsive representative of the genus Homo and the species Sapiens
that I have ever gazed upon—bony and big, with gorilla-like arms and a
face so broad and forehead so low that his head appeared to have been
forced out of shape by hydraulic pressure, while his natural absence of
human-like features had been enhanced by some accident which had
deprived him of even the semblance of a nose. There, above his immense
mouth, were two huge round holes which, when he grinned,—as he
constantly did,—stretched into slits that seemed ever on the point of
meeting his ears and literally severing his black face into upper and
lower hemispheres.
Like a prize bull-pup, he was so extravagantly ugly that he actually
was fascinating, and not until he spoke could I take my eyes from him.
And his first words were almost as astounding and unexpected as his
appearance:
“Ah’m beggin’ o’ yo’ pawdon, Boss, for mah audacity an’ assumption o’
de manner o’ mah absence o’ dignification for precip’tately
discommodin’ yo’, but Ah’d like for to propoun’ de interrogation ef yo’
can absorbinate mah sarvices for a member o’ de crew, sir, for to
circumnavigate de islan’s, sir.”
Was I dreaming, or had the climate affected my brain? I literally
gasped.
But the next instant I had recovered myself, for I knew that this
noseless apparition with his wide mouth filled with long words could
have originated in but one locality in all the islands, Antigua, whose
dusky inhabitants seem to pride themselves upon the amplitude of the
words they can command, regardless of their meaning or aptness.
“What’s your name, and what can you do?” I asked, more as a formality
than anything else, for I never dreamed of taking this creature on.
The noseless negro scratched his head and wiggled his bare toes.
“Ah was christened wi’ de cognomen o’ Henry Francis William Nelson
Wellington Shand, sir,” he replied; and then, as an afterthought, “but
Ah’m most usually designated by de name o’ Trouble, sir.”
“Trouble!” I exclaimed.
“Yaas, sir,” responded the grinning negro, instantly. “Thank yo’ sir,
for mekkin’ acceptance o’ mah sarvices, sir. Ah’ll endeavor for to
conduc’ mahself wif circumspection an’ implicitness. Ah’s a sailor,
sir, an’ Ah’m not expandulatin’ buncomb when Ah takes upon mahself de
assumptiveness o’ de assertion, sir.”
I was speechless,—so astounded at the man’s “assumptiveness” that he
had been hired that I could not find words to inform him of his
mistake,—and by the time I recovered from my astonishment he had
disappeared in the forecastle.
Sam stood by, chuckling to himself.
“Ah ’spec’s he may be a good sailor, Chief,” he vouchsafed. “An’ we’re
in need o’ two han’s, Chief.”
“All right, Sam,” I replied. “I suppose he doesn’t need a nose to run
aloft or tail onto a rope.”
And so Trouble came unto us, but if ever a man belied his name it was
“Henry Francis William Nelson Wellington Shand, sir,” for Trouble was a
very treasure of a hand. He was as much at home in the water as on land
or deck, and when, later, our anchor fouled one day, in fifteen
fathoms, Trouble made nothing of diving down and releasing the fluke
from its lodgment under a mass of coral and rock, while the height of
his enjoyment was to challenge Sam to dive overboard and kill a big
shark in a single-handed duel beneath the sea. And Sam, though a diver
by profession, who had killed many a man-eater with a blow of his long,
keen-bladed knife, freely admitted Trouble’s amphibious superiority.
Aloft he was a very monkey; he was ever scouring decks or polishing
brass; he was as good-natured as he was ugly, and even dignified Joseph
unbent and passed many a half-hour chinning with this weird waif of the
sea. As for the other members of the crew, after one or two tests and
trials they abandoned all attempts to out-talk or out-argue him, for
his ready flow of multisyllabled words left them floundering in a
vocabulary totally inadequate to cope with Trouble’s “expandulations”
and “supercil’ous methodictions.” On one occasion I overheard a bit of
argument between our Antiguan find and a recent addition to the
crew—for the older members invariably egged on new recruits to argue
with Trouble.
I do not know what the argument had been about nor what the new man had
said, but as he was a French mulatto from Dominica,—or, as the other
islanders have it, a “patois man,”—I presume he had been referring in
no complimentary terms to Henry Francis et cetera’s native heath.
“Yo’ worthless specimen o’ misguided humanity yo’!” exclaimed Trouble.
“Yo’ insignificant an’ fragment’ry yaller element! For wherefo’ yo’
have de audacity to let yo’ imagination direc’ yo’ to dat assumption?
Who yo’ t’ink yo’ addressin’ in dat highfalutin’, presumptious,
dictatious manner? Ah desire yo’ to distinc’ly an’ def’nitely
absorbinate de eminen’ly interestin’ an’ important info’mation Ah’s
propoundin’, an’ if yo’ declinates to precip’tately reconsider de
sentiments yo’ jus’ expressed an’ at once an’ immediately an’ hereby
and in witness whereof retrac’ yo’ asservations once, forever, an’
henceforth, der’ ’s boun’ for to occur a casulty an’ a deceased patois
nigger, an’ de gentleman is goin’ for to be compulsified for to
discommode hisself to acquire another incumbent for to fill de work
what yo’ lack o’ intellec’ don’ fit yo’ for.”
Needless to say, in the face of this dire threat—which to the
fear-stricken recipient savored of an incantation by a witch doctor or
“obeah man”—the French islander promptly and “precip’tately”
reconsidered and retracted whatever it was that had inadvertently
brought on Trouble’s outburst.
To the last day of the voyage Trouble was with us in name if not in
spirit, and never did I regret that he had hired himself, so to speak.
Aside from him and Sam and Joe, the only fixture was a red-haired,
freckle-faced Montserratan boy whom I could not resist employing on
account of his rich brogue and who served as cabin-boy, laundryman, and
clown, and with the ready wit of his wild Irish ancestors kept us all
in good humor throughout the cruise.
CHAPTER II
ST. THOMAS AND ITS PAST
St. Thomas is very beautiful when seen from a distance, with its
gray-green mountains rising above the sea, mottled with soft mauves of
shadow and dazzling silvery sunlight—a mass of opalescent tints, as
though the hills were carven from a giant pearl shell. And as the
harbor opens to view, and the little town of Charlotte Amalie is seen
spreading fanwise up its three hillsides in triangles of soft buff,
creamy white, and red, it seems a bit of the Mediterranean detached and
transplanted here in the Caribbean.
But it must be confessed that the enchantment is mainly loaned by
distance, for St. Thomas is a barren, arid island. Charlotte
Amalie—shut in by the hills—is unbearably hot; there is but one level
street, and while steep lanes, often ascending in stairways, lend
picturesqueness to the place, they are most discouraging thoroughfares
on a sweltering tropical day. Moreover, St. Thomas, having ever been a
world’s mart, a free port depending entirely upon commerce, has not the
foreign, fascinating atmosphere we find in many of the islands.
Its people, a marvelous potpourri of nationalities, of necessity have
become remarkable linguists, with a smattering of virtually every
civilized tongue, but they are neither picturesque nor interesting.
On such a cruise as ours, however, this Virgin Island possession of
Uncle Sam’s could not well be passed by, although, truth to tell, its
piratical associations are somewhat meager and of questionable
authenticity.
I had seen this famed source of bay-rum under both Danish and American
rule, in rain and in shine, in war and in peace; in prosperity with a
forest of masts in its snug harbor, and, again, devastated by
hurricanes, its shores strewn with tangled wrecks of countless vessels.
But never before had St. Thomas appeared to me just as it did when,
passing Sail Rock in the lee of the land, we entered the harbor and
dropped the Vigilant’s anchor before Charlotte Amalie.
I was looking at it now from a new point of view. I was blind to the
great coaling-piers, to the gaunt dry-dock, to the fact that
gray-painted cruisers and big liners rode upon the glassy surface of
the harbor, that the Stars and Stripes flew from the mastheads and
flagstaffs, that motor-cars scurried along the waterfront street. I was
trying to visualize St. Thomas as it had been two centuries and more
before, when ships with lateen yards, high poops, and wall-sided hulls
pierced with cannon ports had swung to anchor before the town; when
roistering crowds of fierce-whiskered, besashed sea-rovers with
cutlasses at their belts and bandanas on their heads had swaggered
through the steep and crooked streets; when the little pink
“Christian’s” fort beside the quay had been looked upon as a real
fortification, and the Danes had not been above receiving the corsairs
with open arms.
It is not a difficult matter to imagine Charlotte Amalie’s streets
filled with buccaneers, for after a few encounters with boatmen,
beggars, guides, and gamins the average visitor will be convinced that
the pirates still haunt the place in spirit if not in body. Maybe the
freebooters’ traits have been passed down in their blood that flows to
some extent in the veins of a large proportion of the Virgin Islanders;
but, however that may be, the present inhabitants of St. Thomas know
little and care less about piratical history or relics.
And an investigation of the contents of the shops in Charlotte Amalie
will lead one to think that much of the buccaneers’ loot still remains
in stock after a lapse of two centuries or more. Such juxtaposition of
odds and ends from all quarters of the world, it would be hard to
duplicate in any other port upon the planet.
Predominant, and everywhere in evidence, are the two items inseparably
associated with St. Thomas,—jipijapa hats and bay-rum,—although I
understand that since my last visit to the island the Volstead law has
shown its effects even on bay-rum. But formerly—at any rate, until its
acquisition by Uncle Samuel—St. Thomas was more famous for its bay-rum
than for anything else; bay-rum and St. Thomas were synonymous around
the world. Charlotte Amalie reeked of bay-rum: every ragged negro one
met upon the streets besought one to purchase it, and from mysterious
pockets or other receptacles produced a bottle or two; every shop was
filled with it, and the bumboats that flocked about every incoming and
departing ship were laden with it. And, strangely enough, very little
bay-rum is or was made in St. Thomas. To be sure, it was adulterated,
bottled, and labeled there, but the oil itself, the distilled extract
of the aromatic bay-tree, was largely produced in St. John. Not one
person in a million has ever heard of St. John, perhaps the most
charming island of the Virgins, and yet it is really the home of the
bay-rum which made St. Thomas famous. Such are fate and the effects of
publicity; and as the St. Johnians ultimately reaped a goodly portion
of the profits, I do not suppose they ever complained.
If the visitor to St. Thomas could not be cajoled or nagged into
purchasing bay-rum, then the islanders at once pressed upon him their
next most famous commodity, the jipijapa or Panama hats. Somehow the
visiting public was imbued with the idea that Panama hats could be
purchased more cheaply in St. Thomas than elsewhere, and despite the
fact that very few of the St. Thomas head-coverings ever saw the
Isthmus of Panama, and still fewer ever were made in far-off Ecuador
(the home of the bona-fide Panama), tourists, seamen, and other
visitors to St. Thomas invariably stocked up. It made no difference,
apparently, whether the hats were made in the neighboring Virgins or in
Porto Rico; as long as they were bought in St. Thomas the purchasers
reasoned that they must be genuine and cheap. Even the braided paper
affairs made by the Japanese were often passed off on the unsuspecting
and gullible tourists as real Panamas—whatever that may mean. Of
course, St. Thomas being formerly under Danish rule and a free port,
many articles which were subject to high duties in the United States
were to be had in the island at bargain prices, but Monte Cristi Panama
hats were not among them.
In the good old days before our country and all its colonies became
Saharas, St. Thomas was noted up and down and roundabout the islands
for its liquid refreshments. Not only was there the justly famed St.
Croix rum, but countless other beverages were procurable there, brought
from every liquor-producing country on the globe, in addition to
several native concoctions that were not to be laughed at, especially
after a few glasses with the jovial Danes on a holiday. Oddly enough,
inhabitants of tropical lands, especially the West Indies, consume
incredible quantities of alcoholic drinks and seem to thrive upon them.
Indeed, it is a source of pride among the islanders that their native
islets consume more alcohol per capita than any other lands, and there
is always a keen rivalry between Barbados, Bermuda, and Demerara in
this respect. But I had never heard that St. Thomas strove for first
honors and when, on one occasion, I inquired of a huge blond-bearded
St. Thomas Dane why this was so, he informed me in all seriousness that
as the St. Thomas people consumed more than all the others combined, it
was beneath them even to mention the question. Surely it must make the
old buccaneers squirm in their graves to think of St. Thomas, of all
places, being dry, dry as old Dead Man’s Chest with its one bottle of
rum to fifteen men, at least on the surface, though I know there is
many a cask, bottle, and keg stored safely away in private stocks for
the proper drinking of a skoal when occasion arises.
But to return to the shops of Charlotte Amalie and their strange and
motley contents. Here, with the bay-rum, jipijapa hats, and dried
corals and starfish, are French perfumes, picture post-cards, and seed
necklaces. Miscellaneous hardware, groceries, tinned goods, cloth, and
bric-à-brac are inextricably mixed. A salesman searches among piles of
cordage and bundles of rowlocks to find a pair of shoes or a package of
patent medicine, for every shop in Charlotte Amalie, save the drug
stores, is a little of everything with nothing in its place. I remember
seeing a pair of very old-fashioned skates dangling rusty and forlorn
outside a shop one blistering December day. Curious to know how such
things happened to be in the island, or to whom the proprietor expected
to sell them I entered and inquired. Imagine my amusement and surprise
when I was solemnly informed that they had been there for years, that
no one knew exactly what they were used for, but, in the words of the
chocolate-colored shopkeeper:
“I am aware that they are significant of the holiday season, and so I
hang them outside regularly each year as an indication to passers-by
that my Christmas stock of merchandise is on sale.” Truly, an original
method of advertising!
In another shop a pair of strange slipper-like objects, unlike anything
I had ever seen, were displayed. The owner of the shop, without
appearing to think it at all curious, told me they were from Lapland,
and, perhaps with a faint hope of making a sale, thereupon rummaged
among his stock of countless years’ standing and proudly produced a
pair of moth-eaten Eskimo boots! Had he brought forth a full suit of
armor or the skeleton of a buccaneer, I could scarcely have been more
astonished. But after all, when we come to think of it, it is not so
remarkable, for both Greenland and St. Thomas were Danish colonies, and
no doubt some far-cruising Dane brought the reindeer-skin
foot-coverings here on one of his trading voyages. We may laugh at the
Dane for not realizing that such things were hardly suitable for
everyday wear in the Virgin Islands, but is his mistake any more
ridiculous than that of our own countryman who shipped a cargo of
warming-pans to St. Kitts, or our own United States Senator who, when
about to start on a mission to Porto Rico, asked a friend if the people
there had means of heating their houses in winter?
Far more interesting than the shops, however, and a spot which every
visitor who is interested in maritime matters should see, is the
“ships’ graveyard” at Krum Bay, near the harbor entrance.
Here, for countless years, have been towed the disabled, storm-beaten
ships condemned as unworthy of repair, and here they have found their
last port, their final resting-place. Stripped of rigging and other
fittings, they have been burned for the copper they contained; but
though they are lost forever, though history makes no mention of them,
though their very names have long since been forgotten, yet they still
live on, perpetuated in their figure-heads which have been saved and,
while sadly neglected, are prized as relics.
There is something pathetic, almost tragic, in these dumb and lifeless
figures lying there exposed to the elements, their once-gay paint and
gilt tarnished, faded, and flaked off by storm and wind and sun. They
seem almost like tombstones, as indeed they are—monuments to dead and
gone ships that once proudly plowed the seven seas and the five broad
oceans. Only carven effigies, perhaps, but all that remain to tell of
stately hulls and towering pyramids of canvas, of lofty trucks and
clipper bows, of craft that, disabled, maimed, battered, and wrecked,
have left their bones here in St. Thomas at Krum Bay.
Looking at these reminders of a bygone day, one can visualize the ships
of which they formed a part, can almost identify the craft beneath
whose soaring bowsprits these figures once gazed forth across the
tumbling, foam-flecked brine. Here, leaning against a cocoanut palm, is
a Roman legionary, his short sword broken at the hilt as though in some
hard-fought battle, his shield dented and bruised, and his wooden face
seamed and scarred. Faded, weather-beaten, and forlorn, he is still a
martial figure. He has fought more battles, has seen victory in more
hard-won fights than ever soldier of Cæsar,—battles against the
elements, struggles between lashing, storm-flung waves and puny
man,—and while in the end the sea was victorious, yet we know that the
stern-visaged warrior fought a good fight and bore the brunt of battle
always in the foremost rank, ever there with threatening falchion at
the bows. Massive, heroic he is, and we feel sure that in years gone he
looked proudly, defiantly upon the sea from some ship of war or
privateer with grinning ports along her sides.
Close by, coquettishly peeping from behind a pile of junk, is a very
different figure, a female form with doll-like, simpering face, long,
flowing hair, and clinging draperies. Upon her cheeks are still patches
of pink, as though she had but freshly rouged; her skirts and low-cut
bodice still are gaudy with red and yellow, and we can see that once
her wooden tresses were of raven hue. Looking at her, we can
reconstruct the ship she graced, we can see the bluff-bowed, wallowing,
honest merchantman, and we feel sure, could we but look upon the stern,
we should see, painted across her counter, “Polly” or “Betsy” or
perchance even “Mary Ann.”
Near this lady, with her fixed wooden smile that has withstood the
tempests of centuries, a sailor lad in glazed hat lurches drunkenly,
propped up by an iron post just as his living counterpart no doubt was
supported many a time after a glorious night ashore. Now his eyes are
fixed in an unwinking stare upon raven-haired Polly, while behind him,
with outflung arm, one shapely foot spurning a carven shield, poises a
Victory. A masterpiece she, albeit her wings are sadly clipped and
disrespectful insects have pitted her classic features with their
borings until she looks as though she had suffered from smallpox. But
the finely chiseled draperies, the perfectly proportioned, softly
rounded limbs speak eloquently of beauty long since faded, of expert
craftsmanship. All who love ships must pause before her in reverence,
for once she flew gracefully at the sharp prow of some famous
clipper-ship, a grayhound of the sea, a fabric such as never will be
seen again,—the very acme of Yankee shipbuilding skill. A craft with
sky-piercing masts, vast tapering yards, and acres of billowing canvas,
the clipper was the queen of transatlantic liners, and proudly she
flaunted the Stars and Stripes for all the world to see.
And something of an epitome of St. Thomas’s history and St. Thomas’s
trade is this graveyard of the ships. As each old sailing-craft was
towed to its funeral pyre at Krum Bay the island took a step nearer its
doom, for with the passing of the old West India trade, with the
discarding of crossed yards and square sails, St. Thomas’s greatness
departed. Never again will her harbor be filled with a forest of masts
flying the flags of every maritime nation.
Perchance under the United States Government she may be more stable
than heretofore: she may suffer less from lack of cash and a mother
country’s interest. Coaling-docks and grimy colliers will attract a
certain number of hideous tramps and spotless liners to her harbor;
tourists may spend a few hours and a few dollars in quaint Charlotte
Amalie, but never again will this port be world-famed as of yore.
But even so,—even though the island’s romantic past is little more than
tradition, with the old days gone forever; even with the omnipresent
marines and Fords upon the streets and the American flag flying over
the old pink fort,—St. Thomas is still a charming resort with its three
hills rising like pyramids of multicolored, red-roofed buildings, its
gray-green mountains over all, its blue sky and bluer waters and its
brown, black, and yellow good-natured, care-free inhabitants, who,
though the blood of pirate chieftain or old Viking may run in their
veins, one and all proudly proclaim themselves “Americans.”
Of all things in St. Thomas, the most cherished, even sacred, to the
natives, and invariably the first to be pointed out to the visitor, is
the famous “Blackbeard’s Castle” at the apex of the hillside town of
Charlotte Amalie.
Perhaps old Blackbeard never dwelt in the tower that bears his name,
any more than Bluebeard of the inquisitive wives built or occupied the
neighboring structure which bears his name. Indeed, there is no denying
that Blackbeard’s Castle bears a striking resemblance to an old stone
windmill tower. But the skeptics who have pointed this out and have
scoffed at the beloved legend of the St. Thomians have overlooked the
fact that even if the tower was originally only an unromantic
cane-mill, there is no valid reason why Teach should not have made use
of it. Dutch windmills were built, used, and abandoned years before the
famous pirate saw the light of day, and a cylindrical tower of massive
stone, whether designed for a windmill or otherwise, was an ideal
structure for a freebooter’s dwelling and fortress, and was admirably
adapted to defensive tactics.
In fact, between the two, I would far rather have been within that
tower on the hill than in the squat pink fort, in case of attack in the
days when muzzle-loading guns and round shot were in vogue, and the
fact that Blackbeard’s Castle bears a family likeness to a windmill
proves or disproves nothing. Everywhere in the West Indies one finds
Spanish, French, Dutch, and even English towers built for forts and as
much like that upon this St. Thomas hilltop as peas in the same pod.
Right on the splendid Malecon in Havana there is one; several are
scattered about Puerto Plata, Macoris, and other towns in Santo
Domingo. They may be seen in a more or less ruined state all up and
down the Antilles and the Main, and yet no one has the temerity to
suggest that they were once windmills! Why, then, should any one try to
destroy this almost sacred tradition of St. Thomas? Why try to rob the
islanders of that one reminder of the buccaneers? No, let us not be
doubting Thomases, but rather be thankful that this old-time haven of
the pirates still retains at least one landmark that links it with the
past.
And there is no reason why Blackbeard should not have dwelt in St.
Thomas in those days of his prosperity. All the Virgin Isles—Danish,
Dutch, and British—were safe refuges for the pirates, retreats wherein
they could lie in peace, where they could refit and careen their craft,
could secure supplies, could exchange their loot for gold and silver
currency, and could gamble and carouse to their hearts’ content.
Very canny were the thrifty islanders in thus opening their doors to
the freebooters. It protected them from attack, and it insured a lively
trade. And they well knew that whatever they paid in good pieces of
eight and golden onzas for plundered goods would eventually return to
their own pockets over bars and gaming-tables, for the pirates were
free spenders and money ever burned holes in their pockets. So we may
feel sure that St. Thomas has sheltered many a pirate ship and many a
famous or infamous buccaneer, especially in the great harp-shaped bay
to the west of Charlotte Amalie, and separated from the harbor by a
rocky peninsula. Here the pirates were wont to lie in wait for
unsuspecting merchantmen bound through the Virgin Passage between the
island and neighboring Porto Rico, until, to save their faces, the
Danish authorities were compelled to request their welcome but
disreputable guests to confine themselves to more peaceful pursuits
while in Danish waters or else betake themselves elsewhere.
CHAPTER III
THE BUCCANEERS IN THE VIRGIN ISLES
It was due to peculiar circumstances that the Virgin Islands and their
harbors became neutral ground—or, rather, neutral waters—wherein the
corsairs could be sure of safety, and where they never harmed the
inhabitants or such peaceful craft as might come to trade or to seek
refuge.
With the European countries constantly at one another’s throats, the
men without a country, flying no flag but the Jolly Roger, could always
find safety among these disputed isles, and were always sure of a
welcome. The hated Spaniards were the chief sufferers from the pirates’
attacks, and while they might virtually be at peace with Spain, yet the
other powers saw no real reason to interfere with the pirates’
activities merely to aid an hereditary enemy who might at any moment
see fit to start another war. England, as ever, desired the supremacy
of the seas, and, hard put to it to maintain her grip in the Antilles,
she was quite willing that the Dons should be kept in check by fair
means or foul. France was too busy with more serious matters to bother
about the freebooters in the far-off Caribbean. The thrifty Dutch found
it more profitable to trade with the pirates than to fight them, and
the Danes,—with the adventurous blood of the Vikings in their veins,—no
doubt had more or less of a fellow-feeling for the sea-robbers.
And so, although the governments of Europe sent forth royal decrees,
bearing most impressive seals, gay with colored ribbons and engrossed
with lengthy words and involved sentences, and on parchment frowned
upon the corsairs, yet no real effort was made to enforce the law. So
the buccaneers laughed at the “scraps of paper” and went merrily and
virtually unchecked upon their way.
It may be well here to call attention to the fact that we should not
confuse the buccaneers with ordinary pirates, for while buccaneers were
pirates, yet pirates were not necessarily buccaneers; and even in their
piracy the buccaneers or “Brethren of the Main,” as they called
themselves, were by no means the conventional pirates of fiction.
Nearly all of them started on their careers as privateers with royal
warrant to prey upon the enemy’s ships. Then, having found the game to
their liking and with no other means of earning a livelihood when peace
was declared, they kept it up, regardless of such trifling matters as
treaties of peace between kings and emperors several thousands of miles
distant. With a few exceptions, they continued their depredations in
much the same manner and along the same lines as they had conducted
their privateering ventures.
The British buccaneers—and the majority were of that nationality—never
attacked a vessel flying the thrice-crossed flag of England; they did
not molest the Dutch, who were ever friendly, for as long as there were
plenty of Spaniards, Portuguese, and Frenchmen for the plucking they
were quite content to pick and choose. The French buccaneers were
perhaps a little less squeamish, while the Dutch and the Spanish
apparently preyed on friend and foe alike.
But, no matter what their nationality or origin, all left certain
places free from molestation, and among these the favorites were the
Virgin Isles, the island of Tortuga off Haiti, the islets about Santo
Domingo, Aves Island off Venezuela, the Caymans south of Jamaica,
Jamaica itself, and the Bay Islands off Honduras. These islands,
especially the Virgins, became known far and wide as lairs of the
reckless sea-rovers, whither none dared to follow and where they could,
for a space, cast aside all fear of shipwreck, murder, and sudden death
and live in peace.
Callous, case-hardened, and ruffianly as they were, yet they knew well
which side their bread was buttered on, and they made and enforced
strict laws and discipline in their retreats. The natives’ lives and
property were sacred, the towns were patrolled by armed men selected by
the buccaneer chiefs, and death, swift and sure, was the punishment for
any infringement of rules, or a violation of the hospitality accorded.
Many a drunken pirate was pistoled out of hand by his own comrades for
taking, or attempting to take, liberties with some Virgin Island maid.
Many a buccaneer has kicked and writhed as he swung to his ship’s yard
arm as a penalty for picking a quarrel with some citizen of St. John or
St. Barts, and more than one corsair has been cut down without mercy
and his body thrown to the waiting sharks because he refused to pay for
drinks or commodities purchased in the island shops or bar-rooms.
Strange, incomprehensible, quixotic men, these reckless buccaneers.
Cruel, relentless, unprincipled, and yet with their own inexorable
laws, their own code of honor, their streak of gallantry and their
bravery which, despite their sins and their wickedness, we cannot but
admire.
We cannot understand them; it would baffle the most expert
psychoanalyist to fathom the workings of their brains; but we must not
judge them by modern standards. In their day piracy was a profession
rather than a crime and, while openly frowned upon by the powers,
privately abetted and encouraged. Indeed, it was looked upon rather as
a gentleman’s profession, and not a few gentlemen were engaged in it.
To us these men appear bloodthirsty monsters, but we must bear in mind
that in their day life was cheap and torture was legalized as a
punishment for the most trivial crimes.
Such pleasantries as burning holes through liars’ tongues, cutting off
eavesdroppers’ ears, branding the palms of thieves’ hands, or putting
out eyes were in the same category as ten days’ imprisonment or ten
dollars’ fine to-day. And death in fiendish forms was meted out for
violations of the law which in our day we should think severely
punished with six months in a modern jail with such accessories as
motion pictures, baseball games, and musical concerts in lieu of rack,
wheel, and thumb-screw.
In the days when the Virgins were a haven for pirates the bodies of men
hanging in chains and surrounded by carrion crows were almost an
essential part of the waterside landscape in all seaports, and
attracted no more attention than an illuminated advertisement on
Broadway does at the present time.
No doubt the country people who came to town for a holiday or to do
their marketing, stared with bulging eyes at the rotting corpses
swaying in the wind and pointed them out to their young hopefuls as
awful examples of the end they would come to if they ran away to become
sea-rovers, just as to-day our country cousins stare and gape at the
sights of the metropolis. And unquestionably the denizens of the ports
snickered and made rude jokes about the “rubes” and “bumpkins” who were
such “jays” as to stare at a pirate’s body in chains.
But such a fate overtook the buccaneers only when, by some mischance,
they forgot themselves and overstepped the bounds of propriety; for as
a rule they had a peculiar sense of patriotism—although men without a
country, legally—and seldom troubled persons or ships of the land of
their birth. And as long as they confined their activities to harassing
hereditary enemies, even though official peace might have been
established, their countrymen put tongues in cheeks, figuratively
speaking, and let well enough alone.
Indeed, from a diplomatic and economic point of view it was not a bad
plan to have a score or two of corsairs preying on a competitor
nation’s commerce, or within call in case of war. No small proportion
of the buccaneer ships were fitted out and partly owned by law-abiding
and highly respectable gentlemen and merchants who would have become
apoplectic with righteous indignation if any one had dared assume that
they were even morally in sympathy with piracy.
Many of the buccaneers were exceedingly interesting characters, and the
pity is that, aside from Esquemelling and one or two others, they had
no chroniclers, no biographers to leave us a true account of their
lives, to give us a real insight into their natures, their ideals, and
their aims, and to thrill us with their adventures. A few have become
famous, have lived on in history and legend; but doubtless many more,
whose careers were far more thrilling and whose characters were far
more interesting, have been completely forgotten. Now and then some bit
of tradition, some fragment of story makes us wish we knew more of
them.
It is hard to imagine a swashbuckling, blood-spilling pirate, spending
his leisure hours in writing poetry, but it was no other than Foster, a
pirate who served under Morgan and whom the famous Sir Harry one time
rebuked for his ruthlessness, that penned “Sonnyettes of Love,” which,
although they may not be good verse, are certainly more intelligible
than much of our modern poetry, and express delightful and tender
sentiments.
No doubt the screams of captive Spanish wives and daughters maltreated
by his ruffianly crew furnished the author with inspiration and turned
his mind to thoughts of shady Devon lanes or ivy-clad Surrey cottages
and buxom, fair-haired, red-cheeked English lassies. But this is mere
speculation; all we know is that he was a romantic soul and preferred
writing tender effusions of love, in his cramped, painstaking hand, to
carousing ashore and making merry with negro wenches.
Old Teach, the Blackbeard associated with the castle in St. Thomas, was
a most interesting type, a man such as even Poe or Stevenson could not
have created out of whole cloth or vivid imagination. Born as Edward
Teach, in Bristol, England,—a port, by the way, where many a
redoubtable freebooter was recruited,—the youngster in due course of
time became a sailor and voyaged, among other places, to the West
Indies. To be sure, the heyday of buccaneering was then over, but
still, in 1716, there were many freebooters afloat upon the Caribbean.
Having heard, in Port Royal and other notorious resorts, glowing tales
of the pirate’s life, Edward decided that life aboard a merchantman was
a very unattractive and unprofitable one and that piracy was the most
promising get-rich-quick scheme.
Regardless of his failings, we must admit that young Teach would have
won the highest esteem of an efficiency expert (had such beings existed
in his day), for he believed implicitly that a thing worth doing at all
was worth doing well and bent all his energies to practising his
profession in a thorough manner. As an example of the rewards or
successes attendant upon application to an idea, Teach was a model, for
within a space of two years from the time he announced his intention of
turning corsair he could lay undisputed claim to being the world’s
greatest pirate.
Moreover, the amiable Edward was a firm believer in publicity and in
the spectacular. Indeed, he very evidently was far in advance of his
time, and to-day he would have brought untold joy to the heart of a
film director and would be drawing a far larger income than he ever
enjoyed through his chosen career. If ever there was an original of the
buccaneer of melodrama and lurid fiction, it must have been Teach;
only, no author or playwright would ever dare draw a character as
bizarre, repulsive, and hideously ferocious as this Prince of Pirates.
Of immense size and coarse and brutal aspect, Teach nurtured a huge
black beard which covered his ugly face to his eyes, and which, falling
to his waist, was braided into innumerable small pigtails, the ends
being tied together over his ears. His hair, also of inky hue, fell to
his shoulders and almost met his beetling, bushy black eyebrows over
his forehead. As though not ferocious-looking enough naturally, he was
accustomed, when making an attack, to stick burning slow-matches in
hair and beard, which surrounded his fierce face and gleaming eyes with
a ring of fire and smoke and, according to a contemporaneous
description, “glowed most horribly.” Unlike many of his notorious
predecessors and compeers, Blackbeard was no dandy. His favorite
costume was a long-skirted, deep-cuffed coat, much the worse for wear
and dribbled liquor; a rough shirt open to the waist and exposing a
chest as hairy as a gorilla’s; short, wide breeches, and low seaman’s
shoes. Stockings he usually dispensed with, and a battered felt hat of
the type made familiar by stage robbers crowned his ebon mane, while,
to complete his get-up, a pair of cutlasses and a knife or two hung at
his belt and half a dozen pistols were stuck through his sash.
And, in truth, Blackbeard’s character was as ferocious as his looks,
and his soul as black as his whiskers. There was not a single redeeming
feature about him, unless it was his sheer courage, and altogether he
was a despicable scoundrel. On more than one occasion he robbed and
murdered his own men, and he cared not a whit whether prizes he took
were flying the flag of his mother country or of another. To him,
torture and butchery were mere pastimes, and one day, just as a joke,
he placed seventeen of his own crew on a tiny desert island, promising
to return at intervals to see how long they could survive without food
or water. Fortunately for the castaways, Teach was unable to carry out
this, to him, interesting experiment in human endurance, for another
corsair,—and a rank amateur, at that,—Major Stede Bonnet, rescued the
marooned pirates.
No doubt time hung heavy on the pirates’ hands at times as they sailed
aimlessly about waiting for a prize, but those upon Blackbeard’s ship
could always be sure that tedium would not be their lot. As an
entertainer Teach was a marvel, albeit his ideas of amusement were not
always appreciated by others and he must have devoted a considerable
portion of his spare time to inventing new schemes to relieve the
monotony between fights.
Once, when his ship was becalmed on a blistering hot day and no sail
broke the scintillating horizon, the resourceful Blackbeard appeared on
deck hatless, coatless, and in his bare feet, and proposed that his
shipmates should make a little “hell of their own,” adding that, as
they were all bound for the lower regions eventually, it would be
interesting to learn in advance who would be able to bear it the
longest. As his crew well knew that any imitation devised would be
nothing to the inferno their captain would raise if they declined his
invitation, they rather hesitatingly and half-heartedly fell in with
his plan. Thereupon Teach and his men—some of whom had to be urged by
sundry well-aimed kicks and blows—descended into the ship’s hold and,
having securely fastened the hatches, set fire to several kegs of
sulphur and seated themselves upon the stone ballast.
We can well imagine that in the ill-smelling, unventilated hold a very
creditable imitation of the infernal regions soon resulted, while
Blackbeard might well have served as a model for the Evil One himself.
At any rate, the officers and crew soon decided that even if they were
on the straight road to perdition they had no desire to arrive ahead of
time, and, choking and gasping, they broke through the hatches and
climbed on deck. But not so with old Teach. Long after the last of his
men had deserted the hold, he remained, seated on the stones, breathing
the brimstone fumes, and throughout the rest of his days it was his
greatest pride that he had been the last to give in.
Indeed, when one of his officers informed him that he had looked like a
half-hanged man as he emerged, Teach seemed greatly pleased and
declared that at some future time he was going to make a test to see
who could dangle the longest from a noose without being wholly hanged.
Blackbeard believed in keeping himself before the public and in not
allowing even his friends to forget who he was or what his character,
as illustrated by an incident in his career when he was entertaining
his own sailing-master and a pilot in the cabin of his sloop, which was
at anchor in one of the Virgin Island harbors.
After a time conversation lagged and Teach, blowing out the solitary
candle, cocked his pistols, and, crossing his arms, fired point-blank
toward his companions. The unfortunate sailing-master was shot through
the knee and permanently crippled, but in the darkness of the cabin the
other shot went wild and the pilot escaped with nothing worse than a
fright. When, after this pleasantry, the candle was re-lit and the two
indignant seamen demanded an explanation, Teach cursed them fluently
and at length, and finished by explaining that they would forget who he
was if he didn’t shoot one of them now and then.
Strangely enough, Blackbeard, despite his unattractive face and still
more unattractive personality, appears to have been a good deal of a
lady-killer, figuratively if not literally, for he managed to win the
hearts and hands of fourteen maidens whom he married. History fails to
record their subsequent fate or whether Teach devised some speedy form
of divorce to suit himself. The fourteenth wife was a “most charming
young creature of sixteen,” if we are to believe those who wrote of her
at first hand.
Blackbeard’s courtships would have made entertaining reading had they
been recorded, and it would be interesting to know what there was about
him that appealed so strongly to feminine tastes, but chroniclers
evidently considered such matters too trivial to record.
Of course it would be expected that a man of Edward Teach’s character
and attainments would die with his boots on and fighting to the last,
and he was not one to disappoint the lover of lurid adventure. In the
end he completely fulfilled everything expected of him. So great a
menace had he become to shipping, especially to the merchant marine of
the British colonies in America, that the powers that were demanded
that his activities be brought to a speedy end. Accordingly, the
Governor of Virginia, in 1718, posted divers and sundry notices to the
effect that forty pounds sterling would be paid as a reward for the
capture of any pirate captain, and that Edward Teach, otherwise known
as “Blackbeard,” was worth one hundred pounds to the authorities,
whether he be brought in dead or alive. In those days such a sum was a
small fortune, enough to tempt any brave and hardy soul to have a try
for it, but the first to camp on Blackbeard’s trail was Lieutenant
Maynard of H. M. S. Pearl. By some means never fully revealed, Maynard
learned that the redoubtable pirate was enjoying a brief vacation in a
secluded cove near Ocracoke Inlet (North Carolina). Gossip had it that
the Governor of Carolina was on far too friendly terms with Teach, and
that no small portion of that worthy gentleman’s wealth had found its
way into the governor’s pockets, owing to the pirate’s appreciation of
being left undisturbed in his chosen haven on the Carolina coast.
Whatever the truth may be, the young naval officer started forth in a
sloop he had fitted out and manned, intent on Blackbeard’s capture or
death. Although the pirate was apprised of the lieutenant’s approach,
he scorned to move from his retreat, but spent the night before the
expected visit in striving to outdrink a friendly merchant skipper who
had dropped in for a call. Toward daylight, however, Teach’s men saw
Maynard approaching, and the pirate, realizing that the officer really
meant business, cut his cables, hoisted the Jolly Roger, and let his
vessel drift ashore. Here, in the shoal water, he felt sure the sloop
could not follow, and as, oddly enough, neither vessel carried cannon
and it would be a hand-to-hand conflict, Blackbeard’s ruse was worthy
of him.
But the one hundred pounds still glittered before the lieutenant’s
eyes, and, determined to do or die, he cast everything possible
overboard, including the water-casks, set his sails, and headed
directly for the pirate vessel. Thereupon Blackbeard, with his
slow-matches smoking and sputtering in hair and beard, “hailed him in a
most rude manner,” cursed him, defied him, and, to show his utter
contempt, stood in plain view upon his ship’s rails and drank a goblet
of liquor to Maynard’s damnation. Finding that, even with everything
movable jettisoned, his sloop still drew too much water to grapple with
the pirate, the lieutenant manned small boats and attempted to board
Blackbeard’s craft. He was met with so hot a welcome of musketry and
pistols that twenty-nine men were killed and wounded, and the boats
retreated to the sloop.
Meanwhile the tide was rising, and Maynard’s sloop was constantly
drifting closer to the pirate. Still confident of success, the
lieutenant ordered all his men below, he alone remaining on deck with
the helmsman. Presently, the sloop grated and bumped against the other
vessel, and immediately the pirates began to pelt her with
fire-grenades. Then, drawing cutlasses and pistols, they sprang over
the bulwarks and swarmed upon the sloop’s decks in true melodramatic
piratical style. Up from the hold poured Maynard’s men, and hot and
furious was the battle. Teach and the lieutenant were face to face.
Both fired at the same instant, at point-blank range, but while the
officer dodged, Teach was less fortunate, and Maynard’s bullet buried
itself in the pirate’s face.
With blood streaming from the wound and dripping from the braided ends
of his beard, the maddened pirate flung down his pistol, whipped out
his cutlass, and, swearing horribly, leaped at the officer, who also
had drawn his sword. Then followed a duel, a hand-to-hand struggle to
the death between the gigantic, cursing, horrible-featured pirate and
the young officer—a contest between brute strength and trained
swordsmanship. Chasing each other back and forth across the
blood-covered deck, stumbling and tripping over dead and wounded men,
they hacked and parried and thrust. Again and again the officer’s sword
went home, more than once the pirate’s cutlass found its mark, until at
last a terrific blow of Blackbeard’s heavy blade snapped his opponent’s
light sword at the hilt and the lieutenant was at the pirate’s mercy.
With a blood-curdling yell and a terrible oath, Teach swung his cutlass
and struck with all his failing strength, expecting to cut his enemy
down with a single blow. But Maynard, leaping back, escaped, the stroke
falling short and merely slicing off several fingers from the officer’s
hand. Before Teach could strike again, ere he could raise his arm, one
of Maynard’s men leaped forward, his naval hanger flashed, and the
pirate chief staggered back, his head lolling on one side, his neck
half severed. But even then, with his life-blood spouting like a
crimson fountain from the gaping wound, with his head rolling horribly
on his shoulders, Blackbeard swung his cutlass and with a mighty blow
cut the brave sailor down.
Knowing his doom was sealed, realizing his death was but a matter of
moments, the pirate was still game. Kicking off his shoes, that his
feet might not slip upon the bloody planks, he backed to the bulwarks,
fighting off a half-dozen men who fell upon him. Dripping with blood
from a score of wounds, holding his all but decapitated head in place
with one hand, he roared like a maddened bull, drew a pistol from his
sash, cocked it, and with a last superhuman effort aimed at the
oncoming men. But the piece was never fired; before his finger could
pull the trigger, before a swinging blade could reach him, his hands
fell at his sides, his head dropped forward in ghastly fashion on his
blood-drenched beard, and he slumped to the deck, dead.
Those of the pirate crew still alive had leaped into the water; the
fight was over, the battle won, the notorious, inhuman Blackbeard was
no more. Cutting the sinews and muscles that still kept Teach’s head
and body together, the victorious Maynard suspended the gruesome trophy
at his sloop’s bowsprit end, and with thirteen captured pirates under
hatches, sailed into Bath Town, North Carolina, where the unlucky
thirteen were promptly hanged and Lieutenant Maynard received his
well-merited and hard-won reward.
Oddly enough, the one man of Blackbeard’s crew who escaped unscathed
was his sailing-master, Israel Hands, the selfsame man whom Teach had
wounded in the knee a short time previously, and who, owing to his late
captain’s practical joke, was ashore nursing his injured leg at the
time of Maynard’s attack.
CHAPTER IV
ON THE WAY TO ST. JOHN
Sam had assured me that there were many relics of buccaneer days on St.
John, and in St. Thomas his statements had been confirmed by several
persons. Moreover, the names of many a bay and cove that broke the
coast-line of this near-by neighbor of St. Thomas were associated with
the buccaneers, and so, although I had originally planned to pass it by
and set sail direct for Anegada, I changed my itinerary to include this
neglected Eden of the Virgins.
Sam had rounded up the crew—who, considering that St. Thomas is
supposedly “dry,” were, with the exception of Joe, extremely
hilarious—and had them safe aboard and under his watchful eye the
evening preceding our departure; for the Bahaman, unlike the majority
of his race, never believed in putting off until the morrow what could
be done the night before.
Many an old-time friend of pre-American days had I met in Charlotte
Amalie, and many a toast to the success of my cruise had been drunk in
delectable guava-berry cordial and other beverages dear to the Danish
West Indians,—a fine, hospitable, easygoing lot,—and it was with real
regret that I bade them farewell.
Hardly had the first rosy tints of approaching dawn lightened the
eastern sky when Sam routed out his men. The creak and purr of tackle
and sheave broke the silence of the sleeping harbor, the capstan
clanked and clattered to the rhythm of shuffling black feet upon the
deck, and the Vigilant glided slowly from the land as the sun rose
above the gently swaying cocoanut-palms and transformed the ancient
schooner’s sails to cloth of gold.
To the west as we cleared the land, and looming sharply in the morning
light, rose Sail Rock, more than ever the very semblance of a ship.
And, my mind filled with thoughts of pirate and of buccaneer, I could
picture the solitary pinnacle as a great galleon sailing majestically
southward through the narrow channel. There, shimmering in the sun, was
the high, ornate stern; along the low, dark waist the creamy foam
sparkled brightly; upward in towering pyramids soared the huge, square
sails; and toward her—like a falcon after a helpless gull—the Vigilant
swept.
How often, I wondered, had the little schooner’s bowsprit swung toward
some distant gleam of sail? How many times had her dark-skinned,
fierce-faced crew run out the long guns and sent round shot hurtling
through the hull and rigging of a prize?
And then Sam spoke:
“Tha’ Sail Rock mos’ cert’n’y do have th’ aspec’ o’ a ship, Chief. Did
y’ ever hear o’ th’ ’casion when one o’ th’ ’Merican battle-ships fired
on th’ rock for a target, an’ th’ Danes made plenty o’ rumpus an’
humbuggin’ ’bout it?”
The spell was broken. The galleon vanished in thin air. I saw only a
curiously formed rock surrounded by screaming sea-birds, and as a
smoke-belching, grimy tramp appeared from behind it I turned away and
looked toward the soft, deliciously green hills to the eastward—the
hills of St. John. And as though she too were suddenly disillusioned
and had bethought herself that she was no pirate ship running down a
prize, but a law-abiding and peaceful packet carrying an American on an
innocent mission, the Vigilant swung about and headed for St. John.
But, as Sam said, the rock did certainly have the “aspec’” of a ship,
and I could not blame the bellicose captain of a French frigate who, a
century and more ago, sighted the rock one night and, mistaking it for
a privateer, ran close and hailed the supposed enemy. No response being
forthcoming, he blazed a broadside at the shadowy mass. Back came an
echoing thunder of the cannonade, and the rebounding shot, falling on
the frigate’s deck, convinced the Frenchman that the privateer was
returning his fire.
For hours the battle raged, the French gunners pouring broadside after
broadside at the massive cliffs, and not until day dawned did the
deluded commander of the frigate discover his mistake and, crestfallen
and mortified, creep away, leaving Sail Rock unscathed and triumphant.
Sailing in a fresh breeze, with a buoyant, well-built, easily handled
ship under one’s feet, is a never-ending delight to one fond of the
water, regardless of what portion of the seven seas one’s craft may be
spurning from her bow. But to me no other water is so sparkling, no
other wind so free, balmy, and life-giving, as that of the Caribbean;
no other sea is so delightful for sailing.
Never, I am sure, should I tire of voyaging this sea in a speedy
vessel, of watching the streaming, far-flung wake of verdigris,
turquoise, and veridian; of standing in the very eyes of the plunging
craft and, with the rushing wind whipping the salt spray in my face,
gazing at the hissing, prismatic curling bow wave and the skittering
flying-fish like miniature hydroplanes. Never should I weary of
watching those wondrous masses of a thousand shades of green rising
above the rim of the sea, of seeing the hazy, opalescent forms develop
into mile-high mountains, stupendous gorges, and vast, forest-clad
hills. Glorious are the saffron-and-pink-hued dawns when the sea seems
swept and scoured, so scintillating it is. And equally wonderful are
the flaming orange-and-crimson sunsets, with the water mauve, lavender,
and royal purple in the fading light of day. Then, when night comes,
suddenly and like a black curtain dropped from the zenith, and the
myriad gleaming stars spangle the velvety dome of the sky and the
Southern Cross glows low in the heavens,—then is the world filled with
romance and peace as the gentle rise and fall of the vessel lulls to
rest, the creaking tackle and rigging and the soft lapping of the waves
whisper a lullaby, and the balmy night wind touches one’s cheek with a
caress. If I could have my heart’s desire, I should, I think, choose to
spend my declining years sailing the Spanish Main in a swift and handy
ship, cruising aimlessly, touching where fancy willed, free as one of
the swift-winged frigate-birds, untrammeled as the leaping porpoises.
Being possessed of a passion for the sea and for the ships that sail
thereon, and with an even greater fondness for my familiar and beloved
Caribbean, I can well understand why the buccaneers loved their wild
life.
It was not simply gain, murder, debauchery, or lawlessness that lured
them, that kept them ceaselessly reaching, scudding, tacking, and
beating back and forth, round and about the Spanish Main. Most of them
had more treasure than they could ever need—more than they could ever
spend—cached here and there. No, it was largely sheer love of the sea,
a resistless desire to feel the heaving decks under their feet, the
pure fascination of adventure.
So let us not judge them too harshly. In their day, loot in time of war
was legitimate and included the females of the vanquished; slavery
flourished; debtors were sold as slaves. Taken all in all, the
buccaneers were gentlemanly in their treatment of prisoners according
to the customs of their times, while, compared with other forms of
death then in vogue, walking the plank was a merciful end.
Besides, men’s tastes, ideas, constitutions, feelings, and
sensitiveness vary. Many a man would have found the blazing sun and the
spray-sprinkled deck of the Vigilant a most uncomfortable and
unpleasant spot, and would have gone mad had he been obliged to sail
hither and yon on the old packet. To straddle a yard, soaring back and
forth sixty feet above the sea, as must those of my crew, would have
been a physical impossibility to thousands. To climb mountains is pure
enjoyment to many, and yet I can imagine nothing more irksome. Big Sam,
standing there on his firm flat feet, and deftly twirling the wheel,
would have found it far harder and more of a strain to write a dozen
misspelled lines than to dive for sponges in shark-infested waters day
after day. And so we cannot hope to fathom the depths of others’
thoughts, to realize their sensations, or to understand their points of
view, and we might just as well give up trying to analyze the
buccaneers and, forgetting their shortcomings, enjoy the romance of
their lives.
Thus musing, I glanced at Sam; and, remembering that in his veins
flowed a bit of the wild blood of Red Lithgow, I asked:
“Sam, how would you like to be a pirate?”
For a brief instant the huge negro looked puzzled,—perhaps thinking the
sun had affected my head,—and then a broad, tooth-filled grin spread
over his shining black face.
“Lordy, Chief!” he rumbled. “Ah’ spec’ yo’ ’s jus’ tryin’ for to spoof
me. The’ ain’t pirates now-’days; th’ parsed on years agone.”
“Aren’t there!” I exclaimed. “You’ve never ridden in a New York taxi,
Sam, or dined in an American restaurant, or traveled in a Pullman.”
The Bahaman’s eyes widened.
“Lordy!” he ejaculated. “You don’ is tellin’ me true, Chief?”
Sam’s childlike simplicity and his utter innocence were irresistible,
and I burst into a roar of laughter.
“I was just speaking figuratively,” I explained. “But honestly, Sam,
wouldn’t you like to sail up alongside a ship, leap over her rails with
a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other, and murder her crew and
take her treasure?”
Sam shook his broad-hatted, kinky head decidedly.
“No-o, sir, Chief!” he declared. “Ah’s a man o’ peace, Ah is, an’ Ah’s
no desire for to do nothin’ that’s like what yo’ says. An’ ah’s tellin’
yo’ true, Chief, if Ah sees a man wif a gun or pistol approachin’ me,
Ah don’ mek to remain to argify. No, sir! Ah jus’ says to mah feet,
‘The Lord put you on mah laigs for to run, an’ now you obey the Lord.’”
Truly, Red Lithgow’s blood had turned to water in his descendant’s
veins!
But now St. John was close aboard, and there were other matters to
engage attention besides jollying good-natured, harmless old Sam.
Rugged and bold the coast-line loomed above the beating surf. Behind
the beetling cliffs and ragged, needle-pointed rocks of the shore rose
the rich green hills and mountains, and, like glimpses of fairyland
between the outjutting fangs of rock, were cream-white beaches rimmed
with turquoise, shaded with nodding palms, and backed by luscious
green.
Almost like a continuation of St. Thomas seemed the island, with only
the narrow sound three miles in width separating its western tip from
its sister isle; while, beyond, Mingo, Grass, Lovango, and Congo cays
looked from the distance like low-lying connecting land.
But if the two islands were separated by a thousand miles of sea, there
could not be a greater difference in their appearance. St. Thomas—dry,
barren, denuded of trees—reminds one of a gray-haired man oppressed
with the weight of years; it is as though sere autumn made its abode
there. But St. John—fresh, green, forest-clad—is perpetual youth,
everlasting summer epitomized in sunshine, sparkling streams, and
luxuriant verdure.
Swiftly the Vigilant drew near the island gem, heading in for
Rendezvous Bay, once the favorite meeting-place of privateer and
freebooter, and off the beach the schooner’s anchor splashed over and
dropped swiftly through the crystalline water to the floor of coral
sand. Here, in the neighboring bush, I had been told, was to be found
many a relic of buccaneer days; but so wild and untouched did the shore
appear that it was hard to believe even the buccaneers ever had set
foot upon it.
But then, St. John is almost deserted throughout its length and
breadth. Yet it was once a prosperous and well-inhabited spot, a land
of broad fields, great plantations, and rich estates. Its shores were
fortified, its sheltered bays were filled with shipping, and it was a
source of envy, dispute, and even bloodshed among the powers. To-day it
is all but unknown; its landlocked harbors are bare of ship or sail;
its plantations are overgrown with bush; great forest trees have sprung
from gardens and have hidden the crumbling remains of once stately
residences; its forts are ruins.
St. John is one of the most fertile of the islands, the best by far of
all the Virgins, incomparably superior to St. Thomas in point of
scenery, climate, and resources, and worth more intrinsically than St.
Thomas and St. Croix rolled into one, while Coral Bay is probably the
safest and most commodious harbor in the Lesser Antilles. Unlike St.
Thomas, it is well watered, with an abundance of streams; it is the
source of nearly all the bay-oil which goes to make the famed St.
Thomas bay-rum, its waters teem with fish, and as a winter resort it
would be ideal. Why, we may ask, is the most attractive of Uncle Sam’s
three Virgin Isles in so lamentable a state? It is difficult to say,
but present conditions are due largely to its past; for, like human
beings with a shady record, the West Indies find it hard to live down a
reputation acquired in years gone by, and lands, like individuals,
seldom “come back.”
And so, while Sam and his black and brown shipmates are furling the old
Vigilant’s sails, a brief outline of St. John’s turbulent history may
not come amiss.
Although the Spaniards saw little in the Virgin Isles to attract their
cupidity and insatiable lust for gold, and, with so many far richer and
more promising lands to loot and ravage, left them alone, yet other
Europeans saw promise in them and took possession in the names of their
respective sovereigns.
Just when St. John was first settled, or by whom, is not recorded; but
in 1687 the papers appointing the governor of the Danish islands
included St. John as a Danish possession. Two years previously
Barbadians had attempted to settle on the island, but the jealous
governor of the Leeward Islands promptly ejected the forty colonists
who had established their homes on St. John. From that time on, the
little island was a bone of contention between England and Denmark, and
although the Danes were anxious to settle and to cultivate St. John
they hesitated because of the dog-in-the-manger attitude of the
governor of the neighboring British island of Tortola.
It was not until 1717 that, acting under instructions from the Danish
West Indian Company, Governor Erik Bredal—arriving in an armed vessel
carrying five soldiers with an officer, sixteen negro slaves, and
twenty planters—set the flag of Denmark on St. John’s soil and, having
duly fired a salute and drunk the king’s health, erected a fort
overlooking Coral Bay. But while the little garrison remained loyally
to guard this addition to the Danish possessions, the faint-hearted
planters withdrew to the more secure shores of St. Thomas until it
might be seen how the dreaded British would take the move. And they had
not long to wait. No sooner was word carried to the Leeward Islands
that the Danes had had the temerity to place their flag upon a fort on
St. John than a man-of-war was despatched to St. Thomas, demanding,
with dire threats, that the Danes at once withdraw their claims and
abandon the fort. But, apparently, stout old Governor Bredal had
inherited some of the Viking spirit as well as blood, and instead of
meekly acceding to the British demands he promptly sent to Denmark a
request for one hundred soldiers to augment his little garrison on St.
John. With this reinforcement the Danes felt quite secure, and by 1720
thirty-nine planters were established on the island.
From this nucleus the colony rapidly grew, for the land was fertile and
the grants given the settlers were larger than in St. Thomas. By 1733,
or only thirteen years after the first real settlement was established,
St. John had a population of nearly thirteen hundred, of whom two
hundred were whites and the other one thousand and eighty-seven negro
slaves. Oddly enough, these settlers were not Danes but Dutch, and
to-day the majority of local names and the family names of the few
remaining inhabitants are largely Dutch.
But in that same year, 1733, other and more serious troubles than the
British beset the islanders, for in November the inhuman treatment
accorded the slaves resulted in a bloody revolt. And if we look at the
old records we can scarcely blame the negroes, and can almost forgive
the fiendish savagery with which they carried on their hopeless
struggle for freedom.
Gardelin, who was then governor, was an unusually brutal man even for
his time, and in order to prevent the slaves from running away to Porto
Rico an inhuman assortment of punishments were decreed. A leader of
runaway slaves was to be hanged after having been pinched three times
with red-hot irons. Any runaway slave was to forfeit an ear or a leg,
or receive one hundred and fifty lashes, according to his owner’s
preference. A slave who was cognizant of a plot and did not betray his
fellows was branded on the forehead and received one hundred lashes as
well, and any black who raised his hand against a white was hanged, or
had his right hand cut off, as his accuser chose. To attempt to poison
a white man meant to be pinched three times with red-hot irons and then
broken on the wheel. Any slave giving information of a conspiracy
received a reward of money equal to about ten dollars for every negro
named as participating in the plot.
These terrible measures—which every four months were publicly
proclaimed to the beat of drums—did not in the least repress the
slaves, but, if anything, made matters worse, and the negroes secretly
planned to surprise the garrison of the fort, which then consisted of
only eight men and two officers. Knowing that an open attack would be
fruitless, the slaves resorted to strategy. On the morning of November
23d a small band of them, carrying bundles of firewood, approached the
fort, and in reply to the sentry’s challenge stated that they had been
ordered to bring the fuel for the use of the soldiers. Not suspecting
the smoldering revolt, the sentry allowed them to enter, whereupon the
negroes, casting the fagots aside and whipping cane-knives from their
bundles, massacred all but one man who had secreted himself under a
bed.
Once in possession of the fort, the slaves fired three guns as a
signal, and instantly a general slaughter of the whites began. The
first place to fall was the Caroline Estate, where the presiding judge
of St. John was murdered together with his daughter and twenty-five
men, women, and children. But as was ever the case in negro revolts in
the West Indies, a few slaves who had been fortunate enough to have
kind and humane masters remained faithful, and as a result many of the
planters were warned in time to escape. Accompanied by their faithful
blacks, these people sought refuge at Peter Duerloo’s plantation at
Little Cinnamon Bay, known nowadays as K. C. Bay, on the northwestern
coast. This estate was in effect a fortification, as it was situated on
a height and was armed with two cannon; and, moreover, it was within
easy distance of St. Thomas. Reaching the place in safety, the women
and children were despatched to outlying cays, and messages were sent
to Charlotte Amalie telling of the revolt and beseeching assistance.
Hardly had the appeal been sent and the defenses strengthened when the
horde of blood-crazed negroes arrived; but instead of finding easy
victims they were met with a fusillade which wrought havoc among them,
and, demoralized and frightened, they drew off. Before they could
summon enough courage to attack the estate again, eighteen soldiers
arrived by boat from St. Thomas and a larger body landed at Coral Bay.
But although the troops relieved the refugees at Little Cinnamon Bay,
they could not suppress the revolt nor capture the negroes, who held
the entire island with the exception of the estate of Peter Duerloo.
Having disposed of the few remaining planters, the slaves burned and
pillaged, firing cane-fields, wrecking and destroying buildings and
machinery, and doing everything in their power to transform the fair
and fertile land into a desolated wilderness. Unable to cope with the
situation, the Danes called on their one-time enemies for aid, and a
British frigate, which happened to be at Tortola, sent her boats’ crews
of bluejackets to the island. But even these allies were unsuccessful,
and, being ambushed, were forced to retreat with heavy loss.
A second attempt on the part of the British to aid the Danes, resulted
in an ignominious defeat when in 1734 volunteers from Nevis sought to
conquer the victorious negroes. With a loss of several killed and more
wounded ere they had really set foot on St. John the English beat a
hasty retreat and left the Danes to their own devices. By now the
Danes, deserted by the British, had become desperate and sought to
induce the French in Martinique to help them, offering to the French
four fifths of all negroes taken prisoners. This was a strong
temptation, and two Martinique barks sailed for the stricken island,
carrying a force of two hundred and twenty men. Forcing a landing at
Coral Bay, this large company,—who had had much experience in putting
down uprisings in the French possessions,—augmented by the Danish and
local forces numbering nearly two hundred men, began a systematic
guerrilla warfare, hunting down and killing the revolting slaves
wherever these were found. As an island less than ten miles in length
and but four miles wide is easily covered by four hundred determined
men, the negroes were very soon put to death or captured. A few, rather
than surrender and suffer the tortures which they knew would be their
lot, committed suicide, and one band of twenty-five were found all of
whom had taken their own lives.
By May 24th the revolt was over. Only fourteen slaves were still at
liberty, and these soon gave themselves up, relying on a promise of
pardon. But, as usual, a promise to a negro was not looked upon as
binding, and the fourteen were promptly executed. What the French
gained is hard to see, for from the records it appears there were no
living negroes to be turned over to the Martinicans as their share, the
twenty-seven rebels who had been captured during the fighting having
been tortured and put to death as a grim warning to others.
During the insurrection many of the St. John planters moved bag and
baggage to Tortola. But, despite these desertions and the almost
complete loss of everything on the island, the place rapidly recovered,
and by 1789 had a population of over twenty-four hundred, consisting of
about one hundred and seventy whites and over twenty-two hundred
slaves. Indeed, this was the period of St. John’s greatest prosperity.
From that time on the island’s fortunes slowly declined, until, to-day,
it is doubtful if a complete census of the island would show eight
hundred human beings, including the Moravian missionaries at Emmaus.
There are no towns, the only settlements being at Cruz Bay, where there
are fewer than two hundred people, East End with fewer than one
hundred, and Emmaus with about fifty.
By burning charcoal, making baskets, fishing, gathering and distilling
bay-leaves, and raising a few cattle and some garden truck, the natives
make an easy if not very luxurious living, while all that remains to
testify to the island’s former prosperity are the crumbling ruins of
the mills, the overgrown walls and courtyards of the estate buildings,
and the remains of the forts upon the hills.
CHAPTER V
ST. JOHN AND SOME DISCOVERIES
No one can say when the buccaneers first selected St. John as a refuge,
but no doubt it was long before the Danes or the Dutch first settled
there. Pirates haunted the Virgin Islands previous to 1687, and it
would not be surprising if honor for the first buildings erected on St.
John and for the first settlements should be accorded them. Many of its
bays and coves bear names which associate them with the corsairs,—as,
for instance, Rendezvouz Bay and Privateers’ Bay,—and undoubtedly these
names were already in use when the first Dutch and Danes arrived on St.
John. There are also ruins of forts and buildings covered with brush
and jungle which unquestionably antedate the first peaceful settlement;
but history took no cognizance of the freebooters, and the story of
their occupancy of St. John probably will never be known. At any rate,
for many a year, the Virgin Isles were notorious as a resort of
buccaneers, and in Coral Bay, Privateers’ Bay, and Rendezvouz Bay they
beached and careened their ships and romped and skylarked on the coral
sands, while the woods and cliffs rang to the echoes of their lusty
songs and shouts and the smoke of barbecue fires rose in blue wisps
against the greenery, just as a column of lilac smoke from a negro hut
was rising upward in the clear morning air as the Vigilant’s anchor
splashed overboard and the big sails came rattling down within the
sheltered bay that had harbored many a pirate craft.
We know too, from historical records, that the Danish authorities were
friendly to the pirates and buccaneers before St. John was settled, for
in 1682 Jean Hamlin made his headquarters in St. Thomas and was well
received by the governor, who no doubt shared the corsair’s loot in
return for the refuge accorded.
In the year mentioned, Hamlin made a prize of the French ship La
Trompeuse and, finding her a better craft than his own, fitted her out
with guns, shipped a pirate crew, and proceeded to ravage the
Caribbean, making Charlotte Amalie his headquarters. Hamlin was by no
means an ideal buccaneer. He attacked any merchantman he sighted,
regardless of flag or nationality, and in 1683 a number of British
ships fell to his cannon. Not content with the pickings to be had among
the islands, he sailed for the African coast and there had a joyous and
profitable time, taking seventeen Dutch and English vessels. But the
fever-ridden, jungle-covered coasts of the Dark Continent did not
appeal to the romantic soul of the merry sea-rover; and so, feeling he
had accomplished quite enough to have earned a vacation, he hoisted
sail and headed westward for St. Thomas.
Here he was warmly welcomed by his old crony the governor, who
willingly gave him permission to bring the loot of the cruise ashore
for safekeeping—and probably division as well—and entertained the
piratical chieftain in right good style. Three days after Hamlin’s
arrival, however, another ship sailed into Charlotte Amalie’s snug
harbor and came to anchor before the picturesque town. And, to the
discomfiture of some and the delight of others, this new arrival proved
to be no other than H. M. S. Francis under command of Captain Carlile
of His Britannic Majesty’s navy, who had been sent forth by Governor
Stapleton of the Leeward Islands to hunt for all pirates in general and
one known as Jean Hamlin in particular.
We may imagine the satisfaction with which the scarlet-faced old
sea-dog noted the long-sought La Trompeuse snugly moored within easy
reach. With the British seaman’s usual disregard for red tape and
diplomatic correspondence, he took matters into his own hands and
promptly disposed of the pirate craft by blowing her up. To be sure,
the buccaneer captain and some of his crew were on board, but Hamlin
was no such fool as to attempt to resist when under the broadsides of a
frigate half a gunshot distant; and, after firing a few shots merely as
a protest or to ease his conscience, he decided discretion to be the
better part of valor, and sought the shore and his Danish friends.
No doubt, over their cups, the governor and the corsair gazed forth
with mingled sorrow and resentment as the glare of the blazing ship
illuminated the harbor and the red-roofed town, for La Trompeuse had
proved a lucky and profitable craft. As the two discussed the matter
and damned the British, the governor waxed exceeding wroth, and he
forthwith penned a note to Captain Carlile, vigorously denouncing his
actions in having brazenly and unwarrantedly destroyed a frigate which
had been confiscated in the name of the King of Denmark. But the
governor was a mortal who believed in never letting his left hand know
what his right was doing, and as he scribbled his note to the
Englishman he sent Hamlin and his men to a safe refuge in another part
of the island and, providing the captain with a speedy sloop, wished
him God-speed on his way to join the French buccaneers in Tortuga.
Indeed, this worthy governor, who bore the name of Adolf Esmit, had the
reputation of being an all-round bad egg. Privateering had been his
former occupation, and while buccaneers and their ilk were looked upon,
even by law-abiding citizens, as something of gentlemen and good
fellows, and no one greatly blamed Adolf for protecting these soldiers
of fortune—for a consideration, of course—still, the islanders did not
like the idea of his harboring riffraff from far and near and gathering
under his hospitable wing a crowd of runaway slaves and servants,
deserting seamen, and debtors. Moreover, he was a usurper. He had
driven away his brother Nickolas, who was the rightful governor, and
then, having acquired what we should nowadays dub a case of “swelled
head,” had seen fit to declare himself governor of all the Virgin Isles
and snapped his fingers, figuratively if not literally, at the British
claimants and the Danish authorities as well. In the meantime he piled
up a goodly sum for a rainy day by outfitting pirate ships and refusing
to restore to their rightful owners prizes brought to his island.
But even Adolf realized that there was a limit to effrontery, and when
protests became too numerous for comfort he hinted to his associates
that St. John was far more attractive than St. Thomas, that its harbors
were safer and more commodious, and that, it being uninhabited, his
corsair friends could be sure that no one would object to their
presence there. And as the place was but three miles distant from St.
Thomas, it was quite feasible for him and his cronies to spend jolly
evenings together and none the wiser.
Of course, in time, tales of Esmit’s activities reached Denmark; and,
whatever his private opinions may have been, the Danish sovereign was
in no mind to have serious difficulties with Great Britain. Therefore
he promptly despatched a new man, named Iversen, to take charge of St.
Thomas’s fortunes, and, foreseeing difficulties in getting rid of
Esmit, suggested that Governor Stapleton should aid the new executive
with force of arms. The British, nothing loath, gladly agreed, and,
reinforced with an armed sloop from the British islands, Iversen
arrived at St. Thomas in October, 1684, and without resistance took
possession not only of the islands but of Adolf as well.
Possibly Iversen had no ill-will against the buccaneers; or possibly he
followed his orders to the letter and, not being quite certain in his
mind as to whether St. John was under his jurisdiction or not, left the
freebooters in the neighboring isle unmolested and diplomatically
informed the British that if they wished St. John rid of pirates they
could do the job themselves. Whether they attempted it or not, history
fails to record, but if they did they must have been unsuccessful, for
English history seldom fails to call attention to every victory, no
matter how small, although British historians are often remarkably
absent-minded regarding the other side of the ledger.
Moreover, as the islands then under the British flag were not above
harboring well-disposed pirate craft, it is exceedingly doubtful if
even peppery old Governor Stapleton bestirred himself greatly, with his
meager forces, against the buccaneers. He well knew that he could not
hope to destroy or capture them all and that too much hostility would
merely result in reprisals on British merchant ships which the
struggling English colonies could ill afford.
My quest for buccaneer relics or remains on St. John was not very
successful. Sam and my St. Thomas friends had, as I have already
mentioned, assured me that the place possessed many remains such as
buildings and forts; that pirate cannon were scattered in the brush,
and that weapons, pieces of eight, doubloons, and onzas had often been
found by the natives. It was even hinted that somewhere about
Rendezvouz Bay there was a vast pirate treasure hidden. But as there is
no bit of land upon this planet whereon pirates actually or
traditionally ever set foot that does not boast of its treasure-trove,
I took the last-mentioned report for what it was worth and no more.
Even on matter-of-fact St. Thomas—or, rather, on the outlying
cays—there is supposed to be vast treasure concealed; and many a St.
Thomian has spent much time and no little energy in industriously
digging the soil in the vain hopes of unearthing this pirate gold.
However, I did place credence in the tales of pirates’ ruins and
pirates’ guns, and did not think it either impossible or improbable
that an occasional ancient coin had been found. Indeed, when one old
man vowed that there were even pirate wrecks to be seen,
coral-incrusted, upon the sandy bottom of Privateers’ Bay, I judged it
within the bounds of possibility that this might be so, for buccaneers’
ships sometimes sank, like other craft, and wood—especially stout oak
and teak—will endure for many centuries under salt water.
But, while I found St. John charming; although I enjoyed my tramps and
rambles through its bay-filled forests and along its beautiful coast;
while I found many an overgrown, deserted plantation and crumbling ruin
of great house and mill bearing mute testimony to the negro uprising of
two centuries ago; while I stood upon the height whereon that sturdy
little company of Dutch and Danes had gathered at old Peter Duerloo’s
barricaded and cannon-guarded home and driven back the savage black
hordes; while near at hand I tripped over a rusty, ancient carronade
which I saw fit to believe was one of the “two small guns” which
according to history had hurled their death-dealing grapeshot among the
blood-crazed negroes, still, of buccaneers I found no indisputable
trace. There are some ancient crumbling walls near the landing-places
at both Privateers’ and Rendezvous Bay,—ruins of man’s handiwork
evidently antedating the oldest Danish or Dutch masonry upon St.
John,—but there is nothing to prove that these were buildings erected
by pirates.
Once, to be sure, I was greatly elated when a white-headed, tottering
old negro with lackluster eyes and toothless mouth hobbled to our camp
on the beach and, carefully unwrapping several layers of dried banana
leaves, produced a corroded sword blade with the cross hilt of a design
dating back to buccaneer days. He had found it, he mumbled in almost
unintelligible words, while clearing away the brush preparatory to
making a charcoal-pit, and I gladly paid him thrice the fifty cents he
asked for it.
But my hopes were shattered and my romantic notions dispersed to the
four winds when, in cleaning the dirt and rust from the blade, I
uncovered the unmistakable imprint of the Broad Arrow near the hilt,
with the half-obliterated arms of England near it. To be sure, that did
not prove it was not a buccaneer’s sword, but it seemed far more
probably a trusty blade dropped from the lifeless hand of one of those
Britons who had sought to help the Danes suppress the revolting blacks.
Though I preferred a pirate weapon for a souvenir, there were plenty of
romantic and historical associations connected with this silent,
long-lost witness of the bloody days of St. John’s past, whether
wielded by sea-rover or by British soldier, and I was satisfied that I
at least would not sail empty-handed from this half-deserted, drowsy
little Virgin isle.
I must confess that I had grown very fond of the half-forgotten, sadly
neglected place, and when at last the time came when we must up anchor
and away from St. John, I felt really sorry to leave. I had seen the
island thoroughly. We had cast anchor in many a lovely bay and for the
last night we were moored in the snug “Hurricane Hole” in Coral Bay,
perhaps the finest natural harbor in all the West Indies.
Close at hand upon the headland were the scarcely distinguishable ruins
of that first fort erected by old Governor Bredal, wherein the
unsuspecting garrison had been butchered by the fagot-bearing slaves.
Seated under the shadow of the big mainsail as the Vigilant rode to her
anchor and the soft lapping of the waves along the beach and the chirp
of crickets and the grunt of land frogs were borne to me on the soft
night breeze, my mind harked back to those long-past days when these
isles literally were steeped in blood.
Like a ghostly silhouette upon the hilltop I could see the ruined fort
about which battle red and furious had raged. Up that green-clad slope
had charged the soldiers of three, or perchance four, nations, first
one then another winning the day and holding, for a brief space, the
hard-won battlements, until another enemy, by greater prowess or more
reckless sacrifice of life, wrested it from their grasp. Perchance, in
later years, the buccaneers had also hurled themselves, through mimosa
scrub and aloes, upon the stout stone walls, shouting and cursing,
falling and dying, but heedless of loss, still carrying on in face of
blazing musket and thundering cannon.
Within those selfsame walls the frightened women and children and the
white-faced, determined men from the little town and outlying estates
had huddled, while, to their eyes, the pillars of smoke rising from
blazing cane-fields and smoldering mansions told of the destructive
savagery of revolting slaves; and from the wrecked town beside the
harbor had come fiendish cries, revolting voodoo chants, and the
terrifying boom of the savage tom-tom.
But now it was silent, deserted, weed-grown, and forgotten; the home of
soft-winged bats, jewel-eyed lizards, and other creeping things. Gone
were the ancient bronze pieces that once filled the embrasures; gone
the tramping sentries; gone the staff that once upheld the flag. And I
wondered if at dead of night the spirits of these long-gone and
forgotten men and women, to whom the fort had meant so much, did not
haunt that crumbling, picturesque old ruin. Perhaps, even now, they
were looking down upon the starlit harbor, at the black tracery of the
Vigilant’s rigging, and in her altered spars and renovated hull
recognizing a craft which had been a familiar sight in the days when
they walked the earth, and loved and fought and suffered and were gay
in turn.
Then the spell of the night was broken. From forward came the
half-barbaric music of a “sand-box” rattle, a squeaky fiddle, and a
mouth organ, and echoing over the harbor came Sam’s full-throated voice
in a weird, garbled version of “Sally Brown”:
“Oh, Sally Brown she are so pretty—
Way-ee Sally, Sally Brown!
Oh, Sally Brown o’ Noo York City—
Way-ee ’ll spen’ mah money for Sally Brown.
“Oh, Sally Brown she fall ’n th’ water—
Way-ee Sally, Sally Brown!
Oh, Ah drug her out an’ had n’ oughter—
Way-ee ’ll spen’ mah money for Sally Brown.
“Oh, Sally Brown she say she love me—
Way-ee Sally, Sally Brown!
Oh, Sally Brown to th’ sea she druv me—
Way-ee ’ll spen’ mah money for Sally Brown.
“Oh, Sally Brown, would you b’lieve me—
Way-ee Sally, Sally Brown!
For a ’Badoes nigger she do leave me—
Way-ee ’ll spen’ mah money for Sally Brown.”
And as the echoes of the applause that followed died away I wondered if
the buccaneers themselves had sung this ancient chantey. To every
sailorman, from time immemorial, it has been known, in one version or
another. In the spicy isles of the South Seas the Kanakas chant it as
they labor. Its tune and words ring through the forest-hemmed
lumber-camps of the Northern woods. Many a tired, footsore, struggling
musher in far-off Alaska has found new courage and inspiration in the
song. In the frigid Antarctic wastes it has aroused the drowsing
sea-elephants on desolate isles. And up and down the Antilles the
sweating negroes work in unison to the tune as they pull their huge
drougher boats or snake the great logs of hardwood timbers from the
mountain jungles. Up and down and round the world it has traveled, from
pole to pole, and if buccaneer and pirate did not bellow it, then they
were no true sailormen.
But now another voice is singing—not Sam’s this time, but a higher if
no less mellow voice which I recognize as Joe’s. And though the air is
familiar, the words with which the West Indians have fitted it are
astounding, for, according to my cook’s version, “John Brown’s donkey
had a red Morocco tail”! With all the seriousness of a great artist
Joseph sings his ridiculous ditty to the end, to be rewarded with
deafening applause but no laughter, for the West Indian can see nothing
comical in a red Morocco tail on John Brown’s donkey; he believes
firmly that donkeys of the United States do possess such colorful
caudal appendages, for does the verse not say so? To his mind, anything
is possible in “New York,” as the West Indian invariably calls the
States.
This belief of the West Indian negroes that New York and the United
States are synonymous is very amusing. Even Joe, who was far above his
fellows, in education and intelligence, seriously confided to me on one
occasion that he had seen New York. Expressing surprise at this
revelation, I asked for further particulars, and was told that when he
was serving as cook on a schooner bound for Matamoros, Mexico, the mate
had pointed out a low-lying coast-line and had told Joe it was New
York. My explanations were absolutely futile. To Joe, New York embodied
all of our country. With his own eyes he had gazed upon the promised
land, and to his dying day—unless by some chance he visits the
States—he will boast to his less fortunate fellows that he has seen New
York.
Following our cook’s rendition of “John Brown” there was silence for a
space and then, in place of sand-box, raucous fiddle, and discordant
harmonica, the soft, liquid tinkle of a guitar rippled through the
tropic night and a wonderfully rich voice began to sing:
“Vuelvo dormir,
Vuelvo sonar,
Y siempre estoy.”
I was all attention; surprised, curious. I was unaware that we had a
Spanish West Indian in our crew, and while I knew that Sam, Joe, and
one or two others spoke a smattering of Spanish and had visited Cuba,
Porto Rico, Santo Domingo, or Panama, their accent was atrocious.
Never, I was sure, could they have mastered a Spanish song. And now the
singer had changed his tune. There was a plaintive wail in the silvery
notes of his guitar that tugged at one’s heart-strings, and, filled
with pathos and yearning, his voice came drifting to me, filling the
night with the melody of “La Paloma.”
Scores—yes, hundreds—of times, I had listened to that dreamy, haunting
air. I had heard it sung by shadowy vaqueros watching their herds on
broad, black llanos under twinkling stars. I had heard it borne on the
night breeze, as, resting under waving palms, I had watched a
lateen-sailed craft creep across the moon’s silvery “Path to Spain.” I
had heard it hummed by the carmine lips of black-eyed, full-throated
señoritas leaning from the grilled railings of their windows in many a
Latin-American town, and I had heard it issuing from garish dance-halls
heavy with the scent of musk and the smoke from brown cigarettes. But
never had I heard it sung as on that last night that the old Vigilant
swung to her anchor off St. John.
Rising, I strolled forward, filled with curiosity as to the identity of
the singer. As I reached the galley and from its shadows glanced at the
little group about the fore hatch I could scarcely believe my eyes.
Seated upon the anchor winch, across his knees a battered guitar which
belonged to Joseph, the final words of “La Paloma” issuing from his
huge mouth, was—Trouble!
CHAPTER VI
ANEGADA AND A BIT OF TREASURE-TROVE
North of St. John and so close to it as to appear, from a short
distance, but a continuation, lies Tortola, the British isle which
played so prominent a part in St. John’s early history. In beauty
rivaling its once Danish neighbor, Tortola (or “the island of the
turtle dove”) is even more forsaken,—an island of the blest given over
to the blacks, the only white men being the resident magistrate and a
half-dozen representatives of his Britannic Majesty,—while Roadtown,
its capital, is but a tumble-down village of scarcely five hundred
souls.
And yet in times gone by Tortola was a prosperous and wealthy island.
In Roadtown’s harbor scores of great square-rigged ships rode to their
moorings; along the quay, drays, trucks, and carts groaned and squeaked
from morn till night. Long lines of black stevedores and porters passed
like a procession of restless ants from drougher boats to warehouses
and marts. Sloops and long-oared boats manned by toiling slaves came
from outlying plantations, laden with hogsheads of molasses, rum, and
sugar; with pimento, bay-leaves, and spices; with bales of tobacco and
cargoes of fruit. And the waterside taverns echoed to the shouts and
songs, the boisterous laughter, and the deep-sea oaths of pigtailed
sailormen in glazed hats. And here, too, the sea-rovers gathered, for
Tortola, largest of the Virgins, was, like its sisters, a retreat of
the buccaneers.
To-day, from time to time, ancient cannon and equally ancient coins are
found here and there upon the island and, by common consent, are
invariably credited to buccaneer origin. But it is very doubtful that
the pirates ever had works or guns ashore at Tortola. As there was
nothing to lead me to believe that they had, and as there were so many
isles where they did certainly foregather and where associations that
link them with the present still remain, I passed Tortola by and told
Sam to shape the Vigilant’s course for Anegada, most northerly of the
Virgins, and once the buccaneers’ favorite retreat among these little
isles.
Close at hand rose the Fat Virgin, or, as it is more commonly and more
euphoniously called, Virgin Gorda, a rather barren spot like St. Thomas
in miniature with its central peaks thirteen hundred feet above the
breaking surf.
Low down and nestling in the lee of Tortola is Norman Island, a tiny
speck, like Dead Man’s Chest, notable for its traditions and not for
its size or importance; for on Norman Island is said to be buried that
huge and entirely mythical treasure of the most widely known pirate of
song and story, Captain Kidd.
I doubt if there is a stretch of coast ten miles in length between the
Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of Mexico, or an island or wave-washed rock
in the Atlantic or the Caribbean whereon Captain Kidd’s treasure-trove
is not supposedly buried. How many thousands of men have searched and
dug and toiled to unearth that will-o’-the-wisp hoard no one can say.
How much real money has been expended in that same vain quest, it is
impossible to estimate, but beyond the shadow of a doubt the money
spent in digging for this treasure is greatly in excess of all the gold
and other riches William Kidd ever saw or hoped to see. And, oddly
enough, there is no proof, no reason even to think that the notorious
captain ever buried a cent’s worth of loot on any spot other than
Gardiner’s Island, in Long Island Sound, whence it was recovered by
those for whom Kidd had placed it in safety there. Strange indeed is
the reputation, the fame that has been reared and built about the name
of Captain Kidd. It shows what advertising and publicity will do, and
how very little the public cares for facts, provided the fiction
appeals to the imagination, for Captain Kidd—whose name is a synonym of
piracy—was neither a pirate nor a buccaneer.
That he was hanged as a pirate is true, but many a man has been hanged
for a murderer who was afterward proved innocent, and the unfortunate
Kidd was a victim of circumstances, of avarice, jealousy, and revenge;
the victim of what we to-day should call a “frame-up.” Not a particle
of evidence worthy of consideration was ever brought forward to show
that he was a pirate. Indeed, Captain Kidd, instead of being a pirate,
was commissioned to catch pirates, his authority being granted by King
William III of Great Britain and addressed to “our trusty and dearly
beloved Captain William Kidd, of the ship Adventure, gally.”
Long before this, however, Kidd, who was a native of Greenock,
Scotland, was a well-known and highly respected mariner with a
reputation, along the American seaboard, for fair and honest dealing.
Meeting with various influential and wealthy men who saw in the
suppression of pirates and robbing of robbers a handsome profit, the
worthy seaman was prevailed upon to set forth under royal warrant to
deal summarily with “divers wicked and ill-disposed persons who were
committing many and grievous pyraces to the hurt and danger of our
loving subjects.”
Setting sail from the port of Plymouth, England, in May, 1696, Kidd and
his company of one hundred and fifty-five men proceeded to scour the
seas in search of the “pyrates.” Either the “wicked and ill-disposed
persons” had heard of his mission or else luck was against him: for the
pirate-exterminator failed to find pirates to exterminate. Sailors
then, as ever, were a disgruntled lot, and Kidd’s crew, growing weary
of finding no corsairs with whom to match arms, evidently decided that
the next best thing was to emulate them and do a little pirating on
their own account. Consequently, the Adventure bore down upon a Moorish
ship, the Queda Merchant, which was in command of an English captain,
and took possession of her. Whether Kidd, finding his crew had made up
their minds to turn pirates, gave in to superior numbers and consented
to this temporary lapse from honesty; whether he was actually
overpowered and held captive while the capture of the Queda Merchant
was taking place, or whether the captain himself was so sorely tempted
that he fell, may never be known. At his trial he contended—and very
probably with truth—that his crew mutinied, threatened his life, and
confined him to his cabin while the piratical venture was being carried
out. Whatever the facts were, word of the Adventure’s seizure of the
Queda reached the authorities, and Kidd was forthwith declared a
pirate.
In the meantime, the Adventure had become unseaworthy, and,
transferring his more valuable possessions to his prize, Captain Kidd
sailed for Santo Domingo, then known as Hispaniola, with—so he
stated—the intention of notifying the authorities. But at Hispaniola
the “dearly beloved” William heard that he was “wanted,” and, hastily
purchasing a small sloop, he set sail for New England. There, being
somewhat doubtful about the reception he might receive, he got into
communication with his backers, and secreted what valuables he had, on
Gardiner’s Island.
To recount the lengthy proceedings which ensued would avail nothing and
would add no interest to Kidd’s story. Suffice it to say that
eventually he gave himself up to the authorities in Boston, relying
upon promises of a fair trial. From there he was taken as a prisoner to
England, and, after innumerable delays, rank perversions of justice,
and the breaking of many promises, the unfortunate captain was placed
on trial at Old Bailey in May, 1701.
The trial was from first to last a travesty of justice. Instead of
confining themselves to the case in hand, Kidd’s accusers charged him
with the murder of one of his own men (a gunner named Moore), and the
charge of piracy was made secondary. Kidd freely admitted that he had
killed Moore, but asserted that the man was mutinous—in fact, the
ringleader of those who favored piracy—and that as a master of the ship
he had a perfect right to kill a mutineer. As for the charges that he
had piratically captured the Queda, Kidd explained as aforementioned
that the prize had been taken despite him and not because of him, and
that he was on the way to report the unfortunate affair when he touched
at Santo Domingo. Throughout the trial, proofs and evidence requested
by Kidd and promised him were withheld and only theories were admitted,
and such damning evidence as the words of his own men. As a result of
this farcical trial, Kidd and six of his men who had remained faithful
to their captain were condemned to be hanged at Execution Dock, on May
23d. Protesting his innocence to the very last,—even when the rope gave
way and, half-strangled, he was lifted up to be rehanged,—Kidd met his
death. Later his body and those of his men were hung in chains down the
river, and for many years the rattling skeletons, with clinging shreds
of garments and skin, swung in the wind on the dreary mud flats of the
Thames, the most disgraceful witnesses to perverted justice that ever
passing mariners gazed upon.
But though he died an ignominious death for crimes which he probably
never committed, Kidd’s martyrdom resulted in his becoming the most
famous character of piratical lore, who left a name which will never
die. And this is all the more remarkable because, even if we assumed
that all the charges against him were true, he would have been a
mediocre pirate, having but one rich prize to his score—a small matter
indeed to have been the foundation for such fame and a reputation as
the master of them all.
Far more romantic and picturesque than “Bold Captain Kidd” was that
other sea-rover whose name is associated with the Virgin Islands, but
never heard outside the chronicles of the buccaneers and by those who
have delved into the story of the corsairs of the Caribbean.
Perhaps no one who has ever lived is more worthy of the title of Don
Quixote of the Deep than this man—the wild, romantic, restless,
tireless, and ambitious Prince Rupert of the Rhine, who in his ship
Swallow experienced more adventures and met with more romances than any
score of other corsairs. Impetuous, high-strung, nervous, the royal
pirate could never be idle for a moment; and it was his terror of doing
nothing that drove him from privateering to pirating.
Originally sailing forth to aid his king’s cause against Spain, Prince
Rupert departed from Ireland in 1648, with a fleet of seven ships and
accompanied by his brother, Prince Maurice, who captained the Defiance.
To paraphrase Longfellow, wild was the life they led, many the souls
that sped, for the next five years, and the handsome, brilliant prince,
whose “sparkish” dress was ever the envy and admiration of all
beholders, mingled piracy and knight errantry in an inextricable
manner. Indeed, this wilful scion of royalty was ever a champion of the
ladies and an irresistible lover, and even when—long before he took to
the sea—he was a prisoner at Linz, he managed to win the heart of the
governor’s daughter.
But even this musketeer of the sea was fated for the buccaneer’s usual
short life and merry one. Being caught in a storm among the Virgin
Islands one September night, his fleet was driven ashore on low-lying,
reef-guarded Anegada, and of all that company few remained to tell the
tale. While the Swallow escaped and Prince Rupert survived, Prince
Maurice was lost, and, heartbroken, the pirate prince set sail for
home, in his crippled ship, and landed in France in 1653. But the blow
had saddened him, the sea no longer called, and quietly and obscurely
he lived in his home at Spring Gardens, England, until in 1682 he
succumbed to a fever and passed away, almost unknown and unnoticed.
What a contrast was his life to that of Captain Kidd! The one a
romantic, reckless, chivalrous, venturesome pirate, never content save
in the thick of battle, and yet dying in his bed, his deeds forgotten,
his name dying with him. The other a meek, timid, vacillating seaman,
lacking the courage to keep his crew in check and dying a felon’s death
on the gibbet, and yet living on through the centuries, his name woven
into countless tales and verses, and by a single deed—which it is
doubtful that he ever performed—making himself immortal as the greatest
pirate of them all! And as desolate Anegada rose like some sinister
sea-monster upon the horizon, I thought of how unjust is fame and how
little men’s real deeds count in the reputation they gain.
Ringed round with jagged coral reefs marked by the angry surf, the
island is guarded more efficiently than with a battery of guns. So low
it is that often it is called the “Drowned” or “Overflowed” Island, for
in heavy weather the waves actually sweep across it in places. Nearly
twelve miles it stretches in length, with a breadth of barely two
miles, and its only inhabitants are blacks; while on its great
landlocked lagoons or ponds the grotesque rose-and-scarlet flamingos
still find sanctuary.
As we approached this bit of sodden land which meant so much to the
buccaneers of old, there seemed to be no entrance through the churning,
seething cauldron of foam that stretched away in a stupendous
semicircle. But Sam never faltered. Shading his reddened eyes with a
huge black hand, he peered intently shoreward, and then, with a twirl
of the wheel and a bellowed order to the crew, headed the plunging
Vigilant straight for the white water. Breathlessly I waited, and great
was my trust in Sam or I most certainly should have hastily donned a
life-preserver and said my prayers, for to all appearances the Bahaman
had decided that this was a fitting spot on which to pile the ancient
Vigilant’s bones.
Nearer and nearer we swept, until the roaring, boiling surf was almost
under our jib-boom. Then, when I expected to feel the crashing shock
and the sickening lurch of a speeding hull pierced by fangs of coral,
Sam shouted an order, the great sails were close hauled, and, luffing
sharply, the schooner slid through a fifty-foot gut in the thundering
breakers and a moment later was floating safely on the glassy waters of
the lagoon.
No wonder that here the pirates gathered and laughed at their pursuers.
Knowing the reef, familiar with its narrow passages, the pursued could
sail in safety to their anchorage while their disgruntled enemies,
confronted by the deadly ring of coral, and usually in vessels far too
large to pass through even had they known the way, turned back utterly
baffled.
Throughout the days of buccaneering—yes, even in the days of that first
of all sea-rovers who was neither buccaneer nor pirate, but who paved
the way for the buccaneers, Sir Francis Drake—Anegada and its
surrounding reef-filled waters was a favorite resort of freebooters.
Whether Sir Francis ever visited the Drowned Island or not, no one
knows. In his memoirs he makes no mention of it, but his name is
perpetuated in the Virgin Isles by Sir Francis Drake Bay, while such
names as Gallows Bay, Careenage Bay, Galleon Cove, Hawkins’s Point, and
Cutlass Reef were beyond question bestowed upon these localities in
Anegada by the buccaneers themselves.
Aside from having been a haunt of the buccaneers, Anegada is famed for
its innumerable shipwrecks. For many years, in the old sailing-ship
days, the Anegadans lived mainly upon the wreckage from vessels that
left their bones upon the treacherous reefs about the island. In other
words, they were notorious wreckers, and they did not hesitate to
murder the shipwrecked crews in order to loot the ill-fated ships. Even
to-day the natives spend a deal of time—which, it must be confessed,
hangs heavily on their hands—on the lookout for luckless vessels. While
no open hostility or violence is shown castaway mariners, the inherited
instincts of the inhabitants of the island cannot be controlled, and
they look upon every wreck as legitimate loot. All about, in every
stage of decay and destruction, are to be seen the gaunt skeletons of
ships which have found their final resting-place on Anegada’s reefs,
and the native houses are built very largely of odds and ends of
wreckage. Here, a hut fashioned from a ship’s galley; there, another
made of a partly shattered deck-house; one built of battered hatches or
weather-beaten ships’ planking, another roofed with a vessel’s rudder,
still others with timbers of spars—such are seen on every hand; while
every article of any value, such as old metal, cordage, or junk, is
collected and saved to be ultimately carried to St. Thomas and disposed
of for a few dollars.
As an island, Anegada can boast of no attractions whatsoever. It is
quite lacking in scenic beauty, and its inhabitants are miserable folk
who win a precarious existence, although there are deposits of copper,
silver, and manganese which perchance, in years to come, may be worked
and cause this almost forgotten corner of the world to become even more
famous than of old.
Anegada also is supposed to hold a pirate treasure of vast size, though
why the pirates should have hidden their loot in a haunt of their
fellows, whose proclivities they well knew, is a mystery which those
who tell of the hidden wealth never attempt to explain. But, unlike so
many of the other traditional hiding-places of loot, Anegada furnishes
a slight excuse for belief in the tale, for, from time to time, ancient
Spanish, French, Dutch, and English coins of gold and silver have been
picked up on the beaches and among the coarse grass on the island,
while rusty cannon are not infrequently found in the rank underbrush.
As Anegada was never fortified, was never of sufficient importance to
its owners to warrant a garrison, these mute old guns were no doubt
used by the buccaneers. It is quite possible that the freebooters built
some manner of stockades or forts and mounted guns; but, even if they
did not, they unquestionably carried their artillery and other fittings
ashore when refitting and careening their craft, and no doubt kept a
reserve supply here on Anegada for emergencies.
Moreover, we know from historical records that the buccaneers did not
give up this favorite refuge of theirs without demur when Sir Henry
Morgan saw fit to turn his recently knighted back on his old shipmates
and sent an expedition from Jamaica to drive the “Brethren” from
Anegada. On the contrary, they put up a stiff and lively fight, and
while neither side can be said to have been victorious,—for the battle
resulted in a draw, and the expedition sent by Sir Henry retired,—yet
the corsairs soon drifted away to more secure and less conspicuous
retreats. So, for aught we know, the ancient cannon lying forgotten in
Anegada may be the very ones that belched forth death and defiance at
the men despatched to the Drowned Island by the ex-pirate governor of
Jamaica.
The coins, too, may well have been the spoils of piracy and pillage,
though by no means necessarily a part of buried treasure, as the
natives would have us think and—to do them justice—themselves
implicitly believe. Far more likely they were dropped from some
careless seaman’s pocket or lost in a drunken brawl or gambling
quarrel.
In Anegada I was more fortunate than in St. John, for I was shown the
rusting, corroded cannon that once had pointed—or so I convinced
myself, at least—from the open ports of some swift buccaneering craft
and many a time had roared out doom to the terror-stricken men and
women on some galleon returning from the mines of Darien to Spain. What
tales of adventure and of blood, of desperate fight and swarming,
ruthless pirates these old guns might tell could they but speak! But,
like the pirates, they are silenced forever, their yawning muzzles snug
homes for scuttling soldier-crabs and striped lizards, their ornate
decorations all but obliterated by the years of calm and storm, of
drenching rain and salt sea-spray. And here they will lie, perhaps, for
centuries more, until but a streak of rust upon the earth marks their
resting-place.
To me, scarcely an hour after first I set foot upon the island, came an
extraordinary-looking individual. Tightly drawn across his bony cheeks
was his yellow parchment-like skin, bristling with stubble as black as
jet and as coarse as wire. Below his great hooked nose sprouted a huge,
unkempt mustachio of raven hue, and deep within its shadow gleamed
yellow fangs as long and sharp as those of a wolf. Almost like bare and
browned bone his forehead shone under lank black hair, and below
lowering, bushy brows his reddened eyes gleamed with the unnatural fire
of fever, so deep within their sockets that they seemed mere pin points
of glowing light. A huge ring of tortoise-shell hung in one long-lobed,
pointed ear; tattered rags of many hues draped his bony frame, and a
stained and battered hat covered his disheveled locks. A veritable
apparition he seemed—the ghost of some long-dead pirate. An involuntary
shudder, an uncontrollable chill of repugnance, ran through me as,
shaking as with the palsy—or craven fear of the hangman’s noose—he
fixed those fierce eyes upon me and in a dry, cracked voice, such as
one might expect from the dead, asked in broken English if I cared to
purchase old coins. At my affirmative reply he fumbled in his rags,
drew forth a dirty bit of bunting that had once been part of the
scarlet banner of England, and, untying its many knots, dumped a dozen
bits of metal into his unsteady, claw-like hand.
Rusty, corroded, dirt-covered, and utterly impossible of identification
were the coins, if coins they were. As I examined them the fellow stood
silent but shaking, and moving his long, unshaven lower jaw about as
though chewing an imaginary quid of tobacco. To my questions as to
where he had obtained the things, he waved a taloned hand in an
indefinite arc and replied that he had picked them up about the island,
and asked in a plaintive voice if they were worth a shilling to me.
To him, no doubt, a single silver coin bearing his Britannic Majesty’s
head and the stamp of the British mint was a miniature fortune, for
despite his savage, piratical looks, he was, I found, a bit of flotsam
literally cast up by the sea, the sole survivor of a Portuguese
whaling-schooner which had foundered on the reefs a dozen years before,
and who, for some incomprehensible reason, refused to leave this
barren, half-inundated bit of land whereon Fate had so inconsiderately
placed him. How he lived no one knew, for he toiled not and neither did
he spin, but wandered about aimlessly, gathering shell-fish and
sea-birds’ eggs, begging tobacco and cast-off garments from the
negroes, and spending long hours and days by himself, poking about with
a stick and seeking for chance relics such as he now had brought to me.
I doubt if ever in those ten years since he first found himself the one
survivor of his ship he had ever jingled as much silver in his pockets
as I handed him in exchange for his little treasure-trove. And for good
measure I added a plug of tobacco and a supply of quinine pills, while
Sam presented him with a shirt—which was so much too large for his
skeleton frame that had he but sewed the tails together it would have
served him for a complete one-piece suit—and Joseph fed him until he
could eat no more.
Then, as though he had accomplished a mission he had sworn to fulfil,
he expressed his intention of forsaking Anegada and implored me to
carry him to some port whence he could work or beg a passage to Fayal.
Eventually we left him at St. Kitts, a far more human-looking creature
than when first I gazed upon him on the beach at Anegada; and no doubt
in time he once more basked in the sun and trod the picturesque streets
of his Azores home.
When in due course of time and at my leisure I scraped the incrustation
of limestone soil and the corrosion of centuries from the disks which
he had brought to me, I gazed in amazement at what my efforts
disclosed. Truly, Manuel had earned all we did for him and more, for in
that handful of coins he had patiently and aimlessly gathered were two
Spanish doubloons, three pieces of eight, a castellano, and two
spade-guineas! What a collection to weave story and romance about! What
relics of those wild days to lure one’s imagination and conjectures!
As Anegada sank below the horizon, and the tossing manes of the white
horses on the reef mingled with the white-caps and were lost, I felt
that my visit had been well rewarded; for did I not possess coins with
which pirates had gambled, bits of gold and silver won by murder,
torture, and bloodshed! Yes, perhaps the very ones with which the
ill-fated fifteen gambled life against a bottle of rum on Dead Man’s
Chest. For who can say aught of the travels of these coins? Who can
trace their multitude of owners as they passed from hand to hand, from
pocket to pocket, from ship to ship, from land to land through the
centuries, to come to rest for a time in Anegada’s sands and at last to
be treasured and guarded and admired in a land which was but a howling
wilderness when the rude bits of metal were first struck from the dies?
CHAPTER VII
LONELY ISLES
From Anegada to St. Martin is, in the vernacular of the buccaneers, a
“passinge longe sayle,” a run of nearly one hundred miles across the
heaving Atlantic rollers surging in through the Anegada Passage. But to
one who loves the sea, the tang of salt spray high-flung by a plunging
bow, and the heave of a tossing deck, it is a glorious sail. The
Vigilant made fine weather of it, and sixteen hours after low-lying
Anegada dropped below the horizon astern Anguilla rose like a cloud
above the sea before us.
Anguilla, or the “Eel,” was no doubt frequented by the buccaneers, but,
as far as I know, there is nothing authentic to connect them with the
island, and it holds but little interest. Its thirty-six square miles
of brush and salt-grass have been abandoned to the negroes, who find it
difficult to gain a livelihood. They do, to be sure, raise a few cattle
and ponies, as well as donkeys; and, being forced to subsist on the
meager rations nature has provided, these four-footed Anguillans are
living examples of the survival of the fittest. They are noted
throughout the neighboring islands for their hardiness, though they are
diminutive beasts.
Passing Eel Island by, we headed for St. Martin, the one island of all
the Caribbees which has the distinction of being under two flags at the
same time. In days long past, when Briton, Don, Frenchman, and
Hollander, as well as Dane and Swede, slit one another’s throats over
these bits of land, it was not uncommon for the islands to be in the
possession of several nations in rapid succession. In fact, in those
days it must have been difficult for the struggling inhabitants to know
to what king or emperor they owed allegiance, for they were never quite
sure, when they retired at night, what flag they would see flying above
the fort and government house the next morning. It was a question of “O
say, can you see” what banner is there? Often, within the space of as
many days, they would be under British, French, and Dutch colors in
turn. Often, too, one fort would be under one flag and another fort
under another, or a portion of the island would be occupied by the
troops of one nation and another part by the soldiers of a different
power, while at times two nations agreed temporarily to hold an island
in partnership, each keeping to its own side of the fence, so to speak;
or by common consent an island was rejected by all and regarded as
“neutral territory,” the powers deciding that it was not worth the
bloodshed necessary to hold it.
But gradually the islands became the acknowledged possessions of the
various European nations, and only St. Martin remained through the
centuries a land divided within itself, with the French flag flying
from one port and the Dutch banner from another.
In the northern part the French rule, their half of the isle being a
dependency of Guadeloupe, while the southern half acknowledges
allegiance to the Netherlands. It would be hard to say whether France
or Holland owns the better portion of the island, but unquestionably
there are more people under the Dutch flag than under the French.
Marigot, the port and capital of French St. Martin, is a charmingly
pretty town, and the greater number of the three-thousand-odd subjects
of France dwell within its confines. Philippsburg, the Dutch capital
and port, is less populous, but the Dutch subjects altogether number
fully five thousand. Of course there is no hard-and-fast boundary
between the two, no trocha or barbed-wire fence stretching across the
island. No doubt the easy-going natives bother very little as to
whether they dwell under one flag or another, and drift back and forth
at will, or as their occupations demand, from West Indian France to
Antillean Holland. There are few of the islanders who do not speak the
Creole patois, and as the common language of the Dutch West Indies is
English, and virtually all St. Martians speak what passes for that
tongue, their dual linguistic troubles are almost nil.
Scenically, St. Martin is lovely. It is mountainous, its loftiest
summit, Paradise Peak, rising nearly two thousand feet above the sea.
The surface of the island is delightfully varied, with rolling conical
hills, broad valleys, deep gorges, and, near the shores, immense
salt-water lagoons. It is for the most part fertile, and its
inhabitants—at least those in Dutch territory—industriously cultivate
the land. Many of its hills and mountains are luxuriantly forested. The
big lagoons serve the natives as salt farms or pans, and the production
of salt, the crops grown, the raising of cattle, donkeys, and poultry,
and the yield of the fisheries provide a steady if not munificent
income, so that the St. Martians are comparatively prosperous.
Quite the reverse is the condition of the neighboring island of St.
Bartholomew,—or, as it is always called, St. Barts,—within whose lovely
harbor of Gustavia the Vigilant dropped anchor after her splendid run
from Anegada.
St. Barts is diminutive, barely eight square miles in area, hilly, with
one of its so-called “mountains” rising to one thousand feet. It is
wholly destitute of springs or streams, far from fertile, and
deplorably poverty-stricken—literally out at elbows. Its people
(virtually all negroes and mulattoes) number about three thousand, and
so wretchedly poor is their island, with so little in the way of
opportunity or employment, that the bulk of them are scattered up and
down the Antilles laboring for a livelihood, or, in their sloops,
carrying cargoes from port to port or plying a fisherman’s trade.
Although St. Barts is a French dependency, nearly all its inhabitants
speak English, and they are noted throughout the northern islands as
industrious workers. Among them at times one sees fair-haired,
blue-eyed individuals—weird-looking creatures at first sight, seemingly
albino negroes with their pale eyes and flaxen wool, but merely the odd
result of the commingling of Swedish and African blood, for St. Barts
for many years belonged to Sweden. Not until 1878 did the Swedes
relinquish this one possession of theirs in the Caribbees and turn the
almost worthless bit of land over to France. Swedish blood still crops
out, not only among the negroes but in the few “poor whites” who claim
St. Barts as their native land, and Sweden’s lost sovereignty is
perpetuated in the name of the island’s one port, Gustavia.
However, like many another island of the Caribbean, St. Barts has seen
better days. Back in the good old times Gustavia’s streets were almost
literally paved with gold and its inhabitants fairly rolled in wealth.
Here, as to few others of the Virgin Islands, flocked the buccaneers,
for at St. Barts that most cruel and murderous of pirates, Montbars the
“Exterminator,” established his headquarters. So great was the fear he
and his fellows inspired in all that no nation or official dared move
finger to molest him and his gang. Wild was the life that ebbed and
flowed in St. Barts in Montbars’s day. Gustavia’s harbor swarmed with
swift, long-sparred pirate craft; in the sheltered coves the buccaneers
repaired and refitted their ships; under the palms along the beach
their rude shelters of sail-cloth were raised, and here after many a
long cruise and desperate battle they came to divide their loot and
squander it.
What a scene they must have presented, what a picture of lawlessness,
as, gathered in the shadows of the palms, with chests of plate, coffers
of jewels, and bales of satins, brocades, and velvets on the hard sand
before them, they watched narrowly as their captains apportioned the
treasures they had won by murder, rapine, and torture. And there too,
upon the sand,—wild-eyed, disheveled, with blanched, tear-stained
cheeks,—were their human loot, girls and women, wives and daughters of
Spanish grandees, tenderly nurtured ladies torn shrieking from their
murdered loved ones’ arms, to be auctioned off like cattle here on St.
Barts’s shores,—souls to be bartered and gambled for, toys to amuse
their black-hearted captors for a space ere being cast into the gutter
or to the sharks. Surrounded by his brutish, blear-eyed crew, the
pirate captain stood, a weather-beaten, mahogany-faced rascal, his
long, ragged moustache and tangled mop of hair adding to his wild
appearance, a cocked hat set rakishly upon his head, with bedraggled
plume drooping upon his shoulder. His blood-stained ruffled shirt, open
at the throat, revealed a hairy tattooed chest, and his long-skirted,
gold-laced coat of crimson showed a round hole and a dark stain upon
the breast, where some pirate’s bullet had ended the life of the
garment’s former owner. His voluminous trousers of vivid blue, ending
at the knees, exposed his stanchion-like legs clad in green silk
stockings, while a heavy pair of Cordovan shoes with huge silver
buckles covered his feet. His arms crossed upon his chest, a cocked and
loaded pistol grasped in each hand, with hawk-like, piercing eyes and a
sardonic smile he watched his men growling, wrangling, and cursing over
the portion of loot meted out to them by the one-eyed, scar-faced
boatswain.
Dumping a chest of coins upon a sheet of tarry canvas, this fellow
would count them out in piles, one for each man, and to every coin he
tossed on the piles for the crew he would throw five upon that which
formed the captain’s share. Pieces of eight crudely struck from silver
bullion, dull-golden onzas, castellanos, doubloons, guineas, louis
d’or, oddly shaped “cross money,” in turn were divided. Then came
ingots of gold and bars of silver; altar-pieces and chalices; dishes of
beaten gold, jeweled girdles, rings, and bracelets; necklaces of pearls
and emeralds—a collection worth a king’s ransom. And these, after the
glowering chieftain had taken his pick, were gambled for by the tossing
of coins or with dice, for so varied and miscellaneous was the loot
that to apportion the articles fairly was impossible. Last of all came
the women; and then, as the great sun, in a sea of gold and blood,
dipped below the horizon and the swift-falling tropic night wrapped the
island in a mantle of black, torches flared, ribald songs rang out over
the waters of the tranquil harbor, blasphemies and drunken curses
mingled with women’s screams, and debauchery held sway.
Such scenes, in the time of Montbars and his fellows, were of daily and
nightly occurrence in St. Barts, and the island and its more peaceable
and thrifty inhabitants waxed rich. But at last there came a reckoning.
The nations, outraged by the effrontery of the pirates, joined forces
to wipe them from the seas, and after many a gory battle the lairs of
the buccaneers were cleaned up. Here and there a pirate ship still
sailed the Caribbean and flew the black flag. On jungle-covered,
out-of-the-way cays whose ownership had never been determined, the
remnants of the Brethren still had secret retreats. From hiding-places
among the reefs or landlocked coves those who survived dashed forth to
murder and to pillage unsuspecting merchantmen, but the power of the
buccaneers was broken. Like jackals they prowled about the Caribbean,
and the Virgin Islands knew them no more.
Without the buccaneers, St. Barts continued to prosper. Within
Gustavia’s harbor swift privateers took the place of pirate ships. From
this safe retreat the Americans sailed forth to settle scores with many
a British merchantman,—and corvette, for that matter,—and while England
strove to retain her revolting colonies in North America, and the
United States was being born, vast stores of riches, brought by the
privateers, accumulated in St. Barts.
But, though it was a neutral port and Sweden’s banner flew above the
fort, the English had no compunctions about violating another nation’s
rights, to benefit their own cause. Holding that might made right,
Admiral Rodney swept down with his frigates upon Gustavia and sacked
St. Barts of more than two million dollars’ worth of merchandise. Then,
for a time, the island lived on the fruits of its past, but ever losing
ground, ever falling behind, ever becoming poorer, ever getting
shabbier and shabbier, until to-day one could scarcely find as many
copper cents in St. Barts as the British found dollars.
And the worst of it is that the island, like many of its moribund
neighbors, seems to hold no promise of a future. There seems to be no
industry that can retrieve its fortunes, no possibility of making it
pay, for it is handicapped by nature. It cannot compete with the
larger, more fertile and prosperous islands (who themselves are always
in debt); its town is tumbling about its people’s ears, and there is a
steady exodus of its inhabitants to more flourishing lands.
While St. Barts is most interesting historically, and was for so long a
haven of the buccaneers and the headquarters of one of the most
notorious and bloodthirsty of pirate chieftains, yet there are upon the
island few if any reminders of the good old days. Of course, there are
tales of hidden pirate treasure,—the natives even going so far as to
assert that Montbars himself secreted vast sums in the caverns along
St. Barts’s coast,—and a few years ago an earthen jug full of ancient
coins was dug up on the outskirts of Gustavia. But, unfortunately for
romance, the coins were not pieces of eight and doubloons, as all
self-respecting pirate hoards should be, but Swedish and Dutch; and
undoubtedly, instead of having been buried there by a thrifty
buccaneer, they had been put away for the proverbial rainy day by some
worthy and peaceable as well as foresighted citizen.
Even the old-fashioned, corroded cannon that one can find in nearly any
of the islands seem totally lacking here, for so poverty-stricken and
hard put to it have the people been that any such weighty pieces of
metal have long since been taken from their resting-places and disposed
of for junk, to eke out the resources of the natives.
But we should have a warm spot in our hearts for the little island,
despite its lack of interest or attractions and its threadbare present.
Had it not been for St. Barts and certain of its neighbors, where our
privateers could lie, and from which they could prey on British
shipping and harass British men-of-war, the result of our ancestors’
brave efforts to throw off the British yoke might have been very
different.
By the same token, we should think kindly of and doff our hats to St.
Eustatius, whose magnificent volcanic cone rose majestically before the
Vigilant five hours after she had spread her wings and sailed out of
Gustavia’s harbor. It was here at “Statia,” as it is always called,
that the Stars and Stripes—or, rather, its earlier prototype—was first
saluted by the guns of a foreign power. And a pretty mess that courtesy
made for stout old Governor De Graaf, for it brought the British under
the redoubtable Rodney down upon this isle and resulted in the ruin of
Statia.
It was in November, 1776, that the fort at Orangetown (Statia’s only
port) roared out its thunderous salute to the banner of the new
republic as it flew from the masthead of the Andrew Doria of Baltimore,
one of a fleet of privateers that found friends and safety in the
Dutch, Swedish, and Danish isles and did so much to help the cause of
the American colonies. Like St. Barts, Statia, during our Revolution,
proved a godsend to our privateers and merchantmen, for it was not only
a neutral island but a free port as well. Hence, at a time when
England’s high-handed and short-sighted colonial policies had almost
ruined commerce in the West Indies, virtually all trade between Europe
and the American colonies became diverted to the tiny volcanic isle of
Statia. Then, when the French threw in their lot with our fore-fathers,
they too flocked to the Dutch port, until St. Eustatius became the
richest and greatest center of commerce in the New World and rivaled
the most famed marts of trade in the Old World as well. Ships flying
the flags of all nations steered their course for Statia; the roadstead
before Orangetown was a forest of masts and yards; immense warehouses
and docks lined the waterfront, and the place became a vast storehouse
and trading-post, a maritime and commercial exchange, such as the world
had never seen before.
Often before little sun-bathed Orangetown fully two hundred ships would
ride at anchor, and back and forth between them and the shore a steady
stream of boats plied, heavily laden with goods from every corner of
the earth. The streets were filled with crowds of stevedores, slaves,
merchants, and sailors. Bales, boxes, and barrels overflowed the giant
warehouses and were piled mountain-high along the thoroughfares and on
the beach, and merchants and buyers, unable to find accommodations, set
up their business in the open air, with packing-cases for chairs and
tables and sail-canvas awnings for roofs.
And to Statia also flocked the privateering craft from Portland, Salem,
Boston, New York, Baltimore, and countless other ports. Here they
repaired and refitted, here they disposed of captured prizes and loot,
and here they were welcomed with open arms by the thrifty Dutch.
Perchance, had the Statians and their cosmopolitan visitors confined
themselves to legitimate trade, the British might have said or done
nothing, even though De Graaf saw fit to recognize the new-born
republic officially by a salute to its flag. But the island had gone
money-mad, and not only did Statia become temporarily the world’s
greatest center of commerce, but, in addition, it became a brazenly
open dêpot for contraband of war, while, to add insult to injury, the
Dutch made no bones of convoying American privateers with their
men-o’-war, and did not hesitate to grant Dutch papers to American
merchantmen. Thus matters stood until at last the English decided that
something must be done, and on February 3, 1781, Rodney swept
unexpectedly down on Statia and, meeting with scarcely a show of
resistance, took possession of the town and all it contained, to say
nothing of over a hundred and fifty merchant ships lying in the harbor
at the time.
It was a prize which would have made the greatest buccaneer of them all
turn green with envy, for the loot consisted of over twenty-five
million dollars’ worth of goods, to say nothing of the ships. As it was
manifestly impossible for the British fleet to carry off this treasure,
and as Britain could ill afford to lose over five million pounds
sterling so easily obtained, the invaders promptly inaugurated the
greatest auction sale ever known, and there in Orangetown sold to the
highest bidders that vast accumulation of merchandise which had poured
from the ends of the earth into the little port.
Then, having seen the last of the goods taken away and the last ship
sail, Rodney pocketed his millions in the name of the King of England
and, feeling that it had been a good job well done, hoisted anchor and
bore away for other adventures.
The blow was one from which Statia never recovered. To-day the ruins of
the immense warehouses and docks are everywhere in evidence along the
waterfront of Orangetown; from hoary old Fort Orange quaint cannon
point their silent muzzles seaward through a tangle of weeds upon the
parapets from which they roared out their welcome to the Doria’s flag
so many years ago; the tower of the church wherein Mynheer De Graaf
attended services still stands above its ruined walls, and scattered
over the island are the remains of princely mansions and vast estates.
But the island and its port are almost as dead as the sturdy old
Dutchmen sleeping beneath the great carved headstones in the cemetery
on the hill.
Seen from the sea, Statia is very beautiful, with its two thousand-foot
symmetrical cone rising in a magnificent sweep from the water, and with
its northern slopes stretching into hills and plains that once were one
vast luxurious garden. Statia’s soil is exceedingly fertile and in the
olden days an enormous income was derived from its plantations of cane
and indigo, sugar and cotton, and from its orchards of fruit. But
to-day there is little cultivation carried on, and the population of
nearly one quarter of a million inhabitants has dwindled to a scant two
thousand, most of whom are mulattoes or blacks.
The port of Orangetown is attractively picturesque, part of it
straggling along just above the reach of the lazy waves and part
clambering up a steep hill to where, three hundred feet above the sea,
the Dutch flag still flies from its staff above the fort. For one who
desires to escape from the noise and strife and worries of great cities
and modern life Statia would be an ideal retreat, for its climate is
excellent, it is extremely healthful, and anything and everything may
be grown to perfection in its rich volcanic soil. Otherwise it is but
another of those sleepy isles made famous in history and now content to
bask in the tropic sun and dream of its past.
Far more interesting is Statia’s neighbor to the west, a massive
sheer-sided volcanic peak upjutting from the tumbling sea for nearly
three thousand feet—the most remarkable island, the most topsyturvy,
astonishing bit of land in all the seven seas, and known as Saba. Like
Statia, Saba is Dutch, and, among its many other distinctions, it is
the only island in the Antilles that has never changed hands and that
has no bloody stories of battles or of ruthless slaughter of the
aborigines to mar its history.
Saba’s feet are bathed in water thousands of fathoms in depth, its head
is veiled in clouds thousands of feet in the air, its coast is
forbidding, hemmed by thundering surf and beetling cliffs. It has no
harbor, no anchorage, and no landing-place worthy of the name; and yet
it supports a thrifty, happy, healthy population of nearly two thousand
souls whose everyday lives, whose occupations, and whose habitat all go
far to prove that it is indeed “hard to beat the Dutch.”
Viewing the island from the sea, one would scarcely dream that a human
being dwelt upon this mid-sea pinnacle, but a thousand feet above the
water, snugly hidden in an extinct crater as though dropped from the
clouds, is a delightfully neat, pretty, and typical Dutch village,
which, with the habitual upsidedownness of the Sabans, is called “The
Bottom” because it is at the top!
Completely out of the world is Bottom, and yet it is doubtful if any
town on earth can boast that so large a percentage of its people have
traveled far and wide. For, incongruous as it seems, nearly all the
able-bodied Saban men are sailors by choice and profession, and, from
early manhood until declining years force them to forsake the sea, they
roam the ocean highways as officers of great sailing-ships and liners.
But ever when done with sailoring they return to spend their old age in
their strange island home, and from their lofty aery—which must remind
them of the masthead of a ship—pass their time watching the vessels
that ply back and forth across the Caribbean, but never stop to make a
call at Saba.
And to visit this remarkable ocean-girt scrap of Holland is not by any
means an easy matter, either. To reach it one must travel from St.
Kitts or one of the larger islands by sail-boat, and must choose
propitious weather or the voyage will be for naught. Then, if the sea
is fairly calm, the visitor lands, or “goes aboard,” as the Sabans say,
upon a steep bit of shingly beach on the southern shore of the island.
Here, close to the water’s edge, stands a wooden shack—the combined
custom-house and harbor-master’s office of this harborless isle, with
the flag of the Netherlands fluttering above it.
Near at hand a flight of roughly hewn stone steps leads upward toward
the clouds—the road or, as the inhabitants call it, “The Ladder,” from
the landing-place to the town. Eight hundred steps there are, a
veritable Jacob’s ladder; but the Sabans are accommodating and
hospitable, and if the stranger views with trepidation the
thousand-foot climb he can make the journey in comparative ease and
comfort seated in a rocking-chair lashed between a couple of oars and
borne upon the shoulders of herculean blacks.
The Sabans, however, think nothing of the climb, and carry up the
ladder every ounce of merchandise which comes to their island. It is
not unusual to see a colored Saban ascending the precipitous way with a
half-barrel of flour or a tierce of pork upon his or her head, and when
a cargo arrives these goat-like porters and portresses often make a
dozen or more round trips in a single day.
But at the end of the climb all else is forgotten in the view that
greets the traveler’s eyes. Spread like a map in a great green bowl,
surrounded on every side with towering peaks, are neatly walled,
carefully tended gardens, and in the center the toy village of white,
red-roofed houses separated by narrow lanes between cañon-like walls of
stone. Here, in a temperate climate of perpetual June, the fair-haired,
blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked people dwell, with a few yellow-brown and black
Sabans as well, and here, a thousand feet above the surf, they raise
potatoes, strawberries, and many Northern vegetables and fruits, as
well as all those of the tropics.
Indeed, aside from the incomes of their sailor laddies, the Sabans
depend largely upon the products of their gardens, and carry them
regularly to the market at St. Kitts. But they have many another
industry besides, and many a quaint and curious custom. Passing through
the streets, one may often see an elderly pair, who might have stepped
from some cottage in Holland, industriously brushing and polishing a
coffin in their dooryard, for the Sabans believe in preparedness; and,
knowing the futility and the uncertainties of life and the
inevitability of death, they keep their coffins ready for emergencies
and as much a part of their household furnishings as chairs or tables.
While the inhabitants of this strange little island are thoroughly
Dutch in appearance, the recognized language of Saba is English, and,
save among the older people, the tongue of the Netherlands is seldom
used.
Owing to the absence of so many of the men at sea, women seem in the
great majority at Bottom and like all the women of their race they are
never idle for a moment, and they keep their homes and village so tidy
and clean that one is convinced that here is the original “spotless
town.” In the intervals between scrubbing, dusting, washing, and
cooking the Saban women find time to make beautiful drawn-work and
lace, which find a ready sale and add many guilders and dollars to
their pin-money.
But all that has gone before pales into insignificance when we learn of
the leading industry of the Sabans, the work with which the youths and
older men occupy themselves, the business that makes the visitor pinch
himself to make sure he is not dreaming; for who in the world would
ever imagine that it is, of all things, boat-building! Yes; stanch,
seaworthy boats, renowned throughout the West Indies, are built here in
a crater a thousand feet above the sea, where every plank and timber
used in their construction must be carried on people’s heads up the
ladder of eight hundred stone steps! And when at last one of these
mountain-top boats is built, how, you may well ask, do the Sabans get
it down to the water? By the simplest method in the world: they let it
down the sides of the cliffs exactly as though their island were a ship
and they were lowering their craft from the davits!
CHAPTER VIII
ST. KITTS AND THE GORGEOUS ISLE
Despite all their interest, neither Statia nor Saba held aught that
linked them with the buccaneers,—indeed, I doubt if these adventurers
ever visited either,—and so, dipping our colors to old Fort Orange in
memory of the salute the ancient guns gave the Andrew Doria, we bore on
to Basseterre, the port and capital of St. Kitts.
To one who has seen only the more northern islands, St. Kitts is a
revelation,—a fascinating sight,—and even after one has viewed the more
southerly isles with their overpowering grandeur of mile-high mountains
and wondrous forests, St. Kitts still holds its own, for it possesses
charms unlike those of any other of the Caribbees.
From the cloud-draped summit of Mount Misery—dark and sinister, four
thousand feet above the sea—to the beaches rimmed with creaming foam,
St. Kitts is a glorious mass of green,—green of a thousand shades and
tints, from that of ripening cane to that of the deep, shadowy ravines
of its mountain forests. Upward from the sandy beaches and rugged
bluffs sweep the broad cane-fields, undulating over hill and dale and
reminding one so strongly of the downs of Sussex that one no longer
marvels that the homesick English settlers, weary of the long and
tedious voyage, gazed with brimming eyes upon this smiling, sun-bright
isle. Vividly, tenderly green are the fields of young canes, golden or
russet the others, sienna-red the plowed acres between, but all are
drenched with tropic sunshine, and all, from a distance, seem as well
tended and as regularly laid out as a great garden.
And everywhere are the palms. As far as eye can see, the swaying
coco-palms line the shores above the tumbling surf. Against the sky the
plume-topped cabbage-palms show their sharp silhouettes above the
lesser trees upon the mountain sides. For miles along the winding,
perfect roads the towering royal palms form avenues of great columnar
trunks and drooping, feathery fronds. They cluster above the lowly
negro huts or shade the great plantation homes without discrimination
and with equal beauty, and they nod like giant feather dusters above
the roof-tops of the town.
Massive, majestic, and mountainous is the northern portion of St.
Kitts, and it takes no very vivid imagination to see in towering Mount
Misery the likeness of St. Christopher bearing the infant Jesus on his
shoulder which caused Columbus to name the island after his own patron
saint. But to the south the mountains with their dense, forest-clad
slopes give way to hills covered with endless acres of cane, until at
Basseterre the island is almost flat, and only isolated rounded Monkey
Hill breaks the rolling, down-like land.
Basseterre is a fittingly pretty town for this lovely island, with its
red roofs and its pastel-tinted houses shaded by palms above the
wonderfully colored sea, on whose calm surface ride gaily painted
sloops and schooners and bevies of rowboats of every color of the
rainbow.
But it must be admitted that there is very little of interest here.
There is a fairly attractive public garden; flowering shrubs and trees
are everywhere; there are pretty embowered residences, and the people
are friendly and hospitable. But there is nothing distinctive about the
place: it might be any one of a score of dolce-far-niente tropical
towns, and it is by no means either prosperous or over-clean. Time was
when St. Kitts was a well-to-do island; its planters lived like princes
or feudal lords, fleets of ships rode to anchor in its harbor, and
thousands of toiling blacks planted and cultivated and garnered the
golden canes which sent a steady flow of molasses and sugar from the
isle and brought an equally steady flow of golden sovereigns back to
the Kittefonians’ pockets. But the omnipresent and lowly beet spelled
St. Kitts’s doom, as it spelled the doom of many another
sugar-producing land, and though the island is by no means
poverty-stricken, and during the late war became prosperous for a time,
the golden days of the past will never return.
Efforts have been made to win back prosperity with sea-island cotton,
citrous fruits, and other tropical products; but it is a hard matter
indeed to wean a sugar-planter from canes; and even those who have
taken up the cultivation of other things have not been over-successful.
As a winter resort, St. Kitts is delightful, for it boasts a good
climate and a healthful one; its scenery is magnificent; it possesses
splendid motor-roads that completely encircle the island; it offers
excellent fishing and hunting, plenty of outdoor sports, and an active
volcano, Mount Misery, with a wonderful climb through the virgin
tropical forests to its crater.
The island has, like its fellows, had a checkered career, but it can
boast of being the first of the British West Indies to be settled by
the English, who established themselves here in 1623. However, they did
not succeed in holding it in undisputed possession, and what with the
Caribs, the pirates, and the French, those earlier colonists had a
mighty hard time of it. More than once St. Kitts came wholly under the
sway of France. At other times the two nations buried the hatchet
temporarily, and while the English confined themselves to the northern
half of the isle, with their headquarters at Sandy Point, the French
were content with the other half, with Basseterre as their port; yet
there was constant friction, and not until 1782 was St. Kitts
definitely turned over to the British.
Except in the name of the capital, there are few if any traces of
French occupancy, but at Brimstone Hill, close to Sandy Point, are the
massive ruins of extensive fortifications built by the British. Here,
on an isolated, precipitous mass of rock, for all the world like a
young mountain gone astray, is a solid mass of loopholed and
battlemented masonry completely covering every available portion of the
eight-hundred-foot hill. It is an impressive and redoubtable
fortification, well-nigh impregnable in the days of muzzle-loading
cannon and black powder, and complete with sally-ports, moats, and
drawbridges. But it is quite deserted and useless, the abode of
countless monkeys—descendants of apes brought from Gibraltar as pets,
by the garrison—which are eagerly hunted and esteemed by the
Kittefonians as a great delicacy.
Looking upon this stupendous work of defense, one marvels that any
enemy ever dared attack or even approach St. Kitts, but, to tell the
truth, it never saw battle, for it was not built until 1793, ten years
after France and England ceased quarreling over the island and its
neighbors, and all too late to be of any value whatsoever to its
builders.
As an imposing ruin it is well worth a visit, but its historical
attractions are nil. Indeed, St. Kitts seems strangely lacking in
anything connecting its present with its rather turbulent and not at
all bloodless past. I do not think there is even the customary tale of
buried treasure on the island; at least I have never heard one. The
people do not claim to have found pirates’ hoards in their cane-fields
or caverns; and they do not even associate the name of any great pirate
chieftain with their delightful home.
Nevertheless, St. Kitts was at one time a resort of pirates—or, rather,
buccaneers—who were attacked by the Spaniards in 1629 and driven from
the island. Many of these, of French blood, made their way to Tortuga,
off the coast of Haiti, and there formed the nucleus of that famous
headquarters of the Brethren of the Main. As far as records go there is
nothing to show that the freebooters ever returned in large numbers or
for an extended stay, and, according to a most interesting document
which I was so fortunate as to acquire in St. Kitts, when they did
appear they were met with so warm a welcome that it is not at all
surprising they gave the lovely island a wide berth.
The faded and crumpled bit of worm-eaten parchment, which I value even
more than the ancient coins so opportunely acquired at Anegada, is a
fragment of the court records of St. Kitts in the good old days, and
its scarcely legible writing relates the following:
An assize and generall Gaole delivrie held at St. Christophers
Colonie from ye nineteenthe daye of Maye to ye 22n. daye off ye
same Monthe 1701 Captaine Josias Pendringhame Magustrate &C. The
Jurye of our Soveraigne Lord the Kinge Doe presente Antonio Mendoza
of Hispaniola and a subjecte of ye Kinge of Spain for that ye said
on or about ye 11 Daye of Apryl 1701 feloneousely delibyrately and
malliciousley and encontrarye to ye laws off Almightie God and our
Soveraigne Lord the Kinge did in his cuppes saucely and arrogantyly
speak of the Governour and our Lord the Kinge and bye force and
armes into ye tavernne of John Wilkes Esq. did entre and there did
Horrible sware and cursse and did felonoslye use theattenninge
words and did strike and cutte most murtherouslye severalle
subjects of our Soveraigne Lord the Kinge. Of w’h Indictment he
pleadeth not Guiltie butte onne presente Master Samuel Dunscombe
mariner did sware that said Antonio Mendoza was of his knowenge a
Bloodthirste piratte and Guiltie of diabolicalle practises & ye
Grande Inquest findinge yt a trewe bill to be tryd by God and ye
Countrye w’h beinge a Jurie of 12 men sworne finde him Guiltie &
for the same he be adjuged to be carryd to ye Fort Prison to haave
both his earres cutt close by his head and be burnet throughe ye
tongee with an Hot iron and to be caste chained in ye Dungon to
awaitte ye plesyure of God and Our Soveraigne Lord the Kinge.
We cannot but pity the luckless Spaniard who under the spell of
Kittefonian rum, or possibly palm toddy, did “Horrible sware and
cursse” and who may very likely have been quite innocent of any
piratical or “diabolicalle” past, for the British had no love for the
Dons and even when nominally at peace with Spain thought little of
putting an end to any subject of the Spanish king who came their way.
No doubt the very fact that the prisoner was a Spaniard was his
undoing; and that worthy mariner Samuel Dunscombe probably perjured
himself for the satisfaction of seeing a Don tortured. At any rate, it
seems as though having both ears “cutt close” and having one’s “tongee”
perforated with a red-hot iron was pretty severe punishment for the
alleged crimes. But it only goes to prove how times have changed, and
how little we can judge, by present-day standards, of what in those
days was cruelty or inhumanity.
Also in St. Kitts, though on another visit, I came into possession of
an equally interesting souvenir of olden times—a remarkable little
volume bearing the rather cumbersome title of: “The True Travels,
Adventures and Observations of Captain John Smith, in Europe, Asia,
Africa and America from Anno Domini 1593 to 1629; his accidents and sea
fights in the straits; his service and stratagems of war in Hungaria,
Transylvania, Wallachi, and Moldavia, against the Turks and Tartars;
his description of the Tartars, their strange manners and customs of
religions, diets, buildings, wars, feasts, ceremonies, and living; how
he slew the Bashaw of Malbritz in Cambria, and escaped from the Turks
and the Tartars; together with a continuation of his General History of
Virginia, Summer Isles, New England and their proceedings since 1624 to
this present 1629, published in Anno Domini 1630.”
From all of which it will be gathered that our hero of Pocahontas fame
was an adventurer of many parts in divers lands, and that his
activities in Virginia were but minor incidents in his romantic career.
In fact, for a space, Smith was something of a pirate himself, judged
by our standards at least, and his accounts of sea battles and prizes
taken are fascinatingly quaint. Of St. Kitts, too, he has much to say,
and he gives us more of an insight into the troubles and tribulations
of the first settlers on this “fayre islant” than any other writer.
Aside from raids by the man-eating Caribs, being harassed by pirates,
and constant quarrels with the French, the early English settlers seem
to have had a most unfortunate experience with hurricanes, which Smith
naïvely explains are “overgrowne and most monstrous stormes.” Indeed,
the very year of its settlement by the English, 1623, a hurricane swept
the island and wiped out the settlers’ gardens, their tobacco-fields,
their houses, and their fort. Hardly had they recovered from this when,
in September, 1625, another hurricane hurled itself upon the island.
This was even worse than its predecessor of two years before, and Smith
states that, in addition to blowing down all the houses, the tobacco,
and “two drums into the air we know not wither,” it also “drove two
ships on shore, that were both split.” He adds: “All our provisions
thus lost we were very miserable, living only on what we could get in
the wild woods.... Thus we continued till near June that the Tortels
came in, 1627.” Six months later the colonists were once more made
homeless through a hurricane, and until the end of the narrative
hurricane followed hurricane. [5]
To-day, however, St. Kitts is by no means noted for its “overgrowne
stormes,” which may be of interest meteorologically as tending to show
that hurricanes are not so frequent in the Antilles as formerly and
may, in centuries to come, cease altogether.
Another interesting fact brought out by Smith is that St. Kitts was
largely populated by malefactors and convicts bought at so much a head
from British prisons, shipped to the West Indies like cattle, in the
stinking holds of small ships, and auctioned off as slaves among the
planters. When we stop to think of such things, of the unspeakable
atrocities practised by the masters or owners of these unfortunates
upon their own countrymen (whom they branded with red-hot irons and
mutilated or tortured on the least provocation), to say nothing of
compelling white men, women, and children to labor half naked from
sunrise to sunset in the cane- and tobacco-fields, under a broiling sun
and urged on by the cruel lash, the buccaneers seem tender-hearted
gentlemen by comparison.
South of this emerald isle, plainly visible from Basseterre and
separated from St. Kitts merely by a narrow strait, lies Nevis. In a
gigantic, absolutely symmetrical cone of green the massive volcano of
Nevis rises against the sky, its brow crowned with a perpetual diadem
of drifting fleecy clouds and at its feet the undulating green fields
sloping to the sea.
Once the Mecca of the wealth and fashion of Europe and the Antilles,
the world’s most famous watering-place, a spot so thronged with
notables, so gay with great balls, state receptions, and palatial
gambling-resorts, so ablaze with silks, satins, and jewels, so flooded
with gold and riches that it became known as “The Gorgeous Isle,” Nevis
to-day is almost as dead as its volcano’s crater. And yet it is as
charming, its climate is as salubrious, its thermal springs and mineral
waters as life-giving, its fields and forests as alluring as in those
days when its harbor was thronged with stately ships and its streets
and hostelries rang to the song and laughter of satin-clad, bewigged
gentlemen, and ladies with powdered hair; and liveried negro
link-bearers lit the way for sedan-chairs ablaze with gilded scrolls
and cupids. But the vast estates, the palatial mansions, the great
Bath-House, and the marvelously appointed casinos are but
memories—crumbling ruins forlorn and overgrown. Nevis is but a ghost of
the “Gorgeous Isle” of the eighteenth century, though a very beautiful
ghost.
Aside from its one-time fame as a spa, Nevis is mainly noted as the
birthplace of Alexander Hamilton and the place where Admiral Lord
Nelson was married. The house wherein our statesman was born still
stands on a hill near the town, though in a badly ruined state, and in
the ancient but well-preserved “Fig Tree Church” there is still the
thumbed and faded marriage register wherein one may read, under the
entries for the year 1787: “March 11, Horatio Nelson Esq., Captain of
H. M. S. Boreas, to Frances Herbert Nisbet, widow.” What a
matter-of-fact record of the mighty, one-armed old sea-fighter’s love
romance!
But to my mind the most interesting thing in Nevis is the submerged
ancient capital of Jamestown, which in 1680 was destroyed by a severe
earthquake. Then, as though Nature wished to hide the ruin she had
wrought, the town with its tumble-down buildings, many of its
inhabitants, and—so it is said—vast wealth, sank bodily below the sea.
To-day, in calm weather, one may gaze downward through the
crystal-clear water and trace the faint outlines of coral-incrusted
walls of buildings that mark the resting-place of the drowned city.
History, unfortunately, has little information to give us concerning
Jamestown and its destruction, or of the events of that awful day. One
of the few survivors was a noted freebooter, a Captain
Greaves,—otherwise known as “Red Legs,”—who, having seen the error of
his ways, had abandoned his piratical career and had settled down in
Nevis to a life of peace in the guise of a well-to-do planter. But the
reformed pirate, being recognized and denounced by a former victim, was
arrested and cast into an underground dungeon, only to be miraculously
saved by the earthquake, which destroyed his prison and heaved him up
quite unharmed. Finding himself floating upon the sea with the remains
of the town fathoms deep beneath him, the ex-pirate clung to a piece of
wreckage, and after numerous adventures safely reached another island,
where he once more essayed a respectable existence, and lived and died
a highly honored citizen.
This was but one incident in the romantic career of Greaves, or “Red
Legs,”—which is a far more appropriate name for a freebooter,—who was a
unique and fascinating character. Sold as a slave in Barbados, as were
thousands of Scotch and Irish prisoners taken in the days of Cromwell,
Greaves, in an effort to escape from a cruel master, sought refuge on a
Dutch ship in the harbor. By some mischance, he swam in the darkness to
the wrong vessel and found himself upon a pirate craft. Fate having
thus taken a hand in shaping his destiny, the erstwhile slave boy took
to the buccaneers’ life as a duck takes to water. As all his
unfortunate fellows were known in the islands as “red legs,”—as their
descendants are to-day,—this new recruit of the pirates at once
received the nickname, which stuck to him through all his years of
buccaneering. While he was famous for his reckless daring, his almost
uncanny luck in piratical undertakings, yet he was never dreaded as
were many of his fellows. For Red Legs, despite his handicap, was a
gallant and chivalrous gentleman at heart, and though he scuttled ships
and sacked towns without end, yet he earned the reputation of never
harming women or putting prisoners to death or torture. He was, in
fact, that incredible paradox, a moral pirate, and in his declining
years he devoted large sums—whether honestly earned from his plantation
or loot from his piratical ventures is unknown—to charity and churches.
The island of Nevis can boast of association with one other pirate, who
in a way was even more remarkable than Red Legs and accomplished the
most noteworthy feat in all the annals of buccaneering. This was no
less a personage than Bartholomew Sharp, who, after what was probably
the greatest adventure experienced by any of those most adventurous men
the buccaneers, sailed into Nevis, back in 1682, and, having decided to
abandon the sea and rest on his laurels, departed thence to England.
CHAPTER IX
THE “DANGEROUS VOYAGE” AND THE EFFECT OF A NAGGING TONGUE
No story of the West Indies in their relation to the buccaneers would
be complete without some mention of Bartholomew Sharp and his marvelous
cruise, which even Ringrose, his sailing-master and historian, dubbed
“The Dangerous Voyage.”
Of Sharp’s earlier days of pirating we know little, but that he was an
adept follower of the profession we may be sure, for his contemporaries
spoke of him as “that sea artist and valiant commander” and, to use a
slang expression, it took some pirate to win such praise from the
corsairs of the Caribbean.
At all events, Sharp evidently found the pickings of the Spanish Main
and its neighboring waters too poor for his liking, and, seeking richer
fields for his art, gathered together a wild and daring company of some
three hundred and fifty men and in April, 1680, sailed for the Isthmus
of Panama. Among this choice assortment of companionable spirits were
many noteworthy pirates, for Sharp had great deeds in view and aimed to
outdo the redoubtable Sir Henry Morgan himself. Ringrose, the historian
of the buccaneers, was there; Dampier the buccaneer naturalist [6];
Wafer the surgeon; Watling and Gayny; Jobson the chemist; Coxon and
Sawkins and many another. Reaching the isthmus, they disembarked and,
emulating Morgan, proceeded to cross the “Bridge of the World” afoot by
way of Darien, the wildest and hardest route. This in itself was no
mean task, but to the pirates it was only an incident, a somewhat
disagreeable means to an end and nothing more. Having gained the shores
of the Pacific, they promptly commandeered canoes and without
hesitation boldly attacked the Spanish fleet lying in the lee of Perico
Island, off the city of Panama.
Then followed a battle which must have satisfied even the most
bloodthirsty. As usual, the pirates won the day, captured all the Dons’
ships, and, having thus secured the necessary tools of their trade,
they transferred armaments, ammunition, and such treasure as there was,
from the smaller ships to a four-hundred-ton galleon known as La
Santissima Trinidad or The Most Blessed Trinity. Finally, having
scuttled the craft they could not use, they started on a career of
piracy which, as a record of successes, battles, murders, mutinies, and
bloodshed, has probably never been equaled.
Indeed, so execrable a pirate did Sharp prove himself that even some of
his most notorious fellows could no longer stomach him, and Dampier,
Gayny, Jobson, and over forty others deserted the company and started
back for the Caribbean via the Isthmus of Darien.
Thereupon Sharp was seized with a brilliant idea, an inspiration which
had never come to his brother buccaneers, a wild scheme quite worthy of
his rash spirit. It was nothing less than to ravage the entire western
coast of South America, sail through the Strait of Magellan, and return
by sea to his old stamping-ground in the West Indies.
This was “the dangerous voyage,” and while it proved far more dangerous
to the unfortunate peoples of the west coast than to the buccaneers,
yet the mishaps and adventures of the latter were thrilling enough, and
sufficiently numerous to fill a volume. No fiction ever written, no
imaginings no matter how vivid could equal Ringrose’s log of The Most
Blessed Trinity, as, sailing down the coast, her crew landed and sacked
towns, filled market-places with dead and wounded, ravished women,
pillaged cathedrals, razed cities, and with sword and torch left a
trail of blood and devastation from Panama to Patagonia.
Laden with loot,—with wines and spirits, silver bullion, [7] golden
coins, jewels torn from the fingers of terrified women; plate and
chalices from desecrated churches; embroidered vestments of murdered
priests, treasure won through unspeakable tortures; satins and silks;
even hides and tallow,—the battered galleon, scarred by shot and shell,
her gilded stern castle hacked away to afford room for guns, her
counter charred by fire, her decks blood-stained, cruised ever
southward toward the Horn.
But the buccaneers did not escape unscathed. At many a town they were
ignominiously defeated. Even Sharp had his troubles. As was often the
case with such rascals,—incredible as it may seem,—the pirate crew,
despite their ruthless and villainous lives, had certain ideas of
religion. Finding their captain utterly regardless of the Sabbath, and
so lacking in even a semblance of piety that he did not hesitate to
sack a town or scuttle a ship on that day, they decided that the time
had come to end such sacrilegious behavior, and, seizing Sharp, they
placed him in irons and dumped him into the already overcrowded hold.
Then in his place they appointed a new skipper, one John Watling, an
hypocritical old villain who would murder out of hand on Saturday and
hold divine services the next morning, when his cutthroat crew would
join in singing hymns or repeating prayers, the while wetting their
throats with fiery rum. But the consciences of the men were quieted,
and the new captain might have safely brought The Most Blessed Trinity
safely to the Antilles, had not Fate, in the shape of a bullet through
his liver, ended his sanctimonious and bloody career.
As there was no other capable of taking command, the mutineers were
compelled to reinstate Sharp, who apparently had been meditating upon
his own sins as he sat manacled in the dismal hold, and with only his
own thoughts for company had decided to lead a better life henceforth.
At any rate, one of the first things he did when the irons were knocked
from his wrists and ankles and he found himself once more upon his
ship’s quarter-deck, was to intercede for the life of an aged Indian
prisoner whom Watling, before his sudden demise, had ordered shot for
supposedly giving false information about Arica.
Who would have imagined that the desperate and unconscionable pirate
chieftain,—whose greatest enjoyment had been in the screams of captured
women, the shrieks of tortured men, the groans of the dying and the
roar of cannon—would ever come to this? But the scarred,
leather-skinned, shaggy-browed old villain waxed eloquent and drew
heartrending pictures of the poor Indian’s empty home, of his wife and
children seated in their lowly hut, waiting for the return of their
lord and master; and his chronicler even asserts that the suddenly
reformed Bartholomew’s voice faltered and tears coursed down his cheeks
as he spoke.
Unfortunately for the captive, the captain’s plea was in vain, and his
crew, still sullen and mutinous, being determined to put an end to the
old Indian, Sharp called for a basin of water and ostentatiously
washing his gnarled and blood-stained hands therein, wiped them on the
bedraggled and grease-spotted velvet coat he wore, and then, with
upturned eyes, declared most impressively and solemnly that he was
“clear of the blood of this poor man.” He added, “I will warrant you a
hot day for this piece of cruelty whenever we come to fight at
Arica,”—a prophecy which was fulfilled in a manner far exceeding his
expectations and believed by the freebooters, with their sailors’
superstitions, to be the direct result of the Indian’s death, as they
later discovered he had told them nothing but the truth. At Arica
scores of the invaders were killed or made prisoners, among them the
ships’ two surgeons, and a bare handful of her original crew remained
to work the badly battered and strained ship, and reef and handle the
patched and shot-riddled sails as she staggered and plunged through the
tempestuous, ice-filled seas and freezing gales around the Cape and
into the Atlantic through uncharted waters. For they failed to make the
Strait of Magellan and won a way where no ship had sailed eastward
before. Possibly during his short confinement and his compulsory
resignation from leadership, Sharp really did find grace and decide to
live an honest life thenceforth; or more likely, being a canny rascal,
he had no desire to repeat his experience and determined to give his
rebellious crew their full of righteousness. Whatever the reason, there
was no further trouble, and The Most Blessed Trinity, having
successfully weathered the storms and billows of the Antarctic, went
wallowing on her way northward through the Atlantic.
Weather-beaten, storm-strained; her sails in tatters, her rigging gray,
ragged, and slack, her spars patched and fished in scores of places;
with yard-long weeds upon her leaking bottom, and bearing the scars of
many a battle, the one-time Spanish flag-ship worked up the coast,
through the doldrums, and into the trades. Her log reveals little but a
constant succession of gales and hurricanes, of starvation rations and
ceaseless work to keep the old ship afloat and able to sail, until,
eighteen months after starting forth on her “most dangerous voyage” she
entered the Caribbean and sighted Barbados—the first land seen since
passing Patagonia.
But the sea-weary buccaneers were fated not to set foot upon the right
little, tight little isle. Within Carlisle Bay lay H. M. S. Richmond,
and Sharp, glimpsing the war-ship, promptly squared his battered yards
and headed for Antigua.
A dozen or more of the men, among them Ringrose, landed here—eventually
to make their way in safety to England—while The Most Blessed Trinity,
with men working ceaselessly at her wheezing pumps, bore away for
Nevis. Here, two years after Jamestown had sunk beneath the waves, the
wraith-like galleon with her lawless crew came to rest, and the great
“sea artist,” having accomplished his harebrained undertaking, turned
his battered old hulk over to his fellows and, well laden with riches,
sailed for England arrayed in all the gorgeous finery of some murdered
grandee.
Thus ended this most remarkable voyage, this greatest of buccaneer
adventures; a cruise unequaled in the annals of the sea; the longest,
bloodiest, and most successful pirate raid of history.
No doubt, like Red Legs, Sharp settled down in some quiet nook and
spent the remainder of his life as a respected squire or gentleman
farmer in Sussex or Surrey; for nothing seems to be known of him after
he arrived in England, and, having been tried for and acquitted of
piracy, he dropped out of sight. But Basil Ringrose, to whom we are
indebted for the log of The Most Blessed Trinity, and who, as
navigator, was mainly responsible for the safe consummation of her
voyage, was far too restless a soul to be content with English lanes
and hedgerows and a vine-clad thatched cottage. Once more taking to the
buccaneer’s life, he joined a pirate ship bound for the South Seas, and
met death off the coast of Mexico after again rounding the Horn.
It was not at all unusual for a pirate to give up the sea and, under an
assumed name, live quietly upon the fruits of his labors, with his past
quite unsuspected by his neighbors, but it was rarely indeed that an
honored and respected gentleman took suddenly to pirating.
Such, however, was the case with a certain Major Stede Bonnet, a rich
and finely educated citizen of Barbados and a pillar of the church.
He was a gentleman most highly thought of, a leader of Barbados
society, and apparently one of fortune’s favorites. But it seems that
there was a fly in the major’s ointment in the person of a nagging,
quarrelsome Mrs. Bonnet.
In fact, so unbearable did the major’s life become that at last he
decided to choose the less of two evils. Having purchased a sloop,
fitted her with guns, assembled a crew, and named his acquisition The
Revenge, Major Bonnet bade a thankful farewell to his wife and, on a
dark night in 1716, sailed forth from Bridgetown Harbor, bound
a-pirating.
Oddly enough, although the gallant if henpecked officer knew nothing
whatsoever of seamanship, he seems to have been a somewhat successful
and lucky pirate,—albeit a humane one, for it was he who rescued the
marooned members of Blackbeard’s crew from their desert isle,—and The
Revenge, cruising off our Atlantic coast, took prizes right and left.
In a short time Bonnet’s name was one to conjure with, and a mere
mention of it brought terror to the hearts of shipping-men and sailors
in every port from Salem to Savannah, while so bold did he become that
he had the effrontery to make Gardiner’s Island, in Long Island Sound,
his headquarters at various times. For a space, too, he joined forces
with the redoubtable Teach, better known as Blackbeard, but the
partnership was rather unfortunate, for the scoundrelly Teach robbed
the major of his ship and most of his possessions.
This treacherous behavior on the part of a supposed friend made Bonnet
melancholy, if we are to believe his biographer, and may have led to
his undoing, for shortly afterward—in 1718, to be exact—he was taken
prisoner off the Carolinas. He managed to make good his escape in a
canoe, but a reward of seventy pounds sterling was offered for him, and
the following year he was captured at Sullivan’s Island, was tried in
Charleston, and, having been sentenced to death, was hanged at White
Point. Possibly poor Major Bonnet was not sorry to find peace even at
the end of the hangman’s rope, for his adventures had brought him
little more comfort or ease than his home life in Barbados; and it is
even doubtful if his widow wept over his demise, or mended her ways. Of
her we know nothing; she slips quite out of the story with the
departure of her spouse on The Revenge, and even Johnson in his
“History of the Pyrates” was too gallant to do more than hint at her
character by stating that “This humour of going a pyrating was believed
to proceed from a disorder of the mind said to have been occasioned by
some discomforts in the marriage state.”
However, we do know, from historical records, that poor Stede was
subjected to so lengthy a diatribe by the judge who condemned him (it
filled six closely written pages) that even his wife’s scoldings must
have seemed mild in comparison, and ere the judge’s long-winded advice
as to leading the higher life was ended the major must have become so
utterly worn out as actually to long for death.
Aside from Red Legs and the unfortunate Major Bonnet, Barbados, or, for
that matter, any of the southern islands, have little to link them with
the buccaneers; and as I was following in the wake of these
adventurers, and not endeavoring to make a cruise of all the Antilles,
the Vigilant sailed away from charming St. Kitts with Santo Domingo as
her goal.
There was a long sail ahead, nearly three hundred and fifty miles to
cover before we reached our objective point at Samana Bay, but we
planned to break the stretch by a stop at St. Croix, one hundred and
twenty-five miles from St. Kitts. Over a sparkling, sunny sea, with the
wind on our quarter, we sped away from the fair green hills and downs
of St. Kitts, left the great cone of Statia and the isolated, beetling
peak of Saba looming hazily and like phantom isles to the north, and
with a broad wake of suds streaming far astern and a roaring, curling
mass of foam beneath our bows, swept across Saba Bank.
It gives one a strange feeling to be sailing across the deep-blue
Caribbean far from land and suddenly to look over a ship’s rails and
plainly see bottom with its masses of corals, its great starfish, its
huge black sea-cucumbers, and its clustered sponges under the keel.
Many times have I sailed over Saba Bank, and never can I overcome the
impression that the ship is about to touch the ragged coral so clearly
visible; and the effect is even more remarkable when one is crossing
the bank on a big steamship. Saba Bank extends for nearly forty miles
east and west, and almost the same distance north and south, with from
six to twenty fathoms of glass-clear water over it; and while in heavy
weather large vessels avoid it, because of the huge seas that pile up
in the shoal water and the danger of touching a reef, in calm weather
they pass unhesitatingly across it.
Beyond Saba Bank we were out of sight of land, and on that wide waste
of waters stretching unbroken, even by a sail, to the horizon on every
side, the little Vigilant seemed pitifully small. More than ever was I
impressed with the courage, the confidence, and the faith in God which
led the early voyagers and discoverers over this unknown, uncharted sea
in craft far smaller and less seaworthy than the Vigilant. Rarely do we
stop to consider what marvelous undertakings and great adventures those
ancient voyages were. In miserable tubs—unwieldy, unfit for beating to
windward with any degree of success, clumsily sparred, and uncouthly
rigged—the daring navigators crossed the broad Atlantic and cruised
hither and yon among the reefs and isles of the Caribbean. The wonder
is that they did not all pile their timbers upon the ragged coral reefs
and low-lying cays, or that they ever managed to find the same island
twice. To steer a course across the Caribbean and raise one of the
isles above one’s bows is no small undertaking in a well-found vessel
and with the aid of modern instruments, and how Columbus and his
fellows ever accomplished it, with their crude appliances and with no
charts to guide them, is a mystery which ever fills me with wonder.
And as I lolled upon the Vigilant’s deck while our little ship with
flowing sheets plunged on to the westward, I also wondered how big Sam
could steer so unerringly for St. Croix—or if he could. But he seemed
to be perfectly confident of himself, grasping the wheel in those great
black hands of his, casting an occasional glance at the bellying sails,
balancing himself on his huge sinewy legs to the heave of the deck, and
peering straight ahead with no heed to the compass, as though his eyes
could pierce the distance and see the hills of St. Croix beyond the
horizon.
Each day I took the sun and worked out our position, purely as a
precautionary measure; but I never revealed the results to Sam, for I
was curious to see just how accurately he could sail by dead reckoning,
or instinct, or whatever it was.
Once, as I stood near the taffrail and squinted through my sextant, Sam
chuckled, and a broad grin spread over his black, good-natured face.
“Ah don’ guess you think Ah kin mek Santa Cruz, Chief,” he ventured.
“Oh, I’m not worrying over that, Sam,” I replied. “But it’s a good plan
to know just where we are, in case of trouble—if a storm should come up
and blow us off our course, or anything should happen to you.”
“Tha’s right, Chief,” he agreed. “But Ah reckon Ah’d mek some islan’
’gardless o’ all that. Ah don’t need to know where we is for to get
where we’s goin’.”
“Well, how on earth do you do it, Sam?” I asked.
“Lordy! Ah don’ can’ say,” he declared. “Ah jus’ knows where’bouts th’
lan’ is, an’ Ah steers for he.”
I had to let it go at that, for the Bahaman’s sense of direction was as
inexplicable to himself as to me; but, after all, while this ability to
head directly for a definite speck of land in a waste of waters is
staggering to a landsman, is it really any more remarkable than a
woodsman’s ability to head across country through forests or over
trackless plains and unerringly come to his destination? Perhaps it is
the same instinct that guides the carrier-pigeon, the migrating birds,
the cat and the dog, and even the lowly toad, across long distances of
unknown territory. And if we accept the latest scientific theory that
all of these are unconsciously following vibratory waves or flows of
electrons, then possibly big Sam was being led across the Caribbean by
means of nature’s radio, to which the ordinary mortal’s intellect is
not attuned.
As we tore along, reeling off a good eight knots, Joe strolled aft,
armed with heavy lines and baited hooks, and, making them fast to the
rail, paid them out rapidly astern. Hardly had the first whipping line
run out for fifty feet in the creaming wake when there was a flash of
silver and gold and Joe began hauling in. But his catch was more than
he could handle alone, and I hurried to help him. A moment later we had
a magnificent twenty-five-pound albacore flapping on deck, and for the
next half-hour the fun was fast and furious. I verily believe we could
easily have filled the Vigilant’s hold with fish had we kept on, but
when enough Spanish mackerel, albacore, dolphin, and bonito had been
secured to provide a fish diet for all on board for the next
twenty-four hours, Joe rolled up his lines and betook himself to the
galley, carrying the particular specimen he intended for my meal and
calling to the men to bring their own.
Sam grinned widely at Joseph’s superior manner.
“Tha’ Turk’ Islan’ boy act like he ain’ th’ same specie wi’ other
niggers,” he chuckled. “On’y he Bahaman like mahsel’ Ah guess he don’
’sociate long o’ me. But, Lordy, Chief, he cert’n’y can cook! Ya-umm!”
“Yep,” I replied; “Joe is inclined to be a bit of a snob, but, as you
say, he’s a fine cook—and a mighty faithful boy, too. Are all the Turks
Island boys his kind?”
“Not zactly, Chief,” responded Sam. “But the’ does mek to be a bit
bumpt’ous. You see, Chief, the’ says as how Gran’ Turk was the islan’
what Columbus foun’ first, n’ the’ argufies as how tha’ meks they th’
firs’ qual’ty niggers in th’ islan’s, Chief.”
I roared with laughter.
“That’s good, Sam!” I cried. “But it’s not so strange, after all. We’ve
got people in the States that put on just as many airs because their
ancestors came over in the Mayflower.”
“Lord! is tha’ so, Chief?” exclaimed Sam. “Ah never did n’ know white
folks bothered ’bout such humbuggin’.”
A moment later, Trouble shouted that land was in sight; and, sure
enough, straight before the pitching tip of our jib-boom, a tiny
opalescent cloud broke the horizon under the setting sun.
Sam’s instinct had not failed him: he had, figuratively, hit the
bull’s-eye first shot, and a triumphant grin spread over his face as he
stopped and peered ahead beneath the booms.
Rapidly the land rose before us, an indigo patch against the crimson
sky, and ere nightfall we were close in to the island, rocking lazily
along on an almost calm sea, our sails flapping, half filled, in the
rapidly falling wind, and the boom of the surf and a chorus of night
insects coming to us mingled with the scent of flowers, the pungent
odor of burning canes, and the earthy smell of newly plowed fields.
With scarcely steerage way, the Vigilant crept on through the night and
past the twinkling lights of Christiansted; and, gazing up at the
myriad brilliant stars, and lulled by the soft murmur of the rippling
water and the gentle creaking of the rigging and spars, I fell asleep.
CHAPTER X
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.
CHAPTER XI
THE GIBRALTAR OF THE BUCCANEERS
One must search far and wide to find a more beautiful stretch of water
than the Bay of Samana. Blue as the azure dome above it, the vast,
lake-like expanse cuts into the very heart of the wondrous island for
over thirty miles. From the lofty, richly forested mountains that hem
it in on the north, to the low, rolling green hills on the south, it
stretches for ten miles, and dotting its placid surface are verdant
wooded isles. Sheltered by the land from all hard winds, deep enough
for the largest ships, protected from the seas and with an area
sufficient to afford anchorage for all the navies of the world and to
spare, Samana Bay has no equal as a natural harbor in all the Antilles,
if, indeed, in the entire world.
Its strategic value is enormous; as a coaling-station and naval base it
is without a peer in the West Indies, and once our Government, alive to
these facts, came very near purchasing it from the Dominicans. But long
before that time the sea-rovers appreciated the manifold advantages of
the bay, and here they came to find a retreat wherein they could and
did hold their own in safety, though surrounded on every hand by their
arch-enemies the Spaniards. Here, almost midway between the shores, a
charmingly beautiful islet, about three miles in length and a mile
wide, juts, a mass of emerald and ivory, above the blue waters; and
here the buccaneers made their headquarters, transforming this Cayo
Levantado, as it is called, into a veritable miniature Gibraltar of
their own. And toward this one-time stronghold of the pirates the
Vigilant rippled, through the waters of the bay that once sheltered
many a buccaneer ship, and upon whose shores the first battle between
the Europeans and the Indians took place.
It was on the borders of a tiny bay that this memorable but
insignificant skirmish occurred which sealed the doom of the red man—a
quiet little cove at the edge of the jungle under the towering green
hills, and still called by the name Columbus bestowed upon it, Golfo de
las Flechas (Bay of the Arrows), in memory of the shower of darts that
the Indians poured upon a landing party of Spaniards. The arrows,
however, rattled harmlessly upon the invaders’ coats of mail, while,
with the answering volley from the armored men, a number of the naked
savages were killed. To-day it is very peaceful, and as wild, as
uninhabited as when Columbus first entered the great bay. Indeed, it is
even more deserted, for the last of the aborigines of the island have
been dead two centuries and more, the Spaniards having waged upon them
a relentless war of extermination, as a penalty for daring to protect
their homes from the white invaders.
Deserted, too, is the little islet The Upraised Cay, to give it a
literal equivalent for its Spanish name, though to the corsairs it was
ever known as Trade Wind Cay. And off its gleaming coral beach the
Vigilant came to rest.
From the schooner’s decks the isle appeared a single rounded hill
sloping gently to east and west, with a stretch of abrupt gray
limestone cliffs along the northern shore and covered with a wealth of
luxuriant vegetation. Before our anchorage a dazzling crescent of white
sand swept from a rocky point to a low cape, and just off the spot
where the snowy beach ended at the headland a bit of detached rock rose
from the sea, a curiously formed islet supporting a mass of tangled
shrubbery and vines and worn by the waves to a remarkable semblance of
a gigantic turtle. Upon the beach the lazy swell curled in translucent
turquoise, and everywhere upon the sand, upon the sea, winging overhead
and perching upon the trees, were countless clumsy pelicans and
fork-tailed frigate-birds.
Here, undisturbed by man,—for the natives have a superstitious fear of
the spot, although they occasionally come here to kill the wild cattle
and goats,—the sea-birds breed by thousands and wheel in endless
circles above the ruins of the buccaneers’ old stronghold. And what a
stronghold it must have been! As I wandered through the thickets and
clambered over the old fortifications I no longer marveled that, from
this vantage-point, the pirates defied the powers of the world and held
it for years despite the efforts of Spain, Britain, France, and Holland
to dislodge them.
Everywhere amid the tangled vines and thorny scrub are great cisterns,
foundations of buildings, water-sheds, and vaults. Along the cliffs are
battlements, embrasures, walls, and loopholes; and leading up the
slopes from the landing-place are long flights of stairs, all hewn and
carved from the solid rock. What herculean labor is here represented!
What unremitting toil of tortured prisoners and slaves! What toll of
blood and suffering and death! Here, side by side with the naked
blacks, grandees and hidalgos cut and hewed the rock to form their
captors’ lair; toiling beneath the blazing sun from dawn to dark;
sweating, half-starved, their backs raw and covered with great welts
from their brutal driver’s lash, their fingers torn and bleeding from
the jagged stone, their faces wan and drawn, their eyes bloodshot and
furtive, their bones aching from fever, and their only hope of
deliverance the death which would be meted out to them as soon as
exhausted muscles and sinews gave way or their work was done.
Centuries have passed since their racked bodies were cast like carrion
into the sea or dumped in a common grave in the sand, but their work
has endured. To-day, flowering vines trail from the loopholes in the
massive battlements the captives chiseled, and great forest trees have
sprung up from crevices among the rocks and slowly but surely have
riven the walls that defied shot and shell. The houses wherein the
buccaneers made merry are roofless and tenanted by land-crabs and
lizards, and the hewn water-tanks from which they filled their casks
ere starting on their forays are choked with fallen leaves, rotting
vegetation, and the gnarled roots of the jungle.
Weird tales the natives of the mainland tell of sights witnessed at
dead of night upon this little isle. With fear-widened eyes, they
whisper of ghostly mail-clad sentinels pacing the old walls, of phantom
ships riding upon the waves off the cay, of blood-curdling shouts,
songs, and curses coming from no mortal throat but echoing across the
bay from this ancient stronghold. Also, fervently crossing themselves
the while, they tell of piercing screams, as of lost souls, heard by
the humble fishermen plying their trade at night upon the bay, and of
mysterious lights, like the flare of torches, that dance and move and
flit among the trees of the cay.
Of course there is many a tale of treasure hidden on the island; of
vast stores of pirate loot secreted in the subterranean caverns and
hewn underground recesses; and one hair-raising story they relate of a
treasure-chest in the sea close to the island’s shores, which is
plainly visible through the transparent water. Many times, if we are to
believe the natives, some unusually brave and covetous man has grappled
for this chest, only to find, when he tediously hauled it to the
surface, that a hideous demon was seated upon it, who grimaced and
leered, and, throwing his slimy, misshapen body upon the terrified man,
carried him to the depths of the sea along with the chest of gold he
guards so well.
And after all, who can say what treasures may not be concealed upon
this Gibraltar of the buccaneers? Countless chests of loot have been
carried from triumphant pirate ships to the strip of white sand upon
the cay. Many a bale of wondrous silk and cloth of gold and velvet
damask has been slashed open with blood-stained cutlasses and flung to
the pirates’ mistresses who swarmed about the incoming ships’ cargoes.
Here, in the shade of the gnarled sea-grape thickets, scores of the
most notorious rascals have lounged and plotted and yarned while
quaffing priceless wines from the holy golden chalices snatched from
profaned altars. Under the very trees that still rear their green
crowns above the ruins the groans of tortured men, the screams of
ravished women, and the drunken shouts of rum-crazed rioters have rent
the air.
As far as is known, no one has ever salvaged any treasure from Trade
Wind Cay. The limestone rock is honeycombed with cavities and caverns
wherein whole ships’ cargoes might be stored and none the wiser. But if
the pirates hid it here, they hid it well indeed, although so
superstitiously afraid of the place are the natives that they would
never dare to search.
But probably the buccaneers never secreted loot upon the isle. Indeed,
from what we know of the lives and characters of these men, it is
pretty safe to assume that they never hid their treasure, but no sooner
put foot on dry land than they spent their gold in drinking and
debauchery. Of course many of the leaders put away tidy sums for a
rainy day, for, as we have seen, more than one of them retired from the
wild life and settled down in the islands or in their native land well
provided with the wherewithal to live as gentlemen to the end of their
days. But it is far more likely that these canny pirate chiefs placed
their loot in the keeping of some trusted merchant ashore than that
they buried it on wave-washed bits of land, and all our searching among
the ruins of Cayo Levantado resulted in the finding of but three
corroded pieces of the quaint cross money of the old Spanish padres.
Joseph, who made the discovery, was as pleased as though he had
unearthed a chest of pieces of eight, and Trouble and the others of the
crew, including even Sam, delved and dug like navvies in the hopes of
finding more. No doubt, by going carefully over all the ruins and
sifting the earth and mold, one might find many relics of the
buccaneers, but aside from a few gun flints, some broken clay pipes
curiously ornamented with high-pooped ships upon their bowls, some bits
of old crockery and a lead button, the labors of my men resulted in
little.
This is scarcely to be wondered at. Unless made of precious metal,
bronze, lead, or brass, any small weapons, ornaments, or appurtenances
of the pirates would long since have disappeared, for steel and iron
corrode and go to pieces in a few years near salt water in a tropical
climate, and even the three big cannon that I found below the
embrasures of the pirates’ fort were little more than flakes and scales
of rust, and were so thoroughly rotten that they could be kicked to
pieces.
Moreover, for many years after the buccaneers were at last driven from
the island, the place was occupied by the Spanish, then by the French,
then by the Haitians, and even by the British (for Samana Bay has
belonged to all of these in turn), and no doubt the soldiers, and
civilians as well, passed many an hour searching for any treasures or
keepsakes they might find. Certain it is that they carried off the old
guns, at any rate those of bronze, which the pirates left behind, as
well as the stores of shot, for such is a matter of historical record.
Some of the very cannon that roared defiance from the buccaneers’
fort—bell-muzzled, highly decorated affairs, with handles on their
barrels and elaborate scrollwork over their breeches, are still
scattered over Santo Domingo, clumsily mounted on the toy forts or used
as posts at street corners in the cities.
And what of the pirates who built this impregnable fastness and
fortified this isle in Samana Bay? Were they British, French, or Dutch?
And who were the leaders who made their headquarters here? Mainly they
were French, members of that great buccaneer colony at Tortuga; for in
the days when Cayo Levantado became a buccaneer lair the majority of
the British pirates had parted company with their former French
associates and had made their headquarters at Port Royal, Jamaica.
Unquestionably Samana Bay knew the ships and the ensigns of nearly all
the most notorious pirate chieftains, both French and British, and the
great Morgan himself, Bartholomew Sharp of Most Blessed Trinity fame,
Sawkins and Wafer, Red Legs and Watling, Ringrose and Esquemelling,
Bartholomew Portugues, Rock Brasiliano, and even that most execrable
and bloodthirsty fiend of all, Francis Lolonais, made Samana Bay their
rendezvous and spent many a day at Trade Wind Cay.
We know from Esquemelling’s chronicles that in 1673 this isle was a
stronghold of the French pirates, for, as we have seen, Monsieur Ogeron
also landed here after escaping from his captivity in Porto Rico and
recruited a large body of pirates to join him in a second attack on
that island. A few years later, too, Le Sieur Maintenon and his
corsairs set sail from Samana Bay for Trinidad, which they sacked,
afterward accepting for it a ransom of ten thousand pieces of eight;
and hence they went forth on their ill-starred attempt to pillage the
city of Caracas.
Unfortunately, the history of the buccaneers is very incomplete, and
such accounts as were left by Esquemelling, Dampier, Ringrose, and
others are mainly concerned with the pirates’ deeds and defeats, rather
than with their home life, and dates are woefully lacking. Moreover,
the writers were so familiar with the comparatively uninteresting life
and doings in the corsairs’ haunts that it never occurred to them that
such matters might interest others, while, in addition, few had any
fixed abode, but were quite equally at home in Tortuga, Jamaica, Samana
Bay, or the Virgin Islands. They were a restless lot, veritable gipsies
of the sea; and while certain islands were associated with certain
pirate leaders, as Jamaica with Morgan, St. Barts with Montbars, and
Tortuga with Ogeron, most of their refuges welcomed any or all of them,
and the common run of those who thronged these places owed allegiance
to no particular leader, but gladly threw in their lot with any one who
proposed an undertaking that promised loot and adventure. Hence we
cannot say definitely what great pirate conceived the idea of
fortifying Trade Wind Cay, but the chances are that several united to
make it what it was, and it certainly was the den of many during the
heyday of the freebooters.
In addition to this fortress of the buccaneers, Samana Bay has much in
the way of beauty and attraction; and having roamed and delved and dug
over the little isle to our hearts’ content we hoisted anchor and
cruised about the shores of this great lake-like arm of the sea.
A few miles beyond Cayo Levantado, and nestling at the foot of the
green hills on the bay’s northern shores, is the town of Samana, or, to
give it its full name, Santa Barbara de Samana; which is charmingly
pretty—from a distance. As a town there is little to it, once one steps
ashore. It is neither over-clean nor attractive, and it can boast of
nothing in the way of old or impressive buildings. It is, however,
unique, inasmuch as the negroes who dwell therein and in the vicinity
nearly all speak English, being, to use their own quaint phrase, “of
American abstraction,” descendants of blacks from the Southern States
brought out as laborers when Samana was leased to an American company
many years ago. While far more ambitious and industrious than the other
natives, they do not by any means make the most of the rich and fertile
land whereon they dwell. Never in any part of the tropics have I seen
or tasted such enormous and delicious pineapples as are grown here; and
wonderful navel oranges, that equal and even excel the much-praised
California fruit, go begging at a few cents a hundred.
Farther up the bay—at the very head of it, in fact—and bounded at its
western end by a vast mangrove swamp, is the ramshackle, dirty little
town of Sanchez, a miserable hole, which, withal, is of vast
importance, as it is the tide-water terminus of the railway to the
great interior table-land or Vega Real and the cities of La Vega and
Santiago.
On the southern side of the bay is wild, uninhabited, heavily forested
land, rising in hills and ridges to the mighty bulwarks of the
mountains, with their summits nearly two miles above the sea, and
sloping eastward to the grassy savannas of the Seybo district. Here at
the borders of the low land is Caña Honda Bay (a lovely landlocked body
of water surrounded by vast mangrove swamps that are the haunt of
countless water-fowl and manatees), whence a road, so called, leads
inland toward the savannas and the southern coast of Santo Domingo. All
about the entrance to Caña Honda Bay are odd conical limestone hills,
resembling strikingly the conventional mountains on ancient maps, and
in each and every one there is a cavern. Some of these caves are
enormous, penetrating the hills for miles and wondrously hung with
stalactites and paved with stalagmites; others are small. Some have
entrances high and dry on land, others can be entered only by means of
boats, and the mouths of many of them are completely submerged.
In ages past, these caverns were the dwelling-places, or at least the
stopping-places, of Indians, and in many of them are vast quantities of
sea-shells, among which one finds stone implements and prehistoric
pottery. Here, too, the natives declare, is buried treasure, and while
even the imaginative Dominicans do not contend that any has ever been
found, yet, if the buccaneers ever did hide loot in Santo Domingo, here
among these myriad caves was the ideal spot.
Beyond these hills and opposite Trade Wind Cay is a long, sandy point
covered with a vast growth of coconut-palms, self-planted from the
cargo of a wrecked vessel which went to pieces in the bay years ago;
and along the beach quantities of amber may be found. To be sure, no
perfect specimens and no large masses have been secured, but the
natives gather it, when they are not too lazy to take the trouble, and
sell it to the padres, who use it for incense in the churches.
But we upon the Vigilant could spare no time to search for the bits of
fossil gum, and so, having made the circuit of the bay, we stood once
more to sea and swinging northward heeled to a thrashing wind upon our
beam and sped on toward Puerto Plata.
CHAPTER XII
THE BIRTHPLACE OF THE BUCCANEERS
Sailing along the shores of Santo Domingo, one realizes the aptness of
the graphic illustration of the island’s appearance with which,
tradition says, Columbus answered Queen Isabella’s queries. The great
discoverer, according to the story, seized a sheet of parchment,
crumpled it in his hands, and, dropping it on the table before his
queen, exclaimed, “That is like Hispaniola!”
And nothing could be more like a crumpled piece of parchment than the
tumbled, serrated mass of ridges, hills, mountains, and peaks of this
great island. Wild, forest-covered, sublime in their grandeur, the
mountains of Santo Domingo rise in endless succession, and one marvels
that the old Dons, a mere handful of men, could ever have penetrated
its fastnesses and subdued and exterminated the Indians. But the
Spaniards with all their faults were made of stern stuff,—real “he
men,”—and fired with the zeal of conquest, the fanatical determination
to spread their faith among the heathen, and an insatiable lust for
gold, they accomplished marvels and performed deeds which seem
well-nigh impossible. Let anyone to-day, equipped with every device and
convenience and in the lightest clothing, step ashore on the coast of
Santo Domingo and penetrate to the interior through the unbroken
jungle, and he will feel, when he reaches his journey’s end,—if,
indeed, he ever does,—that he has performed a mighty feat. Climbing
precipitous mountain sides, swimming rivers, fording streams, crawling
up dry watercourses, hewing his way an inch at a time through the
tangled vegetation; beset by biting insects, drenched with rain, torn
by thorns and razor-grass, and exhausted with the steaming heat, he
finds such a trip enough to try the stoutest nerves and the strongest
muscles. But imagine undertaking such an expedition when clad in armor!
Think of attempting the journey weighted down with mail, carrying a
clumsy match-lock or a massive cross-bow, a heavy sword, a pike or
halberd, and harassed by hostile Indians at every step. But the old
Dons did it, did it and won out, though literally living off the
country, knowing not what might meet them at their journey’s end, and
completely cut off from civilization and their fellows.
Of course they achieved their object at the cost of a tremendous loss
of life. If one hundred men set forth and a dozen won safely through,
it was doing well, and rarely did more than ten per cent. of their
number return in safety from their expeditions into the untrod jungles
of the New World. But to them the lives of men-at-arms, of the common
soldier or adventurer, were nothing; and the more that fell by the way,
the more loot there would be to divide among the survivors. We must
bear this in mind when thinking of the early days of the West Indies
and the Spanish Main, for it was this utter disregard of life that
enabled both Dons and buccaneers to perform deeds which, were they not
incontrovertible historical facts, we should consider absolutely
impossible.
Here, on the northern shores of Hispaniola, the Spaniards landed and
marched inland to the vast interior Vega Real or Royal Plain and the
Cibao district with its golden sands; and there on the high interior
plains they founded and built the cities of La Vega, Moca, and Santiago
de los Caballeros, cities which still stand. In these cities are many
lineal descendants of the conquistadors, and in their dwellings one may
still find weapons and pieces of armor which have been handed down
through the centuries. Indeed, in the ruins of La Vega la Antigua,
which was destroyed by an earthquake in 1564, one may yet dig up
ancient Spanish coins, old Toledo blades, and other relics; and
throughout the island one sees the natives armed with home-made
machetes fashioned from old swords they have salvaged from the ruins of
this once rich and famous town.
To-day, however, one travels from the coast to the Cibao by railway,
and takes the train at Puerto Plata, a delightfully situated port which
the Vigilant passed the second day after leaving the Mona Passage and
heading westward along the coast. Puerto Plata is beautiful from the
sea, with its red-roofed buildings half hidden by palms at the base of
the towering green cone of Plata Mountain; and in reality the town is
by far the cleanest and most attractive in the republic. Its harbor is
excellent, being almost landlocked, but the water shoals so gradually
that despite a long pier jutting from the waterfront of the town into
the bay the drays and trucks are compelled to drive out until the mules
and horses are belly-deep in the water, in order to load or unload the
boats.
It was off Puerto Plata that a vast treasure in bullion was recovered
many years ago—one of the few authentic cases of the actual finding of
ancient treasure in the West Indies. This happened in the latter part
of the eighteenth century when Captain William Phipps of Salem,—a
worthy mariner with a love of romance and one-time governor of
Massachusetts,—became imbued with the idea of recovering treasure-trove
from a galleon which, in endeavoring to escape from the buccaneers, had
been sunk off Puerto Plata. In those days, even as to-day, sunken
treasure appealed to many otherwise hard-headed and practical men, and
Captain Phipps found backers who provided the ships and wherewithal for
his expedition. Apparently his information as to the location of the
old wreck was somewhat hazy, and after a deal of search he had about
given up in despair when one of his divers brought up a lump of coral
growing upon an oddly squarish and heavy object. Knocking off the
incrustation, the captain found an ingot of silver, and ere tempestuous
weather came on several tons of bullion, together with gold and
jewels,—in all amounting to over one and a half million dollars,—had
been dragged from the depths of the sea and safely stowed under
hatches.
Had the worthy Phipps been content with a comfortable fortune, he could
have spent his declining years in a snug little home in Salem, where,
surrounded by his grandchildren, he might have spun many a yarn of his
treasure-hunt. But he was too avaricious, and, anxious to secure the
last bit of treasure that might still lie among the corals of Silver
Shoals, he spent his share of the salvaged bullion in outfitting
another expedition. Unfortunately a storm came up, his ship was
wrecked, and Phipps barely escaped with his life and came home as poor
as when he had first started treasure-seeking.
A few miles beyond Puerto Plata, completely hidden in the interminable
green jungle and with nothing to distinguish it from any other of the
thousands of little coves that indent the coast, is the site of the
first European settlement in the New World. Isabella, Columbus named it
in honor of the queen who made his discoveries possible, and here in
December, 1493, he built, on his second voyage to the New World, a tiny
fort, erected a few houses, and left a handful of men. Near here the
Dons found the first gold they had seen in a natural state in the lands
they had discovered, the flakes of precious metal adhering with sand to
the water-casks which the sailors filled at a near-by stream. This,
with the Indians’ information that they obtained all their gold from
inland, convinced Columbus that untold wealth was to be had for the
asking, so to speak; and, planting his little town of Isabella, he
sailed away, expecting to return the following year to find the
settlers surrounded with chests and bags full of the yellow metal.
Instead, when he returned, he found most of them dead and buried, the
settlement destroyed, and no gold. Maltreatment of the natives had
brought swift vengeance upon the Spaniards; fever and the climate had
aided the red men, and Isabella had passed out of existence. It was
never rebuilt, and all that remains of this first town in America are a
few crumbling, jungle-grown walls.
Beyond Isabella the green and luxuriant verdure gives way to barren
hills and cactus-covered plains, until the frowning, red-cliffed
headland of El Morro is passed, with the miserable, mosquito-infested
mud-hole of a town known as Monte Cristo. Just beyond this God-forsaken
spot we left the waters of the Dominican Republic behind, and, entering
the territorial waters of Haiti, rushed westward toward the great bulk
of Tortuga, the birthplace of the buccaneers.
Larger than any of the Lesser Antilles, Tortuga stretches its mass of
wooded hills and mountains for nearly twenty-five miles, with a width
of three miles. It is an impenetrable jungle for the most part, almost
uninhabited, but it was once the greatest of all the resorts of the
buccaneers and the home of the most notorious pirates of history.
Separated from the mainland of Santo Domingo by only a narrow strait,
Tortuga was an ideal spot for the sea-rovers, and for many a year they
held it, having their own governors, their own laws, their own forts,
and brazenly defying the world to dislodge them. Here their ships rode
to anchor under the protecting guns of their fort; from here they
fitted out fleets of heavily armed vessels manned by thousands of the
most reckless, daring, ruthless men who ever lived; and from this
stronghold—right in the Dons’ dooryard, as we might say—the buccaneers
ravaged Spanish cities and destroyed Spanish ships throughout the
length and breadth of the Caribbean and beyond.
In the well-protected harbor where once the fleets of Lolonais, Morgan,
Montbars, and many another corsair had swung to their moorings, the
little Vigilant dropped her anchor. Although to-day the port is
scarcely worthy the name of town, yet in the heyday of the buccaneers
Cayona, as it was called, had a teeming population. It was divided into
four sections, known as the Lowland or Basseterre, comprising the
coastal land and the port proper; the Middle Plantation, which was a
district mainly devoted to tobacco-culture; the Ringot, and Le Mont or
The Mountain, which consisted of the oldest settlement on the slopes of
the towering hills behind the port. Beyond these the island was
uninhabited, as it is to-day. It is extremely mountainous and rocky,
although heavily wooded, a fact which aroused the interest of
Esquemelling and caused him to comment upon it. He says:
Yet notwithstanding hugely thick of lofty trees that cease not to
grow upon the hardest of these rocks without partaking of softer
soil. Hence it comes that their roots for the greatest part, are
seen all over, entangled among the rocks, not unlike the branching
of ivy against our walls.
This is an excellent description, and one which will give a vivid idea
of the difficulties to be encountered in penetrating the interior of
the island. Moreover, the northern coast is forbidding, with
precipitous cliffs along the shore and with no harbors or
landing-places, so that the island was virtually inaccessible except on
the southwestern end where the port was established. This natural
formation of the island, which rendered it very easy to fortify, was no
doubt one of the chief reasons why it was selected by the buccaneers as
their headquarters. But there were other reasons, of perhaps even
greater importance, to understand which we must look into the origin
and history of the sea-rovers.
Tortuga had its beginning in a handful of refugees from St. Kitts,
Frenchmen who had settled on that isle and had been driven off by the
Spaniards in 1629. Fleeing from the Dons, they made their way in little
dugout canoes to Hispaniola. To their wave-weary eyes this vast,
heavily wooded, luxuriant land must have seemed a veritable paradise,
and when, upon landing and penetrating a short distance into the
interior, they found it teeming with wild cattle, wild hogs, and wild
horses, they realized that fortune had indeed favored them. But the
herds of wild cattle, horses, and swine were not the only denizens of
Hispaniola, for the Spaniards had long been established there, and the
refugees from St. Kitts knew that as soon as they were discovered by
the Dons they would meet with a summary end. Near at hand, however, was
the promising island of Tortuga, with barely a dozen Spaniards dwelling
upon it, and, again taking to the miniature craft which had served them
so well, the Frenchmen sailed across the strait, determined to do or
die.
There was no occasion for bloodshed, however, for the handful of
settlers upon Tortuga were peaceable and friendly folk, and instead of
resisting the Kittefonians they welcomed them, and aided them in every
way. Thus for six months the French and Spanish dwelt together on the
best of terms in Tortuga. But this state of affairs did not endure for
long. The French, finding Tortuga an agreeable spot, well stocked with
game as well as wild hogs and cattle, crossed and recrossed the sea to
French settlements and brought scores of their countrymen to the new
land, until the Dons, feeling that the place would soon become wholly
French, repented of their former friendliness and sent word of the
newcomers’ presence to the Spanish at Santo Domingo.
As a result, a strong force of Spanish troops was despatched to
Tortuga, and the French, realizing the futility of resistance, promptly
took to the woods and later secretly made their way in their canoes to
the neighboring island of Hispaniola. Here they lived in the jungle and
carried on a guerrilla warfare against the Dons, who were ever seeking
to eliminate their unwelcome guests. Finding no French at Tortuga, the
Spanish soon withdrew the bulk of the troops, to use them to better
advantage on the larger island, whereupon the tactful French hied
themselves once more to Tortuga, massacred the few Spaniards left
there, and, taking possession, threw up hastily constructed
fortifications. Then, aware that they could not hope to resist the
mighty power of Spain for long, they despatched a boat to St. Kitts,
begging the French governor of that island to send aid.
Being only too glad to add to the possessions of France, the governor
immediately responded by sending over a good-sized ship with a large
complement of men, a plentiful store of arms, cannon and ammunition,
and a quantity of supplies. The new arrivals at once began constructing
a fort upon the summit of a rocky hill which overlooked the harbor, and
which was so situated that it could be reached only by means of a
defile barely wide enough to permit the passage of two persons abreast.
Here a battery of two guns was erected, a house was built, and a
natural cavern was transformed into a magazine, and, as a finishing
touch, the natural passway was destroyed and the fort rendered
accessible only by means of ladders.
Feeling that they were now quite secure, the French colonists set
diligently to work, cultivating tobacco and other crops, fishing,
hunting the wild cattle and swine, and, most lucrative of all, robbing
the Spanish settlements on the coasts of the near-by Spanish islands.
At that time one of the principal articles of food and of export was
the smoke-dried flesh of cattle and hogs, a product peculiar to
Hispaniola and the neighboring islands and known by the Carib name of
boucan or bucan. Tortuga, with limited agricultural resources but
innumerable wild animals, was particularly well adapted to the
bucanning industry, and a very large proportion of the settlers devoted
virtually all their time to hunting and curing meat. As a result, the
inhabitants soon became known as boucaniers, bucaneers or buccaneers, a
name which was to become famed throughout the world. The original
significance of “buccaneer” was wholly lost and, becoming synonymous
with “pirate,” it was destined to carry terror to the hearts of the
Spaniards far and near. To Tortuga, the home of the buccaneers, flocked
malcontents, adventurers, real pirates, seamen, and all sorts of wild
rovers of the sea and land, until the island became headquarters for
the most lawless of French and British wanderers and outlaws. But all
were bound together by a common hatred of the Spaniards; all were
willing to enter into any wild enterprise that promised loot; all were
absolutely fearless, unprincipled, ruthless, and daring; and all took
unto themselves the common name of buccaneers.
Do not imagine, however, that the Dons upon the neighboring island
stood idly by and saw Tortuga fall into the buccaneers’ hands without
making any effort to prevent it. On the contrary, they did their best
to recover the island, though without success. Upon a hill overlooking
the French fort they established a battery of their own, and were about
to make matters very uncomfortable for the buccaneers when the latter
surprised them at midnight and took their fort by storm, slaughtering
the defenders without mercy and throwing the survivors over the
beetling cliffs. After this the buccaneers had it pretty much their own
way for about thirty years, or until 1664, when the French West India
Company was granted a royal charter to Tortuga, by the French crown.
But the West India Company soon found that to be granted a charter to
the headquarters of the buccaneers was one thing and to secure their
rights and privileges and bend the lawless rascals to their will was
quite a different matter. Sending out their own factors and employees,
the company established stores and plantations, but this effort was a
failure; for no nation dared trade with Tortuga, so close to Spanish
territory, and even the company’s own ships were often seized and lost.
Then the company sought to carry on trade with the buccaneers
themselves, agreeing to supply them with goods and necessities on
credit, the buccaneers to pay as they could from the fruits of their
forays. But the company’s factors soon discovered that the buccaneers
were as inclined to questionable methods when dealing with their own
country as when dealing with the Dons; and they received merely rude
jests and laughter, or even blows at times, in place of money, when
they sought to collect their accounts. Even when armed men were sent
out to enforce a settlement, the buccaneers flatly refused to pay; and
those of the guards who did not desert and throw in their lot with the
freebooters cast aside their weapons and left the company at the first
opportunity.
At last, convinced that these were far from desirable customers or
neighbors, the French West India Company made the best of a bad bargain
and, disposing of their few remaining possessions for what they would
bring, withdrew from Tortuga and left it in undisputed control of the
buccaneers.
This, then, was the beginning of that vast, all but unconquerable,
incredibly valiant, and unspeakably cruel and unprincipled organization
known as the “Brethren of the Main.” Here in Tortuga the buccaneers
came into existence; from a handful of despoiled Frenchmen from St.
Kitts the band grew to thousands; from robbing Spanish corrals and
chicken roosts along the shores of Hispaniola they progressed to the
destruction of Spanish fleets, the sacking of towns, the capture of
fortresses, and to unparalleled feats of bravery. From Tortuga they
spread far and near, and the dugouts in which they were wont to make
their first raids gave place to swift ships bristling with cannon and
manned by hundreds of well-armed men; while from the harmless and
peaceful occupation of drying meat, which gave them their name, they
turned to bloodshed and piracy.
CHAPTER XIII
THE BRETHREN OF THE MAIN
Although from the time that handful of refugees took Tortuga from the
Spaniards the island was nominally French, yet it was ever, to all
intents and purposes, buccaneer. Even the governors, appointed by
France, were in hearty sympathy with the freebooters and were no better
than their fellows. Moreover, the inhabitants of the isle were not by
any means all French. Attracted by the freedom of the place, the
opportunities for the semi-wild life of buccanning, in its original
sense, and the chances of “emprizing,” as they put it, against the
Dons, adventurous souls from far and near flocked to Tortuga.
Principally they were English or French, but there were not a few
Dutch, a number of Portuguese, a sprinkling of Spanish, and an endless
number of mixed breeds and men without any definite country. But, once
in Tortuga, all differences of blood, religion, and profession, as well
as of social status, were cast aside and forgotten, and they became
once and for all buccaneers, [8] bound together as “Brethren of the
Main.” And, curious as it may seem, these men, although absolutely
unprincipled and ruthless where others were concerned, were marvelously
honest and square among themselves, and with the Indians with whom they
came in contact. Of course this was a case of necessity rather than of
choice, for they realized that only by faithfulness and integrity with
one another could they succeed, and that the Indians were essential to
them, as pilots, hunters, fishermen, and guides. It is also a fact,
although lurid fiction and stories by those who know little or nothing
of buccaneer history would have us believe otherwise, that as a rule
these pirates were far more humane in their treatment of prisoners than
the regular soldiery and naval forces of their day. But, like their
dealings with the Indians, this consideration for their enemies and
captives was to the buccaneers’ advantage. They well knew, “by divers
experiences,” that unless they gave quarter to their prisoners and
released captives upon payment of ransom their own fellows would be put
to torture and the sword when captured by the Spaniards. Moreover,
through the gratitude of prisoners whom they spared, or even aided, the
pirates gained much valuable information,—far more, in fact, than
through torture,—and on more than one occasion the buccaneers who fell
into the Dons’ hands were treated courteously and were even helped on
their way by those who had received similar treatment from the
freebooters.
Of course there were exceptions to this. Such men as Montbars, Morgan,
Lolonais, and a few others seemed to glory in torture and murder, and
proved themselves fiends incarnate; and it was the deeds committed by
such men that gave the reputation for bloodthirstiness to all. In
addition, after the buccaneers had scattered and were no longer an
organized body, but carried on their piratical ventures as individuals
and were hunted by all nations, they deteriorated and became mere
pirates, who robbed and killed friend and foe with equal impartiality.
When the buccaneers first came into being, and for many years
thereafter, France and England were at war with Spain, and so raids and
attacks upon the Dons were considered legal warfare, and even long
after peace was established between the powers the buccaneers preyed
only upon their hereditary enemies the Spaniards. But as time passed
and the authorities, in order to preserve peace, were compelled to
apprehend and hang the most notorious of the buccaneers, the remainder
looked upon every peaceful man as their enemy and considered legitimate
prey every ship they could overpower. They burned, sacked, and
destroyed whenever opportunity offered, regardless of flag or
nationality.
At first the buccaneers were compelled to make their raids in small
boats,—bateaux and pirogues, or dugout canoes,—for they had no ships of
their own. But this handicap did not deter them in the least. The fact
that a contemplated prize was a great galleon bristling with guns and
swarming with armed men did not discourage them, but rather made them
the more keen to take her. Manning their little craft, the buccaneers
pulled or paddled or sailed toward their prey, steering in such a way
as to avoid the heaviest fire of the enemy’s guns (and it must be
remembered that with the clumsy, short-range, far from accurate cannon
of those days a moving small boat was a difficult mark to hit), and
meantime keeping up a steady fusillade of small arms. Literally walking
arsenals, trained marksmen, and accustomed to hunting wild cattle, the
pirates usually succeeded in killing the helmsman of the enemy’s ship,
as well as many of the gunners. Running under the vessel’s stern, they
would make fast, wedge the rudder of their prize, and with knives in
teeth swarm up chains and rigging and pour over the rail like a pack of
fiends. Nothing could withstand the onslaught of this savage crew, who,
yelling and cursing, poured over the bulwarks, cutlass in one hand,
pistol in the other, and shooting, slashing, and thrusting like madmen,
oblivious of wounds, regardless of death, hacked and slew and seemed to
be everywhere at once.
It was thus that Sharp and his men took the Spanish fleet and came into
possession of The Most Blessed Trinity in the harbor of Panama, and the
annals of the buccaneers are filled with similar deeds. The ship in
their hands, as a rule they either put the ordinary survivors of the
battle ashore or set them adrift in a boat, retained the captain and
his officers as prisoners for ransom, and took possession of any women
who might be aboard.
Having by such means secured seaworthy sailing-vessels, the buccaneers
were able to extend operations, and after eliminating the fancy
gilt-work and lofty stern castles, the luxuriant fittings, and all
unnecessary gear of their prizes, they would man them with crews of
several hundred each and set forth on their forays.
They seldom built ships of their own, but by selecting the handiest and
swiftest of their prizes and rerigging and refitting them to suit their
own special needs, they gradually accumulated a fleet of ships which
were noted for speed and stanchness. Moreover, the larger vessels were
seldom used. The pirates required craft which could dodge among reefs
and slip through shoal waters where the big men-of-war could not
follow, and it was only now and then that a buccaneer ship carried more
than eight guns, the usual number being four or six. The pirates
depended more upon seamanship and marksmanship than mere weight of
metal or thundering broadsides, although on some of their later and
larger enterprises they used ships carrying forty guns or more.
When we consider the heterogeneous character of their crews, and the
varied antecedents and training of those who made up their number, it
is not surprising that the corsairs succeeded against tremendous odds.
In addition to the true Tortugan hunters and buccaneers there were
logwood-cutters from the Central American coast and the bay islands,
ex-soldiers and sailors, Indians, criminals from prisons and gaols,
outlaws and bandits—all men who were trained in the use of arms, of
immense physical strength and endurance, with an extraordinary power to
undergo hunger, thirst, and other hardships, and with an utter
disregard for death or bodily suffering.
The strangest part of it was that this riffraff of adventurers was
amenable to discipline. When afloat or on one of their forays they
obeyed their leaders implicitly and were true to them even in the face
of torture or death. They never betrayed their comrades, would risk
their lives to help another buccaneer, and would share their last
centavo or their rags with a Brother of the Main at any time.
Another interesting fact is that these buccaneers were the inventors of
life and accident insurance, or we might better say employees’
compensation laws. Before starting on a cruise they made their
preparations in a most efficient way and provided for all
contingencies.
When a pirate leader decided that it was time to go a-pirating he would
give out word of his intention and call for volunteers, each man who
presented himself for the venture being supposed to bring his own arms,
ammunition, and supplies. The next step was to provide food for the
voyage, and the buccaneers, seeing no reason to use their own resources
for the purchase of supplies which could be had for the taking,
thereupon made a sortie against the nearest Spanish possession, held up
and robbed a few corrals, and, buccanning the cattle and swine thus
economically acquired, stocked the commissary department. The next step
was to arrange shares of the prospective loot, and to draw up articles
in writing very particularly setting forth the sum each man was to
receive for his services, said sum to be taken from the “common stock”
as it was called, or, in other words, the total value of prizes and
loot secured; for their unalterable rule was “No prey, no pay.”
First it was settled by vote what the captain was to receive for his
services or the use of his ship (for very often the skipper was merely
the owner of the vessel and was no navigator), then what the salaries
of the other men, such as the carpenter, the steward, the gunners, the
surgeon, were to be. Then it was agreed that the provisions and liquors
should be paid for, recompense being given the individuals who had
secured them. Finally came the matter of insurance, and a very complete
schedule was drawn up, with exact provisions for payment for nearly
every form of injury or wound. This varied somewhat according to the
danger of the undertaking, but as a rule it was about six hundred
pieces of eight for the loss of a right arm; five hundred pieces of
eight for a left arm; the same for a right leg; four hundred for a left
leg; one hundred pieces of eight for an eye, the same for a finger, and
one thousand for total disability or death. In every case slaves might
be taken in lieu of cash, the value of slaves, either white or black,
male or female, being fixed at one hundred pieces of eight each. It was
also provided that after the payment of all the aforesaid “salaries,”
refunds, and compensations the remainder of the loot should be equally
divided among the survivors of the expedition, with the exception of
the captain and other officers, the former always receiving five or six
shares to each share of the men, and the others in proportion.
In addition to all this, each member of the company was compelled to
take a solemn oath (not infrequently signed in blood) not to conceal,
hide, or keep anything for himself, to turn all loot into the common
fund, and to abide by the articles of agreement, obey his leaders, and
not desert. The penalty for violation of this oath varied all the way
from death to being marooned, forfeiting a share in the plunder, or
being drummed out of the Brethren, according to the extent of the
delinquent’s offense.
Seldom, however, was it necessary to inflict any of these punishments,
for it was extremely rare for a buccaneer to violate his oath or break
his promises. It was largely this remarkable loyalty, this honor among
themselves, their wonderful organization, their supreme confidence in
their leaders, that enabled the buccaneers successfully to engage
trained troops outnumbering them ten to one, to storm and take
supposedly impregnable fortresses, and to sack towns in the heart of
the enemy’s country. To be sure, the prominent members of the
brotherhood were born leaders, able executives, men of almost
superhuman bravery and physical strength; in almost any legitimate
undertaking they would have succeeded as well as in their chosen
profession of piracy, and their personal courage and magnetism caused
their followers to look upon them almost as demigods. The buccaneers
would flock by thousands to the call of Mansvelt, Pierre le Grand,
Michael le Basque, Alexandre, John Davis, Lolonais, De Graaf, or
Morgan, and, regardless of how perilous the undertaking in hand, would
follow them through untold horrors and sufferings, through hunger and
thirst, through blood and fire; laughing at death, jeering at
privations, and faithful to the last. To be sure, they were men to whom
fighting and pillage were as the very breath of life, and in those
days, when a man’s life was valued at only one thousand pieces of eight
(approximately one thousand dollars), the bait was large enough to
warrant any one taking long chances. Not infrequently a successful
foray would result in so vast an amount of loot that when the prizes
were divided even the common sailors would receive as much as five
thousand pieces of eight as their share for a few weeks’ work. The
purchasing power of such a sum was then equivalent to about a quarter
of a million at the present time. We can readily imagine what risks men
of the rough, buccaneer type would take to-day, what hardships they
would undergo, and what atrocities they would be willing to commit with
a reward of quarter of a million dollars dangling before their eyes,
and with virtually no risk of punishment for their actions.
Moreover, the great buccaneer leaders rose almost without exception
from the rank and file, by sheer force of character as well as through
savagery and cruelty, and very often they were chosen by popular vote
of the men. Roche or Rock Brasiliano, a German by birth, who was given
his nickname because he had lived long in Brazil, was thus elected
captain by men who with him deserted their ship after a disagreement
with their commander. Within a few days, this fellow who hitherto had
been an inconspicuous sailor succeeded in taking a great Spanish
galleon and a vast amount of loot. This at once gave him prestige as a
leader, and followers flocked to his standard. But Brasiliano was a
degenerate and brutal rascal, who, in the words of Esquemelling (who
served under him) “had no good behavior or government over himself in
his domestic or private affairs and would oftentimes show himself
brutal or foolish, running up and down the streets in drink, beating
and wounding whom he met.” A most unpleasant personage to have about,
even in a buccaneer town! His cruelty was such as even to bring
protests from his fellow pirates, his favorite pastime being to roast
prisoners alive on revolving spits over slow fires. But he was
undeniably brave, and on one occasion, when shipwrecked on the coast of
Yucatan and marching overland with less than thirty survivors from his
ill-fated ship, Brasiliano and his men attacked and routed over one
hundred Spanish cavalrymen. Taking possession of the Dons’ horses, they
continued on their way, and made themselves masters of the Spanish
fleet riding to anchor off the coast of Campeche. Brasiliano was a
resourceful scoundrel, and when later he was cast into a dungeon after
being captured during an espionage tour of the city of Campeche, which
he planned to take, he won his freedom by sending the Spanish governor
a letter purporting to come from the commandant of a buccaneer flotilla
and threatening dire vengeance if the prisoner were not instantly
released.
John Davis, a native Jamaican, also was elected captain and later
admiral of the buccaneers because of his signal bravery as a common
mariner. His most noteworthy venture was the sacking of San Juan,
Nicaragua, and the taking of over fifty thousand dollars’ worth of
loot. Later he attacked and sacked St. Augustine, Florida, without the
loss of a man. Moreover, Davis, according to his historians, was a
gentlemanly rascal and very “kind and considerate even when in his
cups,” a decided contrast to Brasiliano in this respect.
Probably the most atrociously cruel of the buccaneers who made Tortuga
their home was Francis L’Ollonais (usually spelled Lolonais), who, born
in France, was sold as a slave in the West Indies, and, escaping,
reached the French settlement at Tortuga. Like Brasiliano and others,
Lolonais was for some time an ordinary seaman, but his daring and
ability attracted the attention of Governor de la Place, who provided
the promising young pirate with a ship and grub-staked him in the gay
game of buccaneering. For a time Lolonais was extremely lucky and took
ship after ship and sacked town after town successfully, meanwhile
piling up a comfortable fortune for himself and his sponsor, Monsieur
de la Place. But the inhumanities he practised were so unspeakable that
even his own men became disgusted with him. Moreover, his fortunes
turned, and after he had lost his ship on the coast of Yucatan his men
were routed and he himself was seriously wounded. Eventually, however,
by marching overland, he reached Campeche, entered the city in
disguise, secured the services of a few slaves, and in a small boat
returned to Tortuga. Here he equipped an expedition and sailed for
Maracaibo, which he took and held for over two months, finally
departing, after having committed every form of atrocity and
abomination, with booty valued at more than half a million dollars.
Thus having recouped his fortunes and again established himself in the
favor of his fellows and the governor, this “most execrable scoundrel,”
as Esquemelling calls him, set sail to ravish the coasts of Cuba and
Central America. For a time he succeeded beyond all expectations,
taking countless ships and towns, his blood-lust and cruelty ever
increasing with his victories. He had, in fact, become a veritable
monster in human form, no doubt actually insane, until his men openly
expostulated. The culmination came when, in Honduras, marching on
Puerto Caballos, Lolonais took a number of Spanish prisoners, whom he
questioned regarding the routes to the city. Being dissatisfied with
the replies, he flew into a passion and, seizing one of the prisoners,
he slashed open the fellow’s breast with his cutlass, tore out his
still living heart, and began to bite and gnaw at it with his teeth,
like a ravenous beast. Shortly after this cannibalistic exhibition of
his fury he was again shipwrecked, losing all the booty he had won and
many of his men. Nothing daunted, Lolonais prepared to build a
long-boat in which to continue his depredations. At the mouth of the
San Juan River in Nicaragua he was attacked by Spaniards and Indians,
and most of his surviving men were killed. Defeated for the first time,
he decided to go southward and attack Cartagena, depending, as was the
custom of the buccaneers, upon securing canoes and provisions from the
Kuna Indians of Darien. But so utterly despicable had he been that even
the savage Kunas had turned against him. To quote Esquemelling once
more:
Hither L’Ollonais came (being rather brought by his evil conscience
that cried for punishment of his crimes) thinking to act in this
country his former cruelties. But the Indians within a few days
after his arrival took him prisoner and tore him to pieces alive,
throwing his body limb by limb into the fire and his ashes into the
air, to the intent no trace or memory might remain of such an
infamous inhuman creature. Thus ended the life and history and
miserable death of that infernal wretch L’Ollonais who, full of
horrid, execrable and enormous deeds, and also debtor to so much
innocent blood, died by cruel and butcherly hands, such as his own
were in the course of his life.
Surely, when a fellow pirate and one of his own companions penned such
an indictment, we may safely consider Lolonais the most outrageous
rascal who ever scourged the Spanish Main.
It was owing partly to the inhuman methods of the French buccaneers,
such as Lolonais, partly to jealousies and the fact that the French
were favored, partly to natural distrust and dislike for one another,
and partly to more or less loyalty to their own governments, that the
British pirates and the French freebooters of Tortuga began to quarrel.
At first it was merely a matter of brawls among the men, but gradually
the breach widened; armed parties of French and British clashed, riots
took place, and at last open antagonism broke out and the French,
outnumbering the English, in 1641 drove their erstwhile allies from the
island. Scattering about the Caribbean, the English freebooters
established themselves here and there among the Virgin Islands, on the
Bay Islands, in Samana Bay, and elsewhere, until in 1654, when Penn and
Venables sought to take Jamaica from Spain, they rallied under the
British ensign and joined the navy of their king.
It was largely owing to the part the English buccaneers took in this
concerted attack on Jamaica, in which they won the admiration of the
British admirals and officers for their courage and resourcefulness,
that Jamaica became a colony of the English crown. The acquisition of
this island by the British provided the English buccaneers with a base
for their operations and a safe refuge, and for many years Jamaica—or,
rather Port Royal, its chief port—became the most notorious resort of
the pirates.
CHAPTER XIV
THE GRANDDADDY OF THE DOLLAR
Having seen all that was to be seen at Tortuga, even clambering up the
rocky heights to the ruins of that first ancient buccaneers’ fort
overlooking the harbor, we boarded the Vigilant and bore westward for
Jamaica.
As Tortuga sank low upon the horizon astern and faded into a soft gray
cloud, the lofty mountains about Cape Maysi, Cuba, showed dimly above
the sea over our starboard bow, with the mighty bulk of the towering
Sierra Maestra of the Pearl of the Antilles faintly outlined, somber,
forbidding, in countless peaks against the sky. Then ahead loomed the
lonely isle of Navassa, with Haiti’s mountain ranges to the east, and
through the Windward Passage the Vigilant swept on.
Navassa, a barren mass of rock fringed with surf beating upon its
jagged ledges and wave-carved cliffs, rising in odd terraces from the
angry sea to the dull-green summit whereon stands a solitary
lighthouse, may hold pirates’ treasure as the Haitians assert, but if
it does, that is the only worthwhile thing upon the isle. At all
events, if the buccaneers hid treasure here they must have chosen their
time in good weather, carried their chests ashore in small boats, and
hoisted them upon the forbidding rock by tackle, for there is no
natural landing-place, and owing to the swift tides and currents there
is no sheltered lee under the shore. Everywhere the rocks rise directly
from the waves, and the construction of the lighthouse, radio station,
and other buildings proved a colossal task owing to the extreme
difficulty of getting material ashore. But Navassa can lay claim to one
unique distinction, inasmuch as it is the only island which ever sent
an S. O. S. call speeding through the ether.
This happened when the first occupants of the station found themselves
on the verge of starvation and almost dying of thirst, the steamer with
supplies having failed to arrive. But the “Sparks” in charge was a
resourceful chap, and he sent broadcast his plea for help exactly as
though Navassa were a derelict ship, and thus brought succor to himself
and comrades.
We sped past Navassa, giving it a wide berth, and the only signs of
life we saw were the countless thousands of boobies, frigate-birds, and
pelicans that make this isolated spot their home. Behind us stretched
vast Gonaives Bay, with the island of Gonaives looking like a continent
itself, though a mere dot on the map compared with Santo Domingo.
No doubt in the good old days Gonaives was a stamping-ground for the
buccaneers, although there is little mention of it in either history or
the chronicles of the freebooters. Across the way in Cuba, too, the
Spaniards more than once felt the hand of these sea-rovers, and many a
Cuban town was sacked and pillaged, notably Puerto Principe (now known
as Camaguey), originally built on the northern coast of the island.
Indeed, it was the frequency of pirates’ attacks on the town that
induced the inhabitants to move inland. But this failed to save them,
and Morgan took the inland “port” and burned and slew and robbed.
It was this exploit of Morgan’s which first stamped him as a pirate of
prowess. It was his first noteworthy enterprise, and paved the way for
all his other famous deeds, or misdeeds. His original intention was to
attack Havana, but he was evidently unable to resist Puerto Principe
with all its riches—which proved a most unprofitable venture.
The Isle of Pines, now almost exclusively an American settlement, also
was once a favorite resort of the buccaneers. Though it was Spanish
territory and a dependency of Cuba, yet the few Spaniards who dwelt
upon it were friends of the pirates,—an exceptional circumstance,—and
gladly welcomed them. But it was merely used as a stopping-place
whereon to secure fruits, vegetables, and sea-turtles, being far too
near Spanish strongholds to be permanent. The most interesting thing
about it which the buccaneers’ chroniclers recorded was the fact that
it was infested by huge crocodiles or alligators which, to quote
Esquemelling, were “of a corpulency very horrible to the sight” and did
not hesitate to attack men. Indeed, he states with all seriousness that
the giant reptiles actually attempted to climb up the ship’s gangway
and invade the vessel.
But we could stop neither at Cuba, Gonaives, the Isle of Pines, nor
Haiti, and ere nightfall only the heaving sea stretched to the horizon
on every hand, and into the golden west the Vigilant bore onward, bound
for Jamaica. It was with no little regret that I looked forward to
seeing Jamaica, despite its interest and associations with the
buccaneers, for it was at this island that I was to part company with
the Vigilant and my crew and continue on the last lap of the journey by
prosaic steamship.
What a wondrous procession of ships and hardy adventurers had passed
this way through centuries past, I thought, as the schooner glided
through the gleaming phosphorescent water. Westward from his new-found
isles and Cuba, which he thought a continent, had sailed Columbus in
his caravels. Across this same sea had come the pennant-bedecked ships
of Balboa, Pedrarias, and those countless other adventurers who carved
a new world for Spain out of the jungles and mountains of Central and
South America. Through these same waves had wallowed the battle-scarred
Golden Hind and her fellow ships, with Drake and Hawkins fresh from the
conquest of impregnable Porto Bello. Back and forth across this vast
blue waste had sailed stately galleons laden with riches, with gilded
towering poops gleaming in the sun, scarlet and yellow banners outflung
to the breeze, mail-clad grandees and black-robed friars pacing the
decks. And swift in their wake had come the dingy, menacing ships of
the buccaneers. What scenes of battle and bloodshed had taken place on
this tranquil sea beneath the brilliant tropic stars! What shrieks of
agony and deadly fear had rung out upon the night; what awful tragedies
had the serene moon looked down upon; and what countless rotting hulks
and bleaching bones might still lie upon the ocean’s floor countless
fathoms under the Vigilant’s keel! Treasure, too, might be there—plate
and bullion, precious stones and pearls, which had gone down with the
sinking galleons ere the pirates had time to complete their pillage.
There, deep in the ooze or on the hard shell sand, they would lie
forever: dull, corroded ingots of silver, bars of gold, priceless gems,
doubloons and onzas and pieces of eight that men had slaved and
murdered and tortured and fought for, then had lost to the world
forever.
And speaking of treasure, of pieces of eight, of doubloons, and of
onzas,—terms which occur so persistently in every tale or song or
history of buccaneer days,—a word or two regarding these coins may not
come amiss.
Particularly interesting are the pieces of eight, the coins which are
as much a part and parcel of any story of pirates or treasure as the
black flag with its skull and cross-bones or the ear-ringed,
fierce-whiskered buccaneer, for the piece of eight was the granddaddy
of our own American dollar. Not only was it the basis for our standard
“cart-wheel,” but our dollar sign, $, is merely an evolution of the
ancient symbol for the piece of eight. This famous coin (which is still
very common and is known as the “Spanish dollar”) was a silver piece
approximately the size of our dollar and with a value of four pesetas
or eight reales, from which latter fact it received its name. Roughly,
a real was worth twelve and a half cents, or one one hundredth of a
doubloon, so that the approximate value of the piece of eight was one
dollar; and a doubloon was worth twelve dollars and a half. The onza,
or double doubloon of two hundred reales or one hundred pesetas, was
equivalent to about twenty-five dollars although to-day the onza,
weighing twenty-five grams, is worth intrinsically about seventeen
dollars.
In addition to these coins of Spanish mintage there was a fractional
currency of a very odd and interesting type known to-day as “cross
money.” This consisted of slugs of various sizes cut from the pieces of
eight and so hammered as to obliterate the lettering and inscriptions
with the exception of the cross-like portion of the Spanish coat of
arms. This served as a sort of hall-mark or guarantee that the coin was
of sterling fineness, and at times, when the slug did not happen to
have the desired portion of the shield upon its surface, a cross was
stamped upon it by the priests, as proof that the bit of metal was from
a piece of eight.
To this day these quaint and curious coins are still in use among the
natives in some portions of the interior of Panama, and while no two
are alike in size or shape, yet they all have definite weights. The
ancient pieces, dating from the days of the conquistadors and
buccaneers, pass from hand to hand as reales and pesetas.
In the early days of the American colonies, virtually all the trade of
the world was conducted on the basis of the Spanish piece of eight, and
most accounts in America were kept in them. The ordinary symbol used in
designating the coins was an eight with a line drawn through it, and on
many old invoices and manifests we may find such entries as “10 sacks
of coffee $60 required.” Later, when the new-born republic decided to
coin its own silver, and melted down the old pieces of eight for
bullion, the new coins were based on the Spanish piece of eight; and it
was only natural that clerks and accountants should still use the old
symbol, and by merely running another line through the figure eight the
well-known dollar mark was evolved.
Moreover, the piece of eight, with the doubloons and onzas, paved the
way for our metric monetary system, for the doubloon was one hundred
reales and the piece of eight one hundred centavos, and the mere change
in name from “piece of eight” to “dollar” caused no confusion or
difficulties in accounting, as long as the metric system was adopted.
Nevertheless, accountants must have had hard times of it in those days,
and the buccaneers, when dividing their loot, must have found it no
little task to compute the relative value of the cosmopolitan lot of
coins they accumulated. We can picture them there under the palms on
some tropic beach, waiting expectantly and impatiently, cursing and
passing rough jokes, while one of the crew, who perchance spent his
early days upon an office stool, seated upon a cask of rum, with a
dirty scrap of paper and a scratchy quill is setting down lists of
louis d’or, ducats, pounds sterling, pistoles, guilders, and Heaven
knows what, and with a puzzled wrinkle on his scarred brow and chewing
at his ragged mustache is striving to convert the heterogeneous loot
into understandable terms.
Or perhaps, no clerkly corsair being available, the buccaneers took a
shorter cut to the division of their spoils, and, weighing the gold and
silver regardless of its origin or its minted value, divided the loot
by pound or hundredweight like any other commodity. Such minor matters,
apparently, were not of sufficient interest to the pirates’ chroniclers
to be recorded; and moreover, in those days, almost any coin, provided
it was of gold or silver, would pass freely in any seaport of the
Antilles. No doubt the buccaneers were outrageously cheated by the
tradesmen and the keepers of bars and gambling-dens, more especially
when it came to converting their bullion and jewels into ready cash or
its equivalent. Esquemelling remarks on this, and states that gems and
jewelry of priceless value were bartered for a song, the buccaneers
being utterly ignorant of their worth. But these adventurers cared not
a jot whether they were cheated or not as long as they had enough to
keep themselves uproariously drunk and to gamble to their hearts’
content. To them money meant merely carousal, and it was not unusual
for the rascals to spend several thousand pieces of eight in a few
days.
Especially was this true in Port Royal, Jamaica, the richest and
wickedest spot in the world, as it was called; the clearing-house of
the buccaneers; their most noted headquarters, which undoubtedly
harbored more execrable villains and more brave and reckless men than
ever have been gathered together in one town before or since. And it
was toward Port Royal the Vigilant was sailing through the night.
Still no faintest haze of land showed above the rim of the sea when
another glorious day dawned. It is a long sail from Tortuga to Jamaica,
and here Sam’s instinct or sixth sense was of no avail and observations
were necessary. He had never sailed the course before, and while no
doubt he could have found a spot on Jamaica’s bulk (for he could
scarcely have missed it if he had come within thirty miles of its
shores), to save time and make sure I “shot” the sun and worked out our
position, all of which seemed a sort of witchcraft to the members of my
crew.
“How are you going to get back to St. Croix?” I asked Sam when, having
found our position, I had corrected the Bahaman’s course slightly.
“Aren’t you afraid you’ll get lost and go on sailing the Caribbean
forever, like the Flying Dutchman?”
“Ah don’ ’fraid, Chief,” chuckled Sam. “Ah don’ knows ’bout th’ Dutch
gentleman, but ef he did n’ manage for to mek po’t Ah ’m thinkin’ he
mos’ cert’n’y was a stoopid nigger’, like Joe say. Why, Lordy, Chief!
yo’ jus’ got for to sail east an’ yo ’s boun’ for to mek some islan’!
Yo’ can’ ’void doin’ of it, Chief, no, sir. Yo’ can’ sail outen th’
Caribbean ’less yo’ parse ’twix’ some o’ th’ islan’s, an’ yo’ boun’ for
to see he. An’ Ah can fotch St. Croix all right, Chief. Ah’ll sail
nor’-east till Ah sees Cuba or Sant’ Domingo or Port’ Rico an’ gets mah
bearin’s an’ heads for Fredericksted. Don’ worry ’bout me, Chief.”
“Well, it’s your funeral, Sam,” I laughed. “But I suppose the longest
way round is the shortest way home in your case.”
Sam looked puzzled, and a perplexed frown wrinkled his forehead.
“Yaas, sir,” he ventured at last. “Ah guess tha’s so, Chief; but,
beggin’ yo’ pardon, Ah don’ un’erstan’ ’bout the fun’ral. Ah thinks yo’
mus’ be mistook, Chief; it’s mah weddin’ Ah’s goin’ to, an’ not a
fun’ral, Chief.”
“Oho! so that’s it!” I exclaimed. “Why, you rascal, I thought you were
too old to get married! Who’s the lucky young lady, Sam?”
The Bahaman shifted uneasily, and half turned his face; I could almost
imagine that he blushed under his black skin.
“Tha’s why Ah’m goin’ to mek to get married,” he vouchsafed finally.
“’Cause Ah’m gettin’ ’long in years, Chief. Long’s Ah’m young an’ fit
the’ ain’ call for to take on th’ troubles o’ a companion, Chief.
Lordy, the’s trouble ’nough by mahself! An’ Ah don’ have a home,
rightly speakin’, Chief. But when Ah mek to get ol’ Ah jus’ mus’
cert’n’y fin’ some companion for to look arfter me.”
I roared. The idea of Sam needing any one to look after him was
ludicrous; and, moreover, he was far from old—barely forty, I imagined.
“But who’s the girl?” I queried. “Some one you met this trip, I
suppose. What is she—black, brown, or yellow, Sam?”
“Lordy, Chief!” exclaimed Sam, in genuine surprise. “Ah can’ say. Ah
ain’ foun’ her as yet, Chief! Ah’m goin’ for to—”
But whatever Sam was “goin’ for to” do was left untold, for at this
stage of the conversation the man who had been sent aloft called out
that land was in sight, and all attention was turned to the faint and
misty outlines that rose, dream-like and unreal, like pearly shadows
against the sky.
Rapidly the mountains took on form and shape, though still many miles
away, and presently we spied ahead a slender column of sooty smoke, the
first sign of a ship we had seen since leaving Navassa astern. Soon the
masts and funnels of the steamer rose above the horizon, below them a
shimmering white hull developed, and half an hour later we swept past
one of the “great white fleet” of the United Fruit Company, outward
bound from Kingston. Upon her decks were scores of passengers and her
rails were lined with curious tourists as the Vigilant, burying her
bows under the sparkling froth-capped waves and reeling onward before
the trade-wind like a drunken man, passed the big liner to which the
tumbling seas were merely ripples.
Perhaps they took us for some island packet; perchance they thought us
fishermen; or, maybe, when we ran up the Stars and Stripes in salute,
they realized that we were simply cruising. Probably not a soul among
the hundreds that crowded the steamer’s deck dreamed that they were
gazing at an historic craft; that the little schooner—a mere speck
beside the towering fruit boat—had sailed the seas a century and more
before the first sailing-vessel of the fruit company carried bananas
from Jamaica to New York. For that matter, a life-time before Fulton’s
first steamboat trundled slowly up the Hudson.
No doubt those curious, kodaking voyagers, whose interest in the old
haunts of the buccaneers center mainly on cocktails, jazz, and the
cuisine of the hotels, pitied us poor beings who must needs travel by
schooner rather than by steam, and thanked their stars that palatial
steamships were at their disposal. For my part, I pitied them because
they knew not the real joys of cruising the Caribbean, and missed all
the romance and fascination that the islands held. And as the sleek
white hull dropped lower and lower in the distance and the Blue
Mountains of Jamaica rose ever clearer before our bows, I could not
help wondering what old Morgan or Sharp would have thought had they
raised a steamship on one of their forays.
CHAPTER XV
WHERE A PIRATE RULED
Against the soft azure of the tropic sky Jamaica lifts its lofty peaks,
crowned with a diadem of clouds, above a sapphire sea. Faint and
phantasmal as a vision it hangs above the waves, beautiful as a
painting by a master’s hand, as slowly the hills and valleys take on
form and substance. Opulently rich, with wooded mountain sides, wide
fields of golden cane, and endless banana walks, it is as fair a scene
as one could hope to see. As the Vigilant bore steadily toward
Kingston, and we watched valley after valley, wave-washed beaches,
surf-beaten crags, and endless rows of palms unfold before us, the
island seemed a veritable earthly paradise.
But Jamaica’s history is far from that of an Eden, for its past has
been one of bloodshed, debauchery, and death. From both God and man it
has suffered much, and, as the Vigilant passed the long, low sand spit
known as the Palisados and dropped anchor off the quarantine station at
Port Royal, we were floating above what was once notorious as the
wickedest city in the world; for beneath the placid waters here at the
harbor mouth are the ruins of old Port Royal, the metropolis of the
buccaneers.
Above the beach with the lazily lapping waves, modern Port Royal
straggles upon the low, sandy point, a sleepy, sun-drenched spot of no
importance save as a barracks and quarantine station. It is hard to
realize, as one strolls through the roughly paved lanes or across the
broiling-hot parade-ground, that this was once the chief port in the
West Indies, the richest city in the New World, and one whose name was
synonymous with every deviltry and vice known to man.
And yet there is much of interest to be seen in Port Royal to-day.
There is the ancient, crumbling Fort Charles, looking seaward, with its
moats and drawbridges, its quaint corners and damp underground rooms.
And from the grass-grown embrasures the same ornate guns look grimly
forth as in the days when Admiral Nelson was stationed here. Upon a
tablet let into the coral-pink bricks is inscribed:
In this place
Dwelt
HORATIO NELSON
You who tread his footprints
Remember his glory
Also, leading from a heavily beamed guard-room in one corner of the
ancient fortress is a little flight of stairs that opens on a paved
platform known as “Nelson’s Quarter-deck.” Here, upon these time-worn
flagstones, the famous admiral paced to and fro, no doubt regretting it
was not in reality the deck of a great ship, and with longing eyes
looked seaward for the French fleet which was expected to attack Port
Royal. But the fleet never arrived. Had it attacked Jamaica, the
history of the isle would, mayhap, have been very different, for the
garrison at Fort Charles was pitifully weak, while the French flotilla
was of immense strength. Perchance, too, had the attack been made,
Nelson might never have won fame, for he was a mere lad of twenty-one
when in 1779 he was placed in charge of the fort at Port Royal.
A year later he was once more in Jamaica, near to death with dysentery
contracted on the San Juan expedition, and in the home of a noted black
nurse, Cuba Cornwallis, he slowly regained his health and strength.
Strange sights and famous men has this old fort of sun-faded brick
seen. It has seen Port Royal in all its vicious wickedness and
flamboyant sin; it has seen the heaving earth and angry sea sweep the
city and all its villainy into the depths. It has seen shot-riddled
buccaneer ships returning, triumphant and deep-laden with loot, from
piratical forays. It has witnessed many a wild revel of drink-flushed,
foul-mouthed corsairs, and has listened to many a plan and plot of the
freebooters as they argued and swore over some projected raid on the
Spanish Main. Within its walls Morgan as well as Nelson and many a
lesser light have dwelt and drunk the health of the king, and through
storm and battle and cataclysms its walls and battlements have passed
unscathed. The earthquake of 1692 wrought devastation and took
thousands of lives, but left the old fort solid and strong. And even in
1907, when in a space of a few seconds modern Kingston crumbled to dust
and newer forts fell like houses of cards, the flower-decked old
fortress at the tip of the Palisados remained unharmed save for a
single crack in one of its hoary walls.
Of the ancient buccaneer Port Royal, Fort Charles alone remains, and
great indeed have been the changes the antique pile has seen take place
about itself. From the ruin of the pirates’ stronghold has risen the
sleepy little town,—a village of narrow streets and darkey houses, of
stately residences with balconies and balustrades richly carved by
shipbuilders now long dead, of trim, well-kept gardens and struggling
lawns, and with a naval yard wherein repose the giant figureheads of
many famed old British ships and frigates—while across the harbor has
grown the island’s metropolis of Kingston. Few visitors now stop at
Port Royal, few strange feet tread the old flagged esplanades and
weed-grown ramp; and yet the little hamlet is well worthy of a visit,
for it has a strange Old-World atmosphere and a fascination entirely
lacking in Kingston. Its huge barrack square and parade-ground might
well be those of some English port, were it not for the nodding palms
and scorching sun. There is the old court-house, stately, austere, with
shingled roof and flanked by arcades. There is the naval hospital,
woefully damaged by the earthquake of 1907, and so out of place in the
tropics with its typically English gardens and uncompromising
architecture that it reminds one of the conventional houses equipped
with chimneys which the old engravers and artists always introduced
into their pictures of tropical scenes. And there are the swarded
cricket-pitch, the bowling-green, and the tennis-courts on which the
British officers and their women folk pass the cool of the afternoons.
But the pirates’ church, built from the proceeds of robbery and murder,
is gone like its builders beneath the sea; the once-busy docks are
silent and all but deserted; the warehouses, once filled with casks and
bales and barrels, are empty save for rusting chains, bits of cordage,
and other odds and ends; the great sail-lofts are bare, and the whole
place has the air of a town aloof, communing with itself over its sins
and errors of the past, and, like some once-famous courtesan, living in
a state of faded gentility away from prying eyes and wagging tongues.
How different was the Port Royal of olden days—a flourishing, noisy,
hustling town of several thousand houses, of thousands of inhabitants,
of great warehouses filled almost to bursting, of busy shipyards and a
“hard” whereon always a dozen vessels might be seen careened; a port
before which scores of armed ships rode ever at anchor; a place whose
people were as familiar with the Jolly Roger as with the British
ensign; and withal the notorious rendezvous of the English buccaneers.
Indeed, Jamaica’s prosperity was built upon the business of the
corsairs, and the port was scarcely more than a clearing-house for
them.
Here came the Brethren of the Main from far and near, bringing their
treasures: chests of plate and bullion, doubloons, onzas, and
castellanos; pieces of eight and louis d’or; altar-pieces ablaze with
precious stones; bales of velvets and satins, of silks and brocades;
casks of brandy and wines, tobacco and coffee; the cargo of many a
scuttled ship and galleon; the booty from many a ravished and sacked
town; the holy vessels of countless desecrated churches; vestments
heavy with gold and silver thread dragged from the bleeding bodies of
butchered priests; jeweled trinkets torn from tortured, shrieking
women; the output of many a famous mine; aye, and many a weeping,
hapless captive girl, many a groaning slave, until within Port Royal so
vast an accumulation of riches was gathered together that it was
celebrated far and near as the greatest center of wealth the world had
ever known.
And with its fame was coupled an even greater reputation for
wickedness. Proud of the one as of the other was Port Royal; its evils
were never hidden, never denied; brazenly to the world it proclaimed
itself the nearest thing to hell on earth that man could devise.
Here came the swaggering, red-handed cutthroats to spend the gold they
had won by robbery and murder, and ever the streets of Port Royal
echoed to the drunken shouts and curses of the buccaneers. Sin in every
form ruled; murder was of hourly occurrence, and far and wide the
depravity of Port Royal was a byword.
A huge, bewhiskered rascal, clad in filched garments of many hues,
would land fresh from a successful foray and, striding into a tavern,
would fling down a handful of coin and order the cringing innkeeper to
broach a pipe of wine in the street. Then, standing beside it with
drawn pistols and with a drunken leer on his ill-favored face, the
pirate captain would command all who passed to drink. Gladly enough
would most accept this pressing invitation, and those who dared refuse
would be shot down and their carcasses kicked into the gutter. Or
again, merely to show the wealth at his command, he would buy out the
tavern’s stock of liquor and order it poured into the highway,
meanwhile dipping it up in a pannikin and playfully throwing it over
the garments of passing men and women. Such were mere pleasantries as
recorded by Esquemelling; harmless jokes, to the pirates’ minds; the
forerunners of less-appreciated amusements such as running amuck and
slashing or shooting all who were met, or, again, hanging prisoners in
chains or roasting them over slow fires on wooden spits, or perchance
flogging a slave to death for an afternoon’s sport. Luckily the
debauches did not last long. In a single night the revelers would often
spend two or three thousand pieces of eight, not “leaving themselves
peradventure a good shirt to wear on their backs in the morning,” their
chronicler tells us, and being compelled to lead a quiet life
thereafter until the next corsairs’ ship set sail.
But among themselves and to one another the buccaneers were liberal and
loyal, and a contemporaneous account states that “If any one of them
has lost all his goods, which often happens in their manner of life,
they freely give him and make him partaker in what they have.”
By some queer whimsy in their complex make-up, some inexplicable,
paradoxical twist in their psychology, the pirates felt that their sink
of iniquity in Jamaica was incomplete without a church. So forthwith,
in this hell-hole, they built themselves a house of worship, erecting
it with the gold won by rapine and murder, fitting it with the
candlesticks and altar-pieces, the holy vessels and chalices, the
tapestries and paintings looted from other houses of God. And, as they
never believed in doing anything by halves, the pirate chiefs decreed
that now they had a church all buccaneers must attend services therein.
Indeed, it is said that the notorious Morgan more than once shot down
some scoffing buccaneer who had the temerity to interrupt the sermon,
and that, on his own ship, whenever a clergyman fell into his clutches,
he compelled the prisoner to hold service. History fails to relate what
disposal the famous chieftain made of the unfortunate priest or
minister thereafter, but he probably compelled him to walk the plank or
ended his career in some equally abrupt and pleasant manner, for that
was “Harry Morgan’s way,” as he was fond of boasting.
But the church at Port Royal was the veriest mockery, and not one jot
did it influence the behavior or the lives of the town’s execrable
denizens. Notoriously a pirates’ resort, winked at by the British
(indeed, encouraged by the government as long as the buccaneers preyed
upon the Spaniards and left British ships in peace), the city grew and
prospered until one pleasant day in June—the seventh, to be exact—in
1692, when, as though an outraged God could no longer suffer this blot
upon the universe, Port Royal was wiped from the face of the earth in
an instant. Without warning, with no time granted the carousing,
roistering fiends to repent, an earthquake shook the island to its
foundations, and Port Royal, with over three thousand of its houses,
nearly all its inhabitants, and all its vast accumulated treasures,
dropped bodily into the sea.
One can picture the awful scenes of that fatal day: the terror-stricken
people rushing, shrieking, from the crumbling houses and through the
heaving, rocking streets as the first tremors rent the town; the
drunken pirates stumbling red-eyed and cursing from brothel and
drinking-place, as timbers splintered and masonry fell, and ruthlessly
cutting down all who hampered their flight. And all in vain. Tripping
over the bodies of their fellows, choking the narrow streets, felled by
tumbling walls, milling, pushing, crowding; befuddled with rum; the
solid ground dropping from beneath their feet; blaspheming, screaming,
the mob fought madly to save their worthless lives, until, swallowed by
the inrushing water, overwhelmed by the relentless sea, men, women, and
children, merchant and pirate, harlot and slave, innocent and guilty,
were buried deep beneath the waves, while on the placid surface of the
harbor floating bits of wreckage, a few struggling figures, and
countless corpses were all that marked the scene of the awful
punishment meted out.
And above the limit of the devastation, serene, uninjured, aloof, Fort
Charles still gazed seaward. Of all Port Royal the old fortress alone
remained—this and a few gruesome, buzzard-picked skeletons turning,
twisting in the wind, swinging by their creaking chains from the
gibbets beyond reach of the waves.
At one fell swoop Port Royal, the buccaneers’ stronghold, had been
wiped from the face of the earth, never to be rebuilt. To-day, when the
water is calm, one may still trace the coral-incrusted outlines of the
ruined town, while the negro boatmen relate uncanny tales of ghostly
pirate ships sailing in the teeth of the wind, riding the crest of
storms, ever striving to make the lost port, and of the phantom bells
of the pirates’ church tolling the requiem of the dead buccaneers
beneath the tempestuous waves.
A few survivors there were, who had found refuge in boats or ships or
who had escaped from the stampede to higher ground, and these, spared
as by a miracle, saw the error of their ways and, repenting of their
sins, moved across the bay and founded the city of Kingston. They had
been taught a wholesome lesson. Piracy was given up in favor of honest
pursuits, and as, in the years that followed, the buccaneers were
driven from the Caribbean, Kingston grew and prospered, order reigned,
and peaceable planters, honest merchants, and vast estates brought
wealth and riches to the isle in place of pirates’ loot and corsairs’
treasures.
But Nemesis seems ever to hover above the fair island whose early
prosperity was built on bloodshed and villainy. From time to time
destructive hurricanes have swept it, leveling buildings, destroying
crops, and killing people, as in 1880, when thirty lives were lost in
Kingston and most of the wharves as well as countless houses were
destroyed. Fire swept the town in 1882, leveling over six hundred
buildings, and then came the earthquake and fire of 1907, which snuffed
out the lives of over one thousand persons, crumpled Kingston to dust,
and wrought awful havoc upon the isle.
And as though these acts of God were not enough, between times there
have been wars and bloodshed and to spare. Uprising slaves burned,
slaughtered, and destroyed. The Cimmaroons or runaway blacks waged a
relentless guerrilla warfare, and bandits and brigands made life and
property insecure for years. From the very beginning of its history,
Jamaica has been a stage for deeds of violence. Indeed, its turbulent
days were inaugurated when first Columbus beached his unseaworthy ships
on the northern coast in June, 1503. Here he remained for a year, until
rescued by an expedition from Santo Domingo,—twelve months of mutiny,
suffering, and hardship,—and here he saved his men and himself from
death by impressing the Indians with his famous prophecy of the moon’s
eclipse.
The site of his encampment, known as Christopher’s Cove, is between St.
Ann’s Bay and Anotta Bay, and is one of the most historic places on the
island, although, aside from its natural beauties, with its lovely
beaches, its transparent water, and its setting of luxuriant foliage,
there is nothing to be seen. Needless to say, Columbus, who discovered
Jamaica in 1494, claimed it for the King of Spain, and Spanish it
remained until 1655, when the British, under sturdy Admiral Penn and
General Venables, vanquished the Dons and established the capital at
Spanish Town in 1664.
It was during this period of warfare between the great nations that
thousands of negro slaves escaped and, fleeing to the fastnesses of
mountain and forest, became transformed into a half-savage race known
as Cimmaroons, or, more commonly, Maroons. Fortifying themselves in the
almost impenetrable mountain jungles, the Maroons harassed the
planters, murdered and robbed travelers, burnt estates and outlying
hamlets, and wreaked deviltry and destruction for years. Expedition
after expedition was sent against them unsuccessfully, until, in the
end, the British were forced to meet the wild negroes halfway, and,
despairing of conquering them, made a treaty whereby the Maroons were
granted their freedom and twenty-five hundred acres of land.
Then, for a space, the Jamaican whites breathed freely, but not for
long. In 1760 the slaves rose, burning, butchering, and pillaging with
their usual savagery, and five years later the Maroons once more burst
out, leaving a wide trail of blood, of smoking fields, and of blackened
ruins behind them, until a second treaty was made and half a thousand
of the blacks were exiled to Sierra Leone. But even after this the
islanders were seldom left in peace. In 1838 slavery was abolished, and
yet in 1865 the negroes rose and slaughtered the whites and burned
their homes at Montego Bay, brigandage was rampant in the hills, and
altogether the wonder is that Jamaica has survived at all.
Just as Jamaica’s old-time prosperity was founded upon the Brethren of
the Main, so the island’s present prosperity depends almost wholly upon
the modern prototype of the pirates—a gigantic trust. In place of
high-pooped, low-bowed ships with grinning guns along their sides
Jamaica’s harbors now shelter the spotless white hulls of the
fruit-boats. While the telling arguments of shot and shell and the
pistol and cutlass have given way to the all-powerful dollar and the
peaceful if no less persuasive methods of modern business to compel
others to come to terms, yet the Fruit Company is scarcely less
domineering in its line than were Morgan and his associates in theirs.
Not that the Fruit Company has not done much for Jamaica and the other
lands where it has holdings. The worst enemy of the great organization,
the most rabid anti-trust fanatic, cannot deny that the company has
improved land, made for livable conditions, instituted sanitary
reforms, circulated money, given employment to thousands, established
hospitals, built railways, erected palatial hotels, maintained a
steamship service, and done countless other admirable things. But one
and all have been done with an eye to personal gain and not for the
good of the world or of the countries where it controls politics,
finances, policies, and the very existence of the inhabitants. Like
every trust, it is utterly selfish, and in Jamaica it has a strangle
hold, controlling business and people, body and soul. With the
octopus-like grip of this colossus on the lands about the Caribbean,
there can be no successful competition, no open market, no independent
profitable enterprise where fruit, and especially bananas, are
concerned.
Let any one who doubts this attempt to establish an industry where the
trust holds sway, and see how long it will be ere he feels the effects
of the political influence, the control of labor, the monopoly of
shipping which the owners of the White Fleet hold in their hands.
As an example, let me mention the experience of a friend of mine who,
finding that little Samana in Santo Domingo produced the largest and
finest pineapples in the world and that luscious navel oranges were a
drug on the market there at fifty cents a barrel, thought to establish
a tiny fruit business of his own. Samples were sent to the leading
commission fruit merchants in the States and to the big fancy-fruit and
grocery houses, and one and all declared the fruit exceptional, and
marketable at high prices, and stated that, coming as it did in
midwinter, it would be in great demand. But one and all regretfully
stated that they could not handle it, could not touch it, for if they
did they would be boycotted and blacklisted by the Fruit Company!
Jamaica may have prospered through the banana industry, fostered and
built up by the Fruit Company, but already there is dire complaint
among the planters, in regard to the treatment they are getting. The
prosperity built upon such a basis will be no more lasting, of no more
benefit than the affluence the island once obtained from the
buccaneers, and sooner or later the Jamaicans will wake up to find they
have sold their birthright for a mess of pottage.
CHAPTER XVI
JAMAICA AND ITS PIRATE GOVERNOR
Kingston, the successor of Port Royal, is so well known and has so
often been described that little need be said of it. It is not
particularly attractive; it has no outstanding architectural beauties
and no great historical interest, and is an unbearably hot and glaring
town. Since the great earthquake and fire of 1907 it has been even less
attractive than before, for many of its ruined buildings have never
been rebuilt, tumble-down walls, blackened timbers, and weed-filled
spaces are seen on every hand, reminding one of unsightly ulcers on an
otherwise healthy body.
But as the chief port and largest city, as well as the capital of the
island, Kingston is of importance, and is a busy, bustling little place
with huge docks, a wealth of shipping, innumerable shops, and at least
one first-class hotel, the Myrtle Bank, which is, of course, run by the
Fruit Company.
Compared with other Caribbean ports, Kingston is modern, and owing to
repeated catastrophes in the way of fires, hurricanes, and earthquakes
there is little of the original town left and there is nothing foreign,
quaint, or Old-Worldly about it. But within easy access are many very
attractive and interesting points. There are the Hope and Castleton
Gardens, the Blue Mountains, and countless charming spots in the hills.
Jamaica can boast innumerable excellent automobile roads, and
well-equipped railway trains are ready to carry visitors across the
island to the huge Hotel Titchfield at Port Antonio (also the Fruit
Company’s), to Anotta Bay, Montego Bay, et cetera, while delightful
short trips may be taken by motor-car to Gordon Town, Newcastle, Old
Harbour, and Spanish Town, all of which may also be reached by
trolley-cars if desired.
At the foot of the Blue Mountains—which always seem to have a sort of
lure, like the mysterious mountains of childhood’s fairy tales—is the
Constant Springs Hotel, amid charming surroundings. Gordon Town, beside
the Hope River and nearly one thousand feet above the sea, is a
favorite place of residence, while Newcastle, nearly four thousand feet
in the air and in the midst of magnificent mountain scenery, looks
superciliously from its heights upon Kingston on its green plain
bounded by the sea and the lofty hills, with the thin golden strip of
sand connecting the mainland with Port Royal like (as one enthusiast
has put it) the eye at the tip of a peacock’s feather.
In point of scenery Jamaica has nothing to be ashamed of, for while the
island cannot boast active volcanoes, mountain-crater lakes, geysers,
or some of the other features of the smaller Antilles, it possesses
several magnificent cataracts. The most noted is Roaring River Falls, a
beautiful cascade one hundred and fifty feet in height and two hundred
feet wide, a roaring, tumbling cataract in a wonderful setting of
luxuriant tropical jungle.
Much nearer Kingston is the Cane River Fall, in whose deep gorge the
air is deliciously cool even on the hottest days. At the upper end of
the cañon the falls plunge over a lofty ledge into a deep bowl of rock
rimmed with giant ferns, and here one may pass behind the veil of water
to a cave famed in Jamaica’s history.
Within this cavern, so tradition says, once dwelt a desperate and
notorious brigand known as Three-fingered Jack. For a long time the
triple-fingered outlaw had things pretty much his own way. He was a
sort of tropical Jesse James, in fact, and piled up a comfortable
little fortune in his lair back of the falls. But at last he “met his
meta,” as the blacks say, and was killed in a desperate hand-to-hand
conflict with a Maroon. In order to prove his victory the Maroon
amputated the outlaw’s hand with the three digits and brought the
gruesome trophy to the authorities, who, as a reward for having
destroyed the bandit, settled one hundred dollars a year for life on
the Maroon. No doubt the half-savage black was sorry that every cascade
did not hide the den of an outlaw, for fighting was the favorite
pastime of the Maroons, and to put an end to a man in a good scrap must
have seemed a very easy way of earning a handsome annuity.
Another natural wonder which the Jamaicans boast of is the Stone or
Natural Bridge across the Rio de Oro, where the cañon walls, through
which the stream flows, meet in an arch sixty feet above the water and
are capped by an enormous slab of rock.
Perhaps the nearest and most worth-while point of interest is the old
capital of the island, Spanish Town. Owing to Jamaica’s having been so
long a colony of Spain there are many Spanish names remaining there,
and the memory of the old Dons’ ownership is kept fresh by Rio Cobre,
Rio Nuevo, Rio de Oro, Sabana la Mar, and so on. But—probably because
the euphonious Spanish names were too difficult for Anglo-Saxon
tongues—certain places have had their original names so twisted or
altered that they are scarcely recognizable. Thus Bog Walk is merely a
corruption of Boca de Agua, and has no connection with either a bog or
walking; and the once stately Santiago de la Vega has been dubbed
Spanish Town for so long that no one remembers its real name.
Aside from its name, Spanish Town has nothing Castilian about it. One
may seek in vain for crumbling battlements and quaint lantern-like
sentry-boxes, massive buildings with arched portals leading to
flower-filled patios, embrasured windows with iron grilles or jutting
balconies. It is, instead, more like a country village in England, or
an old colonial town in New England, with white-painted,
green-shuttered houses, grass-lined street and lanes, neat gardens, and
a sleepy, quiet air as though it thoroughly enjoyed the delightful
occupation of dozing in the sun beside the Rio Cobre with not a worry
in the world.
But, after the fashion of every self-respecting Spanish city, it boasts
a plaza (which is rather more like a village green) with an open market
flanked by the old buildings of the days when it was the capital. On
one side is the old House of Assembly. Across the drowsy street is the
King’s House, of red brick with white trimmings, like the typical
court-house of a New England village. Near by is the Rodney Monument,
and beyond, on the outskirts of the town, is the sole remaining relic
of Spanish occupancy,—the oldest church in Jamaica and paradoxically
called the English Cathedral. Mellow with age, the bricks have faded to
a soft coral pink. Above—no doubt erected by the British, for the Dons
were not given to such things—rises a lofty white steeple. Within, the
old church is literally floored with tombs, in which rest the bones of
many of the most notable personages of Jamaica’s past. Some of the
tombs are beautifully wrought works of art by Bacon; others are ornate
with escutcheons and coats of arms, and not a few are exceedingly
quaint and amusing. For example, we may read upon the slab that marks
the grave of an officer who came to take the island from the Dons,
along with Penn and Venables, that the occupant of the tomb “died amid
great applause,” while another, we are informed, “came to an untimely
end by just cause.” After reading that epitaph one feels very much as
one does after being asked, “How old is Ann?” or “Why does a mouse?”
and one is inordinately curious to know what that “just cause” might
have been.
And speaking of that young officer who “died amid great applause,” a
word or two about that remarkable pair with whom he threw his lot, Penn
and Venables, may be of interest. Oddly enough, the two warriors who
took Jamaica from Spain and turned it over to Britain are always
referred to as though they had been partners in some business
enterprise,—“Penn and Venables,”—and never as Admiral Penn and General
Venables. Why such an ill-assorted pair were selected by Cromwell to
undertake the conquest of the West Indies will ever remain a mystery.
Venables was an ardent fisherman, who much preferred writing essays on
the sportsmanlike taking of trout and salmon to fighting, and in spare
moments he wrote a book known as “The Experienced Angler.” No doubt he
was an experienced angler, but he was neither an experienced nor a
brave warrior. In the first brush with the Spaniards at Santo Domingo
he was disgracefully repulsed by a handful of negro and Spanish
irregulars, although he had seven thousand men under him. And when the
strangely assorted pair of commanders reached Jamaica the
angler-general declined to land his troops until all fighting was over;
and according to the historian, “he continued to walk the deck, wrapped
in his cloak with his hat over his eyes looking as if he had been
studying physic more than the general of an army.”
In sharp contrast to this curious warrior was Penn, a jolly, rotund,
blond man who looked far more like a good-natured village parson than a
tough old sea-dog, but who nevertheless showed his mettle and proved
himself a worthy upholder of Britain’s traditions of the sea. Attacking
the old Passage Fort at Jamaica with a small party of his sailors in a
tiny galley, the cherubic-faced Penn led the assault in person and,
storming the defenses, at one stroke took Jamaica. As a reward for his
success he was promptly arrested and thrown into prison in the Tower on
his arrival in England, the charge being that he had returned without
leave; and as a companion in his troubles the morose and faint-hearted
Venables was incarcerated along with him. Penn was soon released,
however, leaving his erstwhile partner to his meditations on angling
and other matters and no doubt pacing back and forth in his narrow cell
much as he had done on his ship off Jamaica.
Another hero of Jamaica, whose body lies in the old Parish Church at
Kingston, is Admiral John Benbow. Above his grave is a black stone slab
bearing a coat of arms and the following inscription:
Here lyeth Interred the
Body of John Benbow
Esq Admiral of the White
A true Pattern of English
Courage who Lost his life
In Defence of His Queene
And Country November ye 4th
1702 In the 52nd year of
His Age by a wound of his Legg
Receuid in an Engagement
with Monsr Du Casse Being
Much Lamented.
Not only did the “wound in his legg” mark the end of one of the most
glorious and heroic battles against overwhelming odds in the annals of
the British Navy, but it was also the sequel to one of the most
disgraceful episodes in British maritime history. Perhaps that last
line on old Benbow’s gravestone has a double meaning, for if ever there
was an engagement which should have been “much lamented” it was that
with “Monsr Du Casse.”
The British fleet of seven ships, carrying over three hundred and fifty
guns, sailed from Port Royal and met the French fleet of five large and
four small vessels off Santa Marta on August 21, 1702. From the first
it was a running fight, and had the British ships stood together it
would soon have been over, but the British captains held aloof, and
refused to come within range of the enemy despite the admiral’s urgent
orders. As a result, old Benbow in the Breda carried on a single-handed
battle with the enemy for four days, hanging on the heels of the French
and pouring broadside after broadside at them, until his spars were
carried away, his bulwarks shattered, his sails in ribbons, his ship
riddled with shot, and the bulk of his men wounded or killed. Each
night the doughty old admiral would work feverishly to repair damages
and keep the Breda from sinking, and as soon as day dawned would begin
pounding away again at the French. On the morning of the 23d, a chain
shot smashed Benbow’s right leg, but as soon as he recovered
consciousness he ordered his bed carried to the quarter-deck, and
there, mortally wounded, he continued to direct the hopeless battle.
But the odds were overwhelming; no single ship of seventy guns could
hope to vanquish the entire French fleet, and when at last the
indomitable admiral saw that his ship had barely enough rigging left to
carry her to port he regretfully gave orders to withdraw. Shattered and
torn, a veritable wreck, the Breda turned and headed for Jamaica with
her tattered British ensign flying defiantly from her splintered
masthead; the wounded admiral shaking his fists at his craven fellow
officers, whose ships slunk below the horizon, homeward bound, and,
despite his loss of blood and the fact that he was almost blind from
shock, volubly cursing the French, while over his head was still flying
the orders for a general attack to which the other ships had failed to
respond.
Upon his arrival in Kingston, Benbow’s leg was amputated, but gangrene
had set in, and after a long and lingering illness, and suffering
agonies, the gallant admiral passed away on November 4th, over two
months after being wounded.
No doubt the failure to obey orders, on the part of the British
commanders, was partly due to personal animosity, for Benbow was a
surly and unlikeable man, noted for his rough and bullying attitude and
cordially hated by his subordinates. But notwithstanding his
peculiarities he was indisputably brave, and it is a satisfaction to
know that the British captains—Kirkby, Constable, and Wade—were
court-martialed, and that Kirkby and Wade were convicted and shot and
Constable was cashiered and imprisoned and died in confinement. Of the
others, Vincent was suspended, Hudson died before the trial was held,
and only Walton of the Ruby, who had taken part in the early stage of
the battle, was exonerated.
But Penn and Venables, Benbow and Rodney and all the others are of
little interest and pale into insignificance as far as Jamaica’s
history is concerned beside that most remarkable and strange character,
Sir Henry Morgan, the pirate chieftain who was knighted and who as
lieutenant-governor ruled Jamaica with an iron hand.
Much has been written of Morgan, in history and in fiction, and his
exploits have become so well known, his unprincipled ruthlessness such
a byword, and his cruelties so notorious that we always think of him as
having scourged the Caribbean and the Spanish Main for years. But as a
matter of fact this most famous buccaneer’s entire career spanned but a
scant five years, and all his most notable deeds were performed within
a space of two years. As in the case of all the noted pirate leaders,
his career of bloodshed and robbery was meteoric. It is hard to realize
that he rose from nothing to be the greatest buccaneer chieftain of his
day, performed feats which had never before and have never since been
equaled for sheer bravery and daredevil recklessness, was knighted,
became the ruler of Jamaica, and dropped out of sight all within five
years.
Morgan was a Welshman, the son of a well-to-do farmer. Finding farm
life irksome, he decided to set forth in search of adventure and
succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Reaching Bristol, he shipped on a
vessel bound for Barbados, where, almost as soon as he arrived, he was
sold as a servant or virtually a slave. Little is known of his life in
Barbados, or whether he escaped or worked out his serfdom, for we next
hear of him in Jamaica, where, still seeking excitement, he joined a
buccaneer’s ship. He was an apt pupil, and, what was unusual among the
pirates, a thrifty soul, and after his third or fourth trip as a
buccaneer he had accumulated enough cash to buy a share in a ship with
a few chosen comrades.
His fellows unanimously elected him as captain and, with a crew
selected carefully from the hordes of pirates who infested Port Royal,
Morgan sailed for Campeche. From the very first he was marvelously
successful, and upon his return from Campeche he threw in his lot with
Mansvelt, a hoary old rascal who was then preparing an expedition to
the Main.
Mansvelt, recognizing the spirit and promising possibilities of the new
accession to the buccaneers’ ranks, selected Morgan as his
vice-admiral, and with fifteen ships and over five hundred men the
pirate fleet set sail on a glorious program of pillage and murder.
Their first blow was struck at Old Providence Island (then known as St.
Catherine), which Mansvelt planned to transform into a pirate kingdom
of his own. With little loss the pirates took the island, established a
garrison of their own men, and sailed for Costa Rica and the coast of
Panama, where they pillaged and destroyed to their hearts’ content,
until finally driven off by the Spanish troops sent by the Governor of
Panama.
Returning to Jamaica, Mansvelt laid before the governor of Jamaica his
plans for establishing a buccaneer stronghold at Old Providence, and
asked for men and ships as well as supplies. Oddly enough, his
Excellency failed to fall in with the old pirate’s plans, and Mansvelt,
realizing he had bitten off a bigger slice than he could swallow by
himself, sailed for Tortuga. Here, as Esquemelling says, “death
suddenly surprised him and put a period to his wicked life,” and Morgan
found himself sole chieftain of the pirate fleet.
In the meantime the governor of Jamaica had thought matters over, and,
Mansvelt being gone, he despatched a ship-load of men and women to Old
Providence. The governor’s underhand actions were, however, brought to
naught, owing to the fact that the island had again been taken by the
Spaniards, and the British ship and its people fell into their hands.
Morgan had not abandoned his predecessor’s dreams of a buccaneer
stronghold so near the Spanish Main, and had written to merchants in
Virginia and New England, asking for cash and supplies to enable him to
fortify and colonize the island. But before a response was received his
plans were frustrated by the Dons’ again regaining possession of St.
Catherine.
Morgan then turned his attention to other places. He sailed for Cuba,
where with twelve ships and seven hundred men he prepared to sack the
interior city of Puerto Principe. The Spaniards, having been warned, by
an escaped prisoner of the pirates, of Morgan’s approach, had secreted
the greater part of their valuables and had prepared for defense. As
usual, however, despite the brave resistance of the Spanish, the town
fell easily to the buccaneers, and Morgan at once began to put into
practice the cruelties and inhuman behavior for which he became
notorious. Shutting the people into the churches, and leaving them
without food or water—“much to their discomfort and inconvenience,” as
the historian naïvely informs us—Morgan and his men made merry,
punctuating their feasting and drinking by torturing the Dons and
striving by unspeakable cruelties to compel them to reveal their
hiding-places for their money. At last, finding all their inhumanities
in vain, the buccaneers withdrew after obtaining a big herd of cattle
which they accepted in lieu of a ransom for the town. Compelling the
prisoners to drive these cattle overland to the port, and then forcing
the unfortunates to kill and dress the beeves, Morgan at last departed
from Cuba’s shores.
It was while the cattle were being slaughtered that an incident
occurred which showed strikingly the curious combination of honor and
rascality which went to form Morgan’s make-up. One of the French
pirates was cutting up a carcass when an English buccaneer robbed him
of the marrow-bones. In the dispute that arose the Englishman
challenged the other to a duel, but treacherously wounded the French
pirate in the back before he had time to draw his weapon. This murder
seemed about to start a revolt of the French members of the expedition
against the British, but Morgan at once ordered the treacherous
Englishman to be manacled, and carried him to Jamaica in chains and had
him hanged at Port Royal for his offense.
Much to the pirates’ disgust, the total receipts from the sack of
Puerto Principe amounted to barely fifty thousand pieces of eight,—not
enough to pay their debts in Jamaica,—and the French members of the
company, still indignant at the murder of one of their number and
disappointed at the insignificance of the loot, withdrew, and hied
themselves to Tortuga.
The success of this first great victory of Morgan as an independent
pirate chieftain brought hundreds of men clamoring to join him, and
within a short time he again sailed away with nine ships and nearly
five hundred men bent on what was the most daring exploit of pirate
history up to that time. This was nothing less than an attack on the
supposedly impregnable fortress at Porto Bello. It met with phenomenal
success, and the pirates found themselves the richer by over a quarter
of a million dollars in ready cash, aside from vast quantities of
merchandise.
By this victory, Morgan was raised to the pinnacle of fame as a pirate
chieftain. Flushed with success, he set forth with a large fleet and a
veritable army of pirates to undertake the sack of Maracaibo. Again
fortune favored, and Morgan, exhibiting marvelous strategic ability,
not only took the town but managed to destroy the Spanish fleet which
had sought to block his escape, returning to Jamaica with nearly half a
million dollars’ worth of loot.
Up to this time Morgan had been really within the pale of the law; for,
Spain and England being at war, he and his men, as well as the other
buccaneers, were regarded as legitimate privateers. But soon after his
sack of Maracaibo peace between the nations was declared, and Morgan,
foreseeing that Jamaica might become unpleasant for him and his
fellows, withdrew to Tortuga, where he planned his most famous exploit,
the attack on Panama.
Upon his return from this astoundingly daring and successful expedition
Morgan was promptly arrested when he reached Jamaica, and in company
with the governor (who had favored the pirates) was sent to England for
trial. By his wonderful personality, specious arguments, and probably a
wise distribution of a part of his loot where it would do the most
good, the redoubtable Harry managed to escape the penalties of the law
provided for pirates and was looked upon as a hero rather than a
malefactor. Indeed, instead of being hanged in chains, Morgan was
knighted, and sent back to Jamaica as lieutenant-governor. No doubt the
king believed that it took a pirate to catch a pirate, and realized
that Sir Henry was unprincipled enough to turn traitor to his former
associates as long as the government paid him well.
In this his Majesty was not mistaken, for Morgan ruled the island with
an iron hand. On his return from Panama he had cheated his men, and had
made way with the greater portion of the booty, leaving his fellows to
shift for themselves. When, later, these deserted rascals made their
way to Jamaica they denounced his treachery in no measured terms. As a
result, Morgan was as unpopular among the buccaneers as he had formerly
been popular. But it did little good for the disgruntled pirates to
rail and threaten reprisals when the object of their venom was the
ruler of Jamaica. Morgan had it in his power to make short shrift of
the pirates, and despite the fact that they had served under him and
had stood by his side in many a desperate battle, Sir Henry hanged them
out of hand, often without trial of any sort, until Jamaica became so
hot for the lieutenant-governor’s one-time associates that the majority
betook themselves to Tortuga and rejoined their former French partners.
Morgan, however, was as crooked as a governor as he had been when a
pirate; and the fact that he was a Sir altered his character not one
jot. He had never believed in letting his one hand know what the other
was doing, and while he publicly hanged pirates in chains he secretly
furnished cash and outfits for his brother and a few chosen friends to
go a-pirating. Rumors of this leaked out; Morgan’s severities became so
onerous that even the law-abiding inhabitants of the island rebelled,
and as a result, he was recalled. Virtually nothing is known of his
life after his recall; there is a deal of confusion as to where he
lived or how he died, and not a monument, a tablet, or an inscription
in Jamaica keeps green the memory or the deeds of Sir Henry Morgan,
pirate, governor, and villain.
CHAPTER XVII
THE BRIDGE OF THE WORLD
Although Morgan rose to fame in Jamaica, yet in the island he is
unhonored and unsung; and it was across leagues of heaving sea and
along the shores of the Spanish Main that his marvelous, execrable
enterprises were carried out. In order to follow in his wake I was
compelled to bid farewell to my men and the stanch little Vigilant and
continue my way by steamer.
It was with deep regret that I parted with faithful Sam, hideous-faced
Trouble, dignified Joseph, and all the other care-free, happy-go-lucky
black and brown members of my crew, for we had got along famously
together and they seemed more like old friends than employees. But I
knew that sooner or later I should see them all again: in the West
Indies one is ever meeting old friends and acquaintances, and as Jules,
the half-Carib Dominican, expressed it when he said good-bye, “Morne
pas ka encountre; moune ka encountre tojou. [Only mountains never meet;
people always meet again.]”
Out of the harbor the Vigilant sailed, past sleepy Port Royal at the
tip of the Palisados and, heading eastward, bore off toward the distant
Virgins. Outward after her forged the big steamer and, swinging her
sharp prow westward, surged onward toward Central America, over the
same course that Sir Henry sailed as with his crew of ruffians he swept
down upon Porto Bello. Standing at the steamer’s taffrail, I watched
the little schooner heeling to the breeze. Wider and wider spread the
stretch of heaving blue between us, until, like the flash of a
sea-gull’s wings, her white sails twinkled upon the horizon and were
gone.
I was on deck at daybreak the following morning, gazing through my
glasses at the gray and lofty peak of Old Providence,—the St. Catherine
that Mansvelt had thought to make a pirate kingdom and which Morgan
later had sacked and pillaged on his way to Panama.
In those days Old Providence was an important stronghold, a miniature
Gibraltar guarding the approaches to the coast and ever heavily
fortified and garrisoned. But to-day it is a forlorn and all but
deserted spot, the home of fisherfolk and a few farmers who cultivate
their precarious crops upon the rugged hillsides, and of so little
worth that Panama left it in the undisputed possession of Colombia when
she gained her independence. Passing the sea-girt volcanic isle to-day,
one marvels that the pirates ever should have wasted ammunition and
lives upon it; but to them it was a strategic point, and could they
have but held it, the fate of Central America might have been very
different. Instead of a series of small republics, the land from Mexico
to Colombia might now be a colony of Britain.
Beyond Old Providence the wide, unbroken sea stretched away to the
horizon, until at last dim mountains, the tip of the Andes, rose before
our bows, and clearer and ever clearer grew the land, the coast of the
Spanish Main. Rising in green hills from the water, it swept inward, an
undulating sea of verdure, to the cloud-draped blue peaks: a vast,
untamed wilderness with no vestige of settlement or civilization,
until, as the hills became lower and the mountain ranges more distant,
we passed the half-hidden entrance to Porto Bello and far ahead saw the
smoke-pall and the low land that marked Colon and the entrance to the
Panama Canal.
Past the lofty wireless towers, the huge hangars, and the white
buildings of Coco Solo, past the great Hotel Washington, past the vast
breakwater we steamed, and, gliding through the narrow entrance between
the two long ridges of rock and concrete that protect—or, rather, are
supposed to protect—the harbor, entered the waters of the Zone, where
our steamer was warped into the huge concrete-and-steel piers at
Cristobal.
How old Morgan and his fellow buccaneers would stare and rub their eyes
could they but glimpse this terminus of the great ditch that links the
two oceans, with its puffing locomotives, its row of huge docks, its
scores of mighty steamships, and its innumerable honking motor-cars! It
was a morass in their day, and for nearly two centuries thereafter; for
Colon was built upon a swamp and enjoys the distinction of being one of
the few towns, if not the only town, constructed in order to establish
a starting-place for a railway, instead of the railway being built to
accommodate a town. Originally the place was called Aspinwall, in honor
of the projector of the trans-isthmian railroad, and there resulted a
ludicrous state of affairs, a petty squabble between two nations that
probably has no equal.
Although the Americans who built the town called it Aspinwall, the
Colombians had their own ideas on the subject, and to perpetuate the
name of the great discoverer they christened it Colon. The United
States Government then took a hand and, refusing to recognize any such
town as Colon, declined to deliver mail addressed thereto. But that was
a game which two could play, and the Colombians promptly refused to
accept or deliver mail addressed to Aspinwall. As in most cases,
possession was nine points of the law, and as the binomial port was
unquestionably on Colombian territory, the United States at last backed
down and grudgingly agreed that “Colon” it should remain.
Colon is a far from interesting city, but it is clean and sanitary and
no longer the sordid, disease-ridden, filthy hole that it was in
pre-canal days. Moreover, despite the lurid tales of fiction-writers,
Colon is as orderly and law-abiding as any port, and while it possesses
an inordinate number of cheap cabarets and cheaper bar-rooms, and is
frequented by hundreds of Uncle Sam’s sailors nightly, not to mention a
multitude of seamen, canal-zone employees, and natives, yet serious
crimes are rare and vice hides itself in out-of-the-way streets in a
restricted district. But Colon’s reputation as the “wickedest city in
America” has not long been a thing of the past. Five years ago both
Colon and Panama were such hotbeds of iniquity that the commanding
general of the United States forces on the isthmus was compelled to
issue a general order prohibiting sailors and soldiers from entering
Panamanian territory.
As a result of this order, Panama was compelled to clean up its two
chief towns, for without the patronage of the Americans they would have
been in sore straits, and while the Government was slow about it (for
the average Panamanian is far from squeamish in regard to either
physical or moral filth), the herculean task was at last accomplished
and our men of the army and navy were once more permitted to roam
through the streets and frequent the resorts of the Panamanian towns.
Little need be said of Colon, or of Cristobal, the spick-and-span
little American town on the zone side of the railway which forms the
boundary between American and Panamanian territory, or—what is of more
importance to the majority of visitors—the boundary between a very dry
and a very wet land.
Neither possesses any historical associations, and neither had been
dreamed of in the days of the buccaneers. But near at hand, a scant
twenty-five miles down the coast and easily accessible by motor-boat,
is the ancient stronghold of Porto Bello, the grim old citadel that
defied Drake, the treasure-house that fell to Morgan and his men, the
Atlantic terminus of the celebrated Gold Road.
Within the vaults of Porto Bello have been stored countless millions of
treasure. To this port, winding their way through the jungles, along
the roughly paved road from Panama, came the long mule-trains, laden
with the riches of the despoiled Incas; with the output of the
marvelous mines of Darien and Veraguas; with the gems and jewels of
Aztec kings and princes; with bullion and plate; with the treasures of
the Indies. With jangling bells the gaily caparisoned mules trotted
over the rough cobbles, splashed through the rivers, and plunged up the
steep slopes; with cracking whips and hoarse shouts the sandaled
drivers ran beside them, in picturesque Spanish cursing their beasts
and urging them forward; chained together in groups, the bronze-skinned
Indian and ebon-hued African slaves stumbled along, groaning, footsore,
bleeding from the lash; while leading the way and bringing up the rear
were the mail-clad soldiery, the plumed officers, the proud hidalgos
and such well-to-do travelers as saw fit to travel from ocean to ocean
across this Bridge of the World.
Long centuries have passed since the last treasure-train wound its slow
way across the isthmus by the Gold Road. Huge trees have sprung from
between its cobbles and have spread their vast network of branches
above the spots where fever-stricken slaves dropped dying under the
hoofs of the gold-laden mules. The forest has obliterated the once
broad way; the jungle has hidden with its impenetrable curtain long
stretches of the celebrated highroad; steeply arched bridges have
crumbled into the tumbling rivers, and wayside stopping-places, where
the long mule-teams halted for rest and refreshment, are mere mounds of
giant ferns and huge-leafed plants. But still, so the natives say,
ghostly figures may sometimes be seen traversing the highway. Through
the silence of the midnight jungle come the tinkle of mule-bells and
the clatter of hoofs on stone; weird lights flicker and dance between
the trees, and the screams of mortals in agony and the groans of the
dying make one’s blood run cold. No natives willingly go near the old
road after nightfall, for to them it is accursed, a way paved with dead
men’s bones, a trail of blood and death; and piously they cross
themselves and speak in hushed and fearful voices at mention of it.
No one can say how many millions in gold and silver and jewels have
been carried over this forest road from Panama to Porto Bello. For
years it was the only route from the Pacific to the Atlantic, or vice
versa, and over it flowed all the treasures that the ruthless Dons
wrested from the New World; over it passed thousands of hardy Spaniards
who sought to win fortune and fame from the new-found lands, and who
left their bones in morass, jungle, and sea, from California to
Patagonia.
Rich indeed were the pickings to be had in those days, and the loot of
Inca and Aztec, of Toltec and Maya, the output of countless mines, and
fortunes in pearls from the outlying isles were carried over the Gold
Road and stored in the vaults of Porto Bello to await the plate-fleet
with its convoys which was to bear the stupendous treasure across the
sea to Spain.
A tempting spot to rob was Porto Bello, a vast coffer fairly bursting
with riches, and many an avaricious buccaneer sighed regretfully as he
cast covetous eyes toward the town and thought of the incalculable
wealth that reposed in safety behind the grim walls and bristling guns
of San Jerome Castle, on the heights above the quiet harbor.
But San Jerome had been built with all the art and skill of the best
Spanish engineers; it had been devised to guard the treasures of New
Spain, and to guard them well. No ship could enter the port without
passing under its guns; no man could approach by land without exposing
himself to the ever-watchful sentries and a withering fire of musketry
and cannon. It was not only a castle and a group of forts but a citadel
as well—a vast pile of massive walls, of moats and battlements, of out
jutting sentry-boxes—and ever garrisoned with a thousand men or more.
It was thought impregnable, beyond the possibility of capture; the Dons
believed the riches within were as safe as though in the treasury of
Madrid itself. But the very year that the fortifications were completed
William Parker with two hundred rough-and-tumble pirates took the place
by storm, burned a part of the town, and got safely away with a
tremendous amount of booty.
Alarmed and chagrined to think that the hated British had cracked the
vault they had thought so safe, the Spanish had the castle strengthened
and enlarged; more heavy guns were mounted and the garrison increased,
and the Dons again breathed freely. For sixty years and six the
treasure lay safe; the mighty walls resisted all assaults; the cannon
roared defiance, and above the battlements Spain’s banner of blood and
gold defied the world.
And then, like a bolt from a clear sky, came Morgan. With a fleet of
nine ships and a scant five hundred men he landed on a wild,
uninhabited stretch of coast and marched on the town at dead of night.
Guided by an Englishman who had been a captive in Porto Bello, his
forces approached the castle and a few men were sent forward, to steal
silently upon the outermost sentry. Leaping on the unsuspecting
Spaniard, they bore him to earth ere he could utter a sound, and,
binding and gagging him, took him to Morgan. At threat of death by
torture the poor fellow gave what information he could of the citadel
and its garrison, and promised as well to follow out the orders of the
pirates. Creeping like shadows under the walls of an outlying fort, the
buccaneers posted themselves with weapons ready and ordered their
prisoner to call out to his fellow soldiers, advising them to
surrender, as an overwhelming force was about to attack.
In reply, the garrison at once began firing into the darkness, and with
wild shouts and yells the pirates rushed this outer fort and, aided by
the darkness and the terror which they always inspired, soon took the
place. Having once threatened to destroy all within if they refused to
surrender, Morgan was as good as his word. Herding the defenseless
soldiers and officers in a single room, he set fire to the magazine,
blowing the prisoners and the fort to atoms. The shouts, shots, and
explosion had aroused the city and the other forts, and, believing that
a tremendous force of the enemy must be upon them, the inhabitants
became panic-stricken, rushing hither and thither, throwing their
valuables into wells and cisterns, striving to escape to the near-by
forest, and utterly demoralized. As a result, there was little
resistance, and, slashing and shooting their way through the wild-eyed
throngs, the pirates dashed to the cloisters in the town and, battering
in the doors, made prisoners of the priests and nuns.
Meanwhile the governor, unable to rally the townspeople, retreated to
the main fort, San Jerome, [9] and from this point maintained an
incessant fusillade upon the pirates. Unable to approach closely, the
buccaneers sought what shelter they could find, and, being accomplished
marksmen, picked off the Spanish gunners each time they attempted to
recharge their cannon. For hours,—from daybreak until noon,—the
conflict raged, and for a time it seemed doubtful which side would be
the victors. Several times the pirates took their lives in their hands
and, dashing under the walls, attempted to start fires at the castle’s
doors, but each time they left dead and dying behind as the Dons threw
bombs and blazing pitch upon them from the parapets. Finding they were
making no headway, even Morgan himself began to despair, and with ready
devilishness he proceeded to carry out a scheme of such downright
villainy that it could have been born only in the mind of a monster.
Hastily constructing a number of broad ladders, he notified the
governor that unless the place were surrendered, he would force the
nuns and monks to place the ladders and scale the walls. He knew full
well that the Dons would hesitate to shoot down the holy men and women.
But the governor of Porto Bello was a man of no ordinary courage and
determination, and replied that never would he surrender as long as he
remained alive. Thereupon the nuns and monks were dragged forward and,
prodded and flogged, were forced to lift the ladders, place them
against the walls, and form a screen for the pirates swarming in their
rear.
Praying and crossing themselves, beseeching the governor to surrender,
the monks in blood-stained cassocks, the white-faced nuns with garments
stripped from their quivering bodies, swollen and bruised from cruel
blows, lifted the heavy ladders only to fall dead and wounded by scores
from the shots of their own countrymen. But others were forced forward,
until at last the ladders were in place and, with pistols and cutlasses
drawn, the buccaneers swarmed up the walls. Heedless of the fire from
above, shouting, swearing, and ever pressing on, they gained the
parapet and like fiends incarnate leaped among the Spaniards, cutting
and hacking, shooting and stabbing, and so terrorizing the soldiers by
their onrush that many threw down their arms and fled.
Presently only the governor remained, fighting alone, his back to a
wall, his sword flashing, his dark eyes gleaming defiance, his gray
beard streaked with blood. Amazed at his courage, appreciating his
bravery, the buccaneers offered him quarter, and even his own wife and
daughters pleaded with him to surrender. But the old hidalgo would have
none of this, and defiantly he shouted that he would die as a valiant
soldier rather than be hanged as a coward. Over and over again the
pirates, at Morgan’s orders, strove to rush the old man and make him
prisoner, but each time his flashing sword formed a circle of death
beyond which none could pass until he fell, shot down by the pirate
chieftain.
Porto Bello was now in the buccaneers’ hands. Herding the people,
wounded and well alike, into cells where, as Esquemelling says, “to the
intent their own complaints might be the cure of their hurts for no
other was afforded them,” they were left under guard while the victors
fell to eating and drinking. Soon the majority were outrageously drunk,
and had the Dons rallied and attacked they might have retaken the
place, for, again to quote Esquemelling, who was an eye-witness, “if
there had been found fifty courageous men they might easily have taken
the city and killed all the pirates.”
For several days thereafter Porto Bello was such a scene of debauchery,
of inhumanity, of agony and suffering as the sun has seldom looked
upon. The buccaneers went about looting and ravishing, and, realizing
that much of the treasure had been hidden, they tortured the prisoners
to compel them to divulge the hiding-places. Every devilish device of
the Inquisition, and worse, was brought into play. Men and women were
broken on the wheel and torn on the rack; they were spitted and roasted
over fires, quartered and hacked to bits, flayed alive, blinded, dipped
in boiling pitch, subjected to unspeakable agonies before their loved
ones’ eyes, until, satiated with bloodshed, convinced that every
centavo had been found, the pirates desisted. For fifteen awful days
they remained in the stricken town, dying like rats of fever and
excesses, daily casting scores of festering corpses into the sea, but
so drunk with victory that no heed was given to their own losses or to
the threats of an overwhelming force approaching from Panama.
Then, realizing that he must leave, Morgan demanded that the stricken
inhabitants pay a ransom for the deliverance of the city, and,
ambushing the approaching Spanish troops, he drove them back along the
Gold Road. Knowing that his threats to burn the town and to massacre
the few remaining inhabitants would be carried out if the ransom were
not paid, the people scraped from hiding-places the sum of one hundred
thousand pieces of eight, and turned them over to the ruthless
conqueror. Rarely did Harry Morgan break his word to an enemy (which
was about his only redeeming trait), and so, the ransom being paid, he
prepared to evacuate the town with all the treasure he had won, which
amounted to more than a quarter of a million dollars in cash and as
much more in merchandise—truly, a rich haul!
But before he departed there entered into this awful tragedy a bit of
that humor that ever was cropping up with Morgan. Marveling how any one
could have taken Porto Bello with its supposedly impregnable forts, its
mighty guns, and its horde of soldiery,—to say nothing of its citizens,
who were reputed to be brave fighters,—the Viceroy of Panama despatched
a messenger to the pirate, begging him to “send him some small pattern
of those arms wherewith he had taken with such violence so great a
city.” Courteously (now that hostilities were over and the ransom paid)
Sir Henry received the messenger, entertained him,—with stolen wine and
looted provender, of course,—and sent him back to the viceroy bearing a
pistol and a handful of bullets along with a message to the effect that
he “desired the viceroy to accept that slender pattern of the arms
wherewith he had taken Porto Bello and keep them for a twelvemonth;
after which time he promised to come to Panama and fetch them away.”
We can readily imagine with what thanksgiving the harried, tortured,
robbed inhabitants of Porto Bello saw the last of the pirates leave,
and watched the sails of their ships as they sank from sight below the
horizon. But never again would they trust to the old forts to safeguard
their treasure. As a result of Morgan’s raid the Gold Road was
abandoned between Porto Bello and Las Cruces on the Chagres. The mighty
fortress of San Lorenzo at the river’s mouth was strengthened, and the
treasure bound for Spain was brought via land and the Chagres River to
the ships lying in safety under the guns of San Lorenzo.
But Porto Bello remained; its forts stand, and to-day one may wander
about old Fort San Jerome. The ruins are in a good state of
preservation, the chapel, the house of the valiant old governor, the
cloisters from which the nuns and monks were dragged to form a human
shield for the pirates, the massive treasury, and the huge barracks
still stand; and one may yet trace the outlines and foundations of the
old town.
Nearly as strong to-day as in the time of Morgan is old San Jerome,
with its massive walls, its lantern-shaped sentry-boxes, the deeply
carved coats of arms above its portals, its embrasures, and its
battlements; but the modern Porto Bello is merely a native village of
squalid huts and unkempt streets. Its glories have long since departed;
the Gold Road is no more. Once the most fabulously rich of New-World
cities, the third greatest stronghold of Spain on the Spanish Main, and
the storehouse for millions, Porto Bello is to-day almost forgotten and
unknown.
The splendid harbor that once sheltered pennant-gay galleons and proud
frigates now gleams beneath the sun with only the humble fishing-boats
and dugout canoes to ripple its blue surface. Over the spot where Drake
lies fathoms deep beneath the sea, the speeding keels of steamships
pass unheedingly. Where the white-faced friars reared the ladders under
a storm of bullets, tangled lianas and broad-leafed vines drape the
gray walls. Gay flowering shrubs hide the scars of battle and the
rusting cannon on the slope up which the pirates stormed, and lizards
sun themselves upon the spot where the proud and valiant governor sold
his life so dearly.
Peaceful and calm is Porto Bello above its lovely bay. The age-gray
fort is set in entrancing scenery, and it is hard indeed to realize
that it was once the scene of bloodshed and carnage, that the green
hills have echoed to the roar of cannon and the shrieks of the dying,
that here, upon these very stones, Don and Briton, soldier and pirate
struggled in mortal combat.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE CASTLE OF GOLD
So marvelously rich was Panama, so vast were the quantities of gold
wrested from the Indians and from the mines, that the Spaniards called
the isthmus Castillo del Oro or Golden Castle. For years the precious
metal flowed in a steady stream from the mines of Veraguas and of
Darien, and rapidly accounts of these riches spread until Panama became
known as the greatest gold-producing country in the world at that time.
Hence the name “Costa Rica” then applied to all the country from
Honduras to Darien. The quarter of a million dollars that Morgan looted
from Porto Bello was but a drop in the bucket compared with the annual
output of Panamanian mines.
No one can say how much gold was taken from the mines of Darien and
Veraguas by the Dons, for most of the records, if any existed,
disappeared with the burning of Old Panama; and others have been lost
or destroyed in the revolutions and disturbances since then. But here
and there, in the musty files of sleepy, half-forgotten old towns that
once were great and prosperous cities of the gold districts, one may
find stray bits of information which throw some light on the gold
output of Panama’s mines in early days.
Thus, in Veraguas we learn, from papers still preserved in Santiago,
that it was customary for the Crown to receive a royalty of five per
cent. or a quinto of all gold exported from the province. We also find
from the age-yellowed treasury bills that in one year the Crown
received over twenty thousand castellanos as its share of Veraguas
gold. In other words, considerably over two tons of the yellow metal,
or about two million dollars’ worth of gold, were annually exported
from this one district! And this was only a fraction of the total
amount mined. That which went into private pockets, that which was
expended for supplies, transportation, et cetera, that which went to
the Church did not enter into these figures at all. Going further into
the records, we learn that in 1570 over two thousand slaves were
employed in the Veraguas gold-mines, and contemporary writers state
that a placer that did not yield at least a castellano of gold to a
“common kneading-trough” was not considered worth working.
And Veraguas was not the only gold-producing district, by any means.
The mines of Chiriqui produced stupendous quantities; the mines of
Darien were world-famed; there were mines in the present province of
Cocle, in Los Santos, and in many other districts; and the total value
produced staggers the imagination. It is stated in official documents
that one small private mine produced enough gold in one year to build
the college in Panama, a church, and several lordly mansions, and
provided a comfortable fortune for the owner in addition! Moreover,
incalculable sums were taken from the Indians and from the prehistoric
graves.
No wonder, then, that Panama was the richest and most prosperous of
Spain’s possessions in the New World; for in addition to its own wealth
it was the receiving and shipping point for all the treasures from
ports of Mexico, Central and South America on the Pacific, and the East
Indies.
Besides all this, its wealth in cattle was enormous; vast quantities of
valuable woods, dyes, and medicinal plants were obtained from the
forests; the yield of pearls from the Pearl Islands and the waters of
Panama Bay was worth a king’s ransom yearly, and the fertile lands
produced great crops of sugar, tobacco, coffee, and cacao.
This being the case, we naturally wonder why Panama has fallen to its
present state; why not a single mine is being worked to-day; why the
“Castle of Gold” has become an insignificant republic perpetually
bordering on bankruptcy; why it has fallen from its former proud estate
as the richest country in the New World to a poverty-stricken land that
would find it impossible to make both ends meet if it were not for the
revenue it derives from the canal and trade with Zone employees, the
army and navy, and the annual influx of tourists.
First and most important of all in the cessation of Panama’s gold
output was the fact that the Spaniards worked their mines by slave
labor, usually making use of the native Indians. These often rebelled,
and when opportunity offered massacred their cruel masters, destroyed
the workings, and concealed or obliterated the approaches, so that the
mines were lost. The negro and Moorish slaves brought in, ran away,
became allies of the buccaneers and the Indians, led a wild bush life,
and were a constant menace to the outlying settlements. Still later,
with the emancipation of the slaves, many mines could not be worked at
a profit and were abandoned, while in numerous cases the incredibly
rich placers, which were mere pockets, were worked out and exhausted.
Revolutions, rebellions, and wars did their part as well. The cattle
ranges were deserted, outlying estates were destroyed, unprotected
settlements were abandoned, and the jungle took possession of fields
and lands.
But all this took many years. Even as late as 1850 virtually all the
commerce of the isthmus was paid for in raw Panamanian gold, and such
tumble-down, half-deserted interior towns as Santiago de Veraguas, Las
Minas, San Francisco, and a score of others were busy, populous centers
of wealth, fashion, and commerce.
And all the former prosperity of the country might have been won back
and Panama might still be a rich and thriving country, had it not been
for its people.
The old Dons, despite their ruthlessness, and their insatiable lust for
gold, were daring, indomitable men. No hardship was too great for them
to endure if there were riches to be won or new lands to conquer. No
undertaking was too difficult, no dangers could deter them; even death
mattered little, and, fighting the savages as they went, they overran
the land, established towns, discovered mines, cultivated the soil,
built cities, and endured every privation in building up the wealth and
prosperity of the Castillo del Oro.
But not so their descendants, the decadent people that have inherited
the land which once was the brightest and richest jewel of all the
colonies of the Spanish Crown. With very few exceptions the Panamanians
are of a mongrel breed—a mixture of the Spaniard, the negro, and the
Indian, with all of the worst and few of the best qualities of the
three. Add to this a goodly sprinkling of Chinese blood, a dash of that
of the old Moorish slaves, a seasoning of all the races of Europe which
have passed across the isthmus during four hundred years, and we have
the Panamanian of to-day. A few old families there are, to be sure, in
whose veins the blood of the Castilian conquistadors runs fairly
unmixed, and in certain outlying villages in the interior the people
pride themselves on their pure Spanish descent. But the average
Panamanian is the product of a melting-pot wherein the blood of a dozen
races has been blended. Moreover, the blood has been of a far from
desirable kind. It is the blood of adventurers, of soldiers of fortune,
of remittance men, of those who have sought refuge where no extradition
treaties were in force; the blood of gamblers and seamen, of
down-trodden slaves and cowed and beaten Indians—the heritage of that
vast horde that passed over the Bridge of the World from the days of
Balboa to the building of the canal.
In the various portions of the republic the Panamanian varies somewhat,
but only in the matter of blood, not in character. In the northern and
western provinces he is mainly of Spanish and Indian extraction; in the
Darien district and the east he is largely African, and in the cities
he is a combination of everything—a hodgepodge of races, of colors, and
of ancestry such as can be found on few spots on earth. But, whatever
his blood, the character, temperament, and point of view of the
Panamanian are virtually the same everywhere. He is conceited,
arrogant, lazy, and weak in physique. For centuries the people have
been content to live from the traffic across the isthmus, to cull a
livelihood from those who passed from ocean to ocean, and to neglect
their country’s resources. In the interior they have degenerated into
listless, abjectly poor, hook-worm-infested, undernourished,
unspeakably miserable creatures whose lives are as aimless as the
scrawny, tick-ridden cattle, and whose intellects are scarcely greater
than those of the beasts about them. In the cities the common people
are hardly superior, as far as physical or moral conditions are
concerned, and they are absolutely lacking in initiative, foresight, or
ambition, save in playing politics or in securing a soft government
job.
Of course there are exceptions. There are many decent, intelligent,
progressive, up-to-date and industrious men who have the interests and
the good of their country at heart; men who are honest and advanced in
their ideas and who would be a credit to any land. But these are a
woeful minority. And, moreover, even the best of the Panamanians are
neither builders, creators, manufacturers, masters of industry—or even
good business men. What few industries there are in Panama are run by
Americans; all the leading stores are in the hands of foreigners and
Hebrews. Chinese and East Indians control the bulk of the smaller
shops, and even the coal-black negroes from the British and French West
Indies outdo the native Panamanians as far as business ability and
progressiveness are concerned.
Is it any wonder, then, that Panama is undeveloped, largely unsettled,
backward, and poverty-stricken? Were it not for the canal and the
Americans, the country would have been ruined long ago. The towns were
pest-holes until our engineers stepped in and sanitized them. The
country was always in debt until an American fiscal agent took charge
of Panamanian finances and checked the wholesale robbery among the
officials. Panama’s income is almost entirely derived from Americans
and the canal, and without our aid and support the people could not
even have won their independence or have maintained it afterward.
But there is not the least gratitude for what we have done. There is no
more self-sufficient, egotistical, conceited man on earth than the
average Panamanian; and while he is wise enough to know on which side
his bread is buttered, he detests the Americans from the bottom of his
heart, and particularly resents the fact that under American
supervision the treasury cannot be looted at will by every political
hanger-on, grafter, and protégé of the officials.
The stranger does not at first realize the true condition of affairs in
the country, and is prone to take the Panamanians at their own
valuation; for they are smooth talkers and prate loudly of their
enlightenment, their progress, and their appreciation of the Americans.
But, like all Latin Americans, they are born diplomats, and laud
America publicly and curse her privately. Indeed, were it not for the
ever-present power of Uncle Sam, the lives and property of Americans
would be worth nothing in the republic; and, even as it is, crimes
against Americans are whitewashed whenever possible.
Do not think from the above that the Panamanian is totally lacking in
good qualities or redeeming features. He is intensely patriotic, he is
fond of music and art, he is outwardly a polished gentleman, and while,
as a rule, he has a streak of yellow in his make-up, yet individuals
have shown time and time again that they possess a high degree of
courage and self-sacrifice. On the whole, however, after one knows the
Panamanians and has lived among them, one is rather sorry that Morgan
did not make a clean job of it and wipe out all the inhabitants of Old
Panama when he had the chance, or that old Mansvelt did not hold St.
Catherine and from that vantage-point subdue the isthmus and add it to
Britain’s domains.
Panama is as rich, as fertile, and as fair a country as in the days of
its greatest prosperity—an almost virgin land of limitless forests,
stupendous mountains, vast rolling plains, great rivers, luxuriant
valleys, high table-lands, and untrodden wildernesses.
One may cross the isthmus by railway trains hauled by oil-burning
locomotives or may steam through the canal on huge liners. One may
whirl about Colon or Panama in motor-cars or may ride on trolleys. One
may live luxuriously in the palatial Tivoli or Washington Hotel, and
may find every convenience and comfort of New York in the shops; and
from morn to night one hears the bustle and the hum of modern progress
and activity. And yet, within a few hours of all this, within a hundred
and fifty miles of the teeming towns and the up-to-date Zone, is a vast
unknown territory, a land that the foot of no white man has ever trod,
a district wherein dwell Indians as primitive as those who gazed in
wonder at the ships of Columbus.
And, oddly enough, it was in this district, in Darien, that the first
Spanish settlement was made on the isthmus. It was across this wild and
untamed land that Balboa made his slow and difficult way to look upon
the Pacific, and it was through the Darien jungles that Sharp and
Dampier and their fellow buccaneers forced their way from the Atlantic
to the Pacific on that marvelous “dangerous voyage.”
Darien has changed little since then. The jungles are as impenetrable
as when the first Dons and the later buccaneers slashed through the
tangle of creepers and vines. Within the forests dwell the same Indians
as those Balboa fought and the same tribes that aided the pirates to
attack the hated Spaniards. One may still find the Chokois garbed only
in breech-cloths and wearing the strange wooden crowns described by
Ringrose and Dampier. One may still see the Kunas wearing the palm-wood
combs and the golden nose-rings that attracted the buccaneers’
attention and curiosity. And, just as in the days of Ringrose and his
fellows, there are friendly or “tame” red men and wild Indians, or
bravos, in Darien. As ever, the brown-skinned Chokois are friendly and
peaceable, although as primitive as at the time of Balboa’s expedition,
while the yellow-skinned Kunas are as implacable, as aloof, and as
unapproachable as when they tore the cruel Lolonais limb from limb.
But in addition to these wild tribesmen, who never permit a white man
or a strange red man within their territory, there are also “tame,” or,
as the Panamanians say, “mansos” Kunas, descendants of those who helped
and guided the buccaneers across the isthmus and were ever the allies
of the pirates—or, for that matter, any enemies of the hated Dons.
Wonderful tales are told in Panama and Colon of the wild Kunas, or, as
the people call them, “San Blas” Indians, of the forbidden district. It
is said that they either kill whoever enters their land, or else slice
off the soles of one’s feet and then turn one loose in the jungle; and
the Panamanians, as well as the Chokois, are in deadly fear of them. As
a matter of fact, while the Kunas do prevent strangers from entering
the territory they control, which extends from the upper Chukunaque to
the headwaters of the Bayano River, yet I doubt very much if they ever
kill or even maltreat a white man. Personally I have gone into their
forbidden district for a short distance, and have dwelt among the wild
Kunas for a fortnight, and I was treated well and made many friends
among them. But the bravos have seen the results of contact with
civilized or supposedly civilized man, and they have no intention of
permitting the native rubber-gatherers or gold-seekers to secure a
foothold in their country. And when one has seen what association with
other races does to the red men, one cannot blame the Kunas if they
adopt stern measures to keep their tribe pure and undefiled.
Inhabitants of this same Darien are the true San Blas Indians, who have
ever been confused with the Kunas, but are quite distinct—a peaceable,
friendly tribe dwelling on the Atlantic coast and the neighboring
islets. In the old days they were sworn friends of the pirates, and
rendered every British freebooter inestimable aid, from the time of
Drake to that of Patterson. As sailors they are unexcelled, and many
buccaneer ships dropped anchor off the San Blas isles and picked up the
stocky brown Indians to act as pilots on their forays up and down the
coasts.
The buccaneers treated the Indians fairly wherever they met them,
although no doubt their attitude toward the red men was due to selfish
motives rather than to any sense of humanity or decency. They well knew
how the Indians were treated by the Spaniards; they knew that by
treating them kindly and fairly they could win their confidence and
friendship and thus enlist them as allies against the Dons; and, most
of all, they were compelled to depend upon them very largely for food.
But, whatever the reason, they never molested or disturbed the
aborigines. Even when, as often happened, the Indians of some hitherto
untouched locality attacked them, the buccaneers never retaliated.
Instead, they endeavored to mollify the savages, made overtures of
friendship, gave them presents, or, if they found it impossible to make
peace with them, left the spot and the natives to themselves. In all
their records there is not a single instance of the pirates’
maltreating or killing Indians except on occasions when the Dons had
Indian friends who took part in battles against the buccaneers or in
case of those who were the Spaniards’ servants.
As a result, the corsairs always were welcomed to the Indian villages;
they always found refuge there in time of need; and the Indians gladly
supplied them with game, grain, and vegetables, and even with canoes
and guides. Indeed, without the guides and the craft supplied by the
Kunas and Chokois, Sharp’s “dangerous voyage” could never have been
accomplished, for it would have been out of the question for the
buccaneers to cross the isthmus, to gain the Pacific, and to attack the
Spanish fleet.
But even with the Indians’ help the feat was marvelous. When one
attempts to follow their route to-day and sees the country through
which they traveled, one realizes the odds against them. So dense is
the jungle that in many places it is impossible to proceed a yard
without cutting a way through the tangle of lianas, thorny bush, spiny
palms, poisonous plants, and tangled, razor-edged saw-grass. There are
deep, swift rivers, precipitous mountain sides, impassable ravines; and
yet through this wilderness these daring men forced a way led by their
Indian friends—and got through safely.
It is bad enough to cross Darien afoot in the dry season, with every
convenience, but the pirates, three hundred strong, undertook the
journey in the rainy season, April, and for provisions had only “four
cakes of bread” apiece, while their equipment consisted of a fusee, a
pistol, and a hanger each. In order that there might be no mistake and
their fellows be taken for enemies, the company was divided into seven
parties, each carrying a flag of a distinguishing color. With six
Indians as guides the three hundred and twenty-seven men set forth.
Through the jungle and up the mountains they toiled, fording or
swimming the streams, often crossing the same river a dozen times,
beset by noxious insects, filled with superstitious fears of monstrous
fabulous beasts, constantly drenched with rain but never halting, never
hesitating. Here and there they came to Indian villages which,
according to descriptions by Ringrose and Dampier, were exactly like
those one finds in Darien to-day, and everywhere the friendly Indians
supplied them with plantains, cassava, corn, and game. At last, without
the loss of a man, and with fifty Indians who had joined the
expedition, they reached the Santa Maria (now Tuira) River and embarked
in sixty-eight canoes supplied by the Indians.
But Ringrose says:
If we had been tired whilst traveling by land before, certainly we
were in a worse condition in our canoes. For at a distance of every
stone’s cast we were constrained to get out of our boats and haul
them over sand or rocks or over trees that lay across and filled up
the river, yea, several times over the very points of land itself.
All of which very vividly and precisely describes the conditions one
meets when traveling in Darien to-day, as I know from personal
experience.
And when at last they gained the broader reaches of the river and swept
down upon the little frontier town of El Real de Santa Maria, and with
fifty men took the fort despite its garrison of two hundred and sixty
men (with a loss among the pirates of only one killed and two wounded),
they found to their chagrin that they were just too late. Only three
days previously the accumulated treasure from the Caña mine—over three
hundred pounds of gold ingots—had been taken by ship to Panama, and El
Real was as bare as old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard.
But the pirates had no mind to return empty-handed. The treasure had
gone to Panama, and other riches were there, too, no doubt. So,
tumbling into the frail dugouts, they started for the great city,
nothing daunted, and, as already described in a previous chapter,
boarded and captured the Spanish fleet, took possession of the
flag-ship, and, transforming her into a pirate vessel, ravished the
coast of South America, and eventually rounded the Horn, and reached
the Caribbean in safety.
El Real is still in existence, and just below the present village one
may yet see the crumbling ruins of the town Sharp and his men took at
the conclusion of that terrible journey, through the jungle, from the
Atlantic.
In the old days El Real de Santa Maria was an important outpost, the
heavily guarded, stockaded repository of vast quantities of gold taken
from La Caña and scores of other mines in the district; while to it
from what is now Colombia were brought gold-dust and emeralds. But
Sharp’s raid spelled the doom of Darien. The Dons, realizing that where
pirates had once crossed others could find a way, felt that treasure
was unsafe there; mine after mine was abandoned, in fear of piratical
forays and owing to constant uprisings among the Indians; garrisons
were withdrawn and towns deserted, and the once incredibly rich
district was left to half-wild negroes and primitive red men. What
settlements are there to-day are miserable, squalid holes; the
inhabitants are lazy and shiftless, and while Darien’s forests are
still dense with dyewoods, valuable timber, and medicinal plants, while
its rivers still flow over golden sands, and while its mountains still
hold fortunes in mineral wealth, it is for the most part an untamed,
impenetrable wilderness.
CHAPTER XIX
PANAMA NEW AND OLD
The Panama which Sharp and his men approached in their bobbing little
canoes after that memorable trip across Darien, was the same city which
still looks forth across the Pacific from the shadow of Ancon Hill. But
it has altered greatly since the time when the pirates, knives in
teeth, swarmed over the taffrails of the Spanish ships and in
hand-to-hand battle won the day. And yet in many ways the description
given of the town by Ringrose would serve as well for the present town.
He says:
It stands in a deep bay and in form is round, excepting only that
part where it runs along the sea side. Formerly it stood four miles
to the east where it was taken by Sir Henry Morgan but then being
burnt they removed it to the place where it now stands. This new
city of which I speak is much bigger than the old one and is built
for the most part of brick, the rest being of stone and tiled. The
churches (not yet finished) are eight in number, whereof the chief
is called Santa Maria. The extent of the city comprehends better
than a mile in breadth and a mile and a half in length. The houses
for the most part are three stories high. It is well walled round
about with two gates belonging thereto, excepting only where a
creek comes into the city, the which, at high water, lets in barks,
to furnish the inhabitants with all sorts of necessities.... Round
about the city for the space of seven leagues, more or less, all
the country is savanna. Only here and there is to be seen a spot of
woody land.
There the similarity of Ringrose’s description to the present city
ceases, for he goes on to say:
The ground whereon the city stands is very damp and moist, which
renders the place of bad repute for the concern of health. The
water is also very full of worms. Here, one night after our
arrival, we found worms three quarters of an inch in length both in
our bed clothes and other apparel.
Of very “bad repute” for the “concern of health” was Panama, not only
in the buccaneers’ days, but up to the time when Yankee engineers and
Yankee energy and brains took charge and transformed the place from a
pest-hole into a clean and sanitary city, wherein the death-rate is now
as low as in the best of Northern cities. But no one except Ringrose
has ever called attention to the “worms,” though no doubt even to-day
he or any one else would find numerous other detestable creatures both
in his “bed clothes and other apparel” after a night spent in a native
Panamanian hotel or on a Panamanian ship in the offing.
Unquestionably, could Ringrose and his comrades look upon Panama from
the sea to-day they would recognize it, and could point out many a
familiar landmark, for outwardly the town has altered little. The walls
“round about” have disappeared in places, the “creek” is now dry land,
and where it was are buildings and streets; and the eight churches, and
more, have been finished, and many of them have crumbled to ruin in the
long years since Sharp’s literary pilot wrote his description. But the
town is still “round” except where it “runs along the sea side.” Its
houses are still mainly of brick and stone and tiles, and are mostly
two or three stories in height, and about it still stretch the savannas
with their spots of “woody land.”
But if the meticulous Ringrose could but step into Panama to-day he
would find it a very different city from the one he knew. Along the
smooth asphalt streets pass scores of jitneys, motor-cars, and rumbling
trolley-cars. Busy shops and great stores line the narrow sidewalks,
electric lights blaze everywhere at night, people of every color and
nationality throng the thoroughfares; motor-driven fire-engines,
glorious in red and gold, dash clangingly to infrequent fires. There
are ice-plants and breweries, great power-plants and saw-mills,
cabarets and motion-picture theaters; a splendid, white concrete
railway station and even electric signs. In other words, Panama to-day
is thoroughly up-to-date, a modern, clean, busy, and attractive town,
externally unaltered but internally completely transformed, while even
more modern and typically American, in sharp contrast to the typically
Spanish Panama, Ancon and Balboa rise upon the slopes of the hills
behind the old city that Ringrose and Sharp looked upon. But despite
its modernity in innumerable ways, Panama is still a bit of the Old
World, a bit of old Spain, a city of Spanish architecture and Spanish
plazas, with many a narrow, quaintly steep, and out-of-the-way street,
where the jutting balconies and grilled windows almost meet above one’s
head; with many a spot where time seems to have stood still while the
rest of the city went on, and with many a relic, many a survival of the
Panama of three centuries ago.
At the tip-end of the city is the old fortress of Chiriqui and the
Bovedas,—now used as a prison but still reminiscent of buccaneer
days,—a rambling structure partly above and partly under ground, with
low, broad walls and outstanding sentry-boxes, mellow with age and
unchanged from the day when it was built for the purpose of keeping the
dreaded and hated pirates from this treasure-house of Spain.
Along Avenue A, at the corner of Ninth Street, is the Herera Plaza, now
a children’s playground, the spot where the creek came into the city
which at high water let in barks. And a few steps up the hill on Ninth
Street, at the corner of Avenida Central, is the Piza Piza store, which
was once the Hotel Aspinwall, and which, not so long ago, was at the
waterfront of the same creek which Ringrose mentioned. Farther along
Avenue A, fragments of that massive wall “round about the city with two
gates” may be seen half concealed by houses and shops and partly in
ruins but still frowning and grim wherever it stands, while on Eleventh
Street it borders one side of the thoroughfare for nearly an entire
block. This, in the days of Ringrose, was the limit of the city to the
west, for Panama was by no means as large as he thought, but as it has
grown it has overflowed the old walls and has left them isolated in the
heart of the town like forgotten tombstones.
Some of the churches of which the pirate historian wrote are still to
be seen, though mostly in ruins, for in the fire which swept the city
in 1756 many of them were destroyed, and few were rebuilt. Santa Maria,
the “chief” one mentioned by Ringrose, has been superseded by the
cathedral with its pearl-shell-studded towers. San Francisco, on
Bolivar Plaza, has been modernized, externally at least, until it is no
longer recognizable, although its massive iron-studded portals with
their gigantic knockers a dozen feet above the street are still there.
Las Mercedes, at Avenida Central and occupying the block from Eighth to
Ninth Street, and Santa Ana on Santa Ana Plaza have been kept in repair
and remodeled. San Domingo, on Avenue A at Third Street, with its
celebrated flat arch, is scarcely more than a ruin, and crumbling walls
and falling masonry mark many another, while San Felipe de Neri, at
Avenue B and Fourth Street, remains as it was in Ringrose’s day.
Doubtless the chronicler often looked upon its great walls, with
stagings and ladders against them, and artisans at work, for San Felipe
was being built at the time of the buccaneers’ visit and was completed
in 1688.
These old churches are very interesting, even those in ruins; veritable
architectural curiosities, marvelous in their construction, for they
were built of the wreckage salvaged from the ruins of Old Panama.
Brick, cut stone, rubble, bits of ornately carved stone, odds and
ends—a hodgepodge of material forms their walls, and often, amid the
crumbling heterogeneous masonry, one may see some beautifully decorated
niche with its carven saint still intact and with its paint-work and
colored plaster as fresh and bright as though the rains and storms of
centuries had not beaten upon it.
But the most interesting church of all, the most interesting spot in
the whole of Panama City, is modest little San José at Eighth Street
and Avenue A, a plain white building, bare-walled and unimpressive
externally, but containing within the most gloriously dazzling sight in
all the republic—the golden altar of San José, whose history reads like
a romance and links the time of Morgan with the present. When the
pirates took old San Lorenzo, at the mouth of the Chagres, and word was
carried to Panama that the dreaded freebooters were on Panamanian soil
and making for the city, the terrified inhabitants rushed madly to
secrete and safeguard what treasures they possessed. The churches were
filled with a wealth of gold and silver vessels, jeweled chalices and
crucifixes, vestments heavy with gems and gold: and in San José,
richest of all the houses of God in the treasure-filled town, was the
famous, priceless altar of solid gold. Formed from the tithe of all
gold that came to Panama which was paid the church, this marvelous
structure was of plates of beaten metal beautifully chased, delicately
fashioned—a masterpiece of art worth a fabulous sum for the metal
alone.
Hastily the priests and monks gathered together their treasures, and
the Fathers of San José dismantled their altar and, stripping their
church, loaded their precious cargo on a waiting ship and put to sea,
along with many another craft bearing wealth untold. When the pirates
arrived, they found little in the way of ecclesiastical riches, and
ships were seized and sent in chase of the vessels, for by means of
torture Morgan had learned of their departure. But, though some were
overhauled and their treasures looted, the craft bearing the golden
altar of San José was never found.
Many of the ships that fled from the threatened city were never heard
from; no one knows their fate. Some no doubt were wrecked on
uninhabited parts of the coast, as befell on the shores of Darien. On
others, perchance, the crews mutinied and, killing their officers, made
off with the cargo, while rumor has it that much of the salvaged
treasure was buried on outlying islets and cays to keep it secure from
future pirate raids. But at any rate, chaos reigned after the
destruction of the city, and when the Spaniards moved from the scene of
slaughter and pillage and founded the new town the priests of San José
built themselves a church on Avenue A, a severely plain little building
close to the city walls and near that creek that Ringrose mentions. And
within their church, in place of the wondrous thing of gleaming gold,
the priests erected an insignificant white altar. Through fire and
flood, through lean and prosperous years, the little church and its
modest altar passed in safety. Dread of pirates troubled the Fathers of
San José not at all. They had nothing to tempt robbers, and gradually,
as the years passed, the famous altar and its story were forgotten. But
at last came a time when there was no longer fear of buccaneers, when
the despotic rule of Spain was ended, when revolutions were no more,
and when, under the protection of Uncle Sam, the new republic was sure
of a peaceful and stable future.
Then, for a time, the Fathers of San José worked quietly and in secret;
the little white altar was scraped and cleaned; and lo, the covering of
paint removed, the golden altar once more blazed forth in all its
long-forgotten glory!
There in the unimposing little church it stands, beneath a great window
of rich stained-glass through which the sun beats down in dazzling
radiance upon the burnished surface of the mass of gold. Unchanged in
all its delicate chasing and engraving, as beautiful and wonderful as
when it shone in its brilliancy in old Panama, the altar of San José
has endured through the centuries, unsuspected, a secret known only to
the Fathers of the church, to burst from its chrysalis of white paint
when the time was ripe. Probably it is the only treasure that survived
the pirates’ raid and still exists, the only remnant of that stupendous
store of priceless treasure which made Old Panama famous as the richest
city of New Spain.
But aside from this altar, so strangely and romantically saved from the
pillage and destruction of Panama, there is much to be seen of the old
city laid low by Morgan and his men. By motor-car one may travel easily
and quickly to the spot, a scant five miles along the shore from the
present city.
First of the ruins to be seen is the low, arched bridge of stone,
partly fallen but still spanning a little tidal stream—the very bridge
across which Morgan and his pirates swarmed on that fateful day in
1671. Beyond and to the left is the still massive ruin of a great
building; to the right are others; and standing, still majestic, above
all, is the tower of the old cathedral, all that remains of St.
Anastasio. In its roofless aisles great trees have grown; from crevices
and chinks in the masonry, plants, bushes, and vines have sprung; but
still the tower stands intact, the same “beautiful building whereof
makes a fair show at a distance like that of St. Paul’s in London,” as
Ringrose described it.
But it took a homesick seaman who had been long absent from London
Town, and had, perchance, dim memories of St. Paul’s, to see the
similarity between that mighty pile and St. Anastasio’s lonely tower.
Still, it is impressive as it stands there, a vivid reminder of the
pirates’ ruthlessness, a fitting monument to the countless innocent
people who died within its shadow and whose bones have long since
crumbled to dust among the undergrowth of this forsaken spot.
Close to the old church and at the very edge of the sea, still stands a
remnant of the city wall and the forts at the harbor mouth, and
scattered about among the underbrush are many other walls and ruins.
Unappreciative of such matters, though ever boastful of the ruins, the
Panamanians have allowed the site of Old Panama to be defiled by a
disreputable cantina or drinking- and dance-hall; and they have
neglected the place until, for the most part, it is a mere tangle, a
miniature jungle of weeds, bushes, and trees.
Dr. Dexter, while superintendent of the schools of Panama, devoted a
great deal of time to a thorough investigation of the ruins; and with
the aid of natives, supplied by the Government, the place was cleaned
of brush, and careful measurements and plans were made. From these Dr.
Dexter modeled a reproduction of the ruins of accurate scale, and then
secured from the archives of Seville copies of the original reports and
descriptions of Panama as it was in Morgan’s day.
From these data we know that the city was very different from the
generally accepted ideas of that “goode and statelye city” which
Esquemelling described as having “two thousand houses of magnificent
and prodigeous building, being all or the greatest part inhabited by
merchants of that country, who are vastly rich. For the rest of the
inhabitants of lesser quality and tradesmen, this city contained five
thousand houses more.” If by “magnificent and prodigeous building” the
chronicler of the raid meant stone or brick buildings, then he was
utterly at fault, for the official records show that there were few
buildings of stone or of note, and that the majority of the houses, as
well as some of the public buildings, were of wattled cane, wood, and
adobe thatched with palm. Moreover, the bulk of these were little more
than huts, and in the official description of the town the dwellings
were divided into two classes,—those with floors and those without,—and
those minus flooring were greatly in the majority.
But there is no reason to think that Esquemelling meant that the
“magnificent and prodigeous building” or the lesser houses were of
stone. Indeed, he specifically says: “All the houses of this city were
built with cedar, being of a very curious and magnificent structure.”
Had the town been of solid stone and masonry, as has been assumed
(although the buccaneers’ accounts do not state this), it would have
been a difficult matter to burn it to the ground, whereas we can
readily understand how the conflagration swept the hundreds of flimsy
wooden and cane structures before it and left only the indestructible
stone walls and buildings standing.
Unquestionably, in comparison with other cities of its day Panama was a
“goode and statelye” town, for it contained the massive St. Anastasio
Cathedral, seven monasteries, and two nunneries; at least four
churches, a hospital, a great number of stables wherein were kept the
horses and mules used in transporting treasure and merchandise over the
Gold Road; a huge public market; a “statelye and magnificent house
belonging to the Genoese for their trade and commerce in negroes”; a
number of big warehouses; barracks; a governor’s house; a vault wherein
were stored the treasures to be transported; and several forts, most of
which were of massive stone construction. The ruins of all of these may
still be traced, although the greater portion of the ruined churches,
monasteries, and other buildings were torn down and the material
carried to the new city of Panama, where it was used in constructing
the buildings.
In clearing up the ruins, Dr. Dexter also secured an enormous
collection of odds and ends, many of which were of great historical
interest. There were bottles and glassware; crockery; buttons; coins;
remains of daggers, guns, and pistols; sword hilts; locks; household
utensils, et cetera. Some of them were in a good state of preservation,
but most of them had been partly melted by the flames and illustrated
graphically the terrific heat of the fire which Esquemelling tells us
“continued for four weeks after the day it began.”
Never in the history of piracy has there been such wanton destruction.
Not only was the city burned, but, out of pure villainy, Morgan set the
torch to two hundred warehouses in which the pirate chief had placed
“great numbers of slaves together with an infinite number of sacks of
meal.”
There has been much confusion as to the origin of the fire, and it has
been contended that it was accidental, or that the residents started
the blaze in order to keep the pirates from occupying the town. But
there is not the least question that it was the deliberate act of
Morgan, who was in a frenzy of demoniacal rage when he found that after
his hard battle and heavy losses the bulk of the valuables had been
“transported to remote and occult places.” Esquemelling, who was
present at the sack of the town and who should know the truth, states
particularly:
The same day about noon [the day the town was taken] he caused
certain men privately to set fire to several great edifices of the
city, nobody knowing whence the fire proceeded nor who were the
authors thereof, much less what motives persuaded Captain Morgan
thereto, which are as yet unknown to this day.
But he goes on to say:
Captain Morgan endeavored to make the public believe the Spaniards
had been the cause thereof, which suspicions he surmised among his
own people, perceiving they reflected upon him for that action.
That the houses were, as I have said, of flimsy construction is evident
from Esquemelling’s statement that “in less than half an hour the fire
consumed a whole street”; and later he says, speaking of the Genoese
slave market: “This building likewise was commanded by Captain Morgan
to be set on fire; whereby it was burnt to the ground.”
Doubtless the villainous Morgan, finding his own men demurred at thus
destroying a city without cause (and perhaps realizing that by so doing
he could not demand the usual ransom), endeavored to put the blame on
the unfortunate inhabitants, as Esquemelling says, but he was a ready
liar, an utterly unprincipled scoundrel, and time and again betrayed
the trust his men placed in him. So there is no use in trying to lessen
the blackness of his character by endeavoring to absolve him of the
crime of burning old Panama or of cremating the helpless slaves.
The taking of the city was the most noteworthy exploit ever performed
by the buccaneers; in accomplishing it they displayed unparalleled
bravery; they endured untold hardships and sufferings; they conquered
against overwhelming odds, and with a scant one thousand men Morgan
achieved what many a general with an army at his back would have
hesitated to undertake. But he spoiled all by his execrable cruelty and
by wanton, ruthless destruction, and to the end of time the sack of
Panama will remain as the most utterly disgraceful and detestable crime
of the British buccaneers. As long as the crumbling stones of Old
Panama stand they will remain mute testimonials of the most despicable
act of that most despicable rascal, Sir Henry Morgan.
CHAPTER XX
HOW MORGAN KEPT HIS PROMISE
When Morgan sent his pistol and his bullets to the viceroy of Panama
with word that he would call for them in person within the twelvemonth,
it is doubtful if he dreamed of doing so. But there is many a true word
spoken in jest, and Harry Morgan was ever fond of jesting—in earnest.
While pressing matters delayed him elsewhere and the twelve months
passed without his appearance at Panama (for which, no doubt, the
viceroy gave fervid thanks to his saints), yet all too soon for the
Dons he kept his half-joking promise to the letter.
Having established his reputation as a buccaneer leader by the
successful if not very remunerative attack on Puerto Principe, Morgan
proceeded to equip a fleet and recruit men for a still greater coup,
which was nothing less than a descent upon Maracaibo. Never in the
history of this unfortunate town, which had been repeatedly ravished by
pirates, were such cruelties and inhumanities practised as by Morgan
and his ruffians. Even Lolonais, who had been there, could not invent
atrocities so fiendish as those devised and put into execution by the
British buccaneer, and when at last he sailed away he left the place
fairly heaped with burned, racked, broken, and dying men and women.
But so successful had he been, so cleverly had he outwitted the Spanish
fleet sent to block his exit from the Lake of Maracaibo, and so
complete had been his victory over the Spanish ships of war that his
prestige was enormously increased, and he at once began to plan greater
deeds.
Compared with the plan Morgan now had in mind, his former exploits had
been mere bagatelles, for his intention was to gather together the most
tremendous pirate fleet ever assembled and with it attack Vera Cruz,
Cartagena, or Panama. All three were marvelously rich towns, and all
three were heavily fortified. While Panama promised by far the greatest
loot, yet the difficulties to be overcome in taking it seemed well-nigh
insurmountable.
Although, as Esquemelling mentions, Morgan’s name and fame were enough
to bring him more men and ships than he could employ, still, to make
sure of gathering a large enough force, Morgan sent letters to “all the
ancient and expert pirates inhabiting Tortuga,” to the half-wild
hunters and planters of Haiti, and to the rascals on Trade Wind Cay. In
ships, canoes, and boats the buccaneers came, responding to his summons
from far and near, even traversing the forests of Hispaniola on foot,
until on October 24, 1670, the army of cutthroats was assembled.
To provision his expedition, Morgan despatched four ships to Rio de la
Hacha, where the crews sacked the town, tortured the inhabitants, and
secured four thousand bushels of maize. In the meantime, his men had
been busy hunting, and thus thoroughly provisioned, with bucanned meat
and corn, the fleet set sail from La Vaca Island, and at Cape Tiburon,
Haiti, met those who were coming from Jamaica.
The fleet now numbered thirty-seven ships, the largest of which was
Morgan’s, mounting twenty-two large and six small guns, while the
smallest vessel carried four. Never in the annals of piracy had such a
fleet been seen, and with two thousand fighting fiends, in addition to
the sailors, Morgan felt confident that he could take any city of the
Spanish Main.
When the other captains were summoned to a council and lots were drawn
to decide their objective, the choice fell upon Panama. So dangerous
did the pirates consider this adventure that the usual accident
insurance to be paid for loss of limbs, eyes, et cetera, was greatly
increased, fifteen hundred pieces of eight being adjudged right for the
loss of both legs, eighteen hundred for the loss of both hands, six
hundred for either leg, the same for a hand, and one hundred pieces of
eight for an eye. In addition, heavy rewards were offered for special
acts of bravery, and the usual bonuses of the officers were increased.
All this being arranged, the flotilla set sail, but Morgan had no mind
to leave an enemy in his rear and decided first to attack and conquer
Old Providence (St. Catherine). Not only would this leave a way clear
for his retreat, but, in addition, he well knew that countless outlaws
and bandits were deported to this island from Panama and that these
scoundrels would serve him well as guides.
So great was Morgan’s fame by now that the governor of Old Providence
made no show of resistance,—although the place was heavily fortified
and well garrisoned,—and offered to surrender provided Morgan would
enter into a scheme by which his Excellency might save his face, and
his neck as well. This was nothing more nor less than for Morgan to
make a sham attack which the governor would pretend to resist. The
scheme was carried out; the island fell into the buccaneers’ hands
without a real blow being struck, and the pirates at once proceeded to
rob the people. They destroyed the forts, spiked the guns, and secured
thirty thousand pounds of powder, vast amounts of ammunition, and
several hundred muskets.
As Morgan had foreseen, there were outlawed bandits on the island, and
three of these gladly offered to join his ranks. The next step in the
game was in a way the most difficult of all, for in order to reach
Panama or to ascend the Chagres River it was necessary to silence Fort
San Lorenzo at the river’s mouth, a fortification which was considered
absolutely impregnable and had been strengthened and more heavily armed
since the capture of Porto Bello two years previously.
Making the excuse that if he sent his entire fleet the Dons would
suspect his designs upon Panama, but unquestionably in reality
preferring not to risk his own precious life in the taking of a place
which would yield no loot, Morgan sent four ships with four hundred men
under charge of Captain Brodely (one of the “ancient and expert
pirates” referred to by Esquemelling), with orders to take San Lorenzo.
Although all the credit for this spectacularly daring and almost
hopeless task is always given to Morgan, he actually had no hand in it,
but waited in safety at St. Catherine, enjoying good wine and excellent
food while Brodely took all the risks and paved the way for the descent
upon Panama.
Never in all their savage conflicts did the pirates do harder and more
desperate fighting than that at San Lorenzo. We are so accustomed to
hearing of the buccaneers’ uninterrupted victories that we have come to
think that the Spaniards were cravens, and that they offered little
resistance to their enemies. But this is a great mistake. Even the
buccaneers freely acknowledged the courage, the determination, and the
valor of the Spanish troops. In every case, with the exception of the
treacherous surrender of Old Providence by its governor, the Spaniards
fought like furies, and in nearly every battle they performed feats of
bravery that won the greatest admiration and praise from the pirates.
But they were always taken by surprise, were always at a disadvantage,
and they were not the adepts at hand-to-hand fighting that the
buccaneers were.
Never before had the pirates been so hard put to it as in the taking of
the massive fort that guarded the entrance to the Chagres. For an
entire night and the following day the battle raged, and when at last
the fort was in the hands of the buccaneers they found but thirty men
remaining of the three hundred and fourteen who had formed its
garrison, and not one officer was left alive. Indeed, many of the
Spaniards, finding the place was about to fall, cast themselves from
the parapets into the river, or upon the rocks at the base of the
cliffs, rather than surrender to the hated English.
And had it not been for a mere accident it is questionable if the
pirates could have won the day. For hours they had made not the least
headway, for outside of the fortress proper were heavy palisades of
stakes set in double rows and filled between with earth, and so galling
was the fire from the soldiers that, try as they might, the attacking
force could not approach these to set them afire or pull them down. But
during an assault an arrow from the fort struck one of the pirates in
the back and passed completely through his body.
With a curse the fellow dragged the arrow from the wound, wrapped a bit
of rag about it, rammed it down his musket, and fired it at the
Spaniards. Mad with pain as he was, his only thought was to use the
first missile that came to hand, but his act won the day for the
buccaneers. The cotton cloth, catching fire from the powder, dropped
upon the tinder-like thatch of a house within the fort, and in an
instant it was in flames. Close at hand was a great quantity of powder,
and ere the Dons realized what had occurred there was a terrific
explosion which killed many of the soldiers, dismounted several cannon,
and caused consternation and confusion among the defenders of the fort.
Taking advantage of this, the pirates rushed the works, fired and
pulled down the palisades, and clambering across the moat, which was
filled with the earth falling from between the palisades, gained the
interior of the fortress.
But the fight was by no means over. Inch by inch the Spaniards
contested the pirates’ advance, fighting furiously with swords,
pistols, and even sticks and stones, while others sought desperately to
extinguish the fire now raging within the castle. Although the
buccaneers had made the breach and had entered the inner fortifications
soon after midnight, yet they had gained not a dozen yards at noon on
the following day, and back and forth the battle raged, first one side,
then the other, gaining an advantage, while dead and wounded fell on
every hand, and Dons and Britons were piled deep in bloody heaps. Soon
after noon, however, the pirates gained a breach where the Spanish
governor himself with a company of picked corps de garde was stationed,
and after desperate hand-to-hand fighting the brave governor fell with
a musket ball through his brain.
Demoralized by the death of their leader, the corps de garde
surrendered, when, to their amazement, the pirates found that, besides
these twenty-five picked men, only five Spaniards remained alive and
that of the thirty survivors more than twenty were seriously wounded.
The pirates also had lost heavily; in fact, their losses were the
greatest they had ever suffered in an attack, for over one hundred men
had been killed, and more than seventy were seriously wounded.
Forcing the captured Spaniards to cast the dead bodies over the walls
into the river, the victorious pirates then shut the wounded men and
the few women into the stone church above the fort and proceeded to
repair the damages, after sending word of the victory to Morgan.
But the leader’s plans had in a way fallen through, for he had thought
to take San Lorenzo quickly and to annihilate the Dons, so that no
warning of the pirates’ approach would reach Panama. Despite the
ferocity of the assault, the desperate fighting, and the fact that the
fortress was constantly surrounded by the buccaneers, a party of eight
daring Spaniards volunteered to attempt to get through the pirates’
lines, make their way to the capital, and give warning of the enemy’s
approach. It seemed an all but hopeless undertaking, but the men
succeeded. They reached Panama in safety, and ere Morgan started up the
river on his way across the isthmus the inhabitants knew of his coming
and were preparing to meet him.
Before leaving Old Providence, en route to San Lorenzo and Panama,
Morgan sacked the island, put the town and all the houses to the torch,
and, leaving only the one fortress of Santa Teresa, which he garrisoned
with his own men, he made prisoners of the people, placed them aboard
his ships, and set sail for the Chagres. At the mouth of the river four
of his ships went on the bar and were lost, among them the flag-ship,
but by heroic efforts all lives were saved—with the exception of a few
score of Spanish captives, who were of course of no account whatsoever
in the pirates’ estimation!
Reaching captured San Lorenzo, Morgan hoisted the British colors over
it (the rascal invariably committed his villainies under the British
ensign), and, chaining his prisoners in gangs, he forced them to labor
from dawn till dark at repairing the fortress, setting up a new
palisade, and remounting the guns. He had no intention of leaving the
Chagres unguarded so that a Spanish fleet could enter and bottle him up
on the isthmus. Having reconditioned the fortress and garrisoned it
with five hundred men, in addition to one hundred and fifty men on the
ships anchored in the stream, he felt quite secure and with twelve
hundred desperate pirates he and his fellows embarked in five large
boats and thirty-two canoes and started up the Chagres.
At the spot called Cruz de Juan Gallego, which they reached on the
second day, the company were compelled to desert their boats, for it
was the middle of the dry season (January) and the river was so low
that farther navigation was impossible.
Then began a journey of hardship, suffering, and dogged perseverence
which is almost unparalleled. The pirates had carried few provisions,
expecting to supply themselves from settlements and Indian camps on the
way, but word had gone ahead of their coming, every village and camp
was deserted, fields had been destroyed, and provisions taken away. Day
after day they tramped on, ever rushing madly toward some clearing or
group of huts, only to curse and rave when they found them deserted,
surrounded by smoking, blackened gardens, and without a morsel of
anything that could be eaten.
On the fourth day so ravenous had the men grown that they actually
devoured their leathern wallets, in order, as Esquemelling informs us,
“to afford something to the ferment of their stomachs, which was now
grown so sharp that it did gnaw their very bowels, having nothing else
to prey upon.” Maddened with hunger, they even fought over the scraps
of leather, and their chronicler continues: “Thus they made a huge
banquet upon those bags of leather, which doubtless had been more
grateful unto them if divers quarrels had not arisen as to who should
have the greatest share.” Indeed, they were ready for cannibalism, and
Esquemelling, referring to the Spaniards they hoped to meet, says,
“Whom they would certainly in that occasion have roasted or boiled to
satisfy their famine.”
But neither Dons nor foodstuffs were forthcoming, and with hunger
somewhat assuaged by their meal of leather they plodded wearily on,
most of them bereft even of the leathern equipment to devour, while a
few, who were more fortunate, had reserved a portion of their former
rations. “Here again he was happy,” says their historian, “that had
reserved since noon any small piece of leather whereof to make his
supper.”
Furthermore, Esquemelling goes into details regarding the culinary
phase of this leathern diet, evidently thinking that some future
traveler on the isthmus might find it of value in preparing an evening
meal. He says:
Some persons who were never out of their mothers’ kitchens may ask
how these Pyrates could eat, swallow and digest these pieces of
leather so hard and dry. To whom I only answer: That could they
once experiment with hunger, or rather famine, is that they would
certainly find the manner, by their own necessity as the Pyrates
did. For these first took the leather and sliced it in pieces. Then
did they beat it between two stones and rub it, often dipping it in
the water of the river to render it by these means supple and
tender. Lastly they scraped off the hair and roasted or broiled it
upon the fire. And being thus cooked they cut it into small morsels
and eat it, helping it down with frequent gulps of water, which by
good fortune they had near at hand.
Evidently there was some sustenance in the dried hides, for there is no
mention of any one having died of starvation, but hunger was not the
only trouble with which the company met. At every turn they were beset
by ambuscades; they were harassed by Indian allies of the Dons, who
shot poisoned arrows from the woods and hurled down rocks in narrow
defiles, until on the sixth day they discovered a cave containing two
sacks of meal, a few plantains, and two jars of wine. This providential
find was distributed by Morgan among the weakest men, who were put into
canoes; and, heartened and encouraged, the great troop pressed on and
on the following day found a store of maize in an Indian camp. On the
seventh day they also captured some emaciated cats and dogs which had
been deserted by the fleeing natives, and these they instantly killed
and devoured. On the same day they found sixteen jars of wine which
they gulped down, only to fall deathly sick as a result.
And yet not one man complained, not one thought of turning back. Ahead
lay Panama and its vast treasure; and subsisting on stray dogs and cats
and half-burnt corn, or going hungry, the company stumbled ever onward,
until, on the ninth day after leaving San Lorenzo, they ascended a hill
and saw the vast Pacific stretching to the horizon.
Filled with joy, shouting and laughing and cursing by turns, the
pirates hurried down the hill and reached a vale where a herd of
donkeys and horses and a few cattle were grazing. Falling upon these
beasts, the pirates slaughtered them, half roasted the still quivering
flesh over fires, and had their first full meal in more than a week.
Esquemelling says of them:
“Such was their hunger that they more resembled cannibals than
Europeans at this banquet, the blood many times running down from their
beards to the middle of their bodies.”
Having finished the meal and satisfied themselves with “these delicious
morsels,” the men resumed the march, and a little later they came
within sight of the tower of the cathedral—that same stone tower that
to-day stands alone and in ruins beside the sea. Here they pitched camp
for the night and, “sounding their trumpets and drums” (which are not
usually associated with pirates), prepared to attack the city at break
of day. That same evening a troop of fifty cavalry approached almost
within musket shot, taunted the pirates with derisive shouts, and
retired to the city, leaving a few scouts to watch the enemy’s
movements. Soon after this the big guns of the city began to thunder,
the shots falling about the pirates’ camp but doing no damage.
The following morning the buccaneers formed in columns, sounded their
trumpets, and with drums beating marched toward the doomed town,
choosing a trail through the woods to avoid attacks by the cavalry. In
the meantime the governor of Panama had gathered two squadrons of
cavalry, four regiments of infantry, a huge herd of wild bulls, and a
number of Indians and negroes to resist the invaders. Coming from the
woods and looking down upon the plain, the pirates were amazed at the
forces arrayed against them, and for the first time became doubtful of
their success. Indeed, as their chronicler puts it: “Yea few or none
there were but wished themselves at home, or at least free from the
obligation of that engagement, wherein they perceived their lives must
be narrowly concerned.”
But needs must when the devil drives, and the devil himself was there
in the person of Morgan. Being ordered to advance, the company marched
against the Dons. Fortunately for the pirates, heavy rains had rendered
the ground soft and soggy, the cavalry could not manœuver, and the
first squadron of two hundred pirates fired such a well-aimed volley of
musketry that “the battle was instantly kindled very hot.” Although the
fire was returned with vigor, and despite the Spaniards’ “valiant
attempts,” the pirates succeeded in separating the various groups of
soldiery and fell upon them tooth and nail. Thinking to demoralize the
enemy, the Spaniards drove herds of bulls against them, but the cattle,
frightened at the firing and the drums, scattered and ran away, while
the few that broke through the pirates’ ranks were quickly killed and
did no damage.
For two hours the battle raged, the Spanish cavalry suffering almost
total annihilation. The infantry, seeing the tide of battle turning in
favor of the enemy, threw down their arms and took to their heels. But
the exhausted pirates, after days of suffering and hours of fierce
fighting, could not follow up the advantage. They contented themselves
with hunting the wounded Spaniards down, murdering them in cold blood,
and capturing some priests and taking them before Morgan, who had them
instantly pistoled.
From one captive captain Morgan learned by means of torture that the
entire force in the city was less than three thousand, and, also
discovering how the forts and guns were disposed, he planned to change
his route to the city. But the pirates had not won the day without
loss, though their three hundred men killed or wounded were far less
than the six hundred dead and several hundred wounded among the Dons.
With their captives in the van, the pirates rushed on the town,
fighting doggedly at every turn, cut down by volleys of musketry and
cannon shot, mutilated by scrap-iron with which the Spaniards had
charged their howitzers, and after three hours of desperate fighting
and heavy loss won the low-arched bridge and poured, shouting and
yelling, into the town.
Then hell broke loose in earnest. The buccaneers, mad with fighting,
frenzied at the losses inflicted upon them, drunk with lust of blood,
ran hither and thither, shooting, cutting, stabbing all they met;
looting right and left, yelling like fiends, and ripping and tearing
tapestries, hangings, and paintings from the houses.
With difficulty, and only after shooting down several of his men,
Morgan succeeded in gathering them together and commanded them under
threat of the most severe punishment to refrain from touching wines or
liquor,—not that he had any scruples against drinking, but because he
feared poison. Also, no doubt he wished to prevent his men from
becoming so befuddled with drink that the Spaniards could retake the
city.
This matter being settled, Morgan turned his men loose once more, and
from building to building, from house to house they ran, slashing
priceless furnishings, battering down doors, trampling silks and
velvets underfoot, destroying, murdering, looting. From their
hiding-places they dragged cowering, trembling women, and in a stream
the captives and the loot were carried to Morgan.
But, as we have seen, the most valuable treasures, the gold and silver
and jewels of the churches, the bulk of plate and bullion from the
treasury, the greatest private fortunes, had been carried to sea, and
Morgan, in a towering rage, sent vessels in chase and in his fury
burned the town. In addition, he sent searching parties into the woods
and these returning brought prisoners from far and near about the
country-side, who were “presently put to the most exquisite tortures
imaginable to make them confess both other people’s goods and their
own.”
One man happened to be garbed in “taffety breeches” belonging to his
master, and the pirates assumed from his raiment that he was a person
of position. Moreover, he had a small silver key hanging at his belt.
Questioned as to where the cabinet to which the key belonged was
secreted, the poor trembling fellow declared he was a servant and knew
not where his master had taken the cabinet. Instantly, Morgan had the
terrified, babbling serving-man placed upon the rack and disjointed.
This failed to wring from his tortured lips the secret he was supposed
to know, and the pirates twisted a cord about his forehead until, as
Esquemelling assures us, “his eyes appeared as big as eggs and were
ready to fall from his skull.” Finding that even this had not the
desired result, Morgan had him hung up, beat him almost to death, cut
off his ears and nose, singed his face with burning straw, and finally
had a negro run him through with a lance and put an end to his agonies.
“After this execrable manner did many others of those miserable
prisoners finish their days,” says Esquemelling, and adds: “The common
sport and recreation of these Pyrates being these and other tragedies
not inferior.”
Sex or age made no difference. Children and women were tortured,
ravished, and murdered, although when those of evident high standing
and wealth were taken, they were usually put aside and kept in safety
for ransom.
For three long weeks the pirates wrought their will in Panama; and
then, having scraped it bare, having desolated the country about, and
having secured every man and woman within reach, Morgan prepared to
leave. On February 24, 1671, he evacuated the ruined town and with one
hundred and seventy-five mules laden with gold, silver, and precious
stones, silks and velvets, satins and brocades, and accompanied by over
six hundred prisoners began his return march toward San Lorenzo and the
Atlantic.
With fiendish cruelty Morgan ordered that the poor captives, most of
whom were women and children, should be given barely enough food and
water to keep them alive, his idea being, as our old friend
Esquemelling explains, that “it would excite them more earnestly to
seek money wherewith to ransom themselves according to the tax which
had been set upon every one.”
Never had the great forest trees and the smiling plains looked upon a
more pitiful, a more harrowing scene than that of those starved and
thirsty prisoners marching under the broiling sun, urged on with
curses, coarse jests, and blows; wading rivers, stumbling through muck,
clad in laces and silks and high-heeled, flimsy shoes, and bare-headed.
Bereft of homes and loved ones, unaccustomed to hardship, unused to
walking a dozen rods, these delicate, carefully nurtured ladies were
flogged like beasts, and subjected to every insult and indignity. If
they dropped from hunger or exhaustion, a blow from a pirate followed;
if they stumbled and fell, they were jerked to their feet by their
disheveled hair. “Nothing else was heard but lamentations, cries,
shrieks and doleful sighs,” said Esquemelling, and many fell by the
wayside and were ruthlessly trampled underfoot or more mercifully run
through with a cutlass still stained with the blood of those cut down
in the city. Many of the women fell upon their knees, begging Morgan to
put an end to their sufferings with death, or to let them return to the
bodies of those they loved; but to all the callous brute, who was later
honored by the King of England, replied that “he came not thither to
hear lamentations and cries but rather to seek money.”
Though the villain was unmoved by the sights and scenes which should
have melted a heart of stone, yet on that dreadful march he showed a
streak of gallantry which he was known occasionally to exhibit. Among
the prisoners taken at Panama was one “beautiful and virtuous lady,” a
woman of wealth and refinement whom Morgan had selected for himself.
But she being, as Esquemelling says, “in all respects like unto
Susannah for constancy,” and having refused Morgan’s offers of pearls,
gold, and money, and likewise having repulsed his amorous advances,
Morgan stripped the rich garments from her back and cast her into a
dungeon on a scant diet of bread and water. But so beautiful was the
captive, and so brave and virtuous, that even the rough buccaneers took
pity upon her, and Morgan, realizing that he had overstepped the bounds
of even pirate propriety, released her and held her for ransom.
On the second day of the march this abused lady’s lamentations “now did
pierce the skies,” and she declared to the two ruffians who guarded her
that she had given orders to two priests to go to a certain spot and
bring her ransom, that they had promised to do so, but, having secured
the cash, had made use of it to ransom one of their own brotherhood.
The pirate guards carried the story to Morgan, who at once halted his
march, interviewed a slave who had brought the lady word of the friars’
duplicity, and even apprehended the priests and wrung a confession from
them. Thereupon he placed his hand on his heart, swept the ground with
his plumed hat, begged a thousand pardons of his captive beauty, set
her at liberty, provided her with an armed escort to accompany her to
her home, and—wonder of wonders!—presented her with the ransom money as
a gift! Not content with this, he hanged the two deceitful priests from
the nearest tree, and calmly proceeded on his way.
It is needless to dwell upon that terrible march across the isthmus,
the sack of towns en route, the sufferings of the captives, or the
voyage down the Chagres. On March 9th the buccaneers and all their
prisoners and loot arrived at San Lorenzo, and at once complaints arose
that Morgan had retained more than his share of the loot. For when the
vast treasure was divided as Morgan saw fit, it was found that the
pirates received but a paltry two hundred pieces of eight each for
their share. But though his followers accused him openly of cheating,
none dared offer personal violence, and he ordered the fort demolished,
the guns taken aboard the buccaneers’ ships, and the buildings burned.
Then, while the men were busy at these tasks, the detestable scoundrel
sneaked off, boarded his own ship, and having secretly seized all the
available provisions, sailed away, leaving his followers to fare as
best they might—which was ill indeed.
Never in the history of the pirates had any captain been disloyal to
his men in this way, and had the buccaneers been able to lay hands upon
him Morgan’s career would have come to an abrupt as well as unpleasant
end, then and there. Realizing that to go to Tortuga would mean falling
into the wronged men’s hands, Morgan sailed boldly to Port Royal, where
he was promptly arrested and, in company with the governor, was sent a
prisoner to England. The rest of his story I have told. Knighted and
honored, he came back to Jamaica as lieutenant-governor, a pirate
Judas, to betray and hang his own men. He died in obscurity, but his
deeds, nefarious as they were, will live forever. For years to come the
ruins of old Panama will stand beside the Pacific, everlasting
monuments to his ruthless villainy, and upon its bluff old San Lorenzo
still stands, grim, frowning, but deserted! Its moat is dry and choked
with weeds, its guns lie dismounted and thick with rust; its vast
underground passages and rooms are empty; its parapets are crumbling
away. But within its dungeons may still be seen the manacles that held
the few survivors of that bloody battle; beneath the massive walls the
Chagres still ripples gently on its way to the sea; upon the bar the
waves still break and roar where Morgan’s ships went down.
Standing here to-day, it is hard to realize that once the peaceful spot
rang to the clash of steel, the crash of musketry, and the roar of
cannon; that curses and shots, cries of St. Jago and St. George,
shrieks of dying men, and the groans of wounded echoed from the hills;
that these ancient, weather-beaten stones once ran with blood; that the
weed-grown slopes were dotted with dead and dying men; that bodies lay
piled in heaps about the sally-ports and guns, and that Don and
buccaneer struggled in mortal combat where now gorgeous butterflies
flit from flower to flower in the sun and swallows nest beneath the
parapets.
For centuries old San Lorenzo has thus stood. For centuries it will
stand. It is almost as enduring as the living rock on which it rests.
Fire and shot have scarcely left a scar upon it. The pirates’ greatest
efforts at destruction made hardly an impression. The elements affect
it little, and until its last age-gray stone has crumbled to dust it
will bind the present with the past, and the past with Morgan—the
greatest pirate of them all, the most daring, most famous, and most
villainous of the buccaneers.
NOTES
[1] Dampier was the son of a Somerset farmer, but at seventeen years of
age was apprenticed to a sea captain sailing from Weymouth. Deserting
in the West Indies, he took to the occupation of a logwood cutter for a
time, and later joined the buccaneers. He wrote several books, working
at his manuscripts between battles, and keeping his notes in a joint of
bamboo which, to use his own words, he “kept stopt at the ends with wax
to keep out water. In this I preserved my Journal and other Writings
tho’ I was often forced to swim.” His descriptions of fauna and flora,
his maps, and his detailed accounts of the Indians and their customs
and languages are of great scientific value, though his conclusions are
often erroneous.
[2] Esquemelling was a Hollander who went to Hispaniola in the capacity
of clerk for the French West India Company. When the latter withdrew
their business from Tortuga and sold off all their possessions, the
clerk went to the auction block with the other chattels and was
purchased for three hundred pieces of eight (approximately $300.00) by
a cruel master. Under the treatment accorded him Esquemelling became
dangerously ill, and his owner, fearing to lose his slave and his money
at the same time, disposed of the sick man, for seventy pieces of
eight, to a surgeon who treated Esquemelling kindly, nursed him to
health, and granted him his freedom on condition that the penniless
ex-clerk should pay him one hundred pieces of eight when able to do so.
He promptly joined the buccaneers and took part in most of their
notable exploits for nearly seven years. His records, especially his
“Buccaneers of America,” are the best histories of these men extant.
[3] According to the most reliable records, the Vigilant was built in
Baltimore in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Originally
named the Nonesuch, she was intended for a privateer, but, the
Revolution being virtually over before she was launched, she was sold
and won an unsavory reputation as a pirate. She later turned privateer,
during the War of 1812, and afterward engaged in the slave-trade until
England’s anti-slavery crusade made this work too dangerous. She was
then sold again, and became a notorious smuggler. Still later she
changed hands once more, and under her new owner, a Danish West Indian
merchant, resumed privateering with letters of marque from the Danish
Government. In 1825 the Vigilant became a man-of-war. A Spanish
privateer had been harassing the Danish shipping, and, all available
Danish warships being too large to follow through the shallow channels
where she sought refuge, the Vigilant was chartered and a company of
soldiers concealed upon her. As she cruised within sight of the
privateer the latter swept down upon her, thinking her a helpless
merchantman, only to be surprised and completely overwhelmed by the
hidden troops. After this episode the old schooner became a peaceful
mail-packet among the Virgin Islands. She has been repeatedly sunk and
raised again. In the hurricane of 1876 she went on a reef off
Christiansted, St. Croix, and again, in 1916, a hurricane sent her to
the bottom in almost the same spot. Her rig originally was that of a
topsail schooner, but this was later changed to that of a fore-and-aft
schooner with gaff topsails. Probably very little besides the keel and
timbers of the original craft remains, as she has been repaired from
time to time during her long career.
[4] The origin of the colloquial name of “Bimshire Land” for Barbados
and of “Bims” for its natives appears to puzzle many people. One writer
in a well-known magazine went so far as to suggest that it was a
corruption of “bam”! In reality it was applied to the island owing to
the fact that Robert Bims (who was one of the earliest colonizers of
St. Kitts), hearing of Barbados, went there with a party of settlers
and took possession. Half-humorously and half-sarcastically (for it was
generally believed the island was worthless) it was referred to as
“Bim’s Shire,” a nickname which has always stuck.
[5] This is an excerpt from a report by Captain Thomas Warner, the
founder of the colony, who lies buried in Middle Island Church on the
highway between Sandy Point and Basseterre, where his tombstone informs
us that he “boughte an illustryous nayme with loss of noble blood.”
[6] See Introduction.
[7] One prize taken by the Trinity, the San Rosario, was laden with
over seven hundred “pigs,” or ingots of silver bullion, but the
buccaneers, mistaking the precious metal for tin, threw overboard all
but one bar which was retained by one of the men for a souvenir.
[8] Curiously enough, the term “buccaneer,” from the French boucanier,
was later adopted by the English freebooters and was applied
exclusively to them, whereas the French corsairs took to themselves the
English term “freebooters” and pronouncing it to the best of their
ability called themselves fribustiers or flibustiers, which eventually
became filibustiers.
According to some authorities, notably Van Esveldt in his work on the
buccaneers published in 1756, the word “Filibuster” was originally
derived from the Spanish “Flibotero,” meaning one who uses a small
boat. The British corsairs altered this to “Flybusters” or
“Freebooters”; the French used the form “Flibustiers” and the Dutch
“Vlieboters.”
[9] Of the several forts of the citadel or castle of San Jerome, the
largest was also called San Jerome.
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