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On the Spanish Main, by John Masefield

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CHAPTER XIII

CAPTAIN DAMPIER

Campeachy—Logwood cutting—The march to Santa Maria

William Dampier, a Somersetshire man, who had a taste for roving, went to the West Indies for the first time in 1674, about three years after the sack of Panama. He was "then about twenty-two years old," with several years of sea-service behind him. He had been to the north and to the east, and had smelt powder in a King's ship during the Dutch wars. He came to the West Indies to manage a plantation, working his way "as a Seaman" aboard the ship of one Captain Kent. Planting sugar or cocoa on Sixteen-Mile Walk in an island so full of jolly sinners proved to be but dull work. Dampier tried it for some weeks, and then slipped away to sea with a Port Royal trader, who plied about the coast, fetching the planters' goods to town, and carrying European things, such as cloth, iron, powder, or the like, to the planters' jetties along the coast. That was a more pleasant life, for it took the young man all round the island, to quiet plantings where old buccaneers were at work. These were kindly fellows, always ready for a yarn with the shipmen who brought their goods from Port Royal. They treated the young man well, giving him yams, plantains, and sweet potatoes, with leave to wander through their houses. "But after six or seven Months" Dampier "left that Employ," for he had heard strange tales of the logwood cutters in Campeachy Bay, and longed to see something of them.[219] He, therefore, slipped aboard a small Jamaica vessel which was going to the bay "to load logwood," with two other ships in company. The cargo of his ship "was rum and sugar; a very good Commodity for the Log-wood Cutters, who were then about 250 Men, most English." When they anchored off One Bush Key, by the oyster banks and "low Mangrovy Land," these lumbermen came aboard for drink, buying rum by the gallon or firkin, besides some which had been brewed into punch. They stayed aboard, drinking, till the casks gave out, firing off their small-arms with every health, and making a dreadful racket in that still lagoon, where the silence was seldom so violently broken. The logwood began to come aboard a day or two later; and Dampier sometimes went ashore with the boat for it, on which occasions he visited the huts of the woodmen, and ate some merry meals with them, "with Pork and Pease, or Beef and Dough-boys," not to mention "Drams or Punch."

On the voyage home he was chased by Spaniards, who "fired a Gun" at the ketch, but could not fetch her alongside.

It was an easy life aboard that little ketch; for every morning they fished for their suppers, and at no time was any work done unless the ship was actually in peril of wreck. While they were lazying slowly eastward, "tumbling like an Egg-shell in the Sea," her captain ran her on the Alcranes, a collection of sandy little islands, where they stayed for some days before they found a passage out to sea. They spent the days in fishing, or flinging pebbles at the rats, or killing boobies, and then set sail again, arriving after some days' sailing, at the Isles of Pines.

Here they landed to fill fresh water at the brooks, among the sprays of red mangrove, which grew thickly at the water's edge. They also took ashore their "two[220] bad Fowling-pieces," with intent to kill a wild hog or cow, being then in want of food, for the ship's provisions had given out. They did not kill any meat for all their hunting, nor did they catch much fish. Their ill success tempted the sailors to make for the Cuban keys, where they thought they would find great abundance, "either Fish or Flesh." The Cuban keys were favourite haunts of the buccaneers, but it was dangerous for a small ship like the ketch to venture in among them. On Cape Corientes there was a Spanish garrison of forty soldiers, chiefly mulattoes and caribs, who owned a swift periagua, fitted with oars and sails. They kept sentinels always upon the Cape, and whenever a ship hove in sight they would "launch out," and seize her, and cut the throats of all on board, "for fear of telling Tales." Fear of this garrison, and the prudent suggestion of Dampier—that "it was as probable that we might get as little Food in the South Keys, as we did at Pines, where, though there was plenty of Beefs and Hogs, yet we could not to tell how to get any—" at last prevailed upon the seamen to try for Jamaica. They were without food of any kind, save a little flour from the bottoms of the casks, and two "Barrels of Beef," which they had taken west to sell, "but 'twas so bad that none would buy it." On a porridge of this meat, chopped up with mouldy flour, they contrived to keep alive, "jogging on" towards the east till they made Jamaica. They arrived off Blewfield's Point thirteen weeks after leaving Campeachy, and, as Dampier says: "I think never any vessel before nor since made such Traverses ... as we did.... We got as much Experience as if we had been sent out on a Design." However, they dropped their anchor "at Nigrill" "about three a Clock in the Afternoon," and sent in the boat for fruit and poultry. One or two sea-captains, whose[221] ketches were at anchor there, came out to welcome the new arrival. In the little "Cabbin," where the lamp swung in gimbals, the sailors "were very busie, going to drink a Bowl of Punch, ... after our long Fatigue and Fasting." The thirsty sea-captains, bronzed by the sun, came stumping down the ladder to bear a hand. One captain, "Mr John Hooker," said that he was under "Oath to drink but three Draughts of Strong Liquor a Day." The bowl, which had not been touched, lay with him, with six quarts of good rum punch inside it. This Mr Hooker, "putting the Bowl to his Head, turn'd it off at one Draught"—he being under oath, and, doubtless, thirsty. "And so, making himself drunk, disappointed us of our Expectations, till we made another Bowl." Thus with good cheer did they recruit themselves in that hot climate after long sailing of the seas.

Dampier passed the next few weeks in Port Royal, thinking of the jolly life at One Bush Key, and of the little huts, so snugly thatched, and of the camp fires, when the embers glowed so redly at night before the moon rose. The thought of the logwood cutters passing to and fro about those camp fires, to the brandy barrel or the smoking barbecue, was pleasant to him. He felt inclined "to spend some Time at the Logwood Trade," much as a young gentleman of that age would have spent "some Time" on the grand tour with a tutor. He had a little gold laid by, so that he was able to lay in a stock of necessaries for the trade—such as "Hatchets, Axes, Long Knives, Saws, Wedges, etc., a Pavillion to sleep in, a Gun with Powder and Shot, etc." When all was ready, he went aboard a New England ship, and sailed for Campeachy, where he settled "in the West Creek of the West Lagoon" with some old logwood cutters who knew the trade.[222]

Logwood cutting was then a very profitable business, for the wood fetched from £70 to £100 a ton in the European markets. The wood is very dense, and so heavy that it sinks in water. The work of cutting it, and bringing it to the ships, in the rough Campeachy country, where there were no roads, was very hard. The logwood cutters were, therefore, men of muscle, fond of violent work. Nearly all of them in Dampier's time were buccaneers who had lost their old trade. They were "sturdy, strong Fellows," able to carry "Burthens of three or four hundred Weight," and "contented to labour very hard." Their hands and arms were always dyed a fine scarlet with the continuous rubbing of the wood, and their clothes always smelt of the little yellow logwood flowers, which smell very sweet and strong, at most seasons of the year. The life lived by the lumbermen was wild, rough, and merry. They had each of them a tent, or a strongly thatched hut, to live in, and most of them had an Indian woman or a negress to cook their food. Some of them had white wives, which they bought at Jamaica for about thirty pounds apiece, or five pounds more than the cost of a black woman. As a rule, they lived close to the lips of the creeks, "for the benefit of the Sea-Breezes," in little villages of twenty or thirty together. They slept in hammocks, or in Indian cots, raised some three or four feet from the ground, to allow for any sudden flood which the heavy rains might raise. They cooked their food on a sort of barbecue strewn with earth. For chairs they used logs of wood or stout rails supported on crutches. On the Saturday in each week they left their saws and axes and tramped out into the woods to kill beef for the following week. In the wet seasons, when the savannahs were flooded, they hunted the cattle in canoas by rowing near to the higher grass-lands where the beasts[223] were at graze. Sometimes a wounded steer would charge the canoa, and spill the huntsmen in the water, where the alligators nipped them. In the dry months, the hunters went on foot. When they killed a steer they cut the body into four, flung away the bones, and cut a big hole in each quarter. Each of the four men of the hunting party then thrust his head through the hole in one of the quarters, and put "it on like a Frock," and so trudged home. If the sun were hot, and the beef heavy, the wearer cut some off, and flung it away. This weekly hunting was "a Diversion pleasant enough" after the five days' hacking at the red wood near the lagoon-banks. The meat, when brought to camp, was boucanned or jerked—that is, dried crisp in the sun. A quarter of a steer a man was the week's meat allowance. If a man wanted fish or game, in addition, he had to obtain it for himself. This diet was supplemented by the local fruits, and by stores purchased from the ships—such as dried pease, or flour to make doughboys.

Men who worked hard under a tropical sun, in woods sometimes flooded to a depth of two feet, could hardly be expected to take a pride in their personal appearance. One little vanity they had, and apparently one only—they were fond of perfumes. They used to kill the alligator for his musk-sacs, which they thought "as good civet as any in the world." Each logwood cutter carried a musk-sac in his hat to diffuse scent about him, "sweet as Arabian winds when fruits are ripe," wheresoever his business led him.

The logwood cutters usually formed into little companies of from four to twelve men each. The actual "cutters" had less to do than the other members, for they merely felled the trees. Others sawed and hacked the tree trunks into logs. The boss, or chief man in the gang, then chipped away the white sappy rind surround[224]ing the scarlet heart with its crystals of brilliant red. If the tree were very big (and some were six feet round) they split the bole by gunpowder. The red hearts alone were exported, as it is the scarlet crystal (which dries to a dull black after cutting) which gives the wood its value in dyeing. When the timber had been properly cut and trimmed it was dragged to the water's edge, and stacked there ready for the merchants. The chips burnt very well, "making a clear strong fire, and very lasting," in which the rovers used to harden "the Steels of their Fire Arms when they were faulty."

When a ship arrived at One Bush Key the logwood cutters went aboard her for rum and sugar. It was the custom for the ship's captain to give them free drinks on the day of his arrival, "and every Man will pay honestly for what he drinks afterwards." If the captain did not set the rum punch flowing with sufficient liberality they would "pay him with their worst Wood," and "commonly" they "had a stock of such" ready for the niggard when he came. Often, indeed, they would give such a one a load of hollow logs "filled with dirt in the middle, and both ends plugg'd up with a piece of the same." But if the captain commanding were "true steel, an old bold blade, one of the old buccaneers, a hearty brave toss-pot, a trump, a true twopenny"—why, then, they would spend thirty or forty pounds apiece in a drinking bout aboard his ship, "carousing and firing of Guns three or four days together." They were a careless company, concerned rather in "the squandering of life away" than in its preservation. Drink and song, and the firing of guns, and a week's work chipping blood-wood, and then another drunkenness, was the story of their life there. Any "sober men" who came thither were soon "debauched" by "the old Standards," and took to "Wickedness" and "careless Rioting." Those who found the work too hard used to go hunting in the[225] woods. Often enough they marched to the woods in companies, to sack the Indian villages, to bring away women for their solace, and men slaves to sell at Jamaica. They also robbed the Indians' huts of honey, cocoa, and maize, but then the Indians were "very melancholy and thoughtful" and plainly designed by God as game for logwood cutters.

In the end the Spaniards fell upon the logwood men and carried them away to Mexico and Vera Cruz, sending some to the silver mines, and selling the others to tradesmen. As slaves they passed the next few years, till they escaped to the coast. One of those who escaped told how he saw a Captain Buckenham, once a famous man at those old drinking bouts, and owner of a sugar ship, working as a slave in the city of Mexico. "He saw Captain Buckenham, with a Log chained to his Leg, and a Basket at his Back, crying Bread about the Streets for a Baker his Master."

In this society of logwood cutters Dampier served a brief apprenticeship. He must have heard many strange tales, and jolly songs, around the camp fires of his mates, but none of them, apparently, were fit to print. He went hunting cattle, and got himself "bushed," or marooned—that is, lost—and had a narrow escape from dying in the woods. He helped at the cutting and trimming of the red wood, and at the curing of the hides of the slaughtered steers. When ships arrived he took his sup of rum, and fired his pistol, with the best of them. Had he stayed there any length of time he would have become a master logwood merchant, and so "gotten an Estate"; but luck was against him.

In June 1676, when he was recovering from a guinea-worm, a creature which nests in one's ankle, and causes great torment, a storm, or "South," reduced the logwood cutters of those parts to misery. The South was "long[226] foretold," by the coming in of many sea-birds to the shore's shelter, but the lumbermen "believed it was a certain Token of the Arrival of Ships," and took no precautions against tempest. Two days later the wind broke upon them furiously, scattering their huts like scraps of paper. The creek began to rise "faster than I ever saw it do in the greatest Spring Tide," so that, by noon, the poor wretches, huddled as they were in a hut, without fire, were fain to make ready a canoa to save themselves from drowning. The trees in the woods were torn up by the roots, "and tumbled down strangely across each other." The ships in the creek were blown from their anchors. Two of them were driven off to sea, dipping their bows clean under, and making shocking weather of it. One of them was lost in the bay, being whelmed by a green sea.

The storm destroyed all the tools and provisions of the lumbermen, and left Dampier destitute. His illness, with the poisonous worm in his leg, had kept him from work for some weeks, so that he had no cords of red wood ready cut, "as the old Standards had," to buy him new tools and new stores. Many of the men were in the same case, so they agreed with the captains of two pirate ketches which called at the creek at that time, to go a cruise to the west to seek their fortunes. They cruised up and down the bay "and made many Descents into the country," "where we got Indian Corn to eat with the Beef, and other Flesh, that we got by the way." They also attacked Alvarado, a little, protected city on the river of that name, but they lost heavily in the attack. Of the sixty pirates engaged, ten or eleven were killed or desperately wounded. The fort was not surrendered for four or five hours, by which time the citizens had put their treasure into boats, and rowed it upstream to safety. It was dark by the time the pirates won the fort, so that pursuit was out of the question. They rested there that night, and spent the[227] next day foraging. They killed and salted a number of beeves, and routed out much salt fish and Indian corn, "as much as we could stow away." They also took a number of poultry, which the Spaniards were fattening in coops; and nearly a hundred tame parrots, "yellow and red," which "would prate very prettily." In short they heaped their decks with hen-coops, parrot-cages, quarters of beef, casks of salt fish, and baskets full of maize. In this state, the ships lay at anchor, with their men loafing on deck with their tobacco, bidding the "yellow and red" parrots to say "Damn," or "Pretty Polly," or other ribaldry. But before any parrot could have lost his Spanish accent, the pirates were called from their lessons by the sight of seven Spanish warships, under all sail, coming up to the river-bar from La Vera Cruz. Their ports were up, and their guns were run out, and they were not a mile away when the pirates first saw them. As it happened, the River Alvarado was full of water, so that these great vessels "could scarce stem the current." This piece of luck saved the pirates, for it gave them time to make sail, and to clear the bar before the Spaniards entered the river. As they dropped down the stream, they hove the clutter from the decks. Many a Pretty Polly there quenched her blasphemy in water, and many a lump of beef went to the mud to gorge the alligators. The litter was all overboard, and the men stripped to fight the guns, by the time the tide had swept them over the bar. At this moment they came within range of the Spanish flagship, the Toro, of ten guns and 100 men. She was to windward of them, and perilously close aboard, and her guns sent some cannon-balls into them, without doing any serious harm. Dampier was in the leading ship, which stood to the eastward, followed by her consort, as soon as she was over the bar. After her came the Toro, followed by a ship of four guns, and by five smaller vessels manned with musketeers, "and the Vessels[228] barricadoed round with Bull-hides Breast high." The Toro ranged up on the quarter of Dampier's ship, "designing to board" her. The pirates dragged their cannon aft, and fired at her repeatedly, "in hopes to have lamed either Mast or Yard." As they failed to carry away her spars, they waited till "she was shearing aboard," when they rammed the helm hard up, "gave her a good Volley," and wore ship. As soon as she was round on the other tack, she stood to the westward, passing down the Spanish line under a heavy fire. The Toro held to her course, after the second pirate ship, with the six ships of the fleet following in her wake. The second pirate ship was much galled by the fleet's fire, and ran great risk of being taken. Dampier's ship held to the westward, till she was about a mile to windward of the other ships. She then tacked, and ran down to assist her consort, "who was hard put to it." As she ran down, she opened fire on the Toro, "who fell off, and shook her ears," edging in to the shore, to escape, with her fleet after her. They made no fight of it, but tacked and hauled to the wind "and stood away for Alvarado." The pirates were very glad to see the last of them; "and we, glad of the Deliverance, went away to the Eastward." On the way, they visited all the sandy bays of the coast to look for "munjack," "a sort of Pitch or Bitumen which we find in Lumps." When corrected with oil or tallow this natural pitch served very well for the paying of the seams "both of Ships and Canoas."

After this adventure, Dampier returned to the lumber camp, and passed about a year there, cutting wood. Then, for some reason, he determined to leave the Indies, and to visit England; and though he had planned to return to Campeachy, after he had been home, he never did so. It seems that he was afraid of living in that undefended place, among those drunken mates of his. They were at all times at the mercy of a Spanish man-of-war, and[229] Dampier "always feared" that a Spanish prison would be his lot if he stayed there. It was the lot of his imprudent mates, "the old Standards," a few months after he had sailed for the Thames.

After a short stay in England, Dampier sailed for Jamaica, with a general cargo. He sold his goods at Port Royal, but did not follow his original plan of buying rum and sugar, and going west as a logwood merchant. About Christmas 1679 he bought a small estate in Dorsetshire, "of one whose Title to it" he was "well assured of." He was ready to sail for England, to take charge of this estate, and to settle down as a farmer, when he met "one Mr Hobby," at a tavern, who asked him to go "a short trading voyage to the Country of the Moskito's." Dampier, who was a little short of gold at the moment, was very willing to fill his purse before sailing north. He therefore consented to go with Mr Hobby, whose ship was then ready for the sea. He "went on board Mr Hobby," and a fair wind blew them clear of Port Royal. A day or two of easy sailing brought them to Negril Bay, "at the West End of Jamaica," where Dampier had anchored before, when the valorous captain drained the punch-bowl. The bay was full of shipping, for Captains Coxon, Sawkins, Sharp, and other buccaneers, were lying there filling their water casks. They had the red wheft flying, for they were bound on the account, to raid the Main. The boats alongside them were full of meat and barrels. Mr Hobby's men did not wait to learn more than the fact that the ships were going cruising. They dumped their chests into the dinghy, and rowed aboard of them, and 'listed themselves among the sunburnt ruffians who were hoisting out the water breakers. Dampier and Mr Hobby were left alone on their ship, within hearing of the buccaneers, who sang, and danced to the fiddle, and clinked the cannikin, till the moon had set. For three or four[230] days they stayed there, hearing the merriment of the rovers, but at the end of the fourth day Dampier wearied of Mr Hobby, and joined the buccaneers, who were glad to have him.

A day or two after Christmas 1679 they got their anchors and set sail. They shaped their course for Porto Bello, which had recovered something of its old wealth and beauty, in the years of peace it had enjoyed since Morgan sacked it. They landed 200 men to the eastward of the town, "at such a distance" that the march "occupied them three nights." During the day they lay in ambush in the woods. As they "came to the town" a negro saw them, and ran to set the bells ringing, to call out the troops. The buccaneers followed him so closely that the town was theirs before the troops could muster. They stayed there forty-eight hours gathering plunder, and then marched back to their ships staggering under a great weight of gold. They shared thirty or forty pounds a man from this raid. Afterwards they harried the coast, east and west, and made many rich captures. Sawkins, it seems, was particularly lucky, for he made a haul of 1000 chests of indigo. Warrants were out for all these pirates, and had they been taken they would most surely have been hanged.

After these adventures, the squadron made for "a place called Boco del Toro," "an opening between two islands between Chagres and Veragua," where "the general rendezvous of the fleet" had been arranged. The ships anchored here, with one or two new-comers, including a French ship commanded by a Captain Bournano, who had been raiding on the isthmus, "near the South Sea," but a few days before. At the council aboard Captain Sawkins' ship, it was given out, to all the assembled buccaneers, that the Spaniards had made peace with the Darien Indians. This was bad news; but Captain[231] Bournano was able to assure the company "that since the conclusion of the said peace, they had been already tried, and found very faithful"; for they had been of service to him in his late foray. He added that they had offered to guide him "to a great and very rich place called Tocamora," and that he had promised to come to them "with more ships and men," in three months' time. The buccaneers thought that Tocamora, apart from the beauty of the name, appeared to promise gold, so they decided to go thither as soon as they had careened and refitted. Boca del Toro, the anchorage in which they lay, was full of "green tortoise" for ships short of food. There were handy creeks, among the islands, for the ships to careen in, when their hulls were foul. The pirates hauled their ships into the creeks, and there hove them down, while their Moskito allies speared the tortoise, and the manatee, along the coast, and afterwards salted the flesh for sea-provision.

As soon as the squadron was ready, they mustered at Water Key, and set sail for Golden Island, where they meant to hold a final council. On the way to the eastward they put in at the Samballoes, or islands of San Blas, to fill fresh water, and to buy fruit from the Indians. When the anchors held, the Indians came aboard with fruit, venison, and native cloth, to exchange for edged iron tools, and red and green beads. They were tall men, smeared with black paint (the women used red, much as in Europe), and each Indian's nose was hung with a plate of gold or silver. Among the women were a few albinos, who were said to see better in the dark than in the light. "These Indians misliked our design for Tocamora," because the way thither was mountainous and barren and certain to be uninhabited. A force going thither would be sure to starve on the road, they said, but it would be an easy matter to march to Panama, as Drake had marched.[232] New Panama was already a rich city, so that they would not "fail of making a good voyage by going thither." This advice of the Indians impressed the buccaneers. They determined to abandon the Tocamora project as too dangerous. Most of them were in favour of going to sack Panama. But Captain Bournano, and Captain Row, who commanded about a hundred Frenchmen between them, refused to take their men on "a long march by land." Perhaps they remembered how Morgan had treated the French buccaneers after his Panama raid, nine years before. They therefore remained at anchor when the squadron parted company. An Indian chief, Captain Andreas, came aboard the English flagship. The bloody colours were hoisted, and a gun fired in farewell. The English ships then loosed their top-sails and stood away for Golden Island, to an anchorage they knew of, where a final muster could be held. They dropped anchor there, "being in all seven sail," on 3rd April 1680.

Their strength at the Samballoes had been as follows:—

but of these 366 buccaneers a few had remained behind with the Frenchmen.

While they lay at Golden Island, the Indians brought them word of "a town called Santa Maria," on the Rio Santa Maria, near the Gulf of San Miguel, on the Pacific coast. It was a garrison town, with four companies of musketeers in its fort, for there were gold mines in the hills behind it. The gold caravans went from it, once a month[233] in the dry seasons, to Panama. If the place failed to yield them a booty, the buccaneers were determined to attack new Panama. Had they done so they would probably have destroyed the place, for though the new city was something stronger than the old, the garrison was in the interior fighting the Indians. The design on Santa Maria was popular. On the matter being put to the vote it was carried without protest. The buccaneers passed the 4th of April in arranging details, and picking a party to protect the ships during their absence. They arranged that Captains Alleston and Macket, with about twenty-five or thirty seamen, should remain in the anchorage as a ship's guard. The remainder of the buccaneers, numbering 331 able-bodied men (seven of whom were French), were to march with the colours the next morning.

On the 5th of April 1680, these 331 adventurers dropped across the channel from Golden Island, and landed on the isthmus, somewhere near Drake's old anchorage. Captain Bartholomew Sharp, of "the dangerous voyage and bold assaults," came first, with some Indian guides, one of whom helped the Captain, who was sick and faint with a fever. This vanguard "had a red flag, with a bunch of white and green ribbons." The second company, or main battle, was led by the admiral, Richard Sawkins, who "had a red flag striped with yellow." The third and fourth companies, which were under one captain (Captain Peter Harris), had two green flags. The fifth and sixth companies, under Captain John Coxon, "had each of them a red flag." A few of Alleston's and Macket's men carried arms under Coxon in these companies. The rear-guard was led by Captain Edmund Cook, "with red colours striped with yellow, with a hand and sword for his device." "All or most" of the men who landed, "were armed with a French fuzee" (or musket), a pistol and hanger, with two pounds of powder and "proportionable bullet." Each of[234] them carried a scrip or satchel containing "three or four cakes of bread," or doughboys, weighing half-a-pound apiece, with some modicum of turtle flesh. "For drink the rivers afforded enough."

Among the men who went ashore in that company were William Dampier, the author of the best books of voyages in the language; Lionel Wafer, the chirurgeon of the party, who wrote a description of the isthmus; Mr Basil Ringrose, who kept an intimate record of the foray; and Captain Bartholomew Sharp, who also kept a journal, but whose writings are less reliable than those of the other three. It is not often that three historians of such supreme merit as Dampier, Wafer, and Ringrose, are associated in a collaboration so charming, as a piratical raid. Wafer had been a surgeon in Port Royal, but Edmund Cook had shown him the delights of roving, and the cruise he had made to Cartagena had confirmed him in that way of life. Basil Ringrose had but lately arrived at the Indies, and it is not known what induced him to go buccaneering. He was a good cartographer, and had as strong a bent towards the description of natural phenomena, as Dampier had. He probably followed the pirates in order to see the world, and to get some money, and to extend his knowledge. Sharp had been a pirate for some years, and there was a warrant out for him at Jamaica for his share in the sack of Porto Bello. With Dampier's history the reader has been made acquainted.

The Indians, under Captain Andreas, led the buccaneers from the landing-place "through a small skirt of wood," beyond which was a league of sandy beach. "After that, we went two leagues directly up a woody valley, where we saw here and there an old plantation, and had a very good path to march in." By dusk they had arrived at a river-bank, beneath which the water lay in pools, joined by trickles and little runlets, which babbled over sun-bleached[235] pebbles. They built themselves huts in this place, about a great Indian hut which stood upon the river-bank. They slept there that night, "having nothing but the cold Earth for their Beds," in much discouragement "with the going back of some of the Men." The buccaneers who had been some weeks at sea, were not in marching trim, and it seems that the long day's tramp in the sun had sickened many of them. While they rested in their lodges, an Indian king, whom they called "Captain Antonio," came in to see them. He said that he had sent word to one of his tributaries, farther to the south, to prepare food and lodgings for the buccaneers "against their Arrival." As for himself, he wished very much that he could come with them to lead their guides, but unfortunately "his child lay very sick." However, it comforted him to think that the child would be dead by the next day, at latest, "and then he would most certainly follow and overtake" them. He warned the company not to lie in the grass, "for fear of monstrous adders"; and so bowed himself out of camp, and returned home. The kingly prayers seem to have been effectual, for Captain Antonio was in camp again by sunrise next morning, with no family tie to keep him from marching.

As the men sluiced themselves in the river before taking to the road, they noticed that the pebbles shone "with sparks of gold" when broken across. They did not stay to wash the river-mud, for gold dust and golden pellets, but fell in for the march, and climbed from dawn till nearly dusk. They went over "a steep Mountain" which was parched and burnt and waterless. Four of the buccaneers refused to go farther than the foot of this hill, so they returned to the ships. The others, under the guidance of Antonio, contrived to cross the mountain "to an Hollow of Water," at which they drank very greedily. Six miles farther on they halted for the night, beside a[236] stream. They slept there, "under the Canopy of Heaven," suffering much discomfort from some drenching showers. After some days of climbing, wading, and suffering, the army reached the house of King Golden Cap, an Indian king. The King came out to meet them in his robes, with a little reed crown on his head, lined with red silk, and covered with a thin plate of gold. He had a golden ring in his nose, and a white cotton frock over his shoulders. His queen wore a red blanket, and a blouse "like our old-fashioned striped hangings." This royal couple bade the army welcome, and ordered food to be brought for them. The buccaneers passed a couple of days in King Golden Cap's city, trading their coloured beads, and scraps of iron, for fresh fruit and meat. They found the Indians "very cunning" in bargaining, which means, we suppose, that they thought a twopenny whittle a poor return for a hog or a sack of maize.

When the men had rested themselves, and had dried their muddy clothes, they set out again, with Captain Sawkins in the vanguard. As they marched out of the town "the King ordered us each man to have three plantains, with sugar-canes to suck, by way of a present." They breakfasted on these fruits, as they marched. The road led them "along a very bad Path" continually intersected by a river, which they had to wade some fifty or sixty times, to their great misery. They passed a few Indian huts on the way, and at each hut door stood an Indian to give "as we passed by, to every one of us, a ripe plantain, or some sweet cassava-root." Some of the Indians counted the army "by dropping a grain of corn for each man that passed before them," for without counters they could not reckon beyond twenty. The army had by this time been swelled by an Indian contingent, of about 150 men, "armed with Bows, Arrows and Lances." The Indians dropping their corn grains must[237] have dropped nearly 500 before the last man passed them. That night, which was clear and fine, they rested in three large Indian huts, where King Golden Cap's men had stored up food and drink, and a number of canoas, for the voyage south. The river went brawling past their bivouac at a little distance, and some of the men caught fish, and broiled them in the coals for their suppers.

At daylight next morning, while they were getting the canoas to the water, Captain Coxon had "some Words" with Captain Harris (of the green flags). The words ran into oaths, for the two men were surly with the discomforts of turning out. Coxon whipped up a gun and fired at Peter Harris, "which he was [naturally] ready to return." Sharp knocked his gun up before he could fire, "and brought him to be quiet; so that we proceeded on our Journey." They had no further opportunities for fighting, for Sawkins gave the word a moment later for seventy of the buccaneers to embark in the canoas. There were fourteen of these boats, all of them of small size. Sharp, Coxon, and Cook were placed in charge of them. Captain Harris was told off to travel with the land party, with Sawkins, King Golden Cap, and the other men. Don Andreas, with twenty-eight other Indians (two to a canoa) acted as boatmen, or pilots, to the flotilla.

Basil Ringrose, who was one of the boat party, has told us of the miseries of the "glide down the stream." The river was low, and full of rotting tree trunks, so that "at the distance of almost every stone's cast," they had to leave the boats "and haul them over either sands or rocks, and at other times over trees." Sharp, who was of tougher fibre, merely says that they "paddled all Day down the Falls and Currents of the River, and at Night took up our Quarters upon a Green Bank by the Riverside, where we had Wild Fowl and Plantanes for Supper: But our Beds were made upon the cold Earth, and our Coverings were[238] the Heavens, and green Trees we found there." The next day they went downstream again, over many more snags and shallows, which set them wading in the mud till their boots rotted off their feet. Ringrose was too tired to make a note in his journal, save that, that night, "a tiger" came out and looked at them as they sat round the camp fires. Sharp says that the labour "was a Pleasure," because "of that great Unity there was then amongst us," and because the men were eager "to see the fair South Sea." They lodged that night "upon a green Bank of the River," and ate "a good sort of a Wild Beast like unto our English Hog." The third day, according to Ringrose, was the worst day of all. The river was as full of snags as it had been higher up, but the last reach of it was clear water, so that they gained the rendezvous "about Four in the Afternoon." To their very great alarm they found that the land party had not arrived. They at once suspected that the Indians had set upon them treacherously, and cut them off in the woods. But Don Andreas sent out scouts "in Search of them," who returned "about an Hour before Sun-set," with "some of their Number," and a message that the rest would join company in the morning.

A little after daybreak the land force marched in, and pitched their huts near the river, "at a beachy point of land," perhaps the very one where Oxenham's pinnace had been beached. They passed the whole day there resting, and cleaning weapons, for they were now but "a Day and a Night's Journey" from the town they had planned to attack. Many more Indians joined them at this last camp of theirs, so that the army had little difficulty in obtaining enough canoas to carry them to Santa Maria. They set out early the next morning, in sixty-eight canoas, being in all "327 of us Englishmen, and 50 Indians." Until that day the canoas had been[239] "poled" as a punt is poled, but now they cut oars and paddles "to make what speed we could." All that day they rowed, and late into the night, rowing "with all haste imaginable," and snapping up one or two passing Indian boats which were laden with plantains. It was after midnight, and about "Two Hours before Day Light," when they ran into a mud bank, about a mile from the town, and stepped ashore, upon a causeway of oars and paddles. They had to cut themselves a path through jungle, as soon as they had crossed the mud, for the town was walled about with tropical forest. They "lay still in the Woods, till the Light appeared," when they "heard the Spaniard discharge his Watch at his Fort by Beat of Drum, and a Volley of Shot." It was the Spanish way of changing guard, at daybreak. It was also the signal for the "Forlorn" of the buccaneers to march to the battle, under Sawkins. This company consisted of seventy buccaneers. As they debouched from the forest, upon open ground, the Spaniards caught sight of them and beat to arms. The men in the fort at once opened fire "very briskly," but the advance-guard ran in upon them, tore down some of the stockade, and "entered the fort incontinently." A moment or two of wild firing passed inside the palisades, and then the Spanish colours were dowsed. The buccaneers in this storm lost two men wounded, of the fifty who attacked. The Spanish loss was twenty-six killed, and sixteen wounded, out of 300 under arms. About fifty more, of the Spanish prisoners, were promptly killed by the Indians, who took them into the woods and stabbed them "to death" with their lances. It seems that one of that garrison, a man named Josef Gabriele, had raped King Golden Cap's daughter who was then with child by him. (Gabriele, as it chanced, was not speared, but saved to pilot the pirates to Panama.) This was the sole action of the Indians in that engagement. During the[240] battle they lay "in a small hollow," "in great consternation" at "the noise of the guns."

Though the buccaneers had taken the place easily, they had little cause for rejoicing. The town was "a little pitiful Place," with a few thatched huts, or "wild houses made of Cane," and "but one Church in it." The fort "was only Stockadoes," designed merely as a frontier post "to keep in subjection the Indians" or as a lodging for men employed in the gold mines. There was no more provision in store there than would serve their turn for a week. As for the gold, they had missed it by three days. Three hundredweight of gold had been sent to Panama while they were struggling downstream. News of their coming had been brought to the fort in time, and "all their treasure of gold," "that huge booty of gold" they had expected to win, had been shipped westward. Nor had they any prisoners to hold to ransom. The Governor, the town priest, and the chief citizens, had slipped out of the town in boats, and were now some miles away. Richard Sawkins manned a canoa, and went in chase of them, but they got clear off, to give advice to Panama that pirates were come across the isthmus. The only pillage they could find, after torturing their prisoners "severely," amounted to "twenty pounds' weight of gold, and a small quantity of silver." To this may be added a few personal belongings, such as weapons or trinkets, from the chests of the garrison.

When the booty, such as it was, had been gathered, the captains held a meeting "to discuss what were best to be done." Some were for going to the South Sea, to cruise; but John Coxon, who had taken Porto Bello, and hated to be second to Sawkins, was for going back to the ships. The general vote was for going to Panama, "that city being the receptacle of all the plate, jewels, and gold that is dug out of the mines of all Potosi and Peru."[241] However, they could not venture on Panama without Coxon, and Coxon's company; so they made Coxon their admiral, "Coxon seeming to be well satisfied." Before starting, they sent their booty back to Golden Island, under a guard of twelve men. Most of the Indians fell off at this time, for they had "got from us what knives, scissors, axes, needles and beads they could." Old King Golden Cap, and his son, were less mercenary, and stayed with the colours, being "resolved to go to Panama, out of the desire they had to see that place taken and sacked." They may have followed the buccaneers in order to kill the Spaniard who had raped the princess, for that worthy was still alive, under guard. He had promised to lead the pirates "even to the very bed-chamber door of the governor of Panama."

With the vision of this bed-chamber door before them, the pirates embarked at Santa Maria "in thirty-five canoes" and a ship they had found at anchor in the river. As they "sailed, or rather rowed" downstream, with the ebb, the Spanish prisoners prayed to be taken aboard, lest the Indians should take them and torture them all to death. "We had much ado to find a sufficient number of boats for ourselves," says Ringrose, for the Indians had carried many of the canoas away. Yet the terror of their situation so wrought upon the Spaniards that they climbed on to logs, or crude rafts, or into old canoas, "and by that means shifted so ... as to come along with us." The island Chepillo, off the mouth of the Cheapo River, had been named as the general rendezvous, but most of the buccaneers were to spend several miserable days before they anchored there. One canoa containing ten Frenchmen, was capsized, to the great peril of the Frenchmen, who lost all their weapons. Ringrose was separated from the company, drenched to the skin, half starved, and very nearly lynched by some Spaniards. His 19th of April was sufficiently stirring[242] to have tired him of going a-roving till his death. He put out "wet and cold," at dawn; was shipwrecked at ten; saved the lives of five Spaniards at noon; "took a survey," or drew a sketch of the coast, an hour later; set sail again by four, was taken by the Spaniards and condemned to death at nine; was pardoned at ten; sent away "in God's name," "vaya ustad con Dios," at eleven; and was at sea again "wet and cold," by midnight. Sharp's party was the most fortunate, for as they entered the bay of Panama they came to an island "a very pleasant green Place," off which a barque of thirty tons came to anchor, "not long before it was dark." The island had a high hummock of land upon it with a little hut, and a stack for a bonfire, at the top. A watchman, an old man, lived in this hut, looking out over the sea for pirates, with orders to fire his beacon, to warn the men on the Main if a strange sail appeared. The pirates caught this watchman before the fire was lit. They learned from him that those at Panama had not yet heard of their coming. Shortly after they had captured the watchman, the little barque aforesaid, came to anchor, and furled her sails. Two of Sharp's canoas crept out, "under the shore," and laid her aboard "just as it began to be duskish." She proved to be a Panama boat, in use as a troop transport. She had just landed some soldiers on the Main, to quell some Indians, who had been raiding on the frontier. Her crew were negroes, Indians, and mulattoes. Most of the buccaneers, especially those in the small canoas, "endeavoured to get into" this ship, to stretch their legs, and to have the advantage of a shelter. More than 130 contrived to stow themselves in her 'tween decks, under "that sea-artist, and valiant commander" (the words are probably his own) "Captain Bartholomew Sharp." They put to sea in her the next day, followed by the canoas. During the morn[243]ing they took another small barque, in which Captain Harris placed thirty men, and hoisted the green flag. The wind fell calm after the skirmish, but the canoas rowed on to Chepillo, to the rendezvous, where they found provisions such as "two fat hogs," and some plantains, and a spring of water.

A little after dawn, on the day following, while the ships were trying to make the anchorage, Captain Coxon, and Captain Sawkins, rowed out from Chepillo to board a barque which was going past the island under a press of sail. The wind was so light that the canoas overhauled her, but before they could hook to her chains "a young breeze, freshening at that instant," swept her clear of danger. Her men fired a volley into Coxon's boat, which the pirates returned. "They had for their Breakfast a small fight," says Sharp. One of the pirates—a Mr Bull—was killed with an iron slug. The Spaniards got clear away without any loss, "for the Wind blew both fresh and fair" for them. Three or four pirates were grazed with shot, and some bullets went through the canoas. The worst of the matter was that the Spaniards got safely to Panama, "to give intelligence of our coming."

As they could no longer hope to take the city by surprise, "while the Governor was in his bed-chamber," they determined to give the citizens as little time for preparation as was possible. They were still twenty miles from Panama, but the canoas could pass those twenty miles in a few hours' easy rowing. They set out at four o'clock in the evening, after they had delivered their Spanish prisoners "for certain reasons" (which Ringrose "could not dive into") into the hands of the Indians. This act of barbarity was accompanied with the order that the Indians were "to fight, or rather to murder and slay the said prisoners upon the shore, and that in view of[244] the whole fleet." However, the Spaniards rushed the Indians, broke through them, and got away to the woods with the loss of but one soldier.

After they had watched the scuffle, the pirates rowed away merrily towards Panama, "though many showers of rain ceased not to fall." Sharp's vessel, with her crew of more than 130 men, made off for the Pearl Islands, ostensibly to fill fresh water, but really, no doubt, to rob the pearl fisheries. He found a woman (who was "very young and handsome"), and "a Case or two of Wines," at these islands, together with some poultry. He made a feast there, and stayed at anchor that night, and did not set sail again till noon of the day following, by which time the battle of Panama had been fought and won.

Authorities.—Dampier's Voyages. Wafer's Voyages. Ringrose's Journal. "The Dangerous Voyage and Bold Assaults of Captain Bartholomew Sharp"; "The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Bartholomew Sharp" (four or five different editions). Ringrose's MSS., Sharp's MSS., in the Sloane MSS.

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