To Coleridge we are indebted for word pictures of the cabbage tree, and the silk cotton tree with their b.u.t.tressed trunks; the banyan with its cloistered arcades; the wild plantain with its immense green leaves rent in slips, its thick bunches of fruit, and its scarlet pendent seed; the mangroves, with their branches drooping into the sea; the banana, with its jointed leaves; the fern trees, twenty feet high; the gold canes, in arrowy sheaves; and the feathery palms. Nor do we forget the figuera, the bois le Sueur, or the wild pine burning like a topaz in a calix of emerald. Beneath the broad roof of creepers, from which the oriole hangs its hammock nest, grow, in a wild jungle of beauty, the scarlet cordia, the pink and saffron flower fence, the plumeria, and the white datura.
The flying fish glided by us, says H.N. Coleridge, speaking of the Indian seas, bonitos and albicores played around the bows, dolphins gleamed in our wake, ever and anon a shark, and once a great emerald-coloured whale, kept us company. Elsewhere he describes the silver strand, fringed with evergreen drooping mangroves, and the long shrouding avenues of thick leaves that darkly fringe the blue ocean. By the sh.o.r.e grow the dark and stately manchineel, beautiful but noxious, the white wood, and the bristling sea-side grape, with its broad leaves and bunches of pleasant berries. The sea birds skim about the waves, and the red flamingoes stalk around the sandy shoals, while the alligators wallow on the mud banks, and the snowy pelicans hold their councils in solemn stupidity.
Leaving the sea and the sh.o.r.e we wander on into the interior, for the West Indian vegetation has everywhere a common character, and see delighted the forest trees growing on the cliffs, knotted and bound together with luxuriant festoons of evergreen creepers, connecting them in one vast network of leaves and branches, the wild pine sparkling on the huge limbs of the wayside trees, beside it the dagger-like Spanish needle, the quilted pimploe, and the maypole aloe shooting its yellow flowered crown twenty feet above the traveller, or amid the dark foliage, twines of purple wreaths or lilac jessamine; and the woods ringing with the song of birds, interrupted at times by strange shrieks or moanings of some tropic wanderer; we see with these the snowy amaryllis, the gorgeous hibiscus with its crown of scarlet, the quivering limes and dark glossy orange bushes; we rest under the green tamarind or listen to the mournful creaking of the sand box tree.
The Buccaneers went in pairs, every hunter having his _camerade_ or _matelot_ (sailor), as well as his _engages_. They had seldom any fixed habitation, but pitched their tents where the cattle were to be found, building temporary sheds, thatched with palm leaves, to defend them from the rain and to lodge their stock of hides till they could barter it with the next vessel for wine, brandy, linen, arms, powder, or lead.
They would return three leagues from the chase to their huts, laden with meat and skins, and if they ate in the open country it was always with their musket c.o.c.ked and near at hand for fear of surprise. With their _matelots_ they had everything in common. The chief occupation of these voluntary outlaws was the chase of the wild ox, that of the wild boar being at first a mere amus.e.m.e.nt, or only followed as the means of procuring a luxurious meal; at a later period, however, many Frenchmen lived by hunting the hog, whose flesh they boucaned and sold for exportation, its flavour being superior to that of any other meat.
The Buccaneers sometimes went in companies of ten or twelve, each man having his Indian attendant besides his apprentices. Before setting out they arranged a spot for rendezvous in case of attack. If they remained long in one place, they built thatched sheds under which to pitch their tents. They rose at daybreak to start for the chase, leaving one of the band to guard the huts. The masters generally went first and alone (sometimes the worst shot was left in the tent to cook), and the _engages_ and the dogs followed; one hound, the _venteur_, went in front of all, often leading the hunter through wood and over rock where no path had ever been. When the quarry came in sight the dogs barked round it and kept it at bay till the hunters could come up and fire. They generally aimed at the breast of the bull, or tried to hamstring it as soon as possible. Many hunters ran down the wild cattle in the savannah and attacked it with their dogs. If only wounded the ox would rush upon them and gore all he met. But this happened very seldom, for the men were deadly shots, seldom missed their _coup_, and were always sufficiently active, if in danger, to climb the tree from behind which they had fired. The _venteur_ dog had a peculiar short bark by which he summoned the pack to his aid, and as soon as they heard it the _engages_ rushed to the rescue. When the beast was half flayed, the master took out the largest bone and sucked the hot marrow, which served him for a meal, giving a bit also to the _venteur_, but not to any other dogs, lest they should grow lazy in hunting; but the last lagger in the pack had sometimes a bit thrown him to incite him to greater exertion. He then left the _engages_ to carry the skin to the boucan, with a few of the best joints, giving the rest to the carrion crows, that soon sniffed out the blood. They continued the chase till each man had killed an ox, and the last returned home, laden like the rest with a hide and a portion of raw meat. By this time the first comer had prepared dinner, roasted some beef, or spitted a whole hog. The tables were soon laid; they consisted of a flat stone, the fallen trunk of a tree, or a root, with no cloth, no napkin, no bread, and no wine; pimento and orange juice were sufficient sauce for hungry men, and a contented mind and a keen appet.i.te never quarrelled with rude cooking. This monotonous life was only varied by a conflict with a wounded bull, or a skirmish with the Spaniards. The grand fete days were when the hunter had collected as many hides as he had contracted to supply the merchant, and carried them to Tortuga, to Cape Tiburon, Samana, or St. Domingo, probably to return in a week"s time, weary of drinking or beggared from the gambling table, tired of civilization, and restless for the chase.
The wild cattle of Hispaniola--the oxen, hogs, horses, and dogs--were all sprung from the domestic animals originally brought from Spain. The dogs were introduced into the island to chase the Indians, a cruelty that even the mild Columbus practised. Esquemeling says, those first conquerors of the New World made use of dogs "to range and search the intricate thicket of woods and forests for those their implacable and unconquerable enemies; thus they forced them to leave their old refuge and submit to the sword, seeing no milder usage would do it. Hereupon they killed some of them, and, quartering their bodies, placed them on the highways, that others might take a warning from such a punishment.
But this severity proved of ill consequence, for, instead of frighting them and reducing them to civility, they conceived such horror of the Spaniards that they resolved to detest and fly their sight for ever; hence the greatest part died in caves and subterraneous places of the woods and mountains, in which places I myself have often seen great numbers of human bones. The Spaniards, finding no more Indians to appear about the woods, turned away a great number of dogs they had in their houses; and they, finding no masters to keep them, betook themselves to the woods and fields to hunt for food to preserve their lives, and by degrees grew wild."
The young of these maroon dogs the hunters were in the habit of bringing up. When they found a wild b.i.t.c.h with whelps, they generally took away the puppies and brought them to their tents, preferring them to any other sort of dog. They seem to have been between a greyhound and a mastiff. The Dutch writer whom we have just quoted mentions the singular fact, that these dogs, even in a wild state, retained their acquired habits. The _venteur_ always led the way, and was allowed to dip the first fangs into the victim. The wild dogs went in packs of fifty or eighty, and were so fierce that they would not scruple to attack a whole herd of wild boars, bringing down two or three at once. They destroyed a vast number of wild cattle, devouring the young as soon as a mare had foaled or a cow calved.
"One day," says Esquemeling, "a French Buccaneer showed me a strange action of this kind. Being in the fields hunting together, we heard a great noise of dogs which had surrounded a wild boar. Having tame dogs with us we left them in custody of our servants, being desirous to see the sport. Hence my companion and I climbed up two several trees, both for security and prospect. The wild boar, all alone, stood against a tree, defending himself with his tusks from a great number of dogs that enclosed him, killed with his teeth and wounded several of them. This b.l.o.o.d.y fight continued about an hour, the wild boar meanwhile attempting many times to escape. At last flying, one dog leaped upon his back; and the rest of the dogs, perceiving the courage of their companion, fastened likewise on the boar, and presently killed him. This done, all of them, the first only excepted, laid themselves down upon the ground about the prey, and there peaceably continued till he, the first and most courageous of the troop, had eaten as much as he could. When this dog had left off, all the rest fell in to take their share till nothing was left."
In 1668, the Governor of Tortuga, finding these dogs were rendering the wild boar almost extinct, and alarmed lest the hunters should leave a place where food was growing scarce, sent to France for poison to destroy these mastiffs, and placed poisoned horse flesh in the woods.
But although this practice was continued for six months, and an incredible number were killed, yet the race soon appeared almost as numerous as before.
The wild horses went in troops of about two or three hundred. They were awkward and mis-shapen, small and short-bodied, with large heads, long necks, trailing ears, and thick legs. They had always a leader, and when they met a hunter, stared at him till he approached within shot, then gallopped off all together. They were only killed for their skins, though their flesh was sometimes smoked for the use of the sailors.
These horses were caught by stretching nooses along their tracks, in which they got entangled by the neck. When taken, they were quickly tamed by being kept two or three days without food, and were then used to carry hides. They were good workers, but easily lamed. When a Buccaneer turned them adrift from want of food to keep them through the winter, they were known to return ten months after, or, meeting them in the savannah, begin to whine and caress their old masters, and suffer themselves to be recaptured. They were also killed for the sake of the fat about the neck and belly, which the hunters used for lamp oil.
The wild oxen were tame unless wounded, and their hides were generally from eleven to thirteen feet long. They were very strong and very swift, in spite of their short and slender legs. In the course of a single century from their introduction, they had so increased, that the French Buccaneers, when they landed, seldom went in search of them, but waited for them near the sh.o.r.e, at the salt pools where they came to drink. The herds fed at night on the savannahs, and at noon retired to the shelter of the forests. A wounded bull would often blockade, for four hours, a tree in which a hunter had taken refuge, bellowing round the trunk and ploughing at the roots with his horns. The French hunters generally shot them; but the Spanish "hocksers" rode them down on horseback, and hamstrung them with a crescent-shaped spear, in form something like a cheese-knife with a long handle.
The wild boars, when much pressed, adopted the same military stratagem as the oxen. They threw themselves into the form of a hollow square, the sows in the rear and the sucking pigs in the middle, the white sabre tusks of the boars gleaming outwards towards the foe. The dogs always fastened upon the defenceless sow in preference to the ferocious male, whom they seldom attacked if it got at bay under a tree, though it might be alone, glaring before the red jaws of eighty yelping dogs. The wild boar hunting was less dangerous than that of the wild oxen, and less profitable. The hogs soon grew scarce, a party of hunters sometimes killing 100 in a day, and only carrying home three or four of the fattest. It was not uncommon for solitary hunters or _engages_ who had lost their way in the woods to amuse themselves by training up the young hogs they found basking under the trees, and teaching them to track their own species and pull them down by tugging at their long leathery ears. Oexmelin, the most intelligent of the few Buccaneer writers, relates his own success in training four pigs, whom he taught to follow at his heels like dogs, to play with him, and obey his orders. When they saw a herd of boars they would run forward and decoy them towards him.
On one occasion, one of them escaped into the plains, but returned three days after, very complacently heading a herd of hogs, of which his master and his _matelot_ killed four. It is not many years since that an English gamekeeper brought up a pig to get his own bread as a pointer.
At first, when the green savannahs were spotted black with cattle, the hunters were so fastidious that they seldom ate anything but the udders of cows, considering bull meat too tough. Many a herd was killed, as at present in Australia or California, for the hide and tallow. If the first animal killed in the day"s hunt was a cow, an _engage_ was instantly sent to the tent with part of the flesh to cook for the evening. When the _engages_ had each gone home with his joint and his hide, the Buccaneer followed with his own load, his dogs, tired and panting, lagging at his heels. If on his way back he met a boar, or more oxen, he threw down his fardel, slew a fresh victim, and, flaying it, hung the hide on a tree out of reach of the wild dogs, and came back for it on the morrow.
On returning to the boucan, each man set to work to stretch (_brocheter_) his hide, fastening it tightly out with fourteen wooden pegs, and rubbing it with ashes and salt mixed together to make it dry quicker. When this was done, they sat down to partake of the food that the first comer had by this time cooked. The beef they generally boiled in the large cauldron which every hunter possessed, drawing it out when it was done with a wooden skewer. A board served them for a dish. With a wooden spoon they collected the gravy in a calabash; and into this they squeezed the juice of a fresh picked lemon, a crushed citron, or a little pimento, which formed the hunter"s favourite sauce, _pimentado_.
This being done with all the care of a Ude, they seized their hunting knives and wooden skewers, and commenced a solemn attack upon the ponderous joint. The residue they divided among their dogs. Pere Labat, an oily Jesuit if we trust to his portrait, describes, with great gusto, a Buccaneer feast at which he was present, and at which a hog was roasted whole. The boucaned meat was used in voyages, or when no oxen could be met with.
When they wanted to boucan a pig, they first flayed it and took out all the bones. The meat they cut in long slips, which they placed in mats, and there left it till the next day, when they proceeded to smoke it.
The boucan was a small hut covered close with palm-mats, with a low entrance, and no chimney or windows: it contained a wooden framework seven or eight feet high, on which the meat was placed, and underneath which a charcoal fire was lit. The fire they always fed with the animal"s own skin and bones, which made the smoke thick and full of ammonia. The volatile salt of the bones being more readily absorbed by the meat than the mere ligneous acid of wood, the result of this process was an epicurean mouthful far superior to our Westphalia hams, and more like our hung beef. Oexmelin waxes quite eloquent in its praise. He says it was so exquisite that it needed no cooking; its very look, red as a rose, not to mention its delightful fragrance, tempted the worst appet.i.te to eat it, whatever it might be. The only misfortune was that six months after smoking, the meat grew tasteless and unfit for use; but when fresh, it was thought so wholesome that sick men came from a distance to live in a hunter"s tent and share his food for a time. The first thing that pa.s.sengers visiting the West Indies saw was a Buccaneers" canoe bringing dry meat for sale. The boucaned meat was sold in bales of sixty pounds" weight, and their pots of tallow were worth about six pieces of eight.
Labat--no ordinary lover of good cheer, if we may judge from his portrait, which represents him with cheeks as plump as a pulpit cushion, and with fat rolls of double chin--describes the Buccaneer fare with much unction, having gone to a hunter"s feast,--a corporeal treat intended as a slight return for much spiritual food. Each Buccaneer, he says, had two skewers, made of clean peeled wood, one having two spikes.
The boucan itself was made of four stakes as thick as a man"s arm, and about four feet long, struck in the ground to form a square five feet long and three feet across. On these forked sticks they placed cross bars, and upon these the spit, binding them all with withes. The wild boar, being skinned and gutted, was placed whole upon this spit, the stomach kept open with a stick. The fire was made of charcoal, and put on with bark shovels. The interior of the pig was filled with citron juice, salt, crushed pimento, and pepper; and the flesh was constantly p.r.i.c.ked, so that this juice might penetrate. When the meat was ready, the cooks fired off a musket twice, to summon the hunters from the woods, while banana leaves were placed round for plates. If the hunters brought home any birds, they at once picked them and threw them into the stomach of the pig, as into a pot. If the hunters were novices, and brought home nothing, they were sent out again to seek it; if they were veterans, they were compelled to drink as many cups as the best hunter had that day killed deer, bulls, or boars. A leaf served to hold the pimento sauce, and a calabash to drink from, while bananas were their subst.i.tute for bread. The _engages_ waited on their masters, and one of the penalties for clumsy serving was to be compelled to drink off a calabash full of sauce.
The English "cow killers" and the French hunters were satisfied with getting as many hides as they could in the shortest possible time, but the Spanish _matadores_ gave the trade an air of chivalrous adventure by rivalling the feats of the Moorish bull-fighters of Granada. They did not use firearms, but carried lances with a half-moon blade, employing dogs, and, being generally men of wealth and planters, had servants on foot to encourage them to the attack. When they tracked an ox in the woods, they made the hounds drive him out into the prairie, where the matadors could spur after him, and, wheeling round the monster, hamstring him or thrust him through with a lance. Dampierre describes minutely the Spanish mode of hocksing. The horses were trained to retreat and advance without even a signal. The hocksing-iron, of a half-moon shape, measuring six inches horizontally, resembled in form a gardener"s turf-cutter. The handle, some fourteen feet long, was held like a lance over the horse"s head, a matador"s steed being always known by its right ear being bent down with the weight of the shaft. The place to strike the bull was just above the hock; when struck the horse instantly wheeled to the left, to avoid the charge of the wounded ox, who soon broke his nearly severed leg, but still limped forward to avenge himself on his formidable enemy. Then the hockser, riding softly up, struck him with his iron again, but this time into a fore leg, and at once laid him prostrate, moaning in terror and in pain. Then, dismounting, the Spaniard took a sharp dagger and stabbed the beast behind the horns, severing the spinal marrow. This operation the English called "polling." The hunter at once remounted, and left his skinners to remove the hide.
The stately Spaniard delighted in this dangerous chase, with all its stratagems, surprises, and hair-breadth escapes, when life depended on a turn of the bridle or the p.r.i.c.k of a spur. However pressed for food or endangered by enemies, he practised it with all the stately ceremonies of the Madrid arena. The fiery animal, streaming with blood and foam, bellowing with rage and pain, frequently trampled and gored the dogs and slew both horse and rider. Oexmelin mentions a bull at Cuba which killed three horses in the same day, the lucky rider making a solemn pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadaloupe when he had given his victim the _coup de grace_.
These Spanish hunters did not rough it like the Buccaneers, and kept horses to carry their bales. They were particular in their food, and ate bread and ca.s.sava with their beef; drank wine and brandy; and were very choice in their fruit and preserves. Gay in their dress, they prided themselves on their white linen. Every separate hunting field had its own customs. At Campeachy, where the ground was swampy, the logwood-cutters frequently shot the oxen from a canoe, and were sometimes pursued by a wounded beast, who would try to sink the boat.
When the woodmen killed a bull, they cut it into quarters, and, taking out all the bones, cut a hole in the centre of each piece large enough to pa.s.s their heads through, and trudged home with it to their tents on the sh.o.r.e. If they grew tired or were pursued, they cut off a portion of the meat and lightened their load.
The Spaniards, less poor, greedy, and thoughtless than the English and French adventurers, killed only the bulls and old cows, and left the younger ones to breed. The French were notorious for their wanton waste, using oxen merely as marks for their bullets, and as utterly indifferent to the future as Autolycus, who "slept out the thought of it." About 1650 the wild cattle of Jamaica were entirely destroyed, and the Governor procured a fresh supply from Cuba.
Whenever the oxen grew scarce, they became wilder and more ferocious. In some places no hunter dared to fire at them if alone, nor ever ventured into their pastures unattended. All animals grow shy if frequently pursued, and no fish are so unapproachable as those of a much frequented stream. Dampierre says that at Beef Island the old bulls who had once been wounded, when they saw the hunters or heard their muskets, would instantly form into a square, with their cows in the rear and the calves in the middle, turning as the hunters turned, and presenting their horns like a cl.u.s.ter of bayonets. It then became necessary to beat the woods for stragglers. A beast mortally wounded always made at the hunter; but if only grazed by the bullet it ran away. A cow was thought to be more dangerous than a bull, as the former charged with its eyes open, and the latter with them closed. The danger was often imminent. One of Dampierre"s messmates ventured into the savannah, about a mile from the huts, and coming within shot of a bull wounded it desperately. The bull, however, had strength enough to pursue and overtake the logwood-cutter before he could load again, to trample him, and gore him in the thigh.
Then, faint with loss of blood, it reeled down dead, and fell heavily beside the bleeding and groaning hunter. His comerade, coming the next morning to seek for the man, found him weak and almost dying, and, taking him on his back, bore him to his hut, where he was soon cured.
The rapidity of such cures is peculiar to savages, or men who devote their whole life to muscular exertion; for the flesh of the South Sea Islanders is said to close upon a sword as india-rubber does upon the knife that cuts it. Often, in the heat and excitement of these pursuits, the solitary hunter, and still more often, from want of experience and from youthful rashness, the _engage_, would lose his way in the woods, or, falling into a forest pool, become a prey of the lurking cayman, if not alarmed by the premonitory odour of musk that indicated its dangerous vicinity. Nature is full of these warnings: and the vibrating rattle of the Indian snake has saved the life of many a Buccaneer.
Besides an unceasing supply of beef on sh.o.r.e, and salted turtle at sea, the Buccaneers ate the flesh of deer and of peccavy. On the mainland wild turkeys were always within shot, and fat monkeys and plump parrots were resources for more hungry and less epicurean men. The rich fruits of the West Indies, needing no cultivation to improve their flavour, grew around their huts, and were to be had all the year round for the picking. The parched hunters delighted in the resinous-flavoured mango and the luscious guava as much as our modern sailors. In such a country every one is a vegetarian; for when dinner is over, to be a fruit eater needs no hermit-like asceticism. The plantain and the yam served them instead of the bread-fruit of the Pacific, or the potato of Virginia, and the custard-apple took the place of pastry; but the great dainty which all their chroniclers mention was the large avocado pear, which they supposed to be an aphrodisiac. This prodigious lemon-coloured fruit was allowed to mellow, its soft pulp was then scooped out and beaten up in a plate with orange and lime juice; but hungry and more impatient men ate it at once, with a little salt and a roast plantain. A Buccaneer never touched an unknown fruit till he had seen birds pecking it on the tree. No bird was ever seen to touch the blooming but poisonous apples of the manchineel, which few animals but crabs could eat with impunity; as this tree grew by the sea-sh.o.r.e, even fish were rendered poisonous by feeding on the fruit that fell into the water. The verified stories of the manchineel excel the fables related of the upas of Batavia. The very dew upon its branches poisoned those upon whom it dropped. Esquemeling says: "One day, being hugely tormented with mosquitoes or gnats, and being as yet unacquainted with the nature of this tree, I cut a branch to serve me for a fan, but all my face was swelled the next day, and filled with blisters as if it were burnt, to such a degree that I was blind for three days."
The hunters tormented by mosquitoes and sand flies used leafy branches for fans, and anointed their faces with hog"s grease to defend themselves from the stings. By night in their huts they burned tobacco, without which smoke they could not have obtained sleep. The mosquitoes were of all sorts, the buzzing and the silent, the tormentors by day and night; but they dispersed when the land breeze rose, or whenever the wind increased. The common mosquito was not visible by day, but at sunset filled the woods with its ominous humming. Oexmelin describes on one occasion his lying for eight hours in the water of a brook to escape their stings; sitting on a stone or on the sand, and keeping his face, which was above water, covered with leaves to protect him from the fiery stings.
The Buccaneers made their pens of reeds, and their paper of the leaves of a peculiar sort of palm, the outer cuticle of which was thin, white, and soft; their ink was the black juice of the juniper berries, letters written with which turned white in nine days. They kept harmless snakes in their houses to feed on the rats and mice, just as we do cats, or the Copts did the ichneumons. They frequently used a handful of fire-flies instead of a lantern: Esquemeling, himself a Buccaneer, says, that with three of these in his cottage at midnight he could see to read in any book, however small the print.
The Buccaneers carried in their tobacco pouches the horn of an immense sort of spider, which Esquemeling describes as big as an egg, with feet as long as a crab, and four black teeth like a rabbit, its bite being sharp but not venomous. These teeth or horns they used either as toothpicks or pipe-cleaners; they were supposed to have the property of preserving the user from toothache. They are described as about two inches long, black as jet, smooth as gla.s.s, sharp as a thorn, and a little bent at the lower end.
Their favourite toy, the dice, they cut from the white ivory-like teeth of the sea-horse. Great observers of the use of things, and well lessoned in the bitter school of experience, they turned every new natural production they met with to some useful purpose, uniting with the keen sagacity of the hunter the shrewd instinct of the savage. Their horsewhips they formed from the skin of the back of a wild bull or sea-cow. The lashes were made of slips of hide, two or three feet long, of the full thickness at the bottom, and cut square and tapering to the point. These thongs they twisted while still green, and then hung them up in a hut to dry; in a few weeks they shrank and became hard as wood, and tough as an American cowhide, an Abyssinian scourge, or the far-famed Russian knout. From the skin of the manitee they cut straps, which they used in their canoes instead of the ordinary tholes.
The wild boar hunters frequently lived in huts four or five together, and remained for months, frequently a year, in the same place, supplying the neighbouring planters by contract. The most perfect equality reigned between the _matelots_; and if one of them wanted powder or lead, he took it from the other"s store, telling him of the loan, and repaying it when able.
When a dispute arose between any of them, their a.s.sociates tried to reconcile the difference. A dispute about a shooting wager, or the smallest trifle, might give rise to deadly feuds between such lawless and vindictive exiles, unaccustomed to control, and ready to resort to arms. If both still determined to have revenge, the musket was the impa.s.sive arbiter appealed to. The friends of the duellists decided at what distance the combatants should stand, and made them draw lots for the first fire. If one fell dead, the bystanders immediately held a sort of inquest, at which they decided whether he had been fairly dealt with, and examined the body to see that the death-shot had been fairly fired in front, and not in a cowardly or treacherous manner, and handled his musket to see whether it was discharged and had been in good order. A surgeon then opened the orifice of the wound, and if he decided that the bullet had entered behind, or much on one side, they declared the survivor a murderer; Lynch law was proclaimed, they tied the culprit to a tree, and shot him with their muskets. In Tortuga, or near a town, this rude justice was never resorted to, and, even in the wilder places, was soon abandoned as the hunters grew more civilized. These duels generally took place on the sea beach if the Flibustiers were the combatants.
As these men took incessant exercise, were indifferent to climate, and fed chiefly on fresh meat, they enjoyed good health. They were, however, subject to flying fevers that pa.s.sed in a day, and which did not confine them even to their tents.
With the Spanish Lanceros, or Fifties as they were called by the Buccaneers, the hunters were perpetually at war, their intrepid infantry being generally successful against the hot charges of these yeomanry of the savannahs. There were four companies of them in Hispaniola, with a hundred spearmen in each company; half of these were generally on the patrol, while the remainder rested, and from their number they derived their nickname. Their duty was to surprise the isolated hunters, to burn the stores of hides, make prisoners of the _engages_, and guard the Spanish settlers against any sudden attack. At other times they were employed in killing off the herds of wild cattle that furnished the Buccaneers with food, and drew fresh bands to the plains where they abounded. In great enterprises the whole corps cried "boot and saddle,"
and they took with them at all times a few muleteers on foot, either to carry their baggage, or to serve as scouts in the woods, where the cow-killers built their huts. But, in spite of Negro foragers and Indian spies, the keener-eyed Buccaneers generally escaped, or, if met with, broke like raging wolves through their adversaries" toils. Accustomed to the bush, inured to famine and fatigue, and more indifferent than even the Spaniards to climate, the Buccaneers were seldom taken prisoners.
Unerring marksmen, with a spice of the wild beast in their blood, they preferred death to flight or capture.
It is probable that even for this toilsome and dangerous pursuit the Spaniards easily obtained recruits. Constant sport with the wild cattle, abundant food, and a spirit of adventure would prove an irresistible bait to the bravos of Carthagena, or the matadors of Campeachy. The hangers-on of the wineshops and the pulque drinkers of Mexico would readily embark in any campaign that would bring them a few pistoles, and give them good food and gay clothing.
Oexmelin relates several instances of the daring escapes of the Buccaneer hunters from the blood-thirsting pursuit of the Fifties. It was their custom, directly that news reached the tents that the Lanceros were out, to issue an order that the first man who caught sight of the hors.e.m.e.n should inform the rest, in order to attack the foe by an ambuscade, if they were too numerous to meet in the open field. The great aim, on the other hand, of the Lanceros, was to wait for a night of rain and wind, when the sound of their hoofs could not be heard, and to butcher the sleepers when their fire-arms were either damp or piled out of reach.
Frequently they surrounded the hunters when heavy after a debauch, and when even the sentinels were asleep at the tent doors.
The following anecdote conveys some impression of these encounters. A French Buccaneer going one day into the savannahs to hunt, followed by his _engage_, was suddenly surrounded by a troop of shouting Lanceros.
He saw at once that the Fifties had at last trapped him. He was surrounded, and escape from their swift pursuit, with no tree near, was hopeless. But he would not let hope desert him so long as the spears were still out of his heart. His _engage_ was as brave as himself, and both determined to stand at bay and sell their lives dearly. The hunter of mad oxen, and the tamer of wild horses, need not fear man or devil.
The master and man put themselves back to back, and, laying their common stock of powder and bullets in their caps between them, prepared for death. The Spaniards, who only carried lances, kept coursing round them, afraid to narrow in, or venture within shot, and crying out to them with threats to surrender. They next offered them quarter, and at last promised to disarm but not hurt them, saying they were only executing the orders of their general. The two Frenchmen replied mockingly, that they would never surrender, and wanted no quarter, and that the first lancer who approached would pay dear for his visit. The Spaniards still hovered round, afraid to advance, none of them willing to be the first victim, or to play the scapegoat for the rest. "C"est le premier pas qui coute," and the first step they made was backward. After some consultation at a safe distance, they finally left the Buccaneers still standing threateningly back to back, and spurred off, half afraid that the Tartars they had nearly caught might turn the tables, and advance against them.
The steady persistency of the Buccaneer infantry was generally victorious over the impetuous but transitory onslaught of the Spanish cavalry.
Another time a wild Buccaneer while hunting alone was surprised by a similar party of mounted pikemen. Seeing that there was some distance between him and the nearest wood, and that his capture was certain, he bethought himself of the following _ruse_. Putting his gun up to his shoulder he advanced at a trot, shouting exultingly, "_a moi, a moi!_"
as if he was followed by a band of scattered companions who had been in search of the Spaniards. The cavaliers, believing at once that they had fallen into an ambush, took flight, to the joy of the ingenious hunter, who quickly made his escape, laughing, into the neighbouring covert.
The Spaniards were worn out at last with this border warfare, unprofitable because it was waged with men who were too poor to reward the plunderer, and dangerous because fought with every disadvantage of weapon and situation. In the savannahs the Spaniards were formidable, but in the woods they became a certain prey to the musketeer. Unable to drive the plunderers out of the island, the Spaniards at last foolishly resolved to render the island not worth the plunder. Orders came from Spain to kill off the wild cattle that Columbus had originally brought to the island, and particularly round the coast. If the trade with the French vessels and the barter of hides for brandy could once be arrested, the hunters would be driven from the woods by starvation, or perish one by one in their dens. They little thought that this scheme would succeed, and what would be the consequence of such success. The hunters turned sea crusaders, and the sea became the savannah where they sought their human game. Every creek soon thronged with men more deadly than the Danish Vikinger: wrecked on a habitable sh.o.r.e, they landed as invaders and turned hunters as before; driven to their boats, they became again adventurers. In this name and in that of "soldiers of fortune" they delighted: a more honest and less courteous age would have termed them pirates. By the year 1686, the change from Buccaneer to Flibustier had been almost wholly effected.
The Buccaneers" _engages_ led a life very little better than those white slaves whom the glittering promises of the planters had decoyed from France. The existence of the former was, however, rendered more bearable by their variety of adventure, by better food, and by daily recreation.
If all day in the hot sun he had to toil carrying bales of skins from his master"s hut towards the sh.o.r.e, we must remember that American seamen still work contentedly at the same labour in California for a sailor"s ordinary wages. Mutual danger produced necessarily, except in the most brutal, a kind of fellowship between the master and the servant of the boucan. Up at daybreak, the _engage_ sweltered all day through the bush, groaning beneath his burden of loathsome hides, but the good meal came before sunset, and then the pipes were lit, and the brandy went round, and the song was sung, and the tale was told, while the hunters shot at a mark, or made wagers upon the respective skill of their _matelots_ or their _engages_.
We hear from Charlevoix, that young prodigals of good family had been known to prefer the canvas tent to the tapestried wall, and to have grasped the hunter"s musket with the hand that might have wielded the general"s baton or the marshal"s staff.
The Buccaneer"s life was not one of mere revelry and ease; no luxurious caves or safe strongholds served at once for their treasure house, their palace, and their fortress. They were wandering outlaws; hated both by the Spaniards and the Indians, they ate with a loaded gun within their reach. The jaguar lurked beside them, the coppersnake glared at them from his lair. If their foot stumbled, they were gored by the ox or ripped up by the boar; if they fled they became a prey to the cayman of the pool; they were swept away as they forded swollen rivers; they were swallowed up by that dreadful foretype of the Judgment, the earthquake.
The shark and the sea monster swam by their canoe, the carrion crow that fed to-day upon the carcase they had left, too often fed to-morrow on the slain hunter. The wildest transitions of safety and danger, plenty and famine, peace and war, health and sickness, surrounded their daily life. To-day on the savannah dark with the wild herds, to-morrow compelled to feast on the flesh of a murdered comerade; to-day surrounded by revelling friends, to-morrow left alone to die.
The present system of hide curing practised in California seems almost identical with that employed by the Buccaneers. The following extract from Dana"s "Three Years before the Mast" will convey a correct impression of what const.i.tuted the greater portion of an _engage"s_ labour. He describes the sh.o.r.e piled with hides, just out of reach of the tide; each skin doubled lengthwise in the middle, and nearly as stiff as a board, and the whole bundles carried down on men"s heads from the place of curing to the stacks. "When the hide is taken from the bullock, holes are cut round it, near the edge, and it is staked out to dry, to prevent shrinking. They are then to be cured, and are carried down to the sh.o.r.e at low tide and made fast in small piles, where they lie for forty-eight hours, when they are taken out, rolled up in wheelbarrows, and thrown into vats full of strong brine, where they remain for forty-eight hours. The sea water only cleans and softens them, the brine pickles them. They are then removed from the vats, lie on a platform twenty-four hours, and are then staked out, still wet and soft; the men go over them with knives, cutting off all remaining pieces of meat or fat, the ears, and any part that would either prevent the packing or keeping. A man can clean about twenty-five a-day, keeping at his work. This cleaning must be done before noon, or they get too dry.
When the sun has been upon them for a few hours they are gone over with sc.r.a.pers to remove the fat that the sun brings out; the stakes are then pulled up and the hides carefully doubled, with the hair outside, and left to dry. About the middle of the afternoon, they are turned upon the other side, and at sunset piled up and turned over. The next day they are spread out and opened again, and at night, if fully dry, are thrown up on a long horizontal pole, five at a time, and beaten with flails to get out the dust; thus, being salted, sc.r.a.ped, cleaned, dried, and beaten, they are stowed away in the warehouses."
The Buccaneer"s life was not spent in quaffing sangaree or basking under orange blossoms--not in smoking beside mountains of flowers, where the humming-birds fluttered like b.u.t.terflies, and the lizards flashed across the sunbeams, shedding jewelled and enchanted light. No Indian in the mine, no Arab pearl-diver, no worn, pale children at an English factory, no galley-slave dying at the oar, led such a life as a Buccaneer _engage_ if bound to a cruel master. Imagine a delicate youth, of good but poor family, decoyed from a Norman country town by the loud-sounding promises of a St. Domingo agent, specious as a recruiting sergeant, voluble as the projector of bubble companies, greedy, plausible, and lying. He comes out to the El Dorado of his dreams, and is at once taken to the hut of some rude Buccaneer. The first night is a revel, and his sleep is golden and full of visions. The spell is broken at daybreak. He has to carry a load of skins, weighing some twenty-six pounds, three or four leagues, through brakes of p.r.i.c.kly pear and clumps of canes. The pathless way cannot be traversed at greater speed than about two hours to a quarter of a league. The sun grows vertical, and he is feverish and sick at heart. Three years of this purgatory are varied by blows and curses. The masters too often loaded their servants with blows if they dared to faint through weakness, hunger, thirst, or fatigue. Some hunters had the forbearance to rest on a Sunday, induced rather by languor than by piety; but on these days the _engage_ had to rise as usual at daybreak, to go out and kill a wild boar for the day"s feast.