Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate Part 1

Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate.

by Charles M. Skinner.

IN THE CARIBBEAN

The Mysterious Islands

Somewhere--anywhere--in the Atlantic, islands drifted like those tissues of root and sedge that break from the edges of northern lakes and are sent to and fro by the gales: floating islands. The little rafts bearing that name are thick enough to nourish trees, and a man or a deer may walk on them without breaking through. Far different were those wandering Edens of the sea, for they had mountains, volcanoes, cities, and gardens; men of might and women lovelier than the dawn lived there in brotherly and sisterly esteem; birds as bright as flowers, and with throats like flutes, peopled the groves, where luscious fruit hung ready for the gathering, and the very skies above these places of enchantment were more serene and deep than those of the storm-swept continents. Where the surges creamed against the coral beaches and cliffs of jasper and marble, the mer-people arose to view and called to the land men in song, while the fish in the shallows were like wisps of rainbow.

It was the habit of these lands never to be where the seeker could readily find them. Some legends pertaining to them appear to do with places no farther from the homes of the simple, if imaginative, tellers than the Azores, Canaries, and Cape Verdes; but others indicate a former knowledge of our own America, and a few may relate to that score or so of rocks lying between New England and the Latin sh.o.r.es; bare, dangerous domes and ledges where sea fowl nest, and where a crumbling skeleton tells of a sailor who outlived a wreck to endure a more dreadful death from cold and thirst and hunger. Some of these tales reach back to the Greek myths: survivals of the oldest histories, or possibly connected America with the old world through voyages made by men whose very nations are dead and long forgotten; for the savages and ogres that inhabited these elusive islands may be European concepts of our Indians. But in the earlier Christian era all was mystery on those plains of water that stretched beyond the sunset. It was believed that as one sailed toward our continent the day faded, and that if the mariner kept on he would be lost in hopeless gloom.

Perhaps the most ancient story in the world tells of the sinking of Atlantis. When the Egyptian priest told it to Solon it was already venerable beyond estimate; yet he recounted the work and pleasures of the Atlantans, who were a mult.i.tude, who drank from hot and cold springs, who had mines of silver and gold, pastures for elephants, and plants that yielded a sweet savor; who prayed in temples of white, red and black stone, sheathed in s.h.i.+ning metals; whose sculptors made vast statues, one, representing Poseidon driving winged horses, being so large that the head of the G.o.d nearly touched the temple roof; who had gardens, ca.n.a.ls, sea walls, and pleasant walks; who had ten thousand chariots in their capital alone; the port of twelve hundred s.h.i.+ps. They were a folk of peace and kindness, but as they increased in wealth and comfort they forgot the laws of heaven; so in a day and a night this continent went down, burying its millions and its treasures beneath the waters. A few of the inhabitants escaped to Europe in their s.h.i.+ps; a few, also, to America. It has been claimed that Atlantis may still be traced in an elevation of the ocean floor about seven hundred miles wide and a thousand miles long, its greatest length from northeast to southwest, and the Azores at its eastern edge--mountain tops not quite submerged. As some believe, it was from this cataclysm that has sprung the world-wide legend of a deluge.

From some of the enchanted lands, perhaps near the American sh.o.r.e, Merlin went to England, piled the monoliths of Stonehenge on Salisbury moor, and after gaining respect and fear as a magician and prophet, sailed back across the waste. The Joyous Island of Lancelot; the island where King Arthur wrestled and bested the Half Man; Avalon, the Isle of the Blest, where Arthur lived in the castle of the sea-born fairy, Morgan le Fee, were probably near the British or Irish coasts.

Many days' sail from Europe was the Island of Youth. A daring Irish lad reached it, borne by a horse as white as the foam, that never sank. He paused on the way to slay a giant who held a princess in his enchantment, and reached, at length, a land where birds were so many that the trees shook with the burden of them, and the air rang with their song. There, with his wife and a merry band of youths and maids, he spent a hundred years--one long joy of killing; for from dawn till dark the deer met death at his hand, bleeding from the stroke of dart and knife. A floating spear was found near the sh.o.r.e one day, rusted and scarred with battle, and as he grasped it memories of old wars returned to him, so that he was sick with longing to go home and hurl the cutting metal through the ribs of his enemies and see the good red flood burst from their hearts. He remounted his white steed and reached Ireland, careless of the happiness he had left: for those who deserted the island might never return. He reached his home to find men grown too small and mean to fight him, which probably means that he had waxed so great as to make them seem like dwarfs. Appalled at this change, dismayed at the loss of all chance for battle, he sank to the earth. His age came suddenly upon him, and he died.

In one of the great Irish monasteries lived St. Brandan, of the holy brotherhood that tilled the soil, taught the permitted sciences, copied and illumined the works of the early Christians, fed four hundred beggars daily, though living on bread, roots, and nuts themselves, lodging and studying in unwarmed cells of stone. Once in seven years the people saw from sh.o.r.e the island of Hy-Brasail. The monks tried to stop its wanderings by prayer and by fiery arrows, yet without avail. Kirwan claimed to have landed on it, and he brought back strange money that he said was used by its people. So late as 1850 Brasail Rock remained on the British Admiralty chart, to show how hard tradition dies. The appearance of this phantom land made Brandan long to explore the realm of mystery wherefrom it had emerged. He hoped to find even the Promised Island of the Saints, when at last he was able to leave the convent where he had endured so many hards.h.i.+ps and embarked on Mernoc's s.h.i.+p; blessed region where fruit was borne on every tree, flowers on every bush; region strewn with precious stones and full of perfume that clung to one's garments for weeks, like an odor of sanct.i.ty.

Seventeen priests set sail in the coracle, or boat of basket work covered with leather. They had no fear, for they were holy men, and in those days Christians were immune from peril. Not long before a company of nuns had been blown across the sea and back again, seated on a cloak that rode the waves like a s.h.i.+p. After forty days Brandan's company found a group of islands peopled by courteous natives. Next they disembarked on what they thought to be a rock to cook a dinner, but it was no rock; it was a whale, that, feeling the sting of flame through his thick hide, rushed off for two miles, carrying their fire on his back. They hastily re-entered their boat before the monster had gained much headway and ere long reached the Paradise of Birds, where they enjoyed the music made by thousands of little creatures with their wings--a music like fiddling. After this came visits to a den of griffins; to a land of grapes such as the Nors.e.m.e.n told about; to a mountain country aflame with the forges of one-eyed people, or cyclops. Twice, on Easter Sunday, they put lambs to death, and so, being blessed for the sacrifice, were allowed to reach the Island of Saints, where an angel bade them take all the precious stones they wished, as they had been created for holy people, but to attempt no exploration beyond that point. No men appeared; still, in order to leave the impress of their calling, St. Malo, one of the company, dug up a giant who had died several years before, preached to him and baptized him. These reformatory services revived the giant a little, though he was pretty far gone, and he died again as soon as the priest stopped preaching. St. Brandan went back to Clonfert, where three thousand monks joined him in good works, and mendicants swarmed from all over the land to benefit by their labor. He often told the people and the brethren of the wonders he had seen in lands Columbus was to rediscover nine hundred years later, and he dwelt with marvelling on the mercy of G.o.d as shown to Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Christ, who was encountered in the northern seas, lying naked on an iceberg in silent delight. St. Brandan recognized him by portraits he had seen and hailed him. Judas then told his story; he was roasting in h.e.l.l when the Lord remembered that once in Joppa this disciple had thrown his cloak over the shoulders of a leper who was agonized by a wind that blew sharp sand into his sores. An angel was sent to tell the doomed one that for this mercy he would be allowed, for one hour in every year, to breathe the wholesome air of the upper world, and stretch his scorched body on the ice. Moved by this tenderness toward the most despised of men, St. Brandan bowed and prayed, just as Judas, with despair in his upturned face, slipped down again to the deeps of fire.

Some men of Ross, Ireland, had killed their king, despite his successful wars against his rival monarchs, some of whose kingdoms were as large as a towns.h.i.+p. For this offense the heir to the throne, or his advisers, decreed that sixty couples should be set adrift on the ocean, to meet what fate they might. A guard was put along the sh.o.r.e to keep them from landing again, and an easterly gale blew them quickly out of sight of their relatives and friends. For years none dared to seek for them. Conall Ua Corra, of Connaught, had prayed in vain to the Lord for children, so in anger he prayed to the devil, and three boys were born to his wife. The neighbors jeered at them as the fiend's offspring, and hara.s.sed them and made them bitter. They said, one to the other, "If we are really sons of Satan we will justify these taunts," and collecting all the vicious boys of their village they robbed farmers, ruined churches, killed men who resisted plunder, and were about to murder their father when they were warned in a vision of the eternal punishment they would endure in blazing sulphur pits if they did not repent. Their father had long regretted his hasty prayer to the evil one, and had tried to regain the good-will of heaven by industry, and by giving freely of his substance to the sick and pauperized. By advice of St. Finnen, to whom they confessed, the boys repaired the churches they had injured and mourned the victims of their brutality; yet, as the people doubted their conversion, they resolved to leave the country and go to some land where they would not be constantly exposed to the danger of breaking their good resolves by reproaches and attacks. Where to go? It was suggested by some designing neighbor that if they were to search for the one hundred and twenty exiles they would be doing a service to heaven and the world. This suggestion was promptly acted on. In a frail coracle they swept the sea, discovering strange lands, in one of which the half-forgotten people of Ross were found, living so contentedly that few of them cared to go back. The most exciting incidents of the voyage were the three meetings with the Island of Satan's Hand, a lone rock in icy waters, where fogs always brooded. At the will of a malignant demon it changed its place from time to time, and it was the hand of this monster, a vast, rude shape looming out of the mist, which endangered all the s.h.i.+ps that pa.s.sed, for it struck at them,--as it did at the coracle of these three voyagers,--injuring hulls, tearing sails, or knocking the crews overboard, when it did not send them to the bottom. If the blow fell short it made the sea boil and sent billows rolling for a mile. Some of the sh.o.r.e folk said it was icebergs that the s.h.i.+pmen saw; but icebergs never sailed so far from the pole, they answered. Despite its wandering habit, the map-makers eventually agreed on a site for this rock of the smiting hand, calling it Satanaxio. It can be seen on charts of the eighteenth century.

A thousand years before Columbus it was reported that tropic islands had been discovered and ruled by Archbishop Oppas, of Spain, who was fain to leave his country because he had betrayed his king to the Moors. He found a race friendly and gentle, sharing with one another whatever was given to them, as not knowing selfishness. This prelate burned his s.h.i.+ps, that his people might not return, laid off the largest island into seven bishoprics, and, impressing the natives into his service, built churches and convents, for there were women in his company whom he placed in nunneries. This island, which figures on early maps as Antillia and as Behaim, was known also as the Land of the Seven Cities, from its seven bishoprics. When Coronado heard of the pueblos of Arizona and New Mexico, he may have confounded them with the towns of Oppas, and to this day the seven cities of Cibola are a legend of our desert. Harold's Nors.e.m.e.n were told by the wild Skraelings of Maine of a pale-faced people farther south, who walked in processions, carrying white banners and chanting.

Near Florida was the island of Bimini, with its fountain of youth. Juan and Luis Ponce de Leon sought it vainly among the Bahamas, then crossed to Florida and kept up the search among the pine barrens, the moss-bearded cypresses, the snaky swamps, and alligator infested rivers. The Indians, strong, active, healthy with their simple, outdoor life, their ignorance of wine and European diseases, seemed so favored that the Spaniards believed they must have bathed in the magic fountain and drank its waters. Green Cove Spring, near Magnolia, is the one where Luis bathed, hoping that he had found at last the restorative fountain; but an angry Indian shot a poisoned arrow through his body, and neither prayers nor water stayed long the little life that was in him. So the spring is in the unfound Bimini, after all.

The Buccaneers

How the free traders in the West Indies became smugglers, how by easy stages they pa.s.sed from the profession of illicit dealing to piracy, are matters that concern history rather than legend. Their name of buccaneers comes from buccan, an Indian word signifying a smoke-house, in which beef and other meats were dried; as one of the earliest enterprises of the rovers was the stealing of Spanish cattle in San Domingo, and the drying of their flesh in the native buccans for use at sea.

A general hatred or jealousy of Spain, that was shared by the English, Dutch, and French, led to the first privateering expeditions. Indeed, throughout the seventeenth century the pirates operated princ.i.p.ally against Spain, and were tolerated because of the injury they did to her s.h.i.+ps, her people, her property, and her trade. Having finally ruined her commerce, they sacked her colonies, and, the l.u.s.t for blood and treasure having been roused to a sort of madness, they cast off patriotic allegiances and became mere robbers and outlaws. The history of the successes of L'Ollonois, Morgan, Davis, and the rest, is an exciting though painful one, inasmuch as all sense of right and mercy seems to have been crushed in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of these men by their brutal business. For a handful of dollars they were ready to wreck a city, reduce even its ruins to ashes, slaughter women and babes, and cut the throats of the aged. They were as harsh and treacherous toward one another as they were toward peaceable men, and for acts of rebellion against a leader they were killed off-hand, while it was customary, also, to butcher a sailor whenever a chest of treasure was buried, and place his body on or in the chest, that his ghost might guard it and terrify intruders. Yet the ultimate influence of the buccaneers was for good, inasmuch as they wrested a part of the rich Antilles from the cruel and ignorant Spaniard and gave it to more enlightened powers.

When the freebooting days were at their height there was no harbor of safety between Rio and Halifax; but there was, in every town the rascals visited, an element that profited by their robberies: the keepers of inns, brothels, and gaming-houses, and, lastly, the royal governors. These b.l.o.o.d.y-fingered varlets would sack a church, get tipsy on the communion wine, and demand the blessing of the priests on the next enterprise of the same kind they had in contemplation. With the chalices, candlesticks, and altar furnis.h.i.+ngs, they would go to the nearest city, where they were sure of finding this friendly element, and riot away the last piece of metal in their pockets; or, if pipes of wine were among the prizes, any island would serve for a long debauch. Devil's Island, the place of Dreyfus's captivity, was a popular rendezvous, though it is so named not because of these gatherings, but because of a particularly unmanageable prisoner who was once confined there.

The governors of some of the West Indies were as keen on the scent of the sea-robbers as the latter were in the chase of merchant-men, and they were unable to see a good many sad goings-on when a few pieces-of-eight were held before their eyes. Gaming was no disgrace in those times, nor was hard drinking, nor coa.r.s.e speech, and even piracy had a sort of sanction when the victims were people of a nation with whom the buccaneers were at war. Many tales of gamesters' luck are told, but a couple will suffice. Vent-en-Panne, a Frenchman, had received five hundred crowns as his share of a robbery, and on the first night ash.o.r.e, at Kingston, Jamaica, he staked and lost it all, with three hundred more that a reckless comrade had lent to him. Though penniless, he was not discouraged. He became a wine-drawer and pipe-lighter in the tavern, and with a few pennies received for tips he bet on the cards again. This time he won, and his fortune mounted to twelve thousand crowns. With this amount in hand he felt he could be virtuous, so he took s.h.i.+p for home, intending to settle in Paris and fulfil the ambition of every honest Frenchman,--to own a furnished room, fish in the Seine, and hear the bands play. He got only as far as Barbadoes, for at that island a rich Jew came aboard, persuaded him to play for a small amount, and lost everything to Vent-en-Panne,--money, houses, sugar, and slaves. The fever was on them both, however, and so soon as the Jew could borrow a little his luck also turned, and Vent-en-Panne was stripped of every sou,--even the clothes he wore. Paris became an iridescent dream, and the gambler found his way to the Tortugas, where he doubtless s.h.i.+pped with Morgan, Teach, or some other of the scourges of the Spanish main.

Two rovers are credited with beating the governor of Jamaica at another game, after they had lost to him a matter of ten thousand crowns,--the earnings of several weeks faithfully devoted to privateering. In order to continue the game (to their complete beggary), the fellows had borrowed from acquaintances in Kingston, who, seeing no way to get their money back, decided to have them imprisoned for debt. Hearing of this plan, the elder of the precious pair reported to the governor that he had a negro whom he would like to sell, cheap, in order to pay his debts and start in a mechanic trade, such as he had followed in years gone by. The governor bade him have the fellow brought in, and finding him to be a st.u.r.dy, intelligent man, with a skin as black as the ten of clubs, he bought him and set him at work. Next day the negro had disappeared. Notice and offers of reward were sent to all parts of the island, but nothing came of it. The two ex-pirates followed a peaceful and thriving trade of making keys, possibly for burglars, and in a few years had saved enough to enable them to return to England. Before sailing they called on the ex governor, who had drank and gambled himself into poverty, and emptied a fistful of gold before him.

"That's for the n.i.g.g.e.r, with interest," said one.

"The n.i.g.g.e.r? What, the one that ran away?" asked the governor.

"Oh, he didn't run far. Here he is." And the speaker clapped his companion on the shoulder. "He had only to curl his hair with a hot iron and rub charcoal on his chops to deceive a governor."

The tickled old fellow drank their health and wished them a safe journey, out of Jamaica.

While luck seemed to bide with the rovers, it was not always smooth sailing on the Spanish seas. Now and then the buccaneers attacked an innocent looking s.h.i.+p that waited until they had come within musket-reach, when it ran up the Spanish standard, opened a dozen ports, and let fly at them with hot-shot and a hail of bullets. Now and again a mutiny would occur, and the victorious either forced the defeated to walk the plank or marooned them on some desolate sand key to perish of thirst and sunstroke.

Blackbeard's men once found a fis.h.i.+ng-vessel drifting off the Burmudas and eagerly boarded her to look for treasure. In a minute they tumbled out of the cabin and scrambled into the sea like the swine possessed of devils. The vessel had but one living man on board, and he had not many hours of life before him, while corpses strewn about the floor were spotted with small-pox. Half of the pirate crew were slain by the pestilence.

When Roberts was cruising off Surinam a supposed war-s.h.i.+p bore down on him in a fog. He pelted her with all his guns, but she kept her way unheeding. The fog then breaking showed that it was not a frigate, but a sloop, which had been magnified by the mist, and he quickly grappled her and sent his men to see what manner of s.h.i.+p she was. Ten or twelve Spaniards lying about the deck with their throats cut proved that some other buccaneer had been before him. As the men were about to leave their floating charnel-house to hold her way whither the gales might send her, a furious swearing in Spanish caused them to s.h.i.+ver and look back. Were the dead speaking? Had some crazed sailor escaped, and was he gibbering from the roundtop? No: it was a parrot in the rigging, and he was saying all he knew.

Montbar, having discovered a company of Spanish on one of the Windward Islands, went ash.o.r.e with guns, knives, and axes, and destroyed them all, except one. This man told how he and his fellows had been put ash.o.r.e. They were the crew of a slaver, and were on their way from Africa to Cuba with a cargo of slaves, when the s.h.i.+p began to leak badly. The carpenter, accompanied by several of the more intelligent of the blacks, made a careful inspection of the hold, yet could find no leak; so the constant inflow, that kept all hands at the pumps, was at length declared to be the devil's work. The slaves wailed and wrung their hands, the captain swore and prayed, the crew toiled to exhaustion. When it seemed as if the s.h.i.+p could not float for another day the island appeared ahead, and quickly loading arms, provisions, and water into the boats, the Spaniards abandoned s.h.i.+p and left the negroes to their fate. Great was their surprise and dismay when the slaves ran, cheering, over the deck, hoisted all sail, and squared away for the eastward, the vessel rising higher in the water as her former crew sat watching her. These blacks, who were confined in the hold, had got possession of knives with which they cut through the outer planking, causing the s.h.i.+p to leak alarmingly. They had also fitted plugs to these leaks, and packed them with oak.u.m, so that when the carpenter made his rounds no water came in. As soon as he returned to the deck the holes were opened again, for it was known that the Antilles were near, and the scheme to frighten their captors to land was successful. These facts the crew learned from the negro cook, who had accompanied them to sh.o.r.e.

The devil, who was supposed in this case to have been the enemy instead of the ally of the slavers, often mixed in the affairs of a cla.s.s that must have filled him with admiration. Some of the pirates are reported to have placed themselves entirely in the hands of the foe of the human race, swearing on strange objects to give their souls to him, and formally burying a Bible on sh.o.r.e as a token that they were through forever with religion and mercy. Yet they were a superst.i.tious lot, fearful of signs and portents, and do not, therefore, appear to have been trusting subjects of His Satanic Majesty. They always had an ear and a coin for a fortune-teller, and early in the eighteenth century there were negroes and Indians in the West Indies and the tropic Americas who openly practised that trade and art of witchcraft for which their white brethren in Salem had been hanged. Their princ.i.p.al customers were pirates and buccaneers, who went to them for a forecast of fortune, and also bought charms that would create fair winds for themselves and typhoons for their enemies. These witches kept open ears in their heads, and information carelessly dropped by the outlaws they sold for an aftermath of gain to the Spaniards, who found truth in so many of the prophesies that they respected the soothsayers and fully believed that the English were the chosen of the fiend.

Among the most trusted of the witches was a withered Indian woman of Na.s.sau, the capital of the Bahamas. She was close upon her fifth score of years before she departed this life, but the rumor that she had lived in New Providence since the flood was not denied, for it made her the more regarded. Her best commodity was strings. For a large price she would sell a string in which she had tied several knots, each one of which represented the particular wind that the captain might wish to prosper him on his way. Captain Condent was a blaspheming corsair from the wicked town of New York, who had left that port as quartermaster on a merchant-man and next morning had appeared with a battery of pistols and had calmly taken the s.h.i.+p out of the hands of her officers. This fellow had bought a string from the witch that carried him to the Cape Verdes and back to America, but when he had cut off all the knots, except two or three, he feared that he might run out of winds altogether; so he put upon certain servants of the Lord the task for which he had paid the servant of the devil. He had with him two or three Spanish monks whom he had stolen in the Cape Verdes, though what he wanted of them neither he nor they could have guessed. They were having a most unhappy time of it. Now and then the scallawag sailors would force them upon all fours, and sitting astride their backs would compel them to creep about the deck, pretending to be horses, while Condent whipped them smartly with the rope's end. Thinking to save his precious twine, he ordered these monks to pray for favoring winds, and he kept them on their marrow bones pet.i.tioning from daylight until sunset. Often they would fall exhausted and voiceless. At last, believing that the wind peddler of Na.s.sau had more power over the elements than a s.h.i.+pload of monks, he threw the wretched friars overboard, and, as luck would have it, the wind he wanted came whistling along a few minutes after.

He came to the end of his string at Zanzibar, where he was caught in a tremendous storm, and was in hourly peril of destruction. His masts had cracked, his sails had split, his water barrels had gone by the board. It was time to hold the witch to her bargain. He swung the cord about his head three times, called the woman's name, and although eight thousand miles of sea and continent lay between them, she heard the call. The string was pulled through his fingers so smartly that it made them burn, and was whisked out of sight in the wind and the spray. Within an hour the gale abated. Next day Condent attempted to make his way by dead reckoning, but whenever he went wrong a bird flew in his face, and a s.h.i.+p crowded with skeletons approached him in the mist. He presently gained the Isle of Bourbon, or Reunion, where his stealings enabled him to cut such a figure in society that he married into the family of the governor and died in an odor of--well, maybe it was sanct.i.ty. At all events, he died.

It was a witch also that had foretold the march of the buccaneers across Panama isthmus, and her warning was considered of such importance that the Spanish troops and merchants were notified, though they made but a feeble resistance when the foray actually occurred.

One of the Spanish slavers bound for our coasts was overhauled by the English pirate Lewis. She was a fast sailer and had nearly escaped when Lewis ripped a handful of hair from his head, flung it to the wind, and shouted, "Ho, Satan, keep that till I come." Instantly the wind rose to a gale. In a few minutes the Spaniard was in the hands of the pirates, and the slaves, being only an enc.u.mbrance, were tossed overboard to the sharks, as one might fling away a damaged cargo. One of the black men was a dwarf, gnarly, wrinkled, misshapen, with eyes that blazed like a cat's in the dark. No sooner had this man been pushed over the side than he uttered an ear-splitting yell, and seemed to bound back to the deck. It was a cat, however, not a human being, that was seen to rush into the cabin, and it looked into Lewis's face with the same s.h.i.+ning, menacing eyes that he had seen in the dwarf. A negro boy who had been spared to act as a servant for the captain having unconsciously roused his anger, Lewis rushed upon him with his sword, cut him through the heart and beat his corpse, the cat sitting by and squealing with glee at the sight. When a mate struck at the animal in a tort of disgust and fear, the creature leaped at him and almost blinded him with its claws. From that time the cat became Lewis's familiar; was before him at the table, on his pillow when he slept, on his shoulder when he gave orders. The crew agreed that it could be none other than the devil himself. On Lewis's last night alive, while he was quite drunk, the cat seemed to be whispering into his ear. He arose and staggered away, saying, "The devil says I shall be killed to-night." An hour later his s.h.i.+p was boarded by French pirates, and Lewis was despatched. After scratching the faces of nearly all the enemy, the cat ran up the mainmast, throwing off sparks and screeching, scrambled to the end of the topsail-yard, and leaped off into the night.

Morgan, the English sea robber, had captured a number of Spanish prisoners in Panama, among them a woman of beauty and distinction, who had been left without other protection than that of a faithless servant during her husband's absence in Peru. The dignity and refinement of his prisoner made a certain impression on Morgan. After he had put to sea a cabin was reserved for her, she was treated with respect by the crew, but a guard kept her in sight always. The gross nature of the pirate disclosed itself in a few days, when, fresh from a debauch and reeking with the odors of rum, he forced her cabin door and attempted to embrace her. She sprang back with a cry of loathing, and grasping a dagger swore that if he ever intruded himself in her presence again she would drive the weapon into her own heart, since she could never hope to reach his by any means, violent or gentle. In a fit of anger, the pirate ordered his sailors to cast her into the hold among the slaves and hostages, there to endure fever, crowding, hunger, and thirst.

A week or two later these lean, half-dead wretches were kicked out of their dark and stifling dungeon to be sold to some planters. A woman among them asked for a few words with Morgan. Haggard, tear-stained, ragged, neglected as she was, the captain did not at first recognize her as the one whom he had insulted by his show of love. When he did recall her name and state he asked indifferently what she wanted. She told him that an injustice had been done; that she had at first told him it was in her power to buy her liberty, believing it to be so; but her hope was destroyed, and she was so ill and wasted that she would be useless as a slave. As she was going on board of the s.h.i.+p she had whispered to a couple of Spanish priests telling them where her money was concealed, and asking them to pay her ransom with it. They also were under guard, but they persuaded one of the buccaneer officers to go with them, recovered the money, bought their own freedom with it, and ran away. Hearing this, Morgan sent the woman back to Panama, succeeded in capturing the priests, and sold them into slavery.

It is said of Morgan that he had a fire s.h.i.+p, which he would tow as close as possible to the fleets of his enemies, both to draw their fire and kindle a more disastrous one. What appeared to be its crew were logs of wood, placed upright between the bulwarks, each log surmounted by a hat. As to fire, it is recorded that Teach, or Blackbeard, now and then shut himself into his cabin and burned sulphur to prove to his crew that he was a devil. He used to tie his whiskers with red ribbons into pigtails that he tucked over his ears, and he looked the part. Yet he was less of a monster than L'Olonnais, who so hated Spaniards that he would not only slaughter his prisoners, but would bite their hearts like a savage beast after he had cut them out. Beside Blackbeard there was a Redbeard and a Bluebeard. All three of these gentlemen had castles in St. Thomas, and that of Bluebeard had a room in which it is alleged that he killed his wives after the fas.h.i.+on of his Eastern relative.

The Boat of Phantom Children

Sir Francis Drake, destroyer of many of the "invincible" s.h.i.+ps of Spain, came to America with Sir John Hawkins, to subdue the Spanish colonies with the heaviest fleet he ever commanded. Though wrangles between the commanders made this expedition a comparative failure, still wherever the head of a don was seen, a cracking blow was struck at it. War was a crueller business then than it is to-day, in spite of our high explosives, our armored s.h.i.+ps, our mighty guns, and our nimble tactics, and things were done that no captain would dare in these times; at least, no captain with a fear of the world's rebuke, or that of his own conscience. Just before Christmas, 1594, Drake was scourging the coast of Colombia, burning houses, and s.h.i.+pping and despoiling the towns. The people of one village near Rio de la Hache, having been warned of his coming, buried their little property, closed their houses, put fifty of their children on a fis.h.i.+ng smack, while they hurriedly provisioned some boats to carry all the people to a distant cape, where they would remain in hiding until after Drake had destroyed their homes and pa.s.sed on. The fisherman who owned the smack set sail too soon; he was separated from the others in a gale, and Drake, who then appeared, ran between him and the sh.o.r.e, and with a couple of shots drove him farther into the wild sea. The smack never returned. After the English had pa.s.sed, the people watched for it, and, truly, on the next day, a boat was seen beating against the gale and trying to make the pier. As it came nearer, the parents saw their children holding out their arms and laughing. Then the outlines of the hull and sail grew dim, the children's forms drooped as if weary; and in another moment the vision had pa.s.sed. Long was the grief and loud were the curses on the English. When Drake learned that he had fired on a harmless fis.h.i.+ng vessel and driven a company of little ones away from land to be sunk in a tempest, he was filled with compunction and misgiving. The same vision that the parents had seen crossed the path of his own s.h.i.+ps. Before every storm the boat of phantoms appeared, and when he sailed for Escudo and Porto Bello it followed him. Wearied with many wars, ill with tropical fever, repentant for this useless killing, he sank into a depression from which nothing could rouse him, and in January he died on his s.h.i.+p, at Nombre de Dios. His remains were consigned to a sailor's grave--the wide ocean--and as the s.h.i.+p moved on her way, the crew, looking back to the place where the body had gone down, saw the phantom smack rise from the deep, rush like a wind-blown wrack across the spot, and melt into the air as it neared the sh.o.r.e.

Early Porto Rico

Though Columbus made his first landing in Porto Rico at Naguabo, where the Caribs afterward destroyed a Spanish settlement, he gave its present name to the island when he put in Aguada for water. Charmed with the beauty of the bay, the opulence of vegetation, the hope of wealth in the river sands, he christened it "the rich port,"

and extending this, applied to the whole island the name of San Juan Bautista de Puerto Rico--St. John the Baptist of the Rich Port. The natives knew their island as Boriquen. Later came Ponce de Leon, who founded Caparra, now Pueblo Viejo, across the bay from San Juan, to which spot he s.h.i.+fted a little later and built the white house that may still be seen. San Juan is the oldest city of white origin in the Western world, except Santo Domingo, albeit Santiago de Cuba and Baracoa claim to be contemporary. The body of Ponce is buried in San Juan, in the church of Santo Domingo.

When this fair island was claimed by Spain, it had a population of over half a million, but Ponce at once set about the extinction of the native element. The populace was simple, affectionate, confiding, and in showing friends.h.i.+p for the invaders it invited and obtained slavery. It has been ingeniously advanced that the Spaniards disliked the natives because of the cleanliness of the latter. On account of the heat they wore no clothing, to absorb dirt and perspiration, and bathed at least once every day. In those times white people were frugal in the use of water, Spain being more p.r.o.nounced against it than almost any other nation. Listen to one of the Spanish writers, though he is talking, not of our Indians, but of the Moors: "Water seems more needed by these infidels than bread, for they wash every day, as their d.a.m.nable religion directs them to, and they use it in baths, and in a thousand other idle fas.h.i.+ons, of which Spaniards and other Christians can make little account." We know that a Spanish queen refrained, not only from was.h.i.+ng, but from changing her clothes for a whole year. The Porto Ricans were naked, but unaware of their nakedness, therefore they were moderately virtuous; at least, more virtuous than their conquerors. Had they been treated with justice and mercy they would have remained friendly to the white men, and would have been of great service to them in the development of the island. As early as 1512, Africans were s.h.i.+pped to the island to take the places, at enforced labor, of the Indians who had been destroyed. A religion was forced down the throats of the natives that they did not understand, especially as the friars preached it; and being unable at once to grasp the meaning or appreciate the value of discourses on the spiritual nature, the trinity, vicarious atonement, transubstantiation, and the intercession of saints, the soldiers, always within call, followed their custom when the congregations proved intractable: killed them.