Panama—Darien Indians wearing wooden crowns exactly as described by Dampier and Ringrose in their accounts of the buccaneers’ trip across the isthmus 320 Panama—The Tuira River down which Sharp and his men traveled 321 Panama—Darien (Kuna) Indians, the Indians who guided Sharp and his men 321 Panama—The ruins of the cathedral, and bit of wall, Old Panama 336 Panama—All that is left of the ancient fort, Old Panama 336 Panama—Ruins left from Morgan’s raid, Old Panama 337 Panama—Ruins of the governor’s house, Old Panama 337 IN THE WAKE OF THE BUCCANEERS CHAPTER I AMONG THE CARIBBEES I had started forth on a novel journey, a trip I had long wanted to take—a cruise in the wake of the buccaneers. Many a time I had traversed the Caribbean, steaming from port to port of those island gems, the Lesser Antilles, that are strung, like emeralds and sapphires, in a great curving chain stretching from our own St. Thomas, five days south of New York, to Trinidad at the mouth of the Orinoco. Many a time, too, I had skirted the coasts, climbed the mountains, and explored the bush of Cuba, Porto Rico, Santo Domingo, and Jamaica. And whenever I had stood upon a liner’s deck and watched the huge-sailed island sloops and schooners courtesying to the sparkling waves and, with lee rails awash, surging through the blue sea toward some distant isle, I had envied those aboard. I had vowed that sooner or later I too would stand upon the heaving deck of a nimble sailing-craft and cruise hither and thither among the islands, going and coming as humor willed, seeing the out-of-the-way places, the little-known islets, the hidden, quiet bays and coves which no churning screws had disturbed and no smoke-belching funnels had besmirched.