Being little able to work for some time after my recovery, and the rest of the party being engaged in the usual toil of hunting wild cattle, and preserving the meat by the boucan, it was often my habit to take the canoe and proceed in her down towards the mouth of the bay, so as to enjoy the fresh and briny breeze which came from the north-west across the ocean. To make these expeditions more pleasant, I prepared a mast with a small lug sail, such as the canoe could bear, and I could manage with ease. Almost my first trip, when thus provided, was to the scene of the late contest. I found nearly every trace of a settlement destroyed. The rude jetty was all but demolished, and over the ruins of the shattered huts, great crops of luxuriant herbage had grown, from which I often started snakes and venomous insects, such as centipedes and scorpions, who delighted to make their nests in the holes and crevices which they found in abundance amidst the ruins of our huts. On a sweet spot of green-sward, under the shadow of a great spreading tree, there were rows of little mounds, very green. Here our poor comrades lay buried. The Spaniards, it seems, had interred their dead, and on their departure, which happened on the day after I was attacked with fever, all our party had gone across the bay, and laid the dead Buccaneers beneath the mould. Upon the bark of the great tree I was at pains to carve a deep cross; for, though the symbol in Europe be the mark of a corrupt and idolatrous church, still I felt that in the wilderness it might bear a truer and a wider meaning, and point out to future strangers that the mounds beneath the tree covered the graves of Christian men. CHAPTER VII. THE BUCCANEERS TIRE OF THE LIFE ON SHORE, AND DETERMINE TO GO AGAIN TO SEA. Searching about the place I often discovered little matters, which I stored in the canoe and brought to our new settlement, such as axes and hammers, harpoons for striking fish, fragments of cordage, rope and canvas; and twice I dug up from the ruins, boxes containing seamen’s clothes, which were very welcome to us all; in one of these trunks I discovered some Spanish books, including a grammar and dictionary, and of these I hastened to avail myself, inasmuch as I saw that a knowledge of this language might soon be of the greatest service to me. Neither did my companions grudge that I thus applied much of my time to study, for none of them knew more than a few words of Spanish, and they were quite aware of the advantage of having one at least of that party conversant with that tongue.