On the Spanish Main; Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of DarienMasefield, John
History
On the Spanish Main; Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien
Masefield, John
Buccaneers; Spanish Main
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 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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