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
On that day they landed at Yqueque, a mud-flat, or guano island, off a
line of yellow sand-hills. They found a few Indian huts there, with
scaffolds for the drying of fish, and many split and rotting mackerel
waiting to be carried inland. There was a dirty stone chapel in the
place, "stuck full of hides and sealskins." There was a great surf,
green and mighty, bursting about the island with a continual roaring.
There were pelicans fishing there, and a few Indians curing fish, and an
abominable smell, and a boat, with a cask in her bows, which brought
fresh water thither from thirty miles to the north. The teeth of the
Indians were dyed a bright green by their chewing of the coca leaf, the
drug which made their "beast-like" lives endurable. There was a silver
mine on the mainland, near this fishing village, but the pirates did not
land to plunder it. They merely took a few old Indian men, and some
Spaniards, and carried them aboard the _Trinity_, where the godly John
Watling examined them.
The next day the examination continued; and the answers of one of the
old men, "a Mestizo Indian," were judged to be false. "Finding him in
many lies, as we thought, concerning Arica, our commander ordered him to
be shot to death, which was accordingly done." This cold-blooded murder
was committed much against the will of Captain Sharp, who "opposed it as
much as he could." Indeed, when he found that his protests were useless,
he took a basin of water (of which the ship was in sore need) and washed
his hands, like a modern Pilate. "Gentlemen," he said, "I am clear of
the blood of this old man; and I will warrant you a hot day for this
piece of cruelty, whenever we come to fight at Arica." This proved to be
"a true and certain prophesy." Sharp was an astrologer, and a believer
in portents; but he does not tell us whether he had "erected any
Figure," to discover what was to chance in the Arica raid.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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