The friendly boughs invited the traveller (as vice does man) to rest under their shade; but when he awoke he found himself sick and faint, and covered with feverish sores. New-comers were too frequently tempted by the sight and odour of the fruit, and the only remedy for the rash son of Adam was to bind him down, and, in spite of heat and pain, to prevent him drinking for two or three days. The body of the sufferer became at first "red as fire, and his tongue black as ink," then a great torment of thirst and fever came upon him, but slowly passed away. Another poisonous shrub resembled the pimento; its berries were used by the Indians to rub their eyes, giving them, as they believed, a keener sight, and enabling them to see the fish deeper in the water and to strike them at a greater distance with the harpoon. The root of this bush was a poison, so deadly that the only known antidote for it was its own berries, bruised and drunk in wine. Of another plant, Oexmelin relates an instance of a negro girl being poisoned by a rejected lover, by merely putting some of its leaves between her toes when asleep. CHAPTER II. MANNERS OF THE HUNTERS. Derivation of the words Buccaneer and Flibustier--The three classes--Dress of the hunters--West Indian scenery--Method of hunting--Wild dogs--Anecdotes--Wild oxen, wild boars, and wild horses--Buccaneer food--Cow killing--Spanish method--Amusements--Duels--Adventures with the Spanish militia--The hunters driven to sea--The _engagés_, or apprentices--Hide curing--Hardships of the bush life--The planter's _engagés_--Cruelties of planters--The _matelotage_--Huts--Food. The hunters of the wild cattle in the savannahs of Hispaniola were known under the designation of Buccaneers as early as the year 1630. They derived this name from _boucan_,[1] an old Indian word which their luckless predecessors, the Caribs, gave to the hut in which they smoked the flesh of the oxen killed in hunting, or not unfrequently the limbs of their persecutors the Spaniards. They applied the same term, from the poverty of an undeveloped language, to the _barbecue_, or square wooden frame upon which the meat was dried. In course of time this hunters' food became known as _viande boucanée_, and the hunters themselves gradually assumed the name of Buccaneers. [1] Charlevoix's "Histoire de l'Ile Espagnole," p. 6, vol. ii