Dampierre speaks of his companions feasting on pork and peas, and beef and dough-boys, and this nautical coarseness was generally found associated with occasional tropical luxuriousness. In cases of necessity, wrecked sailors fed on sharks, which they first boiled and then squeezed dry, and stewed with pepper and vinegar. The oil of turtle they used instead of butter for their dumplings. The best turtle were said to be those that fed on land; those that lived on sea-weed, and not on grass, being yellow and rank. The larger fish needed two men to turn them on their backs. The Flibustiers also ate the iguanas, or large South American lizards. Vast flocks of doves were found in many of the islands, sometimes in such abundance that a sailor could knock down five or six dozen of an afternoon. The Buccaneers' history is a singular example of how evil generates evil. The Spaniards destroyed the wild cattle, and the hunters turned freebooters. Spain discontinued trading to prevent piracy, and the adventurers, starved for want of gold, made descents upon the mainland. The evil grew by degrees till the worm they had at first trod upon arose in their path an indestructible and devastating monster of a hundred heads. First single ships, then fleets, were swept off by these locusts of the deep; first, islands were burnt, then villages sacked, and at last cities conquered. First the North and then the South Pacific were visited, till the whole coast from Panama to Cape Horn trembled at the very flutter of their flag. The first Flibustier, Lewis Scott, scared Campeachy with a few canoes. Grognet grappled the Lima fleet with a whole squadron of pirate craft. The Buccaneer spirit arose from revenge, and ended in robbery and murder. At first fierce but merciful, they grew rapacious, loathsome, and bloody. Their early chivalry forsook them--they sank into the enemies of God and all mankind, and the last refuse of them expired on the gallows of Jamaica, children of Cain, unpitied by any, their very courage despised, and their crimes detested. At their culminating point, united under the sway of one great mind, they might have formed a large empire in South America, or conquered it as tributaries to France or England. Always thirsty for gold, they were often chivalrous, generous, intrepid, merciful, and disinterested.