About midday the wind shifted into the north; and, continuing very high, it blew us from our course.

And, as we designed to touch at the Isle of Porto Rico, so we could not make it, but must go away under the great Island of Hispaniola. Hereupon the wind chopped back again, so that we sailed along the south side of the island. Soon after doubling the Cape of Lobos on the south western corner of Hispaniola, we descried at sea a fleet of full fifteen sail, that came towards us.

We misliked the appearance of them, yet held our course—albeit the Captain caused cutlashes and pistols to be served out, and had our ports opened and our guns run out. When we were come to about a quarter of a mile from those ships, the biggest of them fired a gun, and made a wiff to us to stand in the wind, or lay to, as mariners call it. This was very uneasy to my brother, and now he was sorry he had not borne up his helm and scampered away while there was yet time. Yea, it put him in so ill a temper, that I, who stood near him on the quarter-deck, was fain to remove to more peaceful ground. For, after he had ordered to obey the summons, he fell to pacing quickly up and down; and, as I stood a little in his path (or rather he pretended I did), he shoved me roughly to one side, as well as giving me a whirret on the ear for having, as he said, obstructed him.

The ships came a little nearer, and then brought to. Whereupon a dozen men put themselves into a big canoe, or periagua, which was towing astern of the Admiral, and pulled towards us. They came on but slowly, for the sea was heavy; but at length they laid aboard of us in the waist. They were all huge brawny seamen, sunburnt like red tiles, and very villainous.

When they had made fast their boat, the coxswain hallooed to my brother, and inquired of him whence we came. Being answered, “From England,” he said he was come from Captain Morgan, who desired some provisions of bread, pork and cheese; in recompense whereof he had sent us some jars of excellent Peru wine.

Now, while the man spoke, I observed my brother gave a start and looked earnestly upon him; and, after he ceased, the Captain desired he would come aboard into the ship, but that the rest should stay in the boat. The rest, however, began to cry out against that.

“What! you won’t treat us, Cap’n?” cries one, and “Let us see what liquor you brought from England,” cries another, and “Why, you skinflint shark,” quoth another, “if you drink not with us, we’ll broach your fat hull!”

Hereupon these unruly rascals made to swarm the ship’s side, and what the event of it had been I know not; but, on a sudden, a gun was shot off aboard the Admiral, which put a period to their brawling. They immediately fell quiet; and the coxswain said: “Cap’n Morgan’s in haste, and I reckon we’d best be in haste also. Keep you still in the boat, while I go get the victuals. You’ll not drink rumbo this bout!”

So he came up to us into the ship; and my brother took him into his cabin, shutting the door after, so that I know not what passed between them.

But when they came out, they talked very familiarly together; and, passing near me, I heard my brother say:

“Is Jolly Peter still with you?” whence I apprehended my brother had old acquaintance with these people. As to what they were, I doubted not, and now do know, they were nothing but a swarm of pirates. On board those fifteen vessels, indeed, was embarked the army of Captain Henry Morgan, a name soon to become so notorious and so dreadful. They were going to Maracaibo.

When such commodities as the pirates wanted had been laded into their boat (the jars of wine having been taken aboard the ship in the interim), that spokesman did very affectionately take leave of my brother, and returned into the boat. So they cast off and pulled away, singing a ribald song to keep the time.

After parting from the pirates, we hauled our wind and tacked in for the western shore of Hispaniola, to re-victual the ship and fill our water. Thereby, in the dusk of the evening, we hit a little bay, and came to an anchor within a mile from the shore, and lay there all night.

In the morning, so soon as it was light, I got up, and went on deck to view the landfall. Indeed, I was much inquisitive to behold this Island of Hispaniola; for a poor crooked mutilated man that lived in the village at home, had given me an account thereof, acquainting me with its varied fruitfulness and spacious and beautiful prospects, and with the curious customs of the hunters and planters there. He, when a boy, had been kidnapped, and transported into slavery on the plantations in the Isle of St. Christopher of the Caribbee Islands. There his master was one Bettesa, who did even excel in cruelty among a sort of people incredibly cruel to their slaves and servants, and used him with such barbarity as reduced his body to that miserable plight aforesaid. But at last, escaping from the clutches of this inhuman monster, he came to Hispaniola; where, after many days of hiding and wandering up and down the country, he fell in with a certain rich Spaniard, who proved his benefactor. For this generous-spirited man not only clothed and cared for that poor fugitive, but did also defray the charges of his passage to England on a ship that was departing thither; and, moreover, he gave him, in Spanish notes, a bounty sufficient to his support for the rest of his days.

Having mounted the poop, I looked very eagerly towards the land.

I beheld a low woody shore, whereon at some points a sort of squat small trees grew quite down to the sea, their branches so low as to touch the water. Hugely contrasting with these, were palm trees, being exceeding tall (160 feet at the least) and wholly destitute of branches to the very tops, where grew prodigious great leaves. The trunks were of a huge thickness and were covered with prickles.

Near the bottom of the bay a river flowed into the sea, on the marshy banks whereof those great trees did chiefly grow. In the background the woods grew very thick and high. I saw therein many brave cedar trees. At the farther extremity of the bay, where the woods were much thinner, there was a clear ground, and in the midst a wooden hut, the roof whereof was covered with the great leaves I have told you of. A smoke went up from a heap near the entry.

Even as I spied this hut, a man stepped forth from within, and was followed by another. On spying the ship, they immediately turned and hid themselves within the woods. They appeared to be white men, very slovenly dressed. I took them for hunters. I observed by the stirring of the undergrowth (albeit ’twas but slight) that they worked their way in the coverts of the woods alongst the shore towards the ship. Being come over against us, they stood concealed amongst the little thick trees beside the sea; and there they were, when, on my brother coming to me on the poop, I told him what I had seen.

He immediately ordered the jolly-boat to be launched and manned; and, this done, he put himself into the boat, and so did I.

We pulled to the shore, making to a point near the place where those two men lurked amongst the trees, and where there was ground fit to light upon. Having jumped ashore, the Captain hallooed to these people, telling them that he came in peace, and would by no means harm them; only he desired some discourse with them, and to trade with them.

Hereupon one of them made answer, in very poor English, that ’twas well; they would trade with him, and invited him to come and drink with them in their hut. They desired, however, that he would come alone; by reason, as they said, their little mean hut was not fit to entertain more. He thanked them, and told them he would go with them.

Then came they out of their hiding towards us into the open. They were a French buccaneer (or hunter of wild bulls and cows), and his slave. They were very slovenly dressed, and beastly dirty. The buccaneer wore a dirty linen shirt tucked into his breeches, which were dyed in the blood of the beasts he killed. He had round his middle a sailor’s belt; a long sheath-knife hung from the belt at the back thereof: leggings he had of hairy boar-hide, shoes of dressed bull-hide, and a big wide-brimmed hat upon his head. The habit of the slave was likewise; only without belt or shoes, and on his head an old cloth montero-cap. Their faces were anointed with hog’s grease to defend them from the stings of insects.

My brother went with them to the hut; and I, with Surgeon Burke, into the woods. For Burke took the opportunity of gathering divers medicinal herbs and woods that the place afforded.

Before he left the seamen, however, he warned them that they should by no means touch the fruit of any tree which was not pecked by birds; for, said he, ’twas an infallible sign that they were not good, and evinced those little squat trees that I had observed from the ship, which had apples on them that did smell very sweet. These were manchineel, or dwarf-apple trees, the fruit whereof no bird doth eat: and, indeed, it is so venomous that the very crabs that eat of it are poisonous. He that eats thereof is presently raving mad, and dead within a little while after. Moreover, the sap of this tree doth raise on the skin terrible red blisters, as it were scalding water.

We roved up and down in the woods, gathering Burke’s medicants; but, as the sun climbed, we began to be tormented with those big venomous gnats called mosquitoes, as with other flying and creeping pests also. And, though the Surgeon seemed not much to mind them, for me the incessant attacks and inroads of the creatures became well-nigh insupportable; but I endured them for the sake of the novelty of the way.

Care was ever had of us, as we drew farther from the seaside, not to lose touch of the river, though we saw little of it for the dense undergrowth.

At length the wood became pathless, which forced us to return. A little after, through a rift in the undergrowth towards the river, I spied a marvellous strange thing—or so I thought it. For, as it should seem, a great tree-log that floated in the river, did turn about and raise itself as if it were a living creature. And a living creature it really was, being nothing else but a prodigious great cayman, or crocodile, that, thus in semblance of a floating log, lay lurking for its prey, waiting until some wild boar or other came to drink thereby. This horrible beast could have had no less than threescore foot in length, and ten in breadth.

Another horrid creature I beheld before we returned to the sea-shore. This was a sort of huge hairy spider, very hideous. Its body was as big as an egg; its legs were like a crab’s; four black teeth it had, with which it snapped at me as it ran scuttling away along a bough of a tree. I must confess it gave me a scare, and the more so because I thought it might be the dreadful tarantula whose bite doth make men mad. But Burke told me it was not venomous, and, moreover, that I needed not be afraid of being envenomed by anything in that place; for no creature in the whole Island of Hispaniola was venomous—no, not even snakes.

When we got to the boat, we found my brother was not yet returned, and the seamen much out of humour for the waiting. They sat on the shore, smoking their pipes, cursing the Captain and the mosquitoes, and viciously casting stones at the land crabs.

“I ain’t going for to bide on this hell-shore much longer,” said one, “Cap’n or no Cap’n! Oh, to hell with them mosquiters!”

But Burke essayed to turn their minds, and “Why, what’s amiss with ’em?” says he merrily, “They need their victuals, like the rest of us. I’ve been feeding a score of ’em since I came ashore.”

“Well, you may say so, too!” returned the seaman. “You have enough and to spare on your bones, old sawbones!”

Burke laughed, and slapped him on the shoulder. With such jolly talk did he physic their minds, and had soon restored them to good health. But, on a sudden, came a sound of another sort of jollity: drunken shout and revelry in the buccaneer’s hut; and, as he hearkened, I saw the merriment quite go out of Burke: while one of the seamen said harshly:

“Hark to ’em, boys, roystering yonder! lying snug an’ easy on their liquor, like fine gentlemen, whilst we be sweltering here!”

So the ill-temper of the seamen returned, nor was Surgeon Burke able to mollify them.

And now the sun began to shine very hot, and the hunger and thirst of the mosquitoes appeared even to increase. After a further spell of waiting (the clamour in the hut continuing), those belated and miserable seamen did conclude that they had endured enough, and would have put themselves into the boat and launched forth for the ship.

However, Burke proffered to go to the hut and bring them word again, and persuaded them to wait his return. So he went, and I with him.

We forced our way in haste alongst the woody shore, whilst behind us the curses of the seamen, in front the shouts and laughter of the revellers, sounded in our ears; whilst the sun scorched us like a furnace, and the humming mosquitoes stung our bare faces. Many discomforts and hardships of body I have suffered, but never a one of them comparable to that shore-passage at Hispaniola!

At last we came to the hut, and straightway entered in. The drinkers sat on a couple of chests and a stool, which were disposed about a table on which were canakins and an earthen jar, or bottle.

They had their load: the buccaneer and his slave looked blankly up at us as we entered, and the buccaneer broke off in singing a drunken song; but my brother stirred not hand or foot. He sat fallen forward upon the board, being completely conquered with the drink. ’Twas veycou, as they call it, the beer of the buccaneers. (It is made from Cassava root, from which, also, they make their meal or flour.)

Surgeon Burke worked his way round the cabin towards my brother, and, taking him smartly by the shoulder, endeavoured to rouse him up; but he could not.

Meanwhile the buccaneer began to be contrary and truculent, and tipsily abused us in the French tongue. But we minded him not, so long as he contented himself with words. When, however, he pulled out a pistol and began to threaten us with it, Burke leant swiftly over and snatched it from him. On that, the buccaneer rose up to have grappled with him, but Burke poked him smartly in the wind, which doubled him up; and he rolled over upon the floor, and lay there muttering, swearing, and singing this catch:

As for the slave, he meddled not with us, but sat still, drinking down a last panakin of the veycou; whereupon he settled also, and presently slept.

They being all three thus disposed and settled on their lees, as the saying is, Surgeon Burke desired me to return alone to the mariners, and to bid them launch forth and bring the boat towards a little landing-place which was over against the hut.

Before I went, he anointed my face and hands with hog’s grease (a vessel whereof he found in a corner), to solace my mosquito bites, which now began to be very grievous to me.

So I went. When I came to the seamen, I found that they had been joined by several others, who had come ashore in the launch, or longboat, and Thalass, the Mosquito Indian, with them. This was told me by two of them who stood by the boats, and that the rest were gone away straggling into the woods to shoot wild fowl, some of those who had come in the longboat having muskets.

This put me to my trumps for men to manage the boat, and I started off to see for them. Suddenly a musket-shot rang out in the woods, and was succeeded by a great hoarse croaking of crows, or ravens, that rose flocking above the tree-tops in a black multitude; and then, on a sudden, arose a great outcry of men.

I set off running that way, and soon perceived what the matter was. Two of the seamen were locked in fierce fight. Now, this was a dreadful thing to see; for one of the fighters was a one-armed man—I mean, his left arm had been amputated below the elbow, and, in lieu of an arm, he had an iron rod with a hook to it. With this hook had he grappled hold of the other, and with his sailor’s knife he made fierce clawing cuts at his face. The rest stood by, viewing the fight.

However, all was over in a moment, the one-armed man having murdered the other. When I came up, he was rummaging in the pockets of the dead man’s coat. He seemed to have a huge impatience about something he sought after, digging amongst the cloth stuff, his face red like fire.

At last he grimped out a flask of water, which immediately he uncorked, and drank off the contents.

The man was stark mad. Being one of those who had come ashore in the second boat, he had neither heard the Surgeon’s warning against eating of the fruit of the manchineel, nor knew anything at all of the danger; and, being attracted, I suppose, by the pleasant appearance and sweet smell of those deadly apples, he had tasted and eaten of them. Whereupon such huge drought and uncontrollable thirst seized on the poor maddened wretch, as inflamed him to that dreadful act of ferocity I have told you of. Now madness seized hold on him indeed, insomuch that he ran up and down, roaring and cutting the air and the trees with his knife. But the boatswain, who stood by, quickly put a period to his misery by running him through with his hanger.

After this I told the boatswain what Burke desired, and he mustered half a dozen of that company, and brought them with me to the boats. We put ourselves into the longboat, launched forth, and pulled towards the farther point of the bay, where we found Burke without the hut, stirring the heap of tobacco-leaves that was laid up before the entry for a protection against the mosquitoes. We went ashore to him, and with him into the hut.

The jolly company lay in the same posture, all three slumbering. Burke bid our men to remove the Captain into the boat, and they began to set about it. But, while this was doing, the buccaneer stirred, and presently woke up; and, having looked stupidly round, he enquired who we were and what we did in his habitation.

He was answered pleasantly by Burke, who said:

“Bon jour, monsieur, j’espère que vous avez bien dormi. Il faut que nous vous quittions. Mais je suis vraiment très fâché de ne plus voir votre beau visage!”

But this was taken very ill by the buccaneer, who started up, crying:

“Insolent! maraud d’Anglais! petit gros homme! Mort Dieu! vous me le paierez.”

And he felt for his knife.

The Surgeon, however, had removed it whilst he slept; and, when he understood this, he would have fallen upon Burke with his fist. But one of the seamen who stood near, knocked him on the head with the butt of his pistol, which felled him senseless.

Hereupon, waked by the scuffle, the slave began to cry out, and then roared for quarter, as a seaman lifted his pistol to have served him after the same manner as his master. But Burke made the man desist.

Burke’s care now was to get the Captain (who continued to slumber) into the boat, and thence all back into the ship again; and this he did effect, mainly by reason of his foresight in absconding amongst the bushes the buccaneer’s store of veycou before our men came to the hut.

---

That night I took an opportunity of questioning Thalass about his knowledge of the Haunted Island and acquaintance with those pirates. But, though he answered me very frankly and told me what possibly he could, I learnt not much; for the eyes of a poor Indian are not as an European’s, and here were strange and unfamiliar things.

It appeared, also, that Thalass had never stayed on the island for any considerable space of time, but used to go out on one pirate vessel or another (for, it seems, there were two or three), and, even at such times as he was on the island, he kept himself aloof from the rest, living in the woods.

Thalass told, indeed, of great pieces of ordnance and fortifications; and of that subterraneous place spoken of by the Englishman. Of the terrible old man the Englishman had called the Doctor, he could tell me nothing but what I knew. He had heard of the ghost, but had never seen it.

For the rest, he had consorted with the Englishman and made great friends with him; and at last (being taken out together on the same ship), they had contrived to escape in the cock-boat, and (after many days, and when such provisions as they had were long spent) had fallen in with our ship in manner related.

I asked him how first he came to consort with those pirates; he answered, that, being “many sleeps ago at Quibo,” there came one of their ships, and he had gone away with them.

Next day I gave the Captain and Surgeon Burke an account of all that I had learnt of the Haunted Island, as well from the Englishman as from the Mosquito Indian.