In the wake of the buccaneers

by A. Hyatt Verrill

THE GIBRALTAR OF THE BUCCANEERS

One must search far and wide to find a more beautiful stretch of water than the Bay of Samana. Blue as the azure dome above it, the vast, lake-like expanse cuts into the very heart of the wondrous island for over thirty miles. From the lofty, richly forested mountains that hem it in on the north, to the low, rolling green hills on the south, it stretches for ten miles, and dotting its placid surface are verdant wooded isles. Sheltered by the land from all hard winds, deep enough for the largest ships, protected from the seas and with an area sufficient to afford anchorage for all the navies of the world and to spare, Samana Bay has no equal as a natural harbor in all the Antilles, if, indeed, in the entire world.

Its strategic value is enormous; as a coaling-station and naval base it is without a peer in the West Indies, and once our Government, alive to these facts, came very near purchasing it from the Dominicans. But long before that time the sea-rovers appreciated the manifold advantages [[196]]of the bay, and here they came to find a retreat wherein they could and did hold their own in safety, though surrounded on every hand by their arch-enemies the Spaniards. Here, almost midway between the shores, a charmingly beautiful islet, about three miles in length and a mile wide, juts, a mass of emerald and ivory, above the blue waters; and here the buccaneers made their headquarters, transforming this Cayo Levantado, as it is called, into a veritable miniature Gibraltar of their own. And toward this one-time stronghold of the pirates the Vigilant rippled, through the waters of the bay that once sheltered many a buccaneer ship, and upon whose shores the first battle between the Europeans and the Indians took place.

It was on the borders of a tiny bay that this memorable but insignificant skirmish occurred which sealed the doom of the red man—a quiet little cove at the edge of the jungle under the towering green hills, and still called by the name Columbus bestowed upon it, Golfo de las Flechas (Bay of the Arrows), in memory of the shower of darts that the Indians poured upon a landing party of Spaniards. The arrows, however, rattled harmlessly upon the invaders’ coats of mail, while, with the answering volley from the armored men, a number of the naked savages were killed. To-day [[197]]it is very peaceful, and as wild, as uninhabited as when Columbus first entered the great bay. Indeed, it is even more deserted, for the last of the aborigines of the island have been dead two centuries and more, the Spaniards having waged upon them a relentless war of extermination, as a penalty for daring to protect their homes from the white invaders.

Deserted, too, is the little islet The Upraised Cay, to give it a literal equivalent for its Spanish name, though to the corsairs it was ever known as Trade Wind Cay. And off its gleaming coral beach the Vigilant came to rest.

From the schooner’s decks the isle appeared a single rounded hill sloping gently to east and west, with a stretch of abrupt gray limestone cliffs along the northern shore and covered with a wealth of luxuriant vegetation. Before our anchorage a dazzling crescent of white sand swept from a rocky point to a low cape, and just off the spot where the snowy beach ended at the headland a bit of detached rock rose from the sea, a curiously formed islet supporting a mass of tangled shrubbery and vines and worn by the waves to a remarkable semblance of a gigantic turtle. Upon the beach the lazy swell curled in translucent turquoise, and everywhere upon the sand, upon the sea, winging [[198]]overhead and perching upon the trees, were countless clumsy pelicans and fork-tailed frigate-birds.

Here, undisturbed by man,—for the natives have a superstitious fear of the spot, although they occasionally come here to kill the wild cattle and goats,—the sea-birds breed by thousands and wheel in endless circles above the ruins of the buccaneers’ old stronghold. And what a stronghold it must have been! As I wandered through the thickets and clambered over the old fortifications I no longer marveled that, from this vantage-point, the pirates defied the powers of the world and held it for years despite the efforts of Spain, Britain, France, and Holland to dislodge them.

Everywhere amid the tangled vines and thorny scrub are great cisterns, foundations of buildings, water-sheds, and vaults. Along the cliffs are battlements, embrasures, walls, and loopholes; and leading up the slopes from the landing-place are long flights of stairs, all hewn and carved from the solid rock. What herculean labor is here represented! What unremitting toil of tortured prisoners and slaves! What toll of blood and suffering and death! Here, side by side with the naked blacks, grandees and hidalgos cut and hewed the rock to form their captors’ lair; toiling beneath the blazing sun from dawn to dark; sweating, [[199]]half-starved, their backs raw and covered with great welts from their brutal driver’s lash, their fingers torn and bleeding from the jagged stone, their faces wan and drawn, their eyes bloodshot and furtive, their bones aching from fever, and their only hope of deliverance the death which would be meted out to them as soon as exhausted muscles and sinews gave way or their work was done.

Centuries have passed since their racked bodies were cast like carrion into the sea or dumped in a common grave in the sand, but their work has endured. To-day, flowering vines trail from the loopholes in the massive battlements the captives chiseled, and great forest trees have sprung up from crevices among the rocks and slowly but surely have riven the walls that defied shot and shell. The houses wherein the buccaneers made merry are roofless and tenanted by land-crabs and lizards, and the hewn water-tanks from which they filled their casks ere starting on their forays are choked with fallen leaves, rotting vegetation, and the gnarled roots of the jungle.

Weird tales the natives of the mainland tell of sights witnessed at dead of night upon this little isle. With fear-widened eyes, they whisper of ghostly mail-clad sentinels pacing the old walls, of [[200]]phantom ships riding upon the waves off the cay, of blood-curdling shouts, songs, and curses coming from no mortal throat but echoing across the bay from this ancient stronghold. Also, fervently crossing themselves the while, they tell of piercing screams, as of lost souls, heard by the humble fishermen plying their trade at night upon the bay, and of mysterious lights, like the flare of torches, that dance and move and flit among the trees of the cay.